Failure and Apathy

Never have I spent so great an abundance of effort on schoolwork only to be dissatisfied with the outcome. I feel nothing but miserable apathy and a conflicting urge to succeed yet give no regard to my education. Art is a passion that I have always had, one that has risen and sunk at varies times over the past sixteen years. Creating is something I want to spend the rest of my life doing and so far, I am quite content with this. However, this societal structure in which I am forced to reside in until I become of legal age, is one that bombards the youth with an idealized notion of happiness and success via completion of high school with approximately a 4.0, followed by the admittance to a prestigious university. Perhaps it is merely the town in which I am raised that pressures us to compete fiercely among our peers and beloved friends. Regardless, I feel that the standard is set to an emotionally and mentally strenuous level that is completely unnecessary for all youth to undergo. My passion can be lived with absolutely no school. I have always been self-taught and for others whose life goal may stray towards another light, a rigid and thorough educational process could be construed as applicable. Of course, this is all coming from an individual who is careless and desires ultimate freedom to creative expression. I loathe all limits and law that keep me chained to a desk and chair at odd hours of the night only to further my understanding of insignificant (in terms of my life-goal) subjects which consequently deny me the opportunity to create and enjoy life. Life is far too brief to spend dwindling away precious time with negligible pursuits. Unfortunately, the next year and half of my high school career will, as I anticipate, slowly suffocate all artistic and creative potential I once had. I will maintain a mundane observation of the environment which confines me to this hell for as long as is necessary to satisfy the requirements of ravenous wolves and pigs.

The Utopian Ideal

I've come about a dissatisfaction with my community and not to offend anyone, but in general, my peers. I'm not so cynical as to detest the entire human race and care nothing for the common good of the people. I'm not Ayn Rand. But certainly, I feel that being a minority in beliefs, such as I am, it's hard to not feel like on a daily basis, that I am putting forth a facade. The notion that I too, believe in what is fed to me, that I too will aggressively assert the rationality and realistic principles of a standard governing society. On the contrary, I detest out society. Not the people within the community, as they all have immense potential to extract themselves of this materialistic, competitive, consumerist, environment of societal and religious dogma. However, there is such conflict over the way our people ought to be ruled. Yes, ruled. Consciously diving into a typical nonconformist, anti-society rant that I know so many people would mock and yet, I believe there is truth in the nonconformist ideal. I've heard a number of my peers proclaim that they do what they want and live the lives they want, but I assure you, this is anything but true. We, as people, we do not seek this lifestyle. Some will say that people by nature are mere sheep, following the herd or leader. This is true to some extent, but few individuals as unfortunate as that is, choose to stray past those societal barriers. If you want the truth, I could not care less about material possessions. Take my bass, take my cell phone, take my ipod. Just leave me with my dignity and self-respect. This is not typical, the whole "minimalist" lifestyle, but it is the last freedom we have. The journey to this realization is not for the emotionally weak but for the few that make it here, it is the most liberating experience. After you reach this point in your life, all you see when you look around at others is misery. Others won't be aware of their misery, but they will be drowning in it. You may or may not choose to save them. I don't advise it as people are nearly impossible to change in their ways, as many a people can be stubborn and close-minded. Not to say that all people are, and I'm sure this entire rant is coming off as arrogant and condescending, but I assure you that I do not mean for it to. People by nature are corruptible and susceptible to a path of self-destruction and greed. I believe this can be controlled to a great extent. An extent so great that I believe in the utopia. I identify myself as a Social Anarchist. Immediately upon hearing the word "anarchy" a good deal of people are put off and aren't willing to consider it anymore than what they've been taught. The ... I don't want to say idiots, but I will anyway.. idiots would assume that anarchy is synonymous with chaos and destruction, a "free for all" if you will. No, that's exactly what anarchism is trying to avoid. Anarchism is a term that is extremely hard to define. It can refer to many different ideas and concepts. I suppose in a vague sense, it would be a lack of government. It would be a society run by communities of people without a state or federal government controlling their lives. It would be freedom at it's purist but never without personal and moral responsibility. Responsibility is a major factor in anarchism. It would not be plausible if each individual was not taught how to interact in the society so as to make the society functional. An anarchist society would in fact incorporate democratic principles as well as socialism and the European definition of "libertarianism", (If you have ever read or heard Chomsky's linguistic theories relative to political theory terms, you will understand that for different cultures there are different meanings of different words.) as well as communism. Communism in it's most pure form (and I think this is where all the other societal structures who have attempted communism have failed by having an authoritative government asserting dominance over the public to any degree.) is essentially anarchism as anarchism is stateless communism. Anarchism is based on the idea of all individuals working together for the common good with no corporations of politicians making a benefit off of them, at their expense. For example, I volunteer at a radically-leftist community center and bookstore. We have monthly meetings and at each meeting, we take votes on what we want to do with any extra money we've made or what to do about changing the keys or what have you. We do have managers who essentially elect themselves depending on whether or not they're up for the position and most people are not because it is a great deal of work. Regardless, we do have "managers" and we do take votes and we do have assigned projects and positions, yet this is anarchism. Nothing is mandatory, there is no dress code, there are no rules, we just ask that you do not steal or offend. We do not threaten those that might steal with prosecution, we just explain why they should not, as we are a nonprofit organization and we contribute to the community and are trying to re-educate others and offer alternative materials, etc. Another example of anarchism in the community is the RRFM or the "Really Really Free Market" in carrboro that occurs on the first saturday of the month. This is based on the gift-economy concept. Anyone who has extra items, materials, products or services or means of entertainment are welcome to show up and provide them to the public, which receives the aforementioned and may also give back. It ensures that all people within the community have what they need and can give what they have an excess of. Of course this is all optional and made into an enjoyable experience so nobody feels trapped in the process. This gift-economy eliminates the need for a middle man and large corporations with absurdly greedy CEO's. It has been working among our anarchist community for years. Anarchism does work, as it is working, however at the moment just as individualist anarchists within their community and not as an entire society. Most people will claim that anarchism, or any other radical-leftist political ideal is denying human nature. They claim that human nature is to reflexively and instinctively steal, lie, murder, rape, covet, etc without laws to prevent them from doing so. Laws are simply restraints. Laws have their faults (need I remind us of the law banning same-sex marriage from most states, the law banning marijuana, or the fact that for so long there were laws banning females the right to vote, that we were legally bound to segregation and slavery, that we instilled the patriot's act in our society to reenact big brother, or that for a few periods in time, abortion was illegal, etc.) and therefore, just as someone could claim that anarchism, communism, socialism etc are idealist utopias, well so are democracy and capitalism if you want them to be pure. We have lobbyists who can buy elections, we have wars that are fought for oil and claimed for terror, we have countries that claim to be the land of the free that advocated for child labor in factories and still advocates for child labor in foreign countries of which we supply our corporations with their stocks. We have innocent men and women being sentenced to death or multiple years in prison, we have doctors put in jail for assisted suicide when we allow euthanasia in pets because we see only that as humane. We are corrupt and we call ourselves a democracy. I'll rant more about this at a later time.

I'm Not Happy

If you're reading this, I won't mention you by name, I just thought what you said was important enough to blog about.

There have been numerous times in my life that I haven't exactly felt "happy". But what is "happy"? To feel happy is "delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing", meaning there has to be something to cause the happiness, "a particular thing". Honestly, the only times I've been depressed was during my childhood for certain reasons but I was never just not happy but not depressed. But I think as a person grows and discovers their identity and purpose in the world, their cause for living, they question everything and they go on this inner journey to "find themselves" as cliche as that may sound. During this process, a person can feel so out of body, like just thoughts within a different person who moves around the brain. It's the strangest feeling, almost scary, to look in the mirror and not recognize yourself. To look at the reflection and think to yourself "who is that? is that what I look like? Is that me?". It's utterly perplexing when your get so lost in your head that you become unaware of your outer self. Before I get off topic, that point in your life which comes at varies stages in your young adulthood where you are somewhat apprehensive about "leaving the nest" and finding your own path is terrifying. It's difficult to make that leap and take a risk that could screw up the rest of your life if you don't land where you intended to. The in between period is even worse, the one where you know you have to make that leap but you can't for whatever reason. You must wait and it's slowly killing you inside to know that now's the time. Now you must move but you can't. Perhaps this is why some people are unhappy. Of course in the broader sense of unhappy, for most it is simply the feeling of not having things turn out the way you'd prefer or to not have someone in your life to love and share romantic feelings with. Maybe right now, you were supposed to have achieved so much more in your life than you have. For the longest time, maybe 5 months, I was very empty. Like I could smile and fake excitement and spend time with friends but I could never stop myself from thinking "I'm not happy." I kept returning to certain events in the past, emotions and memories that held me back from creating new memories, from being happy and accepting new experiences. Of course this was a process relevant to myself, maybe others if they were in the same situation which isn't terribly uncommon, but after a while, you let down your walls again. It's a slow process, but you start to take things for their most beautiful and positive aspects. That moment of awakening is so liberating, to look around and just be able to appreciate life and mirth and true beauty. To see everything and everyone in such a light that gives it all such meaning and you such contentment. It's the feeling of lying on a hill in complete solitude and staring up at the clouds and really feeling the grass beneath you and the air around you. Unfortunately, the more naturalistic and existential self-liberation isn't quite successful for most. Some people require companions. They need others to make them happy. Not necessarily a significant other, but simply people surrounding them who care for them and find enjoyment in spending time with them. This is a good type of happiness, but people are imperfect therefore you will have your up and downs but more often than not you will be happy. Most unfortunate of all are the people who seek happiness in wealth and commodities. Meaningless possessions that merely pile up and hold no significance, just momentary healing. This is a bit off topic, but I do regret telling some people that I'll always be there for them if they need someone to talk to. It's frustrating and tedious when you have a handful of people coming to you with their problems on a daily basis. I'm far too impatient for that, but for some, there really will always be an opportunity for me to be there for you and I will make it whenever it need be. For very few people, I care very deeply about and want them to find true happiness. It's saddening to know that those people might be unhappy. For few people, my love for them as individuals runs much deeper than my love for all people of the human race which carries so much potential, but I rarely tell those few people that I love them. I hope they know that I do. I just want them to be happy.

Minimalism

I'm sure I've touched on this subject or at the least of the basic principles pertaining to 'minimalism', but I really do want to specify in detail why it's so important. Minimalism is to be stripped down to the most fundamental features. I try to embrace this idea as much as possible because one must live simply so that others may simply live. I'll paint an abstract picture for you, if you will. A blank platform floating in space, unweighted. Slowly, the platform is bombarded with rocky textures spread across, silky transparent flows boring holes in the rock, which creates an edging of green material. Suddenly varies creatures of all shapes and sizes advance upon the green, forcing them to clear paths of it for their individual settlements. This is fine, the platform is able to sustain the amount of creatures and landforms. However, the creatures of course, forsaking the abstract now, are greedy, civilized yet uncivilized at the heart of the matter fools that take for granted all that their platform is capable of possessing. The people are innovative which is appropriate to certain extents. Innovation in itself satisfies a couple different needs. It supplies the demand of the people who desire advanced products. Of course the majority of the time, the people are unaware of this desire until the innovators convince them that they would be happier if they had more and better products. The other demand that innovation satisfies is the need within oneself. The need to create and engineer in order to challenge oneself and keep the mind and hand occupied. What is life without a purpose? But surely this purpose can be used in more productive ways than updating a cellular phone with multifarious capabilities that we don't necessarily want nor require.  Technological advancement is good, all societal revolutions and advancements should be encouraged so that we progress as a species but clinging to materialism and embracing consumerism is an atrocious disease that is spread amongst our culture. When did money create taste? Why do we not question our lifestyles? What makes teenagers so susceptible to consumerism in particular? Why is the American dream to live in suburbia with a white picket fence in back and 2.5 children with a husband who works and a wife who tends to the domestic areas. Personally, I object to all of that. I completely disagree that the only way for people to change their habits is for them to be forced or to be physically shown the negative impact of their lifestyle. You can simply be open minded or hear from another person's experience or even develop your own idea from different events. For example, we're polluting the only environment we have access to by burning oil for gas in our cars. But people don't see harsh enough effects of it to make us stop. Not all people though, some understand this concept without actually running out of oil to burn or being choked to death in a black smog. I think the real issue is laziness and apathy. That is the root of our problems. Specifically the generation before my own's problem. My own generation has unknowingly accepted the lovely chore of fixing everything. Well, either fixing or further destroying. Most of the general public would be so much happier, not to mention healthier if we lived simply. Not to say we should live like the Amish, because I really don't like the Amish, but maybe a small studio apartment would become the new ideal. Perhaps growing your own garden and eating from it on a regular basis would become the norm. Imagine if we all learned to knit and weave and could fashion our own clothing, or at least took advantage of secondhand stores where the idea is to recycle so as not to create additional waste. I will probably revisit this topic at a later time, but for now I'll leave it at that.