Do people still use calendars? I assume they must, because at the end of each year I see all those calendar stands. I imagine the stands wouldn't exist if people didn't purchase the product, but still...I wonder. Do people still use them? Like...put the chart with numbers on the wall...pick some significant date, circle it, and then x out the squares in some sort of ritualized countdown with a sharpie and anticipation?
I wonder about this.
I'm not sure I've ever owned a calendar.
Oh sure I have a calendar on my phone. I have a clock on my phone too and don't own a watch. Sometimes when I do a show, the stage manage will give a me a calendar with a rehearsal schedule on it.
So I wonder. Does this happen? Do people do this? Or has the digital age taken from us this hallowed tradition. Or was it ever? I honestly don't know.
Wedding rings are weird right?
We use slave labor, sometimes at the price of limbs and life, to dig relatively worthless rocks out of the ground in Africa. Then we shine those rocks up, ship em across the ocean where they can be evaluated and given false value based on just how shiny they are.
Then we strap those shiny rocks to bands made out of "precious" metal, also given false value, so that all the boys and girls can go to the stores, look at these shiny bands, with the shiny rocks, and choose together, and pay the exhorbitant fees necessary to purchase these pieces of jewelry, that they will later strap on to one anothers fingers as a declaration of state sanctioned, and licensed human property. We somehow think it romantic when one partner says to another, "I'm yours."
Neat.
And then, we all recognize these little symbols of property, as such. We do. I'm not interested in the least in pursuing long term romantic interaction with another person, yet every single time I meet someone new of appreciable age, I look for the ownership ring. I don't care if a person is available or not, I still look. We are trained to do this. It's natural.
We don't like to call it ownership though. We prefer the word "tradition". Tradition gives the word some sort of meaning. We're carrying something important. A tie to our past. A hope for a future. Tradition has value.
Or so we've been told.
Tradition. The baggage of dead men, that for some reason, we feel compelled to pick up that the claims counter.
Funny thing is, with all of our science, and history, and anthropolgy, and archeology, and probably many other ologies as well...we don't know how marriage started. Which culture had it first? Where did it all begin? It's been around forever and ever, and we don't even know why anymore.
One prevalent theory is population control. Not necessarily numbers, just...recognition. Since marriage predates paternity testing by, say oh...10000 years or so, it used to be a bitch knowing what guy was making what babies with what women. If you could assign a guy to a girl, or a few girls, it made knowing whose kid was whose a little bit easier. Or in other words...not to control the number of women men slept with, but just the opposite. Don't let the woman fuck around, with more than one guy, and you know whose mom she is.
Funny thing. I read something somewhere that may or may not be true, 35 percent of the population STILL doesn't know that the child they play parent to isn't actually theirs.
This theory is rooted in probability, or at least some degree of liklihood. We don't like to think about this particular aspect of "tradition" though. It's not romantic. It also suggests that if it actually is true, women should be the most anti-marriage people on the planet, instead of the biggest spenders in the industry.
So now we're engaged in a great civil war. Where half the population believes that a small percentage of the population should not be entitled to the rights and privaleges of that specific tradition. The other half of the population believes they should be.
Those against it, base their beliefs in an entirely different tradition of mythology, worship, and magic minded nonsense.
Those for it, base their beliefs in a supposition of justice for all. Another premise that has never, not once in the history of mankind, actually existed.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the subjugation of rights is, in and of itself,one of our most hallowed traditions?
Just a thought.
The baggage of dead men.
The true value of a diamond is practically worthless. It's a rock, and not even a really rare rock. But with a bit of spit and shine, we give it false value, pretend it has meaning, and wear it on our fingers, regardless how much blood may have been spilled for it.
The true value of any basic human right is inestimable, but with a bit of spit and tarnish, we will demean it, label it, and toss it away. Regardless how much blood may have been spilled for it.
And we do this all in the name of tradition.
The baggage of dead men.
I don't own a calendar. I'm not sure I ever have. I have never connected to that tradition. I had a wedding ring once. I was married for ten years. I lost my ring within the first three months, and never had it replaced. I just couldn't connect to the tradition. It didn't mean anything to me to wear it. It didn't mean anything to me if she wore hers. I believed her when she told me she loved me. I didn't need the symbolism of the ring. I never felt that when she went out without me, she needed the symbol to indicate to others that she was my property.
Who knows though. Perhaps it was the complete ignorance of the tradition, contributed to the end of the relationship. I doubt it, but it's possible.
I seem to work sub tradition.
I don't really connect to any that I can think of. I mean oh sure I put my shoes on the right feet, but mostly because that's the way my feet are built. I wouldn't wear shoes at all, if evolution would have just given me leather instead of skin on the bottoms of my feet. I can do all the things that people do, but I do seem to have a difficult time finding meaning in the things that other people put meaning into. I don't find value in almost all of the things that I was told my entire life, I was supposed to place value in.
It's lonely on the outside.
People talk about the things they do. The things they care about. The things they want. I recognize these things as nearly universal desires in the species, and I desire none of them.
Money
Security
Stability
To settle down.
Settle in.
None of these things really have any appeal to me.
Sometimes I think I want that whole "someone to talk to" thing.
Sometimes that thing where I can trust someone to hold my secrets, and my things that mean something.
Sometimes I think I thought I was...
I'm either very far ahead..
or very far behind
the curve.
The bus of humanity pulled away, and I'm still standing on the curb.
Chasing the bubbles I blew out of the little plastic wand.
And yeah, it'd be fun to have someone chase bubbles with,
but the reality is
if I did
Eventually that person will be really pissed off, and start chasing the bus, to see if they can still get on.
And I'll still be having too much fun chasing bubbles.
I'm pretty sure that I will never care that the bus pulled away.
I'm never going to mark calendars.
I'm never going to care about diamonds.
I know how to paint on my smile, and pretend I care enough, to keep the people around me comfortable.
But if they know me...even just a little...they'll know that I don't.
I can't bring myself to carry the baggage of dead men.
I have given up the idea that I'll ever have that person to chase bubbles with.
But as pathetic as that sounds...
as sad
or lonely
or...you know...
whatever...
It is impossible to chase bubbles and be sad.
I have simply found what works for me.
My public face may be a continual exercise in social lubrication,
but my inside face is actually laughing.
Almost always.
I have found my happiness.
In my solitude.
Yeah it's got its downsides.
It truly does...
but then again...
what doesn't?
I'm not carrying the baggage of dead men.
Which means I've got a lot of room for dancing.
And by god I do.
And by god I'm gonna.
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