Movement

After finishing the blog regarding the "youth culture" of my generation, I feel incredibly emotionally and mentally stultified. My conclusion is that my generation has no movement. No spirit, soul, or purpose. And the main exemplifying factor in this thesis is myself.

I can look back on the last year of my life, my post-high school existance and count the number of lives I've impacted on my fingers. Probably on one hand. I spent copious quantities of time hanging out at my old boyfriend's house doing absolutely nothing. Hours of my life have been frittered watching CNN, walking my dog, checking my Myspace, drinking lattes, and engaging in hamster-like activities at a gym. When I'm not lounging on the sofa at my parents house, I'm making overpriced caffeinated beverages for a massive corporation.

I'll quote myself, about six months ago:
"You live within four walls. You drive a mode of transportation to and from a place to make money to pay for the mode of transportation and the four walls. You find menial means of sedation for the times when you are not at the place making the money. You watch the picture box or you listen to a noise maker or you communicate with your fellow beings via that extension of your fingertips that is commonly refered to as a computer. You run. To keep your body in a shape that your fellow beings will deem acceptable. You run. To keep your mind in a place where you can't face reality. Slow down. See. You are me. I am you."

Now this is getting ridiculously lengthy and epitomizes my generation's tendency towards navel gazing. Yet I continue. I really think we should do something. "We" is a cop out. "We" needs to be me. You can join. We need to stop living fragmented pointless lives. We need to spend more time learning and feeling and experiencing. We need to not waste so much time stressing about earning letters at the middle class' breeding ground that is Sierra College and more time truly impacting those around us and the world in which we live.

Middle Children - "Reading Blog Number Something"

The 60s were tumultious years in which the youth of our Suburban Dreamland decided they were capable of parting ways with their society. They got caught up in the desire for something new and the chic-ness of protesting like chickens, sans heads. In their desire to rebel against established institutions, they got sidetracked and decided to drop out in one way or another. Jacoby cites the youth's interest in the Beatles and LSD as some of the fads that the kiddos got sucked into which then eroded away at their gray matter.

The youth culture today is without a culture. As Tyler Durdan states in some weird movie, "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives." I'd be delighted to report that we're brewing up something fresh to present to the world, but as of now, such a statement would be false. Our culture is diverse and divided and really kind of fruitless. Each wandering his own path towards an end. So we should probably unite and start a revolution or something.

Voicethread #6/Reading Blog

Perhaps the reason Americans delight in the idea of Communism so much is because they have never suffered under it. The idea of a society of mutual benifit overshadowes the complexities and shortcomings of naitonalized production that Marxist society implies.

Americans, in the early 20th century, probably romanticised Communist values. I don't know how many people thought the Bolshevik revolution was quaint, but perhaps Americans' faint desire to overthrow corruption and greed in capitalism could be reflected in a foreign country's attempt to oust a gluttonous failed monarchy.

Human beings are evolutionary programmed to understand the idea of strength in numbers and the idea that a nation would work together on an equal playing field for a common goal is a nice little thought. But since few of us are actually the suffers of bourgeoisie oppression, we don't know what it's like do we?

Speaking of an inability to articulate:

I found enlightenment while looking at a piece of celery today. I guess it was there the whole time. Like Jesus, behind the sofa. Not really, because if I had found enlightenment, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing this. So the nugget of knowledge went something like this:

We can, for lack of a better term, bitch ad nauseum about how candidates never talk about real issues, always skirt questions, and attack their opponent rather than actually articulate their own more superior policies. Their logical falacies are there and they don't accomplish anything except to fuel the frustrated grumblings of American citizens with averagely placed brows. And news flash: the politicians aren't changing their style of debating/campaigning to ease these grumblings. It doesn't matter how long we talk about the rhetoric or the falacies or the language; it's not going anywhere. It's simply maintaining a problem-oriented perspective in a world that demands solution-oriented one.

So why don't we step outside of the box and start listening to anyone who will discuss the ISSUES. Stop and smell the scentless roses that are candidates of a two-party system and then find something better. The two party system is nearly entirely responsible for our disgust in politics because it breeds the apathy ensueing from rhetorical, falacy ridden yiffing. People buy into the two party system, witness the rhetorical nonsense, yet still choose to vote for "the lesser of two evils."

Problematic X = Two-party system.
Y = method of selecting leader of free world.
X = not a good Y.
X = wrong.

Fire and Brimstone Ensue.

Prompt Numero Uno.
Have you ever seen Jesus Camp? It's a documentary about evangelical bible camps for kiddies. And it's scary as hell. Unless you hail from that particular breed of religious fervour, in which case it is inspiring and moving. Jacoby argues that in our young nation, people turned increasingly towards religion on the frontier and in times of slavery because it offered hope of eternal salvation and an escape from raging prarie storms, attacks by native Americans, bondage, you name it. They didn't have time or use for scientific knowledge or philosophical reasoning. What they did need was Jesus.
Broad generalizations are fun. Anyways. This necessity has oozed into present day and evolved into quite intellectual persons seeking desperately to validate their beliefs, which I restate- are rooted in an emotional need to rely upon a higher being. Parents teach their children unfailing faith in the man in the sky and the kiddos grow up reliant upon that faith. Then they go to school, and learn how to defend their beliefs. The last stage of this circle of life involves enlightening others as to matters such as the earth's age: (6,000 years old), Christ's divinity (he was totally the Lord and Saviour, not some dude off the street), and the coming of the rapture (fire and brimstone ensue). It kind of sucks that emotional tendencies get intertwined so irrevocably with unbiased science, but it does make for interesting essay writing.


...

Evaluation of Self #1

From drafts 1-3 I didn't learn a whole lot more than I did in my freshman English class in high school or my sophomore one or English 1A etc. I hate to be blatant because I feel like this is supposed to be more of a reflection upon the glorious awakening and educational experience that was bestowed upon me by the writing of this essay, but eh.

For what I did learn: as per usual, I need to actually start putting time into my writing, besides an hour before it's due whilst (is that even a word?) pondering the possibility of injecting caffeine intravenously. What I'm glad about and what I took away from this writing process was that the subjects in this class are infinitely more interesting and thereby inspiring to actually writing about. So when I say I need to put more time/effort into the writing process, it's actually plausible that I will.

What I took from lectures to apply to this essay: information about the banking concept. I didn't know there were people out there who had written essays about how I have felt my entire life about learning. School has always been enjoyable and I love learning, but all I do is learn how to work the system, listen to what teachers say, learn what they want, yak it out again in different words and maybe get a B thrown my way for it. It's pretty sick. Bad sick, not good sick. I have no idea what my word count so I'm gonna stop this diatribe now.

You've failed me Anderson Cooper.

Mmmmmkay. This is unrelated to English 1C. But maybe that class sparked a little flame-o-thought in my otherwise vapid mind thus I shall blog about it. Sorry if it's more colourful than is kosher for a school blawg.

Okay. Mass media.
Me thinks... it's BULLSHIT.

They're reliant on Neilsen's ratings just as much as The Hills and CSI. What they report is pure entertainment and sensationalized, biased 'reportings'. It's uninformative, pointless and serves no other purpose than to sedate your little minds from infinitely larger problems. It's censored and it's keeping you in your little mental box, which is probably what we should fear the most.

You wanna tango with me and tell me of how enlightened you are cause you keep up with CNN/Fox News/the Daily Show, I invite you to. But in all actuality, you're not informed worth shit. I'm going to do a research project and report my findings. Stay tuned.