Do you remember that time when I was relatively sane and sober? Me neither.
I think it might have been back in like 1980. Back then I was still a nice, refined, naïve, Catholic school girl, unmolested by society. What’s interesting to me is the transformation between a person who is influenced by social mores into someone who influences those same social standards. Personally, I was very influenced by other people until about my “junior” year in college. ( I put that in quotes because credit-wise I was still probably a freshmen – what a fucking delinquent ass I was…) the point is that I was far into my twenties before I had a sense of SELF, of EGO. I was narcissistic and self-centered, for sure, but I didn’t have any sense of self-reliance or purpose. But during those formative years of finding who I was, I definitely spent time posing as a malevolent part of the peer-influenced, vapidity of youth culture - a fact I’m not particularly proud of, but about which I can do nothing.
How and why are people so unduly influenced by the common culture which surrounds them? There’s an old Japanese proverb which says “when someone’s character is unclear, simply look at that person’s friends.” Based on some of the people I hung out with back in my early twenties, I was a fucking asshole. They were assholes. We were (together) a big pool of worthless, self-absorbed nothingness. We contributed nothing to society. We did not support each other (unless it was to hold each other’s hair back from the vomit). We convinced ourselves that the stupid shit we did mattered in some way. It didn’t. (Insert Jersey Shore analogy here.)
I may not believe in Catholicism anymore. I may not believe in the Christian version of god which was rammed down my throat for the first couple decades of my life. But I do find validity in the Jesuit dedication to learning and improving the communities in which we live. Idealistically, I DO want the world to be a better place; it’s just that I often don’t know how to make that happen. Or I’m just a bit too tired. Religion goes a long way towards building better people, but arguably what it does has nothing to do with the religious tenets or the god being worshipped or the church in which this all happens. It seems to be more about community. If we can teach each other to be representatives of mankind – to act in a way which we would like other people to act – the world would be a better place. Even “terrorists” subscribe to this basic philosophy of reciprocity. They have a theory about the way the world should be. Is that theory often sad, delusional, and misguided? Yes. But at least they are living their life with purpose, as opposed to the majority of Americans who live to watch television and eat shitty food and look out for #1. Yes, that’s a stereotype, but most stereotypes can be proved correct by simple observation. Look around you. People are generally happier when they are stupid and selfish.
I cannot function the way society expects me to. I refuse to be stupid. I have (literally) dedicated my life to learning. I cannot be selfish. I have (again, literally) handed over the keys to my life to my family. Their needs come first every, single day. I don’t know how to wallow in self-indulgence, even though I often want to. Perhaps it’s a Martyr Syndrome (I don’t think that’s a diagnosed complex yet, but just wait). I want other people to recognize the sacrifices I make, but I am uncomfortable accepting that recognition. I want my children to be self-sufficient, but I continue to coddle them so they aren’t independent. So … I don’t know. I think I missed that part where someone whispers in your ear and tells you what this life is all about, because I have no fucking idea. I WANT to know, but I can’t figure it out. And then I want to spew some bullshit about how I could find peace or meaning if I lived in a different place with a different scenic view or whatever, but we all know that location is irrelevant. If I moved, my existential issues would follow me. Our demons are imbedded. They are here to stay. Even if we exorcise them temporarily, they are still an integral part of who we are - for good or bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment