What does your city say?

And, perhaps more importantly, how does it fit with what you say?

Check it out: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

Youtheater

The Big Ten town where I grew up is nothing  if not a great and gluttonous devourer of youth, harvesting the crops of its inhabitants, plucking the fledgling fruit from the branches of its saplings to feast on what would be considered far from ripe in other parts of the country. The Youtheater pervaded the place like a dense and depressing fog, pouring over the hills and rushing with the streams. I saw it in my parents. I saw it in everyone's parents. I saw it in my friends. I lied awake at night coughing up pieces of it.  It was added with fluoride and chlorine to the drinking water; it floated up from the fields of corn and soy with oxygen into the atmosphere, soaking into the walls of lungs; it was included with every dose of Bovine Growth Hormome, making its way into the cows and onto plates, engulfing the abeyant potential of Midwestern youth indiscriminately like a lunatic killer loose in the calm of the rural night.

It's better to burn out than to fade away.

This morning, after being up all night yet again, while sitting in class and thinking about everything---not only what we were talking about (On the Road), but everything, life, love, happiness, what the fuck I'm doing here, where I'm going, what is IT, whether or not I'm a misogynist, the risks/rewards of taking a chance with the law, why I never want to sleep again, when I'm actually ever going to sleep, etc.---I think I finally realized what Neil meant by this. I mean, I always understood at least partially, but I've never had a revelation or a moment of such clarity as I did this morning. The moment was perfect. A light went off. These are the moments I live for, the moments when something is revealed by a  lightning bolt thought that strikes straight down through the thick fortress of the human skull and penetrates your very existence. I always knew what it meant, but today I got it.

I'm not ready to put it into words. I don't know if it can be done. I don't want to ruin it or cheapen it by assigning words to it. It's a thought. It's a feeling. Language was created with the very purpose of describing it and things like it, but language fails. It's an experience.

Regardless, what it means is that I'm ready to start burning hot and bright and furious, with the intensity of that moment, like sunlight through a magnifying glass.

"...he had fallen on the beat and evil days that come to young guys in their middle twenties."

"All kinds are good except the kind that bores you." ---Voltaire.

"Boredom is the root of all evil---the despairing refusal to be oneself." ---Kierkegaard

"I am convinced that boredom is one of the greatest tortures. If I were to imagine Hell, it would be the place where you are continually bored." ---Erich Fromm

"Life is never boring but some people choose to be bored. The concept of boredom entails the inability to use up present moments in a personally fulfilling way. Boredom is a choice; something you visit upon yourself, and it is another of those self-defeating items that you can eliminate from your life." ---Wayne W. Dwyer

"Society is now one polished horde, / Formed by two mighty tribes: the Bores and the Bored." ---Lord Byron

Truth. For me, the funny thing about boredom is the fact that it comes on at times when there actually are other things to do. I am always bored when there is something productive that I could be doing instead. Therefore, I have to admit wholeheartedly with Dwyer when he says that boredom is a choice, at least in my case. I cannot think of a day or a time when I have literally had nothing to do, yet I find myself bored quite often. I think, then, that boredom, for me, is a lack of fun things to do and not just things in general.

For example, this weekend I have a paper to write (that was actually due this past Tuesday), and a book to read. Unfortunately, I do not have anything fun to do. As much as I enjoy reading and writing, they're not exactly exhilarating ways to spend the two nights of the week where I can actually stay up past 10 p.m. (though even that is getting to be difficult). What I really want is a night on the town. Strike that. What I really want is to have friends again.

And so, my plans of migration continue...

Rant

You know what sucks? Uptight people. People who freak out when they find out that a VOLUNTEER who has been helping their high-school aged children with their baseball skills got arrested one time for driving drunk. What the fuck does one have to do with the other? I really don't understand. It's not like I was on my way to practice or something. I wasn't drunk at practice or anywhere near their children.

Basically, overprotective parents suck in general, regardless of my personal situation. Let's face facts: you are fucking up your kids life and making everyone hate him or her as well as you. Back off. Life isn't perfect and shit happens. Teach the kids how to deal with some things (i.e. failure and the fact that you're probably not God's gift to everything that you ever even try to attempt).

I've noticed this in coaching for the past two years. I swear that even though it hasn't been that long since I've been in high school, this shit is going downhill quick. And I understand that it's not everyone. It never is. But it's those vocal few who bring everyone down. It's not just in sports. Not by any means. This is a very specific example of a very broad and overarching problem, but it's what I know. This is why I will never be a high school teacher. This is why I am giving up even coaching high school kids. This is ridiculous.

Coaches can't be tough on players any more. How can a coach be expected to get the most out of his team when he's walking on eggshells? No cuts. Cuts hurt people's feelings. Everyone deserves to play and be a part of the team. Bullshit. Some people just aren't cut out for some things and the sooner they can find that out the better. Michael Jordan got cut. There will never be another Michael Jordan. Kids are pussies these days. Because they've never had to work for anything. And they never will. If everyone just accepted themselves exactly as they are currently, no one would ever get better. Isn't that the fucking point? If you're perfect right now, why would you continue to strive for bigger and better things that you cannot currently achieve? There's always someone else to blame.

Look at this bullshit situation our whole country is in. It starts at the top. No one takes responsibility anymore. Instead of working for things and getting it honestly, we are always looking for a quick fix and willing to sell anyone out who stands in our way---even if they are better than us or even if they are trying to help. We don't want to do it honestly; we want to do it as quickly and easily as possible.

Let's say I fail a test. I have an opportunity to retake this test as many times as is necessary to pass. Personally, I would look at the questions I missed, find out the answers, and take the damn thing again improving on my mistakes. But that's not the way it works these days. It's the test's fault. It's the institution's fault for making the test too hard. The test should be made so that everyone can pass it, regardless of ability and effort. The teacher gets fired for making the test too hard, and the institution hires someone who will make the easy test or fudge the numbers so as not to ruffle any feathers. Our children shouldn't be expected to have to try. They are perfect. Perfect little angels who play 10 hours of Guitar Hero a day but have never even picked up the real thing, who watch five hours of television per day but never the news, who text message their friends through class and who have never known pain because as soon as a slight discomfort rears its head, they're told it's okay to stop. Don't push yourself too hard. Stress is a killer. It's not worth it. Mommy'll get you a new one.

And we wonder why we're getting our asses kicked worldwide. At everything.  Give me a fucking break.

But my mind and body fail me now...

Now accepting personal assistant applications (must be willing to work pro bono).

I constantly schedule things that overlap and conflict with each other. This, paired with the fact that I have always felt I would be awesome at being famous, has led me to the conclusion that I need a personal assistant to tell me what I have going on and where I need to be at any given moment. Sure, many times I would just tell her/him to get me out of it for I didn't feel like going, but it would be nice to at least know that I was missing something. In my current situation, I float along completely oblivious to my infraction until it is far too late.

I've tried planners. They suck. I've probably got five planners lying around my room one place or another, all with about a week's worth of shit filled out, all that I lost within a few days of purchasing, or didn't lose but completely forgot they existed. And it's not so much that I forget things. It's more that I can't connect the different things I've got going on. I cannot combine all the different mental calendars into one grand schedule where everything fits together. That's the problem.

For example, I know that I have a test on Monday at 11 o'clock. I also know that I am leaving for Pittsburgh Sunday afternoon to watch the Pirates' home opener on Monday afternoon at 1:35.  I didn't forget about either one of them. I just never realized (until tonight) that they conflicted. That that Monday was the same as that Monday. Crazy.

Any takers?

The Rust Belt Blues...

I have always seen life as having several different and distinct paths or possibilities that one could follow based on the choices, decisions, and interactions that one had made leading up to any given moment---an infinite number of combinations resulting in an infininte number of possible outcomes. My life was different because of the choices I'd made and it was always and ever changing with each new day and situation. But then I got to thinking, What if that's all bullshit? What if everything really is pre-destined or determined and we're just given the illiusion of having choice? What if, instead of having different possible outcomes where everything is connected and constantly affecting everything else, nothing is connected and everything is completely random?---That's when I convinced myself to stop thinking.

The only problem with that approach is that we, in our culture, are programmed to act and function according to a set plan from our very earliest days. As babies we eat, play, sleep, etc., according to a schedule set forth by our parents or caretakers. Despite our best efforts to thwart this attempt by crying through many long and sleepless nights, we eventually break and fall into the established law. Once we begin schooling, the conditioning sets in full-force, and we are left with no choice about our rigid daily routine.

We are a nation who achieved our greatest successes in the era of Industry, and that is reflected in the monotonous routines of the everyday ordinaries in our all-so similar and mainstreamed lives.

My biggest problem with this, is that it takes away from so much of that supposed and much-heralded freedom of choice. How else do we learn but to try and fail? Perhaps a person is most productive between the hours of 10 p.m. and 12 p.m. After falling into the force-fed habitual schedule of his upbringing, he may never know. Sure, it may be discovered during his high school or college years during a late-night study session, but by this time, it will be far too late to do anything about it, and even if it weren't, what options would he have? Certainly there are those that break this routine and through some means of self-governance provide for themselves by accomplishing their goals during whatever hours are best suited for them. Writers, artists, etc., are free to create at their leisure---once they are established and self-sustaining and well-enough established to do so. But how does one reach that point? In my mind, there are but two ways: either one is supported by the wealth of a friend or family member until he is able to make it on his own; or he takes a chance and hopes to make it on his own, by some stroke of luck or providence, before starvation sets in. Unfortunately for myself, I have neither friends or family of that kind of wealth or means to support me, nor the confidence or faith to take the chance on my own. I am not alone in this; myself and countless other great minds will be lost to the toil and struggle of the ordinary, afraid to break the chains of regularity and schedule for the ever-present chance of falling.

What's worse is that this conformity is so strongly encouraged that the desire to be different or in any way special is actually discouraged. Look at the ways our culture uses these words. Special has come to to be most commonly associated with the mentally or physically handicapped. We have special needs students and classrooms. I'm not even sure if this term is derogatory or if its the politically correct nomanclature of the current week. Regardless, it isn't something that one aspires to be. Different has taken up where Raymond Carver's funny has gone before. It's a word we use when we don't know what else to say, but wish to maintain the uber-important politeness that we so value. It's not necessarily bad, but actually, usually, it is. It's a husband's reaction upon his wife's return home from the beauty parlor after drasitcally changing the hairstyle that he has grown so used to and comfortable with. It's what a young man, used to the steak-and-potatoes that he was raised on, says when a woman that he's trying to bed forces him (unknowingly) to try Indian food for the first time. It's different, meaning, What have you done? or What the fuck did I just put in my mouth? or I  hate it, but I think this is my best chance of getting my dick wet later without abandoning all sense of truth.

...TBC (hopefully)