Do as I Do

I remember going through that phase during and right after college, where I thought that all conversation had to be meaningful and intellectual. I would sit around with friends for hours and hours talking about politics and the wonderful aspects of socialism...and to what avail? Well, I guess I now know where I stand on most issues (we covered a lot of ground in six years), but the only real thing to come of it was my complete lack of interest regarding anything having to do with the society, which surrounds me. Do I really want to sit around for hours trying to figure out why this group is a certain way and how, as a community, we can "fix them"? No way. I guess I've just come to believe that all we can do, "as a community (insert moviephone voice)" to help along some kind of rehabilitation is to follow the old proverb of "love thy neighbor". Am I still going to be crapped on by society? Yes. Absolutely. But, the way I see it, people change when they want to. You cannot persuade anyone to change their core beliefs through some sort of diplomacy or policy - please. People are and always have been led by example. It's like guiding a child - if they grow up thinking it's okay to run around naked, they'll continue to do so well into adulthood...wait...I guess they're called nudists. Hmmm...well, you get my point, I hope.

Top Ten

The Following are the top ten songs of 2006 (in my opinion, of course). They are in no specific order - LISTEN TO THEM ALL!

1. Beirut - "Rhineland"
2. Camera Obscure - "Let's Get Out of This Country"
3. Rock Votolato - "White Daisy Passing"
4. The Flaming Lips - "Mr. Ambulnce Driver"
5. Neko Case - "Star Witness"
6. Lily Allen - "Littlest Things"
7. MIKA - "Grace Kelley"
8. Golden Smog - "Long Time Ago"
9. Au Revoir Simone - "Through the Backyards"
10. Bob Dylan - "Spirit on the Water"

Truth

I have been wondering a lot about God lately. Not his existence, but more what a relationship with him entails. My last semester at SNU (whoo!), I took a class called Spiritual Devotional Classics. We read famous spiritual classics regarding "the dark night of the soul" and "interial castle(s)". I learned so much from that class about what a believer really is that for the first time ever, I feel like I am in a wonderful place. The problem I am running into, however, is the adjustment that I apparently need to make between my new world and the habits of the old. It might seem like something very simple and a situation easily solved, but it's not. It's very hard to figure out how much of what I believe is constricted by what I have grown up to understand as christian fundamentals and how to mold that with what I really feel to be true. All I know is - Gods love transcends any human understanding. All he asks is that I love him and others more than myself. I think I can do that. All I need to figure out now is what the loving him entails - love is more than words right? It's actions...so I guess when I figure out what the plan is, I'll let you all know.

The Bachelor

Yes. I am writing about the crappy television show, which sucks so many of the female race into its fly trap every Monday night, that even I cannot help flipping the station to the madness. It has a strange hold over me. No matter how badly I talk about the show, I can't stop watching it. It's sort of like a bad car crash that you stare at as you pass, secretly hoping to see a little blood on the asphalt. OOOOh, is that too much honesty? Ah, well. The logical part of me sees the show for what it is; the glorification of the misogynistic condition of the American dating tradition. BUT, I also want to believe in love. I wish I could blame it on the fact that I'm a girl, but that just perpetuates the problem, doesn't it? So, I am forced to blame it on the fact that I have a melancholy temperament and I refuse to not believe in the hope of all things. Anyhow, this is a cry for help from me to you...PLEASE HELP ME KICK THE BACHELOR!

Twilight

The best part of the day is that hour or so before sunset. Even if it is a bit hot still, the coolness of the shade in my backyard casts an otherworldly glow about the place. Last night, I walked out and sat in the hammock at the yard's edge and slowly rocked. Lying down, with my face to the sky, I saw the leaves at the very top sway back and forth and was reminded of what my Dad had said just the afternoon before. He said he always wondered at the trees. How could something so slight as the very tallest and thickest of tree trunks hold up all that height and weight. "It is amazing to behold," he said.
It is so easy to forget one's place in the wheel of it all. Things (bad and good) are always passing us by. We have learned to just grin and bare it all to the point we are too busy holding our breath that it just slips through our fingers like sand. We become stationary, believing it will bring us strength. But in the end, we have allowed society's lobotomy to render us weak.

I think I might give myself a heart attack

Well, I woke up today to find that the emails I had sent out to Fox News, CNN and a few friends at the Green Party had all definitely had the impact I had expected. For instance, not only did I receive the posts that they had all been opened, and presumably read, but I received nonsense emails back from the sources of our admired media. Mr. Hannity's producer said he had wanted to read my rant on his show, but I had been a little hard on some conservative leaders in U.S. politics. The press manager for CNN told me my letter was "well-written and clear to a point, but" I had apparently pissed them off because I pulvarized a few too many liberal congressmen. Okay, I ask you - how easy of a target is a politician who hides bribe money in his freezer under the guise that it's a lasagna. I mean, how many men do you know make homemade lasagna just for themselves, let alone know how to make it. Whatever. I guess my essay will be published in a Green newsletter, so that's good. It's just so frustrating to write what you feel and know to be true and then have it ho hummed. I am so sorry they didn't like to hear the truth. Everyone knows that politicians in general are shady and totally corrupted and pathetic. And why is this so? Why? Because they are a product of our society. We, as a group, are sad and a complete waste. I just wonder why people have given up trying to find the truth. More so, why have we as a society given up the standards that we proclaim to believe in? Black is black and white is white, but we forget that gray is still gray. It doesn't take on different definitions of being, simply because it is a blend of the two main colors. Gray doesn't mean - go with the flow.

a soldier's response