Monday, July 26, 2004

Stuff that's supposed to be cute

Sometimes I just can't stand the stuff that's supposed to be cute. Like the commercials where the little kid pours cereal and the bowl overflows onto the floor, and then he does the same thing with the milk. I mean come on. Not only is it an appeal to people's sense of cuteness, which I really don't like because it has nothing to do with how good the cereal really is, but it's been done way too much. First of all, nobody's going to say, "Hey, everybody: Look how good this cereal is. It's tastes so great, that cute little kid just spilled some all over the floor. I can't wait to pour me a bowl. Maybe I'll end up pouring a bunch of it all over the floor, too." And secondly, if you're going to advertise, be original. I know it's hard nowadays, since most of the good stuff has already been done, but I think it's possible, and I just can't stand to watch one more kid spill some crap all over the floor, be it cereal, milk, orange juice, beer... Oh wait, that would be a cool one. I'd like to see a kid open a bottle of beer and try and pour it into a cold glass and spill it all over the floor, cause that would be different and really rather funny. But no milk. No orange juice. No cereal. No potato chips. None of that crap. Okay. Enough about cute stuff. Well, just one more thing. I know those things are supposed to be cute, because it's a little kid trying to do a grown-up thing that it can't really do, but it ruins it for me thinking of the reality, that some mom is actually going to come along and see the mess on the floor, reprimand the kid, sigh, and have to clean it all up. Once reality sets in, it's no longer cute. It's reality, and it sucks, because the little rascal made a big mess. Okay. That's it.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Cheers - Where everybody knows your name

I was watching a few minutes of the show, Cheers. It was right at the beginning, people were sitting around talking, listening to some songs and having memories spring up. Some funny things were said, and then the theme song came on. The one about how sometimes you just want to go where everybody knows your name. I've been thinking about my options in life. It just seems like anything a person could possibly imagine wanting to do costs money. If someone wants a better career, it would take more schooling, which is expensive. And more schooling doesn't necessarily ensure a better income. It's only a step, after which more steps must be taken. And those steps will also probably cost money. And this, among a whole bunch of other factors, just makes life problematic. And I just stop to wonder what it is I want out of life. Do I just want to go some place where people know me? Where I can talk to them about drab, everyday crap and feel okay about life for a couple hours? I have too much of an imagination for that, I think. I can't think that the mundane hours of every day are what I live for. But what if my life is only mundane. What if I never experience the adventure there is in life? It strikes me that there are people in the world, many of them, who have settled for the basics of life - food, sleep, work - and they are not HORRIFIED. The thought of living out their whole entire lives without experiencing something amazing does not terrify people, and that I cannot understand. But how do I keep from getting tripped up and stifled by the 'problematic' things of the world. Money issues, relationships, jobs, debts... money issues. Ugh. To think there are people in this world who love money, and live for it. How can they not find it disgusting? Isn't it strange? Isn't it??? So anyway, back to the issue I meant to discuss. What is important in this life! What is it I want? It seems like I know a lot more about what I don't want than about what I do want. I know I don't want to be in my current job in 3 years. I know I don't really want to be single in 5 years. I know I don't want to fail. In life. But what is it I'm trying to accomplish. One of my managers, at a recent employee meeting, claimed that if you didn't have goals, you didn't have a life. Then he proceeded to laud his own goal of making our restaurant number one in the region and among the top five in the country. WOO-HOO!!! I can't wait!! My life will finally be fulfilled!! The guy thinks he has a life because the restaurant he currently happens to work at, he WANTS to be number one? I agree that without goals, a person won't get much of anywhere. But everyone has instinctive goals that cause us all to act, get jobs, support ourselves. We all want to appear self-sufficient. We all want to make some money (because we all need to). Lot's of people want to be loved and to fall in love and all that. All of these are goals, and there's really no getting away from most of them. It's in the execution of the plan toward reaching those goals that we find what we're really made of. That's what determines whether we have a life. Not whether we want to be somewhere, but whether we get somewhere significant or not. I want to write a novel. But I have not yet finished a novel. As far as novel-writing goes, I do not have a life. I want to fall in love. I have not yet fallen in love with a woman who has fallen in love with me. As far as love is concerned, I do not have a life. Even if it's my goal. Even if I work toward achieving said goal. Okay. I'll get off that tirade for a while. I just don't really like a lot of that Goal-setting stuff, because I never end up where I want to be, anyway, and most other people don't either. Instead, they end up at some local bar, glad to have a place where they can go where everyone knows their name. But I don't know if I can or should be content with that. It seems to me that if one lived life extraordinarily, one will have extraordinary experiences. But maybe I should just hurry up and finish reading War and Peace, before that guy's fatalistic depressive perspective pervades all areas of my life. Okay. Time to read.

Monday, July 19, 2004

Disappointed

Sometimes I look at my life and I'm disappointed in myself. Like I should be doing more of something that's more important. Or I should be further along the path of where I want to go. I sometimes wonder if God has brought me to this point in life, because it's something I need to go through, or if I somehow rejected the best path, so God brought me here instead to bring me around a different way. I don't know. Most of the steps in my life, I've felt like I've been following God's direction as best I can. But how do I really know? How do I know that there isn't something better he's just waiting to reveal to me if I would just do that little something different.
Another little thing. You know those uncomfortable situations you get into, that you know could have been avoided if you were just careful, but you can't really get out of because you're a nice person. Like being around annoying people, and you can't just turn to the person and say, man, you annoy me, I'm outta here. You got yourself into the mess by asking the annoying person how they're doing, and even that you couldn't really help doing, because you're just friendly, or something like that? I hate that. How can a person avoid such situations and still be a nice person, or a social person. I remember this annoying girl who liked me and eventually I resorted to being rude and snippy to her all the time. I didn't know what else to do. She wouldn't leave me alone. And it wasn't a stalker situation, where I would not be all that uncomfortable saying, STOP Stalking me!!! But it was more like those hanging out with friends in college situations, and she would be there and just like hover around me and we'd all be walking, and I'd shuffle around among the group to get away from her and she'd just follow me, and it was driving me crazy. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO!!!! Okay, it was a long time ago, but the memories are horrific. That's all. Uncomfortable situations. It seems like people push for them though. It's like an ugly person always asking people if they look good. It's just a rule. Don't ASK people if you look good. It's alright to fish for compliments, but don't ask for them. You fish for compliments by saying things like, hmmm, I wonder how I would look in this. What do you think of this shirt? That way if the guy WANTS to compliment you, you've given him a chance to do so, but if he DOESN'T, you've made it easy for him to NOT LIE. Okay. Just a little thing. I'm not crazy.
Really, I'm not.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Girls

I would just like to point out that girls are the most frustrating creatures on the planet. Now, to be sure, men may often be frustrating to them, perhaps almost as well. But from my observation, male persons tend to be a bit more straightforward about how they feel. Girls, however refuse to be straight with people. Now before getting all mad at me for unjust comments, let me make a small disclaimer. There exist in the world some women and some men who do not fit the mold. That said, just let me generalize for a minute. A girl will smile at a guy one minute, you know, one of those sweet smiles that says there's something special about you and she really enjoys your company, and the next minute she'll completely ignore you, as if you didn't exist. A man on the other side, if he smiles in a way that says you're special, though he may not smile in a minute, he is much less likely to stop paying attention. So it just seems that a girl would have a much easier time knowing what to think about a guy. And if there is a girl who begs to argue otherwise, let me just tell her to pay a little more attention. A guy smiles and looks into your eyes as if he likes you, he most likely LIKES YOU. If he consistently faces the other way and acts like he's bored with talking to you, he's probably UNINTERESTED. He vascilates between the two, It's because he can't make up his mind. And if someone tells me that girls are in any way the same, then I must propose that I have never met a girl able to make up her mind. Well, no, I take that back. I've met girls who are uninterested, too. And maybe I haven't met a girl who is interested. Ugh. You're all making me depressed, with your impeccable arguments. No, I swear, I know of girls who have been interested in me. And usually, like a standard male, I have in such circumstances done my best to express my disinterest. Sad, I know. Anyway, still the most frustrating creatures ever.

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Plans never work

Life is strange to me, because from the entirety of my experience of it, as small as that may be, plans never, EVER, work out right in the execution of them. It perplexes me that this should be so. Why should well-intentioned and good plans be ruined by circumstance? Why should two lovers have their happiness destroyed by a moment of weakness? Why should a man's career be ruined by one fateful mistake? Why should many years of diplomacy be undermined by one man's lust for power? Wisdom is to never boast about what one is going to do as if it is already done, because truly, I've never seen it work out just as planned. That doesn't mean that it doesn't work out. But never as planned. But it still irks me. Why is it that when we want something good, it seems that life continually has a way of opposing us. And the more we work toward those aims, the more laborious our lives become, and it's just easier to give up and try and keep our minds occupied. It's easier to live each day the same, even though we may be wasting away. It's just easier to let life throw us whatever it will throw us. It's like a line in one of my favorite movies (Zero Effect), "If you look for something specific, your chances of finding it are very slim, because of all the things in the world, you're trying to find one of them. If you look for anything at all, your chances of finding it are really good, because of all the things in the world, you're sure to find some of them." Simple, yet ironical logic. I don't know if that's a perspective I should take to life, or somthing to disregard as not worth my time. Because perhaps, of all the things in the world it would only help me to find my keys, and it would not help me in the least to find a stapler. Or a paperweight. Or a piece of lint. Or an old shirt. But I don't know. Usually if I set out to find something specific, I have a reason for looking for it. But maybe I should reevaluate my reasons, and be content finding whatever I may find. This is all metaphorical for life circumstance, of course. I am not all that concerned at the moment with finding my keys, and if I were, I certainly wouldn't be putting much thought into whether I should be. But the things I desire in life, the things I strive for, should I go find what I I'm supposed to find? Or should I just go and find whatever may be there for the finding? Regardless, I don't know how to avoid wanting certain things over others. I don't know how to suppress or disregard or shrug off or forget about my passions and dreams and goals. But then is the pain that comes from them inevitable? Or will there always be a path open to us if we only persevere? Perhaps my dreams aren't the things that are right for me at all. I'm just confused. Ah, well. For now, I will keep living.