Yeah, It’s A Rant, I Guess

[I must say this: don’t be put off by anything you find here. If you’re reading this, I’m probably not talking to you.

Ha, shows that I’m still afraid to really go off on a rant. Wouldn’t want to offend anyone.]

I was cleaning out my inbox this morning and came across some comments for this blog, which guilted me into starting a post. Well, that’s harsh. I always want to post but I don’t want to write something of mediocre quality that I’ll later regret. (In truth, the reason is probably more that I’m lazy, but we’ll go with the first for now.)

But here I am now, aware that, though few they may be, I actually do have a few readers and I should keep them coming back at least occasionally by making some additions from time to time. When I look at other blogs I usually see very short entries, maybe even just three lines. Especially celebrity blogs. Celebrities are so lazy. Why would they not put valuable time into communicating with (sorry, to) their ever-doting fans? Isn’t that a priority to them? Ha. If I were famous I’d write less too. Because obviously they don’t need Internet fans. I, on the other hand, seem to be doing this as a thinly veiled plea for kindred spirits. And I’m long-winded. Seems when I open up that certain valve, it takes a lot of force to get it shut again.

I’m going to do something new here: post poetry. Well, it rhymes, at least; I don’t know if I dare be so bold as to call it poetry. I’ve put some poems on Facebook before, but honestly, I’m not sure why I bother. I usually hate other people’s poems on Facebook. For some reason I consider my own different. And if people out there hate them, they keep their mouths shut, because it’s not polite to criticize someone’s creativity. Bah. Send it through the fire if you want anything of worth. Believe it or not, I don’t put things on Facebook to attract attention. Well, maybe I enjoy the attention when it comes. But my main sentiment is not, “Look at me, look at me.” If it were, I’d lip-sync pop songs on YouTube. Or something. No, my main feeling behind any publishings is, “Hey, I wrote this, what do you think?” But people seldom say what they think – they compliment, yes, and maybe it’s genuine, but that’s a very superficial reaction. I really want a deeper reaction – “What do you think? Are you changed by this?” Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but ultimately I want my writing to change things (by things I mean people), and not just on an emotional level. I didn’t write a letter to my deceased grandfather because I was overcome with emotion, and I didn’t put it on Facebook so others could feel similarly! Don’t cry, change! Value the relationships you have that could be gone tomorrow.

But people cry and compliment and forget. However, that is the way of humans. It just means I need to practice to become a better writer, a deeper writer, a more…permanent writer. Sorry about that long paragraph, and sorry that it started sounding like a rant. One of these days I may forgive myself a real long, explosive rant (and it probably will never see the light of day) but for now I’m content to suppress them. They’re cheap and low-class, after all.

[Haha, I wrote that paragraph thinking that the next section would be fairly short. That was before I decided to let loose…]

However, I’ll push the line here once again. Because there’s one more thing I want to address that bothers me.

The ‘Like’ button.

(And before I launch in again, I suppose I should disclaim that I’m not against compliments per se. Thank you to all who’ve commented on anything that I’ve written anywhere, I really do appreciate it, and thank you especially for all the condolences. In fact, now that I slow down a bit, I realize that I should be careful what I say, because it could be misunderstood. Hmm. Okay. Let’s do it this way. I’m not talking to any of you guys. You all rock, except for the anonymous person who said, “This is fake.” To you, dear sir, I don’t quite understand what you mean, but I’m guessing you won’t be elaborating. To the rest of you, I appreciate you very much. When I complain, I’m talking more to the Facebook crowd, and not even to most of them, because they’re good people – I’m really just talking to a few select people. You know, the ones who say things like, “OMG this is SOO sad!!! it made me cry SOOO much!!!!!” That’s who I’m complaining about. The rest of you can rest easy. Whew. That was a long disclaimer.)

The ‘Like’ button. It’s appearing everywhere. First Facebook (at least, that’s where I first saw it), then YouTube, now here! And since Facebook is connected to everything, I see that button on every site that has a link to Facebook.

The ‘Like’ button. Could anything be more lazy, apathetic, cheap, or infuriating? (Yes, I know, many things, but that was hyperbole.) Not only are people too lazy to form opinions consisting of more than one word, they’re too lazy to even type one word! This button is barely more than a stamp of ‘noted’. What they’re saying, whether they mean to or not, is: “I read this, or at least enough to think that I got the gist of it, I felt slightly favorable towards the content, and then I moved on and forgot about it.” Blurghkslvwfla! Don’t even indicate your passing if that’s all the response you can muster.

Of course it doesn’t help that every time I see that someone ‘liked’ something I imagine their attitude to be like that of the overly cheerful intern on Scrubs (season 8). “Oh, that’s great, that’s wonderful! I only read the first line but I’m so happy for you! Bunnies!” Would I regret punching you in the face? No, it’d be worth it.

Yes, winding down. This is another case of me being prejudiced and extremely favoritistic. I organize, usually without even thinking about it, my friends and acquaintances into groups. If you’re in the right group, you could do something as dastardly as click the ‘Like’ button on something of mine and I’d be sort of okay with it. We’d still be cool. On the other hand, if you’re in the wrong group, you could ‘like’ my status once and forever after be that person in the front of my mind as I pound out these pseudo-rants with revulsion. Don’t do that to yourself. Keep your fingers away from the button. Write something – something good. If you’re not sure about your standing in my groupings, put your comment in a message. I don’t want weird stuff in front of all my other friends. Now I’m just being mean. But yes, I do delete comments.

(I rarely disclose these group listings, but if you really want to know, I guess you could try asking. Most people in the right group know that they are, and the people in the wrong group don’t know. Haha. If I say, “Don’t worry,” then you’re good, if I say “Hey, I don’t share that information,” then you might want to worry. Do other people classify like this? I know I’m awful, but am I alone in my awfulness?)

This joke has been said a thousand times, but perhaps I can redeem myself somewhat by saying I don’t mean this as a joke, I’m completely serious: if you’re going to have a ‘Like’ button, at least give us people over here a ‘Dislike’ button to even things out. And while you’re at it, taking requests, I’d like a ‘Tool’ button, too. Countless are the times I could’ve used that one, especially to…well, er…should I say this? I guess I’ll go ahead and say it. It would be really useful for when I’m looking at the profiles of the other guy friends (the ones I haven’t met) of my female friends. Ahahahahaha. Oh man. Can I ever come back from that one? Let’s take a break.

[Please understand that I’m doing this as a favor to you guys. By baring my innards and being really honest about the way my thoughts and feelings work, I’m hoping you can learn from it somehow and be wiser in your dealings with others. I want to do everything I can to help you as you take on the world. So I’m like a case study. But perhaps a bad one, if other people don’t actually think like me.]

Okay, back. Let’s get this done with. ‘Downright Idiot’ would be another useful one. Imagine that showing up in your inbox: ‘Congratulations! Brad ___ thinks you’re a Downright Idiot. Best wishes from the Facebook Team.’

And since we’re now able to cast our indifferent approval upon any bit of content on the web, why not just apply these buttons to people themselves. Make it so we can ‘like’, ‘dislike’, ‘tool’, or ‘downright idiot’ people’s profiles. Ooo! Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could vote people off Facebook? ‘We’re sorry, but 500 of your so-called friends think you’re a Tool. If you are unable to collect 250 Likes within 24 hours, your account will be terminated. Best wishes from the Facebook Team.’ And then we’d have people running around saying things like, “Can you Like me? Please Like me! What can I do to get you to Like me?” And girls at their sleepovers: “So does he, like, Like you, or, like, like like you?” “Oh, he just Likes you. He doesn’t really like you.” What will become of our species!?

Guess I wasn’t really winding down before. But I am now.

All this to say that I think it’s interesting how as we become able to give our opinions on more and more things, we communicate less and less. We’re clicking buttons, saying more, saying less, losing our expressive ability.

So don’t ‘Like’ my stuff. Tell me what you like. Tell me what you hate. And why. Write something.

I know I should polish this and make it less rant-like, because yes, that’s what it is, no matter how much I try to deny it, but I created this, ugh, ‘blog’ so that I would be able to share without too much editing. I’d complain about this on Facebook, where people might actually see it, but it just seems like it would be disregarded. Why bother? And it certainly wouldn’t be as juicy. Plus, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m attacking every single person who’s ever ‘liked’ anything on my profile. I’m really just attacking those in the second group I talked about before.

Anyways, I promised something that rhymed, so here it is. I’ll give you the first, well, second, draft, and then the revised edition, because you get cool freebies like that when you visit my blog. Facebook will only get the final (for now) product.

Draft:

When spring is skipped

To get to summer,

The fall comes quick,

And that’s a bummer.

I laughed at that. But of course it’s unacceptable. So I thought a bit and came up with this:

When spring is skipped

To get to summer,

The fall comes quick –

Cold winter’s forerunner.

I kind of like that. Maybe someday I’ll be able to add some more stanzas to it.

Whaddaya know, this got long.

Thanks for reading, I’m going to take one more quick look through this to make sure there’s not anything I really couldn’t stand to have you see, then I’ll put it up. And hopefully the next one won’t be too long coming!

Bye

-Brad

Metaphor Isn’t My Strong Suit Yet, Nor Is My Real One

Well guys, it’s been too long. That’s a standard greeting in conditions of long absences, but it makes absolutely no sense in this particular context seeing as I created the absence and nothing whatsoever forced me to do so. It is completely my fault that I’ve so totally neglected this corner of my galaxy and chased after petty things.

But tonight, I came home from work and didn’t turn on the TV (though it is on now at the hand of my father…thanks, dad). Not that I often turn on the TV. More to the point, I didn’t come home and start downloading another episode of Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory, or worse yet, start watching it instantly on Megavideo (yes, I can tell you where to get access to every show and movie ever created, for free, and no, I won’t be held accountable for the damage to your mind and soul. I’ve already suffered enough at the hands of myself).

That Hulu commercial was absolutely right when it said that TV turns your mind to mush, and Hulu will do an even quicker job of it. Well, I’ve got something far better than Hulu. Online TV archives are quite possibly the most insidious attack on the intellect yet.

But tonight I did not go straight to that. I may yet later, but most likely there won’t be time, because when I get started writing, I can go for hours. Maybe even days. It would be interesting to see how long I could continue writing without breaks of any significant length. A few nights ago I did a power-writing session, starting with five minutes (no rest allowed, you must continue typing for the duration – needless to say, content is secondary) and increasing. Actually at about the third time I just let loose and went for about thirty minutes. I’m not sure about other people, but for me, writing is as easy as secreting enzymes (yes, I admit the first bodily analogy to come to mind was a bit grosser than that).

That’s no boast, because like I said, quality is not the issue here. What is the issue is blatantly laying in front of your all-too-forgiving eyes the ridiculosity (should be a word) with which I’ve conducted myself these past few months.

Here I have the means to express myself in any way I please, with just as little censorship as I please, and not even proofread the entries, for crying out loud! What could be an easier set of requirements? All I had to do was write, and write I could not. The term writer’s block comes to mind, but that actually sounds legit so it does not apply here. What I had was a seriously illegitimate case of laziness and distraction.

I’ll cut to the chase. I lost sight of my goal. That’s why my quality of life in virtually every arena plummeted. I set out on this year determined to make enough money to go to university in England in September, get better acquainted with Japanese culture (yeah, I heard you in the back say otaku. That’s why you’re in the back), practically apply what I learned last year, and learn how to handle myself out of formal education. That’s a long list, but the first one is the one that counts. The one that matters. The one I lost sight of.

I was so excited about this year because I was excited about next year. When I step off that plane in Heathrow (maybe) [actually it turned out to be Leeds-Bradford. 3/11/10] in just a few months, my life course will shift. My life won’t change that instant, but the direction of things will; that’s where everything will start. So I need to bring my present self to a closure of sorts, and prepare. I was so excited.

But I got a wonderful job that was nevertheless fairly demanding, and I lost sight of the reason I got the job. Teaching English, despite being a chance to meet interesting people and have interesting, albeit stunted, conversations, is not something I could do for a living. Far from it. On its own, it would drive me crazy. It already is. How can a poet be expected to teach English communication? I don’t operate on that plane, and I say that not out of arrogance, but desperation. Any of you, even if this is the first article of mine you’ve ever read, can see that. Right or wrong, and most likely wrong, I make people come to me, I don’t go to them.

But going to them is exactly what I’ve been doing since November, because that’s what teaching takes. That’s a fact, a necessity, and not an evil – as long as I had an ulterior release. But I succumbed to things of temporal pleasure – visual entertainment, social activity (including solo excursions based on the premeditatedly-known-to-be-false premise that something good might actually come of them), what have you. I gave up the higher things, the things that take time and effort to reap the fruit of, such as reading, research, meditation, and expression. And these cheap trivialities that came at such a high cost for collateral damages failed to replenish the energy I needed to pour into a different me, a professional me.

Because if you’re going to fake it in any area of your life, you need the authentic areas to work double hard to supply the self-affirmation and determination necessary to pull the dead weight along. In other words, a double life is not an impossibility, but only if one can keep his balance hopping along on one foot.

My authentic areas were very energizing, particularly Hi-B.A., but they didn’t occupy enough of my time or I didn’t pour myself into them enough to keep the engine running. And I was lazy with my me-time. That’s where the consequences hit the hardest. What do I do when I have no external pressures placed on me? Not much, it has become clear.

So did I come crashing down, tripping over myself and my gimp leg? Actually, no. I switched hopping legs. It was a physical relief at first, but inevitably felt unnatural. I ignored the feeling, resolving to keep on, but it wasn’t meant to be.

I’ve lost track of what I’m talking about – the metaphor has worn out its welcome; outlived its usefulness. I got carried away from the meaning. Sorry about that. A proper writer would delete the refuse and rewrite, but it’s late and I’m determined to at least post something to turn the tide of block/silence. For your sake, I’ll wind down.

Make no mistake, I fully believe that the idea is to run with two legs. There’s meant to be a consistency, a fullness in all proper areas of life, and my job is a proper area, for I was blessed in a time when I needed precisely all that it had to offer – good pay and a flexible schedule, to name but a few. However my poor choices and shortsighted, narrow-mindedness set the two at odds.

That’s where I’ll end for tonight. Remember, the author is not responsible for any views or experiences expressed herein, nor any interpretations, conclusions, assumptions, bloodlust, or taking to the streets by alleged readers that may commence as a result of passing by or ingesting these contents.

-Brad, and it’s good to be back, empty room. This post totally didn’t go where I thought it would or meant it to, but…whatever.