Something Few Will Read

A man died today.
As he opened the gates at a Wal-Mart on Long Island, he was trampled to death by a crowd of Black Friday shoppers.

There are many ways that someone could react to this.

First, there is disgust.
I want to be disgusted. I want to be angry. I want to be justified in my hatred for those ignorant and greedy consumers who - even after they realized what had happened - did not want to stop shopping. Those people so focused on all the things, things, things that they had to buy for their parents, their children, their brothers, sisters, cousins, lovers.....all at discount prices, holiday specials, once-in-a-lifetime-deals.....that a life outside of their little world could not even register on their radar.

Are the shoppers evil people?
No, probably not. But they are blind and they are careless.
They are products. We all are.

We can't help but be influenced by the world in which we live.
TV, Radio, Internet, Blogs, Forums, Movies, News, Games, Cellphones...
The-next-big-thing.....the millennium of money....Cool America.
The more we expose ourselves to it and the harder we try to understand it only helps us to control how we personally choose to survive in it.
It's easy to make someone angry, it's very hard to make them fix the reasons for it.
Very few of us can truly change anything. We don't even know where to begin. No one person can change it on their own. No - it would take a force to change people - an industry with advertisements covering the cities reading:

"THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT, MORE BEAUTIFUL,
AND MORE TERRIBLE THINGS IN LIFE THAN THIS."

But we forget, especially around the holidays, that while people may be ultimately good - we are much more complicated creatures than that. We love being important, being the best, being loved, and being wanted. The world we live in today tells us that we can be all those things with just the right gift. We don't see this as a bad thing, we're giving someone else a present after all - but that's how the cycle begins. That's how a man's life becomes so much less important than getting that damn man-made-whatever that so-and-so has always, always wanted.

I'm not saying that we should burn (or better yet, recycle) all our material goods and create a socialism state of peace, love, and home-grown vegetables. But we should do something - what can we do?

Maybe all we can do is just care about each other a little more, and our own egos a little less.

Happy Holidays.

Old Things

I used to love, really love, old things.
But now I just don't see them in the same way anymore.
They're destructible.
I guess the fact that they've stood for all this time is one accomplishment. They're strong, or lucky.
So maybe there's still charm left there after all.

No Witnesses

How many people die each day.
Everyday.
People I don't know. People I might not even have liked.
People no great amount of people will ever remember.
Maybe two, three tops until they die too, of course.
But it all goes on. It's nothing personal. Nothing to get too offended about. It's just how it is. If everyone were famous - no one would be famous. All we can do to stop death is to manufacture more life. Seek permanence in books, art, industry, children. Maybe money isn't the root of all evil - maybe life is.

Everything must belong somewhere.

Step outside and take a look.

Somewhere out in America, it's starting to rain. Can you tell me one thing you will remember about me?

* I reference songs a lot, if you hadn't noticed *

I'm one of those thousands of people out there. I belong here in the world. Another face, a tourist's passover shot with a hand held camera. I'm an american. The people on this bus. The expanding world outside and beyond. Blips. Beautiful, colorful, momentary blips.

The world requires no audience. No witnesses. No witnesses.

I am just so much.

What if I were to be suddenly diagnosed? What if this bus crashes, or aliens invade the earth? Will I be able to live with my own death? As long as I keep writing, keep believing, I think I can. I can survive my own death. And so, I am everyone I write about. Everyone I write for. Heroes and strangers and friends - together we will all live forever through letters.

America

By the look of the number of people on the bus I get on, I can't help but think I'm going to nowhere anyone wants to be.

I started to think that I really lost sight of what was really the whole purpose of going to college. The whole process of growing up and becoming an adult - I took for granted all my moments of strength and maturity, forgetting that there's more to life than rules and pretty phrases. I've been a brat. Good adults know that everyone has pain. That these boundaries aren't as solid as we think, on either side. I need to remember my dignity. My powers and my weaknesses equally, and to just sit back and enjoy.

"I was walkin'.... all by myself"

Pride in Independence.
I think that's why Boston calls to me. I can be more independant there. More focused and free. More alive.

A fog of grime is coating the world outside the bus windows.

If I could do anything, I think I'd like to be a traveling writer. Document today's America. Maybe I could assemble a documentary crew, and we'll spend years going from town to town. My role would be to write all the narration. We'd take turns driving.
Visit towns, interview people. Always be nonthreatening, a blank slate for them to write on. For us to document on camera. Subcultures. Landscapes. Expose poverty and pollution. Show the faces behind the polls.

What is America? Modern America
And what we found there....