Reason to the Madness

Life is crazy. Short and simple. Most of the time we bump along from one catastrophe to a financial crisis to a family fallout to an academic failure to a career blunder; on and on and on the list goes. When I talk to my friends and family, I find that on most occasions, they are doing their level best to hang on til everything blows over, to get through that day's or that week's struggle, to wait. Today I wondered...wait for what? For everything to get better? For all of your problems to go away, for the stress you are under to alleviate so that you can be happy, let loose, have some fun, enjoy your day? That's crap. Everything is never going to get better. Your problems aren't going anywhere. As soon as you fix one, another one comes. That's life; the process of learning from mistakes and growing as a person as you develop solution after solution to the problems life throws at you.

So what are you left with? Misery? Complacency? Monotony? It's entirely up to you. How you feel is a choice. I don't care how far off you are from finishing your mortgage, how close your daughter is to failing Freshman Comp, how miserable your job is or how put out you are that your Yorkshire Terrier keeps refusing to use the doggy door but instead prefers your new Persian rug. How you choose to view and respond to each and every incident in your life is your choice. Your co workers and friends and family that seem to be all smiles don't have less problems than you...they just choose not to let it get the best of them. Agreed, some problems are much bigger than others, but looking at the big picture here, if your unhappy, it's your fault. Hate to be blunt, know it's not exactly PC, but you have no one to blame but yourself. If there is something in your life making you unhappy and you have the power to change it but don't, it is no longer the obstacle's fault but rather your's. If you have no control over what is happening to you, then perception is everything.

I am, right now, at this moment, happier than I have ever been. Why? Because I choose to be. I wake up every day, sleepy, groggy, not exactly thrilled about 8 hours on my feet, frustrated about my finances, worried about the clunker of a car I have to rely on and concerned in general about all of the individuals that make up my rather large family. But I'm happy. I spent years waiting, on what I didn't know, but something. Something had to change, something had to get better. I was so indescribably miserable. I could never seem to get my head above water. For me it was always one thing right after another, with barely room to take a breath in between. Finally I was fed up. I ran out of patience with the backseat driver approach I had taken to my own life. I didn't gain anymore control over the unexpected, because no one can control that, but I could control how I felt and how I chose to react, and that has made all the difference.

Micromanagement

You know what makes me really happy? Micromanagement. What makes me really happy are managers and owners and co workers and professors who insist on micromanaging, but refuse to put in the face time necessary to implement all of their great, awesome, wonderful, one of a kind ideas. Go ahead, micro manage. Tell me what to do and how to do it. I like direction. I think that everyone could use a little more in most cases. Just don't have very specific ideas about the way that things should and will be done and then not only fail to be there to do it yourself, but refuse wholly to provide a list. UGH!

That is all.

The Fountain...or faucet or shower or puddle or whatever it was called.

I watched The Fountain for the first time last night and I have a few thoughts. For those of your who haven't seen it, The Fountain is an independent film that parallels the efforts of a conquistador to save his queen's life as she faces persecution by finding the Tree of Life with a surgeon who seeks to save his ill wife from dying by finding a cure for cancer. Both stories focus on the results of the conquistador's and the husband's futile attempts to save the queen/wife. The story of the conquistador was written by the dying wife, all save the last chapter, which she leaves to the husband to write. Now, in the book, The Fountain, all things parallel exactly with their realistic narrative counterparts, save the ending. The husband, in his failed attempt to save his wife, manages to find the secret to immortality and lives forever. He writes the ending of the book so that the conquistador, after finding the Tree of Life, is killed by the absorption of its life giving sap into the wound that was about to kill him. The conquistador was killed by his discovery, where as the surgeon became immortal thanks to his. In the ending, as the conquistador went to place the ring on his finger, signifying his union with the queen as a result of his find, the sap began to kill him. Enigmatically, the instant the surgeon finds out that the experimental drug he has been working on can save his wife, she dies. While writing her book, the wife mentions to her husband her fascination with the idea of death as a means of creation, stemming from the belief that the Tree of Life came from the sacrifice of the First Father according to Mayan legend. The husband, in turn, when writing the ending to her book, kills the conquistador with the Tree of Life, thereby using creation as a means of death. The conquistador's body becomes a bloom of the Tree of Life, which is vastly significant as well as the wife says that she once spoke to a Mayan who said that seeds for a tree were buried above his fathers grave and that his father became part of that tree; the tree was "his road to awe." Hearing this, the husband ends the novella by turning the conquistador into a bloom of the Tree of Life after placing seedlings above the grave of his wife. The key to immortality for the surgeon turns out to be a tree in South America, giving truth to the the piece of fiction his wife wrote about the Tree of Life that the conquistador searched for.

The Fountain is a tale of passionate futility that places an emphasis not on life or death, as the story would suggest, but rather on choices. The idea is presented that nothing matters but the ending, as seen through the relentlessness of the male leads to save their loved one from their unavoidable death. However, the lesson is that in life, the emphasis should be placed on the journey, where both the queen and the wife place it, rather than on the endings that the conquistador and the surgeon become hellbent on changing. In both stories the women are stereotypical archetypes of the "Angel of the House" so to speak, made evident by the visual emphasis placed on the light/dark contrast between the two women and their prospective men. At the time of her death, the wife says that she feels whole and isn't afraid. This is the theme of the entire film; the point of life is to be complete and whole with who you are and what you have in the time you are given, rather than never taking the time to admire the precious present do to a futile quest to make more time. Time by itself means nothing. It only becomes valuable when the people living in it give its moments value.

I turn on the air in the winter...

Picture this: its a cool, crisp morning here in Katy (yeah, right) and you step out on the porch to get your newspaper and you feel a bit chilled. As such, when dressing that morning, you dress so as to maintain a pleasant body temperature while out in this frigid weather. So, you walk out to your car in the 50 ish degree weather and feel comfortable; mission accomplished. Next you get in your car in your scarf, your coat and your Ug's and turn on the heat. WHAT? How does that make any logical sense people? Why do you insist on turning on the heat to make an environment for which you are perfectly suited stifling to the point that your clothes are, at best, absurd. Essentially, you get dressed to go out on a winter's day and protect yourself against the cold, only to climb in your car and make the atmosphere in your car mimic that of a coastal town on the equator. Why people? All you end up doing is taking off your coat in the car so you can regulate your body temperature because now, get this, your too hot. Then, you get to your destination, get out of your mobile sauna and step out into the cold air. Not only does the cold air feel colder now because your body just changed climates, but now you have to put your coat back on. Only now, all of the heat that you were feeling earlier because the coat had insulated you has escaped because you took the damn coat off. See where I'm going with this?

The same thing applies to buildings. If its cold out, your employees or students or customers have dressed for the cold weather. Now, you have them in your building, dressed for it to be 50 degrees while your thermostat reads 80. Whats ironic is that in the summer, when we are all in shorts and flip flops, prepared for the sweltering heat that is Texas, your store isn't even that hot! Where is the logic? We started using heat in our homes in the winter back before we had that fluffy pink stuff in our attics and that nice hard concrete on the floor and all that awesome sheet rock stuff and those great glass windows with weather stripping to protect us from the cold. UGH!

OK people. Our nation needs to make a change. Starting today, when its cold outside, put on your coat, get in your car and turn on your air conditioner. Building managers, when its cold, have your store temp be comparable to the outside. Ya'll know I have a point here. Don't try to fight it...just turn on the air.

Kissing Fish and Candy Frogs

I was unpacking Christmas at work today (yes, I know it's September-take it up w/ my manager). Anyway, I opened a box that had a statue of Santa kneeling at the feet of baby Jesus in the manger. I paused for a a few minutes and tried to figure out what that meant to me.

It could be that while all of the world is swept up in the secular, focusing on Santa and presents and trees, etc. Santa is bringing our attention back to what really matters. It could be that Santa sells and Jesus sells so hey, why not make double the profit and put the two together. Genius plan...The other thought I had was what if the secular symbol of Christmas is juxtaposed next to the religious symbol of Christmas to make a point of showing consumers just how much we have managed to mangle and perverse the original reason for celebration, changing our focus from what some believe to be the savior of the world to a fat bearded man in velvet climbing down chimneys. In any case, the two figures side by side are, if nothing else, cause for thought and contemplation. I also found a frog holding a candy cane and a fish with big black lips with music notes floating out them, but far be it from me to think I am so wise as to be able to rationalize the reason behind those two pieces of wasted manufacturing resources.

Confusion

Am I the only one who gets tired of the double standard? If a girl chooses to stay a virgin til' she gets married, then she is a prude, but if she sleeps with someone outside of wedlock, then she is a slut. God help you if you sleep with more than one person. I mean, what are girls in this day and age supposed to do? There is a statistic out that shows that more than half of single men will not date a virgin. There is another statistic that says over 70% of men want to marry a virgin. What's a girl to do?

On the other hand, a guy that has been with several girls is considered "experienced" and is said to "know how to please a girl." If he is a virgin then he is an "untouchable", so to speak, someone who isn't worth the time it would take to teach him how to please you.

So where does that leave us? Confused is where it leaves us. It leaves us with girls losing their virginity just so they can get a date with a "nice guy". It leaves us with guys who are so insecure in bed because they have been taught that they won't be any good the first few girls they go through. The irony is just absurd. The fact that we are still operating under these archaic ideals of feminism and masculinity while trying to move forward into a modern era has left us all with our heads reeling. We are supposed to know everything about the bedroom and how to excel at it, but we are degenerates if we are found surfing the web or watching erotica to figure out what it is we are supposed to know. "Sex sells" so a good portion of the advertisements in this country play on that, but when sexual addiction is at an all time high, we blame the men, not society.

This prolific mess has gotten way out of hand and I, for one, am done buying into the stereotypes and the meaningless expectations of a nation of people whose ideals come from a place of sheer and utter confusion.

Assimilation

Is it just me, or does anyone else out there get tired of pressing 1 for English? I mean, this country is a melting pot; we are a nation of emmigrants. Each and every one of our ancestors came to this country from another one...and that's awesome. As a result we have become the most powerful nation in the world due to the accumulation of culture, academic principles, religion and economic theories that have been brought here from all over the world. Obviously, immigration is one of the obvious reasons for our success. After all, the American Dream was a reality that came from the dreams of immigrants looking for something more.

That being said, I feel safe in venting my frustration about the current influx of illegal aliens flooding into this country. I mean, it's not the immigrating I mind...it's just the illegal part. I mean, aside from the fact that they can use our resources and be awarded the social, economic and political rights of our citizens, they expect us to cater to their language barrier. I grew up in an English speaking country, so I speak English. They grew up in a Spanish speaking counrty, so they speak Spanish. They then moved (illegally) to an English speaking country where the inhabitants speak Englsih, ergo, the logical step is for them to learn English. WRONG! Somehow, we have bought into the lie that we are closed minded if we dont speak Spanish. What the hell? How does this make and logical sense? Oh wait, it doesn't. Every other nationality that has come into this country has assimilated, ergo the phrase "melting pot". I dont see why the Hispanics should be allowed to skip the entire assimilation process when the Irish and Italians and English and French and Russians and Africans and Arabs didn't simply because we live in an age of political correctness and tolerance.

In short, For English, Press 1. Para Espanol, Move to Mexico and Press 2.