abadexample

Today's Sociology class is a product of a multitude of factors. When asked how the Sheriff's Department could save money, students in my class replied that the Dept. should cut administrative salaries because the police on the street "do all the real work." What about those administrative workers and their families? Families that were probably planned around the salaries they are now earning. There are many different facets of running a police station that make the administrative employees just as valuable as the police officers. I bet if any of the students in my class held an administrative position at the Sheriff's Dept., they would be "lobbying" to cut policeman salaries. Secondly, we previously discussed in class the diets of the inmates, such as bologna sandwiches, milk, and an orange if they are lucky. The students voted that these "luxury" food items should be taken away. When I was in jail, eating this food, I was always sick. When I was released from jail, I couldn't eat regular, rich food for about three weeks. Yet, this food is "too good" for people who have simply broken the law.

Last time I checked, everyone makes mistakes. We are still human beings that deserve respect, and I believe we should have compassion for one another. Are we not more than animals? Doesn't the pain of the human condition in itself deserve respect? It's like Colorado people {these are the ones IN COLLEGE} don't look at them as people at all. They are just statistics to them, as the dumbest woman I've ever met said in class. There's an idea in our society that life is all about serving the individual.

People simply don't care because the people that are suffering aren't them. I care about people even if they hate me and I hate them. I still wouldn't want them to be harmed. If I saw them on the side of the road, I would stop to help still. I am the same person no matter what other people do. I will still treat people the same way. These people will not destroy the compassion and the caring in my heart. I will not give in. There's a sense of common decency that has been steadily withering away over the last 50 years, and in certain states, like Colorado, it has reached an extreme. Further explanation ahead...

Set in a 1960's mental institution and and brimming with pitch perfect performances comes this classic drama based on a Ken Kesey novel.

R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is sent to a mental institution after a series of arrests for unruly conduct, among other indiscretions. While there, he rallies his fellow patients and inspires them to let loose, have a little fun, and forget about their problems, if only for the moment. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), on the other hand, is a strict disciplinarian, who sees McMurphy's morale boost as nothing but a challenge of her authority and a disruption of prescribed medical treatment. As these two clash, the audience is in for more than a few laughs and tears, as well as a heart-wrenching classic finale that will stay with you for years to come.

This film exposes the nature of mental institutions around the world and challenges us to really think about what goes on behind closed doors. When do the rights of the patients cease to exist? What constitutes violent and dangerous behavior when society is involved? How far should we go to minimize these risks? Should it sometimes be at the expense of good American citizens like you and I? Oddly enough, the movie asks more questions than it gave answers, but I think ultimately that was the intent: to spark debate, to motivate people into action..

The film swept the Academy Awards across the board, winning best picture, director (Milos Forman), lead actor (Nicholson), lead actress (Louise Fletcher), and screenplay.

The advancement of technology leads to a desensitized and alienated society, the likes of which we've never seen.

My life is at the ultimate crossroad. I have been running away from this desperate situation called life for a long time now. Too long. I have thrown everything away for a momentary escape. I keep wondering if people hope for a better future that will never come. I mean, even if they finish school to develop the talent they have, most of them will never get to use it. Not in the society we live in today. People that love art rarely find the confidence or the market to be an actual artist, so they settle for restoration. People that are good at sports, but not good enough, settle for coaching little league teams. Depressed and wondering what could have been if fate hadn't slapped them in the face. Our parents tell us a bold faced lie in that we can do whatever we want when we grow up. The best part of our lives is when we are young enough to still believe that. Young enough to still have faith that one day we will be happy. It disgusts me. The illusion is over. Time to punch the clock. Time to have kids that will face the same problems we do. Or worse. Definitely worse. The stupid people are breeding. The world will be a very different place by the time they are older. Think about how much has changed in society in the last 50-60 years. They took a classroom poll in the fifties and asked the schoolchildren what their biggest fears were. Their biggest fears turned out to be getting detention and not having any friends. Then the poll-takers asked the same question 50 years later. The middle-schoolers were worried about getting pregnant, being raped and murdered, being forced to drop out of school so they can take care of what was left of their families. Times have changed. They say that people have always thought that society has taken a turn for the worse and that "the end times" were near. People were always certain that the end was close, that life and the situations we are faced with could not get any worse. They were wrong. How much worse can it get? That is the one question I refuse to think about. I'll just punch the clock like everyone else and hope for a better future without taking steps to make that happen. And the few that do take those steps for a better tomorrow are ridiculed and laughed at. People today care more about homeless animals than homeless people. I have seen this for myself. I guess the kittens are cuter than the hobos, but that's no excuse. Wake up, people! Can you? Is it too late? Some say....

There's no need to be afraid, folks. I believe that everything happens for a reason, but not for reason there's some omniscient presence, lurking in the clouds and judging us from afar. The fact of the matter is that the nature of all relationships on Planet Earth are based on cause and effect, even on the smallest of scales.
Every action you take or even thought that you have can have serious negative consequences, which lead to negative attitudes and sadly, unfulfilled lives.
This problem arises, especially in the U.S., because we are conditioned by media and television to never be happy with what we have; that there's always something to be bought that's better, or more importantly, that what we own defines who we are as people.
It's difficult to think about how many of us out there share this problem. This schism in America is unfortunately the end product of our capitalistic society, although a proportional amount can be attributed to the advancement of technology and the subsequent alienation of a large percentage of youths and young adults, both from their families and their communities.

Bleh.

Sid.

Nathaniel Steadman was exhausted, and as he sprawled out on the bed, he questioned the meaning of his lowly existence. So many things in his life had gone wrong in such a short amount of time. His wife, Amy, just a day earlier, had filed the papers for divorce. When he asked why, she replied," I've just realized how completely inadequate you are as a husband."
"Is it any one thing?", he asked.
"No, people just change, Nat, and their needs change with them."
"What about the kids?"
"I'm taking them with me. You aren't much of a father to them anyway."
Unfortunately, she was right. Over the course of the last few months, he had been totally consumed by his work. He held the office of head editor for the biggest news outlet in the state. At least a hundred people in the main building had been laid off in the last few months, so Nat and the few remaining editors had to take up the slack. This arrangement left little free time to spend with his family. And now, without warning and apparently without sign, she and the kids would be out of his life forever.
After a while of contemplating the next step to take, and not coming up with anything substantial, he got up and poured himself a drink. He usually didn't drink much, but he figured now was as good a time as any.
As he knocked down a few J&B's, he started to contemplate going on with his life at all. He wasn't particularly a religious man, so he had no fear of eternal damnation. He had concluded a long time ago that the things of the supernatural held no ground in rational thought. He took a moment to consider how his untimely demise would affect those around him; he supposed the only thing that would really change would be that Bill, his errand boy/assistant editor, wouldn't have to spring for his lunch anymore (Nat insisted that by covering his lunch expenses, Bill would put himself first in the running for a promotion). He surmised that, in the event of his death, the effect on the world would be minor, if there was one at all. Someone would replace him, just as he had replaced his predecessor. The world would keep moving, soon to forget, that is, if they recalled him in the first place. He had nothing to live for. Everything that mattered had just walked out the door.
He made his way downstairs to the fridge, all the while contemplating the various ways in which he could set about his self destruction. As he walked through the hallway, glancing at pictures of things that once were, he realized that without the love that tied him to those things, their meaning ceased to exist.
He reasoned there would be limited ways to go about his plan, being that he kept potentially toxic medications out of the house for fear that the kids would discover them and ingest them without discretion. Also, he sickened at the sight of blood, ever since his youth, when he witnessed one of his classmate's legs overrun by a truck. It was a truly grisly scene, and the thought of the boy's blood running along the cracks of the pavement was permanently seared in his mind. A quick death by pistol was also out of the question, for he immensely disliked guns and the chaos that they left in their wake. He didn't want to imagine someone cleaning that kind of a mess up anyway, for as erratic and unstable as his mind was, he still thought himself a considerate person.
It seemed to him the only other option available was hanging, ...more to come later.

So, there I was, stuck in a monotonous school of social dropouts and worthless pissants, hanging out with myself, sauced most of the time on some sort of ridiculously cheap alcohol, waiting for something....anything...a change.
Come Christmas Break. Three weeks of freedom, the only true freedom I would have until the rest of my school days were done. So, as soon as the presents were so quickly unwrapped, the annual Scrabble game played out, cookies eaten by the dozen, dozens of pounds gained, and people were blamed for things they didn't do, I decided I could wait no longer. So uncontrollably compulsive was this need for a change that at the first opportunity I was on the road, going to Oregon, as my previously mentioned friend "Felon Helton" was living there for free and partying all the time.
I came upon the highway so quickly I hadn't thought to check the weather report. As I hit the Idaho border, the snow came down in sheets and everyone seemed to lose control at the same time. A man swerved away from a snow drift and flew over a fence, his engine compartment impaling a stump jutting out of the ditch. Street signs were invisible, the only thing in sight swerving brake lights ahead. I stopped slowly to regain my bearings and desperately looked for a hotel only to be struck by a couple of idiots with their lights turned off.
I exchanged unpleasantness with them for a minute, the discussion almost turning into a brawl if it wasn't for the fact that we couldn't make each other out in the snow, our outlines erased constantly by the surging drifts.
"Who calls the cops?! Just tell me where I can get a room!!", I said.
"The......other.......side....town...!!!"
I would have to make my way through a labyrinth of a backwoods town in the middle of the biggest blizzard that town had seen in 30 years. Body numb, brain in survival mode, I wrapped myself in a few layers of clothing and got in my car. After hours of searching and scraping by people and seeing one fender bender after another, I saw a Hampton Inn sign in the distance. The cost for a room ran a cool $145. I thought it was strange that in this tiny town of maybe 1,000 people you would think there would be a Mom and Pop "Bates" type motel to stay in, but I wasn't so lucky. Later that night, restless and drunk on some Grey Goose I decided to splurge on I started talking to random people in the hall, trying to get something going, but as soon as things were coming together for a night to remember, the Forrest Gump-esque security guard came and broke up our little Xbox 360 party we had going on. I felt sorry for the guy, breaking up parties for a living. And what kind of life is that? I ended up sleeping an hour and getting a wake up call I didn't ask for by someone that didn't speak good english, and after not realizing he didn't speak english for a long minute or two, I decided to completely embarrass myself by desecrating their continental breakfast I paid way too much for. It was unholy. More to come later....

The circumstances I have surrounded myself with in the last couple of years are all my own fault. When I thought I was living my life to the fullest, I was actually shortening it. All those other people who degrade themselves and get away with it sicken me. Do they really get away with it? Something tells me that if people walk away from car accidents and plane crashes, then I'm sure some people tear their lives apart temporarily and emerge unscathed. Unfortunately, I was not that lucky. So, now that I've realized my former interests in life really hold no other significance than to placate me until my days are done, I have taken to analyzing my life in that redneck, emotionally stunted way I have been taught.
This has led me to reconsider religion, something I have recently lost. Well, more like faith. How can you have faith in something that really has no direct influence in your life? I can't honestly sit here and rationalize that every good thing that happens to me came from some ultimate source, and every negative instance something that I brought upon myself. Some of the major occurrences in my life are obviously my own fault, but some I would surely like to blame on circumstance, bad luck, whatever.
My upbringing in Christianity and my lack of faith in it has convinced me that I will go to hell when I die. So basically my upbringing and my use of rational thought has led me to dwell on the fact that not only do most of us have to suffer our whole lives with rejection, with dead end jobs and irrevocable bad decisions that cost us great opportunities, but then when those mistakes finally strike us down, we have the privilege of burning in an ETERNAL hell-flame for the rest of ETERNITY. ETERNITY!, something the human mind cannot comprehend, so even if I try to imagine how horrible it will be, I can't. There is no release. Sorry doesn't cut it. Apparently in God's eyes, all the negative things we do and get involved in during our "flicker of an eye" is SO FUCKING SIGNIFICANT THAT WE BURN FOR A FUCKING ETERNITY! I can't believe this, but my upbringing and my obsessive disposition won't allow me to dismiss it.
So now, to relieve some of the stress from my recent "diagnosis", I have contemplated turning Buddhist yet again. Maybe I'm naive to think that a change of religion should improve my situation, but I have to do something. I can't live like this forever. I need something.

Oh yeah, by the way, I just learned that the degree I will attain in a year's time doesn't really mean too much without some kind of experience, and since there really aren't any shops that hire without some kind of experience, I'm fucked. I've realized that people in general are mostly living for another day, a moment of perfect happiness that will sadly never come. This is the human dilemma. The point I'm trying to make in this incoherent jumble of words is that I really have nothing to look forward to. No one really does. They think they do. But what do any of us really know? We've created systems and hypothesis for explaining the world around us. But think where we've come from, spears and freakin' rocks? I think our origins reflect the ignorance in us. People have that primeval urge to try to figure out the meaning of life, figure out where we came from and to try to explain the world. Well, in my humble opinion, which is just as meaningless as everyone else's, there really is no explanation. THAT is the dilemma. People are just in denial, just like they are about everything else. It keeps us "sane", but what does that even mean? That we are just like everyone else? That we don't cause a disturbance? Maybe "sanity" is the problem. If only humans could have a truly original thought, maybe something would change. Maybe not. Apathy is the only way to go. Therefore I go in the grace of nothing..

Trust me, I had a devilishly ingenious poem to put in place of this explanation, yet I don't have the confidence to actually put something out there. My life entails finding new excuses to stay put for as long as possible. Sometimes I wonder if insanity will strike before I take the initiative to move. It sways back and forth, especially with my one true outside motivation gone. Just seems like yesterday I had something to look forward to. Now I look on to graduating a menial school to enter a job in a field where the occupants on average can't spell their own names, much less want to talk about anything but tools.

I used to have more than one method of escape, but now it has been cut down to Music. The movies have been appropriated by the new "presence" in the house. We rented "Baby Mama", "Step Up 2 Da Streets 2", and something else not worth mentioning, because the new occupant doesn't see outside their own box. What did I expect?

Right now I'm knee deep in what they call "Indie" music, because I have all but exhausted every other genre just about in search of something thought provoking, moving, or at least fun to listen to. Sometimes you just want something new and brilliant, but NOT avant-garde! You KNOW? I DON'T WANT FUCKING NOISE! GIVE ME FUCKING POWER POP OR SOMETHING! I guess I might need some outside input that actually knows what the fuck they are talking about when it comes to these things, but they are at a short supply at the moment.

At this point in my wretched life, I am listening to:

The National - Boxer 7.5 out of 10 (I really wanted to love the shit out of this record)
Love the Baritone voice, maybe a Tom Waits wannabe? (Aren't we all?) Lyrics go bad near the end, don't you hate when you actually hear the moment they ran out of ideas? Overall a good listen.

Slint - Spiderland - 9.0 out of 10 Excellent, but definitely mood music. Love the hairpin sig changes, the monotonous drawl of implied impending doom, etc. Took me a couple of listens.
Stormy Night Shit.

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm - 8.0 out of 10 Kick ass Indie Brit-pop! Trite, Meaningless, nothing that hasn't been done before, but just plain fun. Sometimes you don't want to think so much, and just rock. This is it. Too bad this group couldn't come up with something worthwhile twice. Shame.

Arcade Fire - Funeral 9.0 out of 10 It took me FOREVER to get into this album. I just didn't get it, and then all the sudden, I knew the words, and loved the atmosphere, again with the impending doom themes, only this time put to anthems we can all learn to appreciate. Took a while to get used to the innocent/flailing vocals, but well worth it. Hope Neon Bible is half as good.

U.N.K.L.E. - Psyence Fiction 8.5 out of 10 - Offbeat, off kilter, should have been nowhere near accessible by the mainstream, but the help of a few special guests, among them Thom Yorke, this album is a rare gem anyone can love. You can't go wrong with DJ Shadow. Takes a couple of listens.


Classic Mini-Review:

Nick Drake - Pink Moon 10 out of 10 - Timeless classic folk album from one of the fathers of Autumnal Folk back in the day. Introverted, anti-social, gone before his time. Genius. Bleak as FUCK tho. Beware. Elliott Smith's inspiration.

I guess that's all for me. Love my tunes. I guess I might as well do this regularly, to keep myself busy. Hope someone gets something out of this sometime. I have nothing clever to say, so fuck you.



Sid

Sometimes I feel like the walls of my reality are closing in on me. Not in a manic depressive sort of way, but with regards to my ineptitude to deal with sudden change. At least I am wholly certain that my emotional and intellectual circumstance has taken a complete about face from last year and beyond, when I was but a shell of a man, continuing to take breath solely for the purpose of catatonia, to be numb like all those other fools that are unable to deal with the rigors of modern life.

I suppose I still am a shell of a man, just like the rest of us are, the majority of us, anyway. The trouble with our current society, and actually most societies in the history of the world, is that people are so completely preoccupied with social status, trivialities in pop-culture, and misplaced religious zealotry to ever become aware of the horrors and the injustices that encompass every facet of our jaded lives. I say this being fully aware that even though I would like to think of myself as informed, culturally and economically aware of the world around me, I know that I have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg. Basically the point I am trying to make is that when I try to point out these injustices, or share seemingly common knowledge of any sort with my classmates, I am singled out because of their ignorance. Although this shouldn't shock me, my time in solitude this year has conditioned me to assume that people share my consciousness of the iniquities of the outside world, may it be through newpapers, the independent paper, discussions with friends, parents, etc.

The fact is that people around me are more concerned with spinners, or the new rap cd that just hit the stores about Navigators and Bitches and Hoes. They sit in class and talk about what a chore it is to be such a young parent, the next thing out of their mouths being how inebriated they were just the night before. It's repulsively apparent that when it comes to sexual relations, they have never given a second thought to birth control or condoms, or the possibility of the repercussions of raising a child in today's society, especially while continually not of sound mind. I really do feel sorry for all those children being raised by children. More to come up top. I'm tired of intelligence, cognizance, this whole disposition.

I wonder sometimes how people deal with it their entire lives? God forbid they shut themselves off from this dim society for some quiet and personal growth, without being shunned and hated and misunderstood by the world around them for fear of the unknown. It gives me a putrid feeling in my stomach to think about how people treat people they have no hope of ever understanding, sometimes making an ignorant example for other morons to follow. IM DONE. I DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT PUNCTUATION. FUCK GRAMMAR.

Sid.