Relationships and Other Thoughts

Backstory:  I was driving around today–pretty happy with myself for landing a date this evening–listening to music.  I was deciding whether or not to put music on this evening just as background noise–you know, filler.  Something to take away the awkward silences that will naturally occur as you try and formulate questions to ask the other person.

Whoa!!! How many of you said to yourself, “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” or “Yeah, I’ve done that.”  Well maybe I am masochistic, but I got to thinking about it.  I started thinking about how “fake” of an idea it was to put music on in the background to set the mood or act as a carry over.  If you can’t talk to the person with out awkward silences, then where is that relationship going?

You don’t even have to look at it from a male/female-dating-because-I’m-interested-in-you-relationship standpiont.  I started thinking about the music in the background when my sister and I are going places.  I know she want’s the radio on so she doesn’t have to talk as much–so there isn’t the awkward silence between us.  What kind of relationship is that?  Where one family member can’t talk to another.  We’re supposed to be close–flesh and blood.

I didn’t turn on the radio for the date.  And later in the evening when I picked my sister up, I didn’t turn on the radio then either.  There were awkward pauses, and one big quiet stretch with my sister.  But I tried to fill them to the best of my ability.

Just think about it.

I also thought about stuff like make up and hair gel. Fake.

Whatever.  I had a nice time on my date.

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Other thoughts on today.  Confidence.  Get some.  I was brimming with it earlier and am pretty physced about that too.  I was talking with a girl this evening (not my date) about school and how I was taking classes in what I wanted to learn.  She said I was lucky–yes and no.  Yes because I have the flexibility to take whatever I want to learn, no because I have no direction in the eyes of society.

But that made me think also–she said that her schedule was too tight to take extra classes; earlier I heard someone say that school X had a very rigid schedule–why do we commit ourselves to things that we don’t want to do?  I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up–at least not totally.  I know things I am going to have to do, but I would like to learn in a variety of areas–after I do that maybe I can focus.  It just doesn’t seem logical to come out of high school and commit yourself to a program so rigid and focused that you don’t get anything but what society designed for you.

What if that isn’t you?  Who would you have been if you questioned your decided path? Or made your own?  I am paying the money for school, shouldn’t I be able to choose what I want to learn?  You can’t tell me that they won’t accept my money indefinitely.  Be it 4 years or 6 til I graduate, what do they care?  I may drive their statistics in some strange direction, but I pay them.

Am I lucky?  I don’t think it’s luck.  I think it’s concious choice, voluntary action.  No more of this “go to school so you can get a good job” that they pump into you from the 2nd grade.  What is a good job?  One that you suffered four or more years for?  One that you may not enjoy but are in it because you will have to support a family?

I have to do it differently.  I always walked parallel to the norm, and now it is my norm.

Listen to Kanye West’s “School Spirit” song and skit lyrics.  It puts some insight on life.

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[00:09] *** Auto-response from : Wanting to be someone you’re not is a waste of the person you are.
[00:09] pyrosarco: sorry i got wrapped up in a blog post
[00:09] pyrosarco: and i disagree with your away message
[00:10] pyrosarco: if you look at it from the point of actually aquiring the person’s life like me becoming kanye west or someone like that, then yes, it is a waste of the person i am
[00:10] pyrosarco: but i have the choice to change my actions and then change my person.

Parking Space Society: Park Where YOU Want

I do my best thinking while watching TV, or so I think.  I was watching Desperate Housewives last night–don’t laugh at me–when I was hit with the concept of the “parking space society” as I call it.  I was also receiving some mental stimulation from The Long Winters, which are a band.  I was struggling with the fact that I am supposed to get a job so I can earn money and pay for things.  However, I am not qualified for most jobs–having not completed much of college, I have very little in the line of marketable skills.  This means that any job I will get, will probably be boring, monotonous, and not too my liking.  Back to the parking space society thougth.

Eva Longoria on Desperate Housewives has been burdened with her newly blind husband.  With out getting into too much back story, she is used to being rich and getting her way all the time.  However, now she is poor and has to tend to her husbands most basic needs because he can no longer see.  One day she decides to take him on her errands.  She visits this place and that place leaving him in the car on the premise that she will be right back and can do things faster than he can because he is blind.  After this situation reoccurs about three times, he gets bored just sitting in the car and wanders off; asking some kid to take him to get some food.  When Eva Longoria comes out to find her husband gone, she freaks.  Then as soon as she finds him, someone starts harassing her about parking in a handicapped spot.  She clearly isn’t, but she says it is for her husband.  At this point her husband starts to reprimand her.  In return she says she is poor, incredably busy, and has a blind husband to take care of.  If she can get a handicapped parking spot because of that, she is going to take it.

My point is not to go get yourself a handicapped parking voucher, but to look into this situation.  Do you see the parking space society?  Everyone is supposed to fit into a standard square.  People who are different get the better spaces, whether it be that they are handicapped, rich, famous, or have just been at a company for a long time and now have a space near the door.  Whatever it may be, I don’t like it.  I don’t like the concept that we as a society should all fit into the same space.  We are channeled and driven towards a common goal–to make money for a company.  Why?  Why would I want to spend my time working for something that is not going to recognize me?  Why should I conform to a society where I park in a rectangle, buy my food at a grocery store, listen to the popular music and wear the fashionable clothes?

On a personal note, I don’t want a job that requires me to do the same things over and over again.  A job that is constraining is not beneficial to either myself or whatever company I will inevitably have to work for.  I will not do my best work in a forced, focused, path.  For me a job needs to do for things:

1. A job should teach you something new; constantly.
2. A job should let you earn money.
3. A job should constantly change environments; this promotes the first thought.
4. A job should be fun; if you don’t enjoy it, it’s not worth having.

Therefore, I urge you not to give into this parking space society.  Challenge the norm and do not conform completely to the ways of the system or you will be lost in it.  If you find yourself already lost in the system, make a plan to get out, or at least partially remove yourself.  Back out, pull out, push the cars, out of the way, do whatever you have to, so you don’t become trapped in the parking space society.  Park where you want.