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| a 6-year-old girl going down a rusty slide, she was so giddy when she reached the ground she couldn't stop laughing, jumping in place and flapping her arms like a hummingbird all at the same time, aching to get back up again... jooji and i walk past her and then look at each other --the jealousy spilling out of our eyes-- and share one thought: "yup, those were the good ol' times"
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| i was watching civilian-shot footage of 9/11 the other day on the history channel and it left me brooding for a good couple of hours... i even kind of saw why people would be swayed by that bimbo palin's peremptory directive to never apologize... but then i thought about it a little more and came to my senses... what i mean is that though the attacks were not defensible in any way, that doesn't mean there was no rationale behind the anti-american sentiment that originated the schematics of that day by the taliban... after all, we couldn't be so naive as to believe that 100 years of capitalist imperialism and blind, unfettered privatization of other nations' livelihoods for our own gain would not come to bite us in the ass at some point... so that morning we got a wake-up call that in more ways than one made us acknowledge that profit isn't and can't be everything... that the aphorism "money makes the world go 'round" doesn't have to be true... that we don't have to look over our shoulder in cynicism but rather that we should lift each other up if we see someone dragging their feet... but then i look around today and somehow it seems we didn't learn anything (it certainly didn't help that the first thing we were told to do was to go shopping)... it's milton friedman circa 1962 all over again... the shareholder is king... it's all retchingly sickening if you ask me... after all, how can you be proud of a nation that values corporations over lives? that measures people on the thickness of their wallets rather than their character? do i really want to live somewhere where dollars are the fabric of society and not families and friends? where lending a helping hand is only a viable option when it doesn't hurt the bottom line? where the rich get richer and the poor... well, you know... maybe if these are the tenets of free-market capitalism and the founding principles of our nation, we should take a step back and rethink everything on the off chance that this greed-is-good lifestyle may not be worth our collective dysphoria... so what to do, what to do, what to do... i guess first things first, no? i should start by apologizing. | | |
| I'm 28 and this is what I've learned so far:
-Be nice; you won't get as far but you won't feel like a dick doing it
-Don't work too hard unless you enjoy it; otherwise it'll make you miserable
-Spend time doing charity once a month; it replenishes the soul
-Have a dog at all times; if your building doesn't allow one then move since you don't really want to live there
-Don't worry about money unless you're in danger of starving; it'll drive you mad
-Have good friends and spend as much time with them as you can; having people at your funeral is much more important than being able to afford it
-Travel; it provides perspective
-Fall head over heels for someone; you'll learn what true anticipation feels like
-Don't live in excess; it makes you lose sight of the things that are important
-During leisure, do only the things you like unless they interfere with the above; otherwise you're just wasting time
-Learn to enjoy the simple pleasures in life or you'll never be happy
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| Spring upon us, which means baseball is back in all its magnificence and glory... People puling over how many otiose hours are whittled down consuming the game... The inevitable grievance: why care so much about a red sox team that you have no stock in? Why die and live with every loss and every win when they have no bearing on your own life? My answer is simple: it's not about the team, it's about me. It's about how i feel. Because anyone who has ever been a fan knows what it's like to die and live for someone else. The highs and lows are intoxicating, retching and exhilarating all at the same time. People who are not fans and who have never played sports at a competitive level don't understand. Because once you give yourself entirely to fandom, the sensations are as addictive as the whitest powder, as life-changing as fighting the vilest war. Ultimately that's what fandom is: a war without the physical perils but with the emotional roller-coaster, able to roil away the ennui of the most tedious 9-6 existence. Sure, more often than not you'll end in dysphoria, dejection; that's just the nature of the beast when 30 teams vie for one title. But how to quit? Or for that matter, why quit? I mean, imagine having a kid and watching him or her hit in little league... You know there's a one in a billion chance he or she will become a ballplayer, it's a given that there will be more disappointment than glory, but is there a greater feeling than watching your own offspring hit a walk-off home run? Is there a more helpless feeling than watching him or her go through a slump? And are you getting more satisfaction from anything in this world than from watching him or her swing out of that slump? No, no and no. So you take the good with the bad because you know the few good moments are what shake you out of your everyday stupor. That's what being a fan is all about. Besides, it's either that or fighting in afghanistan. | | |
| i've been brooding lately about time and about how inefficient my usage is and how little benefit i derive from it (i've been frittering a lot of mine away recently)... somehow it has hit me how valuable, and how scarce and fickle it is... relative to money, for example, time is priceless, incomparable even... let me explain... i--like most people i know--can make money at any point in my life, no matter what the circumstances (probably not as much as i would like, but that's besides the point)... and if by some vicissitude of fortune i were to lose it all, my job and savings, my flat screen and my laptop, everything i own, i'd still be okay... after all, it's just money (for anyone who doubts that money is just money, i suggest you take a wad of cash and let it burn... see how satisfying that is)... in fact, i guarantee you that when i'm in my sixties (i refuse to live into my 70s and am planning to burn myself out in 3-4 years after i cash in my 401k at age 65 by indulging in every hedonistic practice known to man), i'll look back at my 20s and think, 'why the hell did i stress out about the triviality that is money? why didn't i take more vacations and work less weekends?' although for the record, i've never actually worked a weekend. sure, today i apprise my future self that there is rent to pay, a mouth to feed and precious pennies to be saved for rainy days, but i'm 99% certain that is all bullshit... money can be made anywhere anytime. but time, time is another animal... take for instance the act of murder... one measly premeditated murder can land you in jail for the rest of your life... that's 3 seconds (time it takes for you to draw a gun and shoot someone) translating into 40 years minimum... talk about a good rate of return... or it could happen the other way around--some crazy motherfucker could shoot you in the head and the rate of return would be the same... 40 years just vaporized as easy as one, two, bang! no ifs or buts... if you think about it, a murder or a lifelong sentence possibly constitute the most unfair trades of all time in terms of hours put in, and you don't even have a say in it.. and talking about trades, the thing with time is that you don't get second chances as in sports... in a basketball game you can screw up constantly and you'll still have the opportunity to make another shot... or grab another rebound (and you'll know when you'll run out of chances because there is a jumbotron telling you)... in baseball you get at least 3 at-bats with 3 strikes each every game and that's only when a pitcher is pitching lights-out (usually it's more like 5)... but in life you screw up once and you're screwed perhaps forever and you don't know when it's going to happen... that's why prisons and cemeteries are replete with criminals and corpses--very few people have the luxury of a redo... how cool would it be for me to run a ponzi scheme and be given 5 life sentences but then decide i'll just start over at nothing... or be on my death bed or in my case hopefully passed out at a strip club about to croak and just decide i want to switch it up and try someone else's life... but no, no, no.. time is a fickle, petty girlfriend you can't turn your back on. it's the only quantifiable thing that is worth keeping under your mattress because it's priceless, the most black and white thing that exists, the most unforgiving aspect of life in this planet, no legal loopholes, no extensions, no warp in the space-time continuum (that we know of) that can help us cheat it... all else is picayune and worthless in comparison. be happy.
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