Delusions of Mediocrity
my dreams don't come at night
when I'm sleeping next to you
warm breath on my chest
curled warm against my breast
swift twitch and, I'm awake
my arms wrapped around you
and your eyes flutter with dreams of me
or everything you'd like your life to be
here I daydream by your side
glancing casually at your angelic face
stroking my hand down your back
my dreams hit me with a smack
running through the mountains with you
hand in hand we jump off the cliff
riding a waterfall down to calm below
and stare at faraway peaks covered in snow
swimming in the lake of our life
caressing each others' damp skin
lips that touch and spark
in the depths of a watery dark
I want to dance with you here
watch you shed only joyful tears
whisper our unintelligible foreign language in your ears
let the water swallow up every fear
there's a purpose to this life
it's to wreak havoc on pain and strife
but everything is still like new
Another year comes and goes and I still find things about the human endeavor that intrigue me on a day to day basis.
For example, why do taxi drivers all use cars that have eight cylinder engines? One would think that for maximum profit you'd minimize fuel usage. I've been thinking that perhaps the fuel they use is tax deductable as a business expense. In this fucked up world, something like that would make sense...
All things aside, I know practically nothing about the taxi industry, except that it costs a lot of money to ride in one, and the taxi drivers themselves see very little of that money. That and the fact that I don't understand why their patronage doesn't lie in automobiles that don't use as much fuel. It's things like this that support my belief that the plight of humankind is still based in the notion of alienation. We're alienated from ourselves on a day-to-day basis by everything in society that we take for granted as "normal." For another example, I'd tell you to take public transportation instead of a taxi, but that part of public life brings it's own troubles with it. Take the CTA in Chicago...they estimate that they have 1.7 million riders per day. At $1.50 a pop, they're taking in some fat cash. Yet still there's articles in the papers every day up there about the "cash-strapped CTA." I read that and I'm like: "how?" Public transportation may be "public," but it's still a business, and there's still people there making money off you. Yet when they get "cash-strapped," they recieve public dollars to fix things that would otherwise be fixed with no problem if lack of care didn't lead to poor financial management.
We're alienated by the business, then we're alienated from ourselves, by ourselves, for sitting back and recieving the proverbial rectal probe and never doing anything about it. Yet it's funny that we never think about the simple things such as this. Instead, we put a lot of weight on things that really mean nothing at all...just look at all the celebrating that goes into things like birthdays. Who ever said that it was a good idea to make a big deal out of the mark of your own birth? Years, months, days, hours, minutes...they're all abstract and only there because we apparently can't keep track of ourselves without them. All this does is allow ourselves the fallacy of thinking that age somehow means something, when age really doesn't change anything, or mean anyhing for that matter. "Well, yesterday you couldn't drive legally, but today you can." Or how about this: "Well, 5 hours ago I wouldn't have let you come into this bar, but now I will."
Excuse me?
I'll tell you what...age never changes love, hate, greed, anger, malice, or grudges. Age doesn't change who your friends are, or what music you listen to. Age doesn't change what you enjoy doing when you're not being a slave to someone else for a little bit of green paper. Age doesn't change maturity level. Age doesn't prepare you to drink, it doesn't prepare you to drive, and it doesn't prepare you to be drafted into the armed forces and die in a war. Everyone knows this, but somehow they've conviced us that all of this is somehow ok. Somehow they've conviced us that this is something that should be accepted, and somehow they've convinced us to believe in this way of doing things. We may think that the drinking age over here in the states is bunk, but that's all we really complain about. We still think that at a certain age, you're responsible enough to drink...at a certain age, you're responsible enough to have sex...at a certain age, you're responsible enough to drive...at a certain age, you're responsible enough to experiment with drugs, etc. etc. etc.
How old you are does not mean anything except that you've thrown just a few more life experiences under your belt. This does not mean that being 23, 24 25, 40 makes you somehow more mature and well-equipped for life than an 18 year old. It's all subjective to your own experience. One of my best friends from high school is now engaged. However, she's cheated on her finacà countless times, and he knows about all of it...or at least most of it. Somehow she thinks that she's ready to be married, and somehow he thinks that she's still the right person for him. Somehow she also thinks that it's ok to talk to even her most spiritually-stable friends about the wonders of Christianity, but that's another story entirely.
Yes, I'm 23 years old now. I'm still struggling through college and extremely financially unstable at a point in my life where most of my peers have graduated from college or found a decent job, or both. I'm watching as they all get engaged, get married, have children, and live their lives. I'm still trying to think of ways to stretch out my career as an undergraduate so I can get the most out of school. I'm still trying to figure out things about love and life and death and everything else that gets thrown at you as soon as you become aware of them.
Maybe I'm crazy. Then again, maybe I'm just seeing all of these things that are unfair, unjust, or just do not make sense, and I'm trying to figure out a way to deal with them. Maybe all those other people are simply turning a blind eye and accepting them. Maybe I'm the only person on the face of the planet that thinks about simple stupid things. Or maybe I'm not, but one of few that wants to do something about them. All I know is that I'm a far cry from growing up and living that life. Hell, I'm still looking for that big neon sign that says "American Dream! Follow the arrow!" I'm pretty sure that the so-called "American Dream" is just a dead-end street, so I'm going to sit here until I'm equipped to make my own dreams. I'm also pretty sure that I'll never be a boring adult. You know those 40 year olds you see at the clubs and make fun of? I want that to be me. You know those parents you see who are still all over one another after all these years and whose children have to hear them have sex on a day-to-day basis? I want that to be me too.
One thing I'm certain of...I want to go out with a bang. I want to make the most out of what I've been given. I'm pretty sure that this means never becoming an "adult" and never being like the rest of them. For now, I'll act like I'm playing the game. I'll be everything they want me to be when they're watching. It's ok by me, as long as they'd be shocked and appalled at what this 23 year old "adult" is doing on his own time, by his own terms.