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07/03/2008: "Conformity"

In general I feel pretty good. Josh and I saw Wall-E the other day, and I really think it's the most amazing movie ever. It's adorable, it's for all ages, and yet it's so deep... It's about not becoming complacent, it's a call for action to protect our earth, and most of all - it's a love story!

Things with Josh are great. Lately we've seen each other so much since we live in the same house that we were becoming emotionally distant somehow, without realizing it. But we had a long talk the other day which helped things a lot. I'm so happy with him!

Tomorrow's my doggy Lexi's fourth birthday!! And the Fourth of July of course. I'm going to visit my grandma with Josh and then the following day I'm going to go home for the weekend.

There's obviously a new layout here. Also I have a new tattoo (pictures in the gallery). What do you think?

Finally, I was searching through archives from my old site again and I found something I wrote in 2005 that I wanted to share...

American Society: Conformity in the New Age

Today's world is falling apart. When you look at the big cities, people scurry around from point to point crashing headlong into each other, flipping the bird, and yelling obscenities. When you call your favorite music store to find out if that new CD is in yet, you're suddenly flung into reality with the word-a-millisecond memorized lines the sales clerks reel off their brains... "Hello-thank-you-for-calling-this-is-Bob-how-may-I-help-you-today?!" all in one breath.

Everyone's in a rush and no one stops to ponder things anymore. Knowledge and beauty are being left behind in the dust in an industrial age where money, flashy cars, and bling-bling take center stage.

But I'm not saying the picture perfect world of Leave It to Beaver in the mid-twentieth century with the polite, tightly knit family was or ever could be a reality. Technology and progress are beautiful but powerful things. I don't think the problems are in our high speed Internet connections; with technology we've achieved tremendous things. The problem, however, is in human nature. We never learned to deal with our capabilities; we weren't ready for this transformation to crash mercilessly into our lives.

Children today learn to dread the automated world of school, where learning is like a robot production factory. They fear education, for the school systems which preach memorization instead of understanding of concepts tarnish the power of knowledge. Kids today want to live between each exciting moment... collecting their energy from pop concerts and Abercrombie and Fitch outfits. Education is for losers, and their goals are to have fun today, fit in with the group, and live a rich life later. How they get there doesn't really matter.

No one wants to have an intellectual conversation anymore. No one wants to challenge the system, save a small minority staggered through the ruins of the country.

Parents follow the bestseller parenting books and raise their children with all the morals and efficient systems cooked up and supported by the experts. Life in America has turned into a business, and it all smells like the scent of a manufacturing plant. Every new idea is all about making things run faster and better and competition. In the words of Nick Tosches, we live in a society of "mediocrity."

Children learn to accept the morals, political views, and religions of their parents. They follow what they've been raised to believe and pass that on again. There are also psychologists, officials, writers... planning programs and reciting lines of how to cure your children, how to erase the danger and create a morally perfect world. But in the end, no matter which route we follow, all of our cars will all end up at the same destination.

There is a face of this world, and then there's what's underneath. The face operates like an identical copy of The Stepford Wives, except in fast forward mode. Underneath there's turmoil, and it can't be contained forever.

Walt Whitman once said, "Reevaluate everything you have been told… dismiss that which insults your soul." Yet today less and less of that is occurring. People never stop to think about what's right for them. If your parents are Christian or Democrats, then so be it, you've got your destiny laid out. But what if that's not right for you?

We never stop to learn what we can. And thus we continue in this trend of "mediocrity" because no one dares to change it... for when and if someone does, he hides amidst the shadows, afraid to step out and take a challenge.

Everyone follows their labels. A girl says she's a Christian but on weekends she goes to parties where she "sins." And at school she wears a button expressing her disdain for homosexuality. Because the label is what matters, not the doctrine, not the reason, not the true meaning. But following these beliefs, if there is a God, did he not tell us to be humble? Would he not be ashamed of this behavior, in which people claiming to be Christians passed judgment over others as if their own words were law? ("They must not discriminate in judgment, but hear the little and great alike." -Deuteronomy 1:17).

The world is a bubble of conformity. Doing what those before you have done. It only feels right... People never stop to think or to understand. If they did, perchance the world in which we live would not be such a cluster of commotion and frustration. Perhaps the lovely, happy faces of a family would never hide deep, dark secrets under their tongues.

"Faith is but a birthmark with which we are born, an impalpable umbilicus to time and place, which we rarely ponder to cut." -Nick Tosches (In the Hand of Dante)