November 25, 2004

• Topic: I think i’ll muse on life for a bit…isn’t that a good use of xanga

  
  

  It took me 90 hours to get home for Thanksgiving.  I left Whistler, British Columbia, at 1pm on Sat., and spent the rest of Sat., Sun., Mon., Tues., and part of this morning on a bus.  Would I be eager to do it again right now…no.  But, all in all, the time went by, as time has a funny way of doing.  I saw about 5 movies, the highlights being I, Robot (which made me think from the comfort of my bus watching a sci-fi movie, “wow, i can’t believe human beings actually kill other human beings, and i won’t say more w/out ruining the movie) and Miracle (about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, I cried at the end).

  
  

  I also finished reading “A People’s History of the United States,” by Howard Zinn.  Almost 700 pages, the longest book I’ve ever read, the first history book I’ve ever read cover to cover, and certainly the first history book I’ve read for my own purpose, not for a test or paper.  And, not surprisingly, I learned a lot, and I discovered that history is pretty interesting, especially when your own country turns out to be a split personality evil villain / patriotic wonderful country.

  
  

  I’ve struggled w/ the idea of wasting my 4 years of college…I wanted to become intelligent, and to grow to have a better understanding of the world.  As Matt Damon said in Good Will Hunting, “you wasted $120,000 on an education you could’ve got for $1.50 in late fees to the public library.”  Well…I actually bought the book for $20 instead of getting it from the library, but remarkably enough, reading this one book has done for me educationally what 4 years of random college classes did not.  It’s shown me the truth about America that was different from my belief that we were a genuinely “good country,” while other countries could be classified as “bad.”  It also showed me that learning history is so important to understanding the world today, and when students, especially in high school, say things like “history is boring,” or “i’m not good at history,” what’s really happening is we’re allowing something so important to be regarded as one of many subjects, and therefor, one to be disregarded by students…we’re also showing that we are doing a disservice to both kids and citizens by using force-fed education to turn people off to learning history. 

  
  

  While I consider myself lucky to have decided to educate myself after finishing my formal education, most people won’t.  While I can now have a conversation w/ my dad about history, since he knew all this stuff already, I can’t have this conversation w/ other friends and family.  They all got through school w/out being turned onto history, and they may for the rest of their lives never learn some of the ugly events that mark US history.

  
  

  The fact that America, the country that is now using the justification of “spreading democracy and freedom,” as a basis of war, literally makes me want to fuckin’ puke my guts out.  America, a country that has in the past aided in the overthrowing of governments that were as democratic and free as we were, but they believed in a different economic system than us…in fact, they believed in a system, socialism, that we continue to look at like a white person who walks down the block and clutches onto their wallet as they see a black person walk by.  We’ve been ingrained with this fear, when in fact, the socialist system is more representative of the values we have as Americans.  America has chosen capitalism for 200+ years, and the results have never been pretty for the many have-nots in our society.  And…after spending the past week in Canada, I have to say that their system of socialized medicine not only allows people to live less in fear of getting sick than here in America, but has also created a culture where people are willing to share what they have in order to help others.  Americans generally believe the same thing, but politicians have twisted our values into ugly words like, “welfare,” and “socialism,” so we don’t see the policies that in actuality we want to see.

  
  

  I had a brief chat w/ my dad today.  He works a few weeks a month as a banker, and does pretty well money wise.  In fact…hearing the numbers just kind of punched me in the face, since I’m scraping bottom off of my summer camp salary, and the work I’ll be doing the rest of the year will be a mixture of part-time junk work, and Outward Bound which does not pay very highly.  My dad made me feel that I need to start thinking differently in terms of work in order to make the money that I need.  But…what do I need?  I keep forgetting, that I personally live in a culture of simplicity, a minimalist lifestyle, that differst greatly from that of my friends and family.  My dad is 60…and while after this year, he will hopefully have many years of fun vacations, and the freedom to purchase whatever his heart desires, I also realize, that life is funny when it comes to health.  The mother of one of my friends in Whistler suddenly came down with cancer and isn’t doing so well.  There’s no guarantees about how long we live…and so I cannot live a life that is geared towards doing in doing work throughout my life in order to make money in order to do the things I truly love when I retire.  I think back to the things I’ve done this year, including living in South Africa for 6 months…surely that didn’t cost a lot of money, in fact, it was quite cheap!  While…on the surface, having a lot of money is so very luring (one of my friends is expecting a $15,000 Christman bonus, it was hard not to feel jealous) I realized that for the most part, by being a minimalist and living for the moment, I am able to live a rich life while basically, being poor!  And, while I would never turn down a job that paid well, I hope I will never do work that leaves me feeling anything but rich on the inside.

  
  

  I hate coming back to my hometown.  I went out tonight w/ my one friend who comes back home…grabbed a beer, caught up, but there is nothing for me in the local “scene.”  All it is is bringing back memories of highschool, and I honestly have few fond memories of that time of my life.  I remember sitting home on certain Friday nights, or sitting on instant messenger for hours…there was just nowhere to go, and I had nobody really to talk to.  Sure, I had people to go out and get drunk w/, but there’s a reason why we grow out of that phase of our lives…because while it’s fun, we need something more from people, and even in highschool, I knew I wanted to get something more from people than just getting drunk and roaming the streets for “something to do.”  What I didn’t get in highschool, I got more of in college, and I’m getting an abundance of in my travels.  I felt like I had reached a great state when in Whistler, my friends and I cooked dinner, had a bottle of wine, and chilled in front of the fireplace just talking the night away.  The desire for a wild night is the same as the desire to get rich, they are hollow desires.  A night of good conversation can leave you feeling almost like you’d been drunk all night.

  
  

  It’s strange, how little I have in common with the culture I grew up surrounded by.  At dinner w/ family friends tonight, I found myself in my usual role as having not a single thing to say.  I’m not always a deep person, but some of the things my parents talk about seem so trivial to me.  New siding on the house, traffic on the roads, community happenings.  I guess my feeling bored around my parents is also a partial reflection on myself…but I struggle to digest how I feel so full of life around some people, and so empty around others.  It’s this strange balance between being someone who is really trying to do some crazy things with his life, to someone who is a complete joke.  I can’t fully explain myself to certain people because it would in some ways put to question the lifestyle of others, and so I often find myself struggling to have my true identity when i’m around certain people.  anyways…it’s late, i’m gonna grab a bowl of Life cereal, and call it a night.  Turkey day is upon us!!!

  • 1:29 am
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