Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. - Tom Robbins
It seems to me that politics bring out the worst in us. Doubly so in an election year. I so very much hate the hate. I know how I feel on all of the topics. I know that I'm not likely to change the way I feel. I suspect that those with opposing viewpoints are just as unlikely to change. So really, what's the point of debate? It simply becomes heated. It becomes angry and vitriolic. For the next few months there will be a whole lot of talking at, but not a lot of talking to. There will be yelling, and screaming, and the most absurd of all, un-friending on Facebook, all because we can't seem to share the same rock. All because of the simple attitude of "The way I think is better than the way you think, so fuck off."
Lately every time I go on Facebook, barring a few exceptions, I always feel at the end of it like I've been beaten with a stick. It's tiring. It's exhausting. It is to be honest, a bit soul crushing, to read so much anger in such a small fraction of time. The funny thing is, its not even directed specifically AT me. Its simply there. I absorb it. I process it. I walk away battered. And I thought fight rehearsal was kicking my ass.
I no longer engage in political discussion. I don't want...no that's wrong...I can no longer emotionally handle the overwhelming amount of negativity. I don't have room for it in my, for lack of a better word, soul. I feel the same way about religious discussion as well. If the point of religion is to bring us closer to an all loving deity, how then have we missed the mark by such a wide margin? The religious system, the political system, the legal system, all of our systems it seems, are broken. I have no desire to see them fixed. I have a separate, personal agenda.
Salvation is for the feeble I think. I don't want salvation. I want life. All of life. The miserable as well as the superb. - Tom Robbins
There is no known system that allows for living ALL of life. The way it can be lived. And I don't mean the sex drugs and rock n roll. I mean the joy, and beauty, and fullness that is available if we choose it. To continue that thought...
I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it more difficult to achieve the grand prize. The safety of the void. To fashion of life such a petty game is unworthy of both men and gods. - Tom Robbins.
There is so fucking much to do. To taste. To experience. We get this incredibly brief period of time to breathe, and laugh, and dance, and instead we fight and bicker like 9 year old school kids at recess. We could be creating. Instead we destroy. We could be building and instead tear down. Instead of reaching together for Utopia, we are fighting separately for nickles and dimes. I don't want to live in that world. I will fashion my own.
Our individuality is all, all that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route. - Tom Robbins.
I love who I am. For all my faults, fears, and failures, I am still the only me I get to be. One shot. One single roll on this rock, at this point, in this time period, at this location, in this moment. I will very often eat by the handfuls, the proverbial shit, but I will also drink ambrosia. I will suffer through the mundane, in order to achieve a the perfection of an instant. I will come in contact with hundreds of people, to find the one that stargazes with me. Every single second, is my only chance to live it. I am not getting any younger, but I will never be younger than I am right now. Time is so very fleeting, yet so very casual with its destruction. I don't want to fight time, or beat time, or race against it. I want to gut it, skin it, and wear its wings on my back as I fly through the cosmos. I'd like you to come with me. If you want. I hear there are some pretty amazing things to see out there. Things that will make us forget all about this bullshit we've invented.
We have failed our systems, and as a result they have failed us. So let go of them I say. Don't invent new ones. Don't replace broken with broken.
Sing your own song. Learn your own dance. Find your partner or partners for this little road trip and make up the words together as you go along. Forget the systems. Fuck the systems, they have certainly fucked us.
For me, the systems don't provide the opportunities. In fact, they do all the can to make certain the opportunities become less and less available. I must seize them for myself. Take them back. Make them mine. Live with the results...or the consequences. Either way, I will have experienced something that otherwise would have been impossible. I will pilot my own ship, and if you'd like...race you to the moon. It's pointless. Its ridiculous. We may laugh, we may crash, we may end up on Jupiter instead, but one thing I guarandamntee we won't do, is fight about who should be the next figurehead of a broken ideal within imaginary borders.
I'm pretty much done here. I think I've tackled what was on my mind today as well as I can. All of the above quotes were from the book Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. Jitterbug Perfume is the answer I give when faced with the question "What is your favorite book?". If you've never read it, give it a look. It is purely my own meek and certainly unprofessional opinion, but in my view, Mr. Robbins is the greatest living working wordsmith out there. I'm not saying he's necessarily the best author, although I might be able to make that argument as well. I'm simply saying he has a way to make words play, that if you give it a chance will absolutely tickle your brain.
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