Eschatology: The Apocalypse and You

I'd like to take a quick break from the serious existential crap to talk very briefly about the end of the world.

So it's 2012 and the world is totally going to end.

Now one the one hand, that's totally awesome for me. I've recently decided (and managed to actually tell my parents) that I'm going to take some time off after graduation to "find myself." If the world ends at the end of this calendar year, I'll be smack dab in the middle of "finding myself" and will have only had to stand precariously on the edge of legitimate responsibility and adulthood. In fact, I'll be about seven months out of college, probably working a decent to crappy job, but be totally in a place where I have the time to go out with friends and read/write philosophy and do all the stuff I wish I had more time to do.

So really, the world ending in 2012 will be kind of awesome for me.

What's most terrifying though is that I think people are legitimately going to freak out this time. Not in a Harold Camping kind of way but I think it's been so hyped that we might legitimately see some terror on the streets. Anywhere from London riot style to people actually killing and stealing and martial law kind of stuff. It's just human nature, really. The world's going to end so why don't we just go to town?

"That awkward moment when you killed the 711 owner and stole all the Mountain Dew and Twinkies you could carry and then the world didn't end."

Say just for kicks that the world does end. We know that it's going to at some point so why not just suppose that it's going to be this December. What kind of apocalypse can we expect?

Zombie Apocalypse:

I love zombies. Not because they're fun to write about (yes, I am writing a zombie apocalypse novel) but because it would be easily the most interesting apocalypse to live through. Imagine being on the run from hundreds of assailants who want nothing more than to eat your flesh at any personal cost to them. It's a threat that can only be stopped by trauma to the brain and a threat that spread so quickly that you suddenly find yourself one among millions who are still capable to think. Now of course in the fictional literature there's always a hero who manages to stay afloat among a storm of the undead but I think in reality it would be less entertaining. Sure, you'd have the few psychopaths who would have no trouble pulling a trigger against an undead girlfriend or neighbor or whoever but then you'd have every other normal, level-headed person who would try to hold desperately onto the idea that their loved ones could be cured and probably get eaten in the process. They would hesitate at the crucial moment of self defense and die an ugly and violent death. These people are the reason that zombie literature is so interesting--why there's always the hero standing against the odds: because 9 times out of 10, someone hesitates and gets bitten. This results in massive hordes of flesh eating zombies and sudden halt to production and social structure. It not only destroys our social environment as we know it but makes for one of the most Hobbesian kind of environments we can imagine. What would you do? Head to the gun store? Look for loved ones? Kill yourself? You just can't know until you're there. I like to think that the human instinct for self-preservation always kicks in but you never know... with everyone around you dying I'm sure it's easy for the despair to take a toll for the worst.

And a zombie apocalypse is TOTALLY possible because of the way biowarfare is going and all of us zombie fiction writers have found a plausible way for this reality to exist.

Religious Rapture:

Ever picked up the New Testament? Ever read the book of Revelations? It's fascinating stuff. I mean really. It's easily the most interesting book in the Bible since it's really the only one that predicts what's to come when the world ends. Among other things it involves a select few being taken up into the loving arms of God and the rest of us being subjected to burning as four angry dudes ride across the sky giving us the old what-for. Assuming you/I/we chose the wrong religion or are just unlucky enough to not be one of the predestined (see: Calvinism), we're probably going to end up burning a horrible, firey death while collecting groceries and then spending the rest of eternity in hell. Sounds pretty awful doesn't it? I mean, think about it. Zombies you can kill if you've got a blunt object and the will power. The four horsement of the apocalypse? Hah! Angels wielding spears and crap? Hah! Demons? Hah! (Though they seem to the only ones allergic to holy water and crosses.) You're not only struggling internally with the existential realization that there is in fact a God who has been watching you sin for your entire life, but you're up against an immortal and unearthly being who is raining a merciless fire on your heretical behind. It's not a good feeling, I can imagine.

This of course means that there's a heaven and those of us who are chosen are going to be watching the chaos from whatever vantage point they are granted thinking either A) "Thank God (lol) I went to church every Sunday or B) "Oh no those poor people... but thank God I went to Church every Sunday. I mean seriously how bad are they going to feel? It's going to be a lot of "I told you so's" and a plague of smugness. Either way, it's going to confirm a lot of things people have staked their entire lives believing either right or wrong and honestly, make philosophy complete irrelevant because all moral and metaphysical questions will be answerable by the now very accessible creator.

Natural Disasters:

Here I'm thinking about disasters a la the movie "2012" or "The Day After Tomorrow." Think earthquakes and tsunamis and a second Ice Age. For whatever reason science cares to come up with, the Earth is going insane and things are just falling apart. Blame it on the core or the poles or some garbage like global warming, the earth is fighting back against all of our abuse and it's not taking any prisoners. Sure we can build arks and maybe find refuge in a now-hospitable African continent, but a whole lot of people are going to die. I'm talking billions of people. I'm thinking like 6 billion people are going to die because much like "2012," only the rich will be able to afford the technology that will keep them safe. On the one hand I find this understandable but on the other I don't like it because money doesn't guarantee genetic integrity and I don't think the rich are necessarily those we want repopulating the world.

Regardless, you're going to find yourself chilling one day doing whatever it is that you're doing, whether it's driving to work or sleeping or using the toilet and the earth is suddenly going to open up and swallow you. Seriously. That's it. No need for elaboration. You'll just be doing stuff and then the next moment you're dead. Sucks, right? Hopefully this is part of the previous scenario (religious rapture) and you'll be quickly taken up into the arms of a creator. At the very least you'll be hoping (rather loudly and erratically) that he exists and that being swallowed up by the earth or sea isn't too terribly painful. Hopefully if you're anything like John Cusack you'll be able to survive and see a new society built in the wake of whatever survivors exist after the clouds part.

Cosmic Explosion:

In a similar yet not unrelated vein we have something slightly more simplistic: the sun blowing up. Now astronomers are well aware that stars are just big balls of gas that are likely to give at some point and our star (the Sun) is no different. Apparently at some point our Sun, in similar fashion to other stars, is going to just... blow up. Basically, it's going to swallow everything up until Jupiter or whatever and that means we're all screwed. There's not a lot to it other than the fact that we're all done for. I can imagine people are going to flip and start killing each other or hugging their loved ones and praying to God but we are basically all screwed. And there won't be anything left because the explosion will vaporize Earth. Hopefully we will figure out how to travel to another galaxy or some crap like that before then because if not, we're all done for.

Nuclear Winter:

Anyone who reads the news (for the record, I don't) knows that we're constantly on the brink of global conflict. Anyone who plays Call of Duty knows we're just a terrorist away from nuclear winter which only YOU can stop. In reality though, I can see international politics getting out of hand to the point where those with nuclear weapons are going to have their sweaty hands trembling over blinking red buttons Skyping with each other yelling "I'll do it! I swear to God I'll do it!"

And then someone will. Some idiot is going to say screw it and push the button and then everyone will start launching their stuff because what else do we have to lose? Might as well take them to Hell with us. The aftermath is going to be a mostly scorched earth with minimal surivors yet not complete decimation. I'm thinking something like Fallout. There's going to be a lot of people left fighting for supplies and their lives while some semblance of government tries to take a hold, yet the one thing everyone is going to have to worry about is food and water which will all be completely irradiated. Speaking of irradiated, things are going to get nutty. I'm talking mutations people: the next level in evolution. People, animals, plants... things are going to start changing and adapting Darwin-style to the deadly environment in which we now have to live in. Look at Chernobyl--that place won't be inhabitable for another five hundred years at the very earliest. It probably won't be devoid of radiation for at least another thousand or more. Some people on the internet are talking about 50,000 years. Either way, those of us who are left after the idiot politicians start launching nukes are going to have to get used to the whole radiation thing. Those who don't die will start to change and those who don't change will die. Living in this world will be a lot like the zombie apocalypse--fighting for resources in a world where production has halted and little to no government to speak of--only now instead of the more killable zombies you have the unkillable radiation to deal with.

Social Meltdown:

Okay so say for whatever reason we're able to restrain ourselves and we don't launch a crap-ton of nuclear missiles into to each other. Awesome. That's for the best. But racism, xenophobia, and class tensions are only going to increase and worsen as time goes on. Discomfort and discontent with governemnts and people's opinions about how life should be lived are only going to make things worse. We're going to have a fanatic or some like that stir up his people into taking action against their government. This will cause copycat movements which will cause mass anarchy and the proliferation of whatever kind of ideals they're pushing. Or... one particular group will just take control like the Nazis and form a society like in 1984--a massive Big Brother society in which freedom is a forbidden word and we just do as we're told.

Either that or somehow we will just devolve into a Hobbesian existence once one of the aforementioned situations has occurred. Social meltdown will likely somehow be a facet of the end of the world no matter how you slice it.

Aliens:

Okay so say the Earth doesn't blow up or we don't blow ourselves up or whatever... there are billions of stars, many just like ours. So... there must be stars with planets around them who have had similar abilities to develop life. Let's not get religious or whatever and I know that statistically speaking the conditions for developing life happening on another planet are astronomically (lol) small but say it happens. Say for example this society evolves thirty times as rapidly as we do (because their conditions for evolution were better) and they develop long-distance space travel. Say they also hate foreigners. They're probably going to come over here and mess us up. If they don't just have an innate hatred for anything that thinks themselves as advanced as the alien race, they'll certainly see our corruption and sinful ways and think that we're better off dead anyway. Maybe they'll be gracious enough to enslave us or keep an elect few of us alive. Sounds a little like many people's conception of the Rapture. Anyway, aliens invading and killing us all is totally possible. Look at a crappy movie like "Skyline." They come, they conquer with little interference, and we are just plain screwed. You never know.

So now you know. Whatever happens at the end of this year, you'll hopefully be slightly more prepared or at the very least aware. Live this year the best that you can and enjoy it like it's your last.

"Kids these days" and Time

So I'm thinking that every decade I'm going to make a post like this to wax melancholy about how I'm getting old.

"But Dylan... you're not old."

Shut up.

I'm old enough to where everyone younger than me looks 13 but everyone older than me looks 29+. I'm old enough that I can actually say stuff like this but still young enough to have an endearing innocence about me (especially if I'm ever wrong). I'm old enough so that I can do cool stuff with the adults (since 21 grants you the last of the cool legal rights) but young enough that I'm still kinda hip and kinda cool and kinda in tune with these generational changes in culture.

Anyway, this post started off as one of those "oh things are different and stuff" kinds of posts but I imagine that's really not necessary for those who are in the very least bit aware of how things are. And this definitely isn't one of those 2012 posts (because believe me, that's coming) but it's one of those "things are just different" kind of posts.

I sit around and reflect on time (my own aporia of time, if you will) and think about how I've been around for just over two decades and things have changed a lot in the ways that the world works and in the way that I am. It's weird because I remember distinct events from my past and I think about the ways I've changed and it's amazing how I don't feel like an adult. In many ways I feel like the same kid I've always been and I wonder if that's how everyone feels--if everyone just imagines themselves as that same 8 year old swinging from tree branches and not knowing a thing about things and how anything is.

I suppose this post is going to be kind of short because I lost the point of it a long time ago but it will hopefully in it's vagueness spark some sort of independent thought about following posts considering memories and of course a 2011 wrap-up/2012 prediction post.

I just wonder how the future is going to be. Who is going to be in it, how my experiences will shape me... I just am totally uncertain about how things will be. To put it simply, it's an abyss--life, that is. Life after college is a great abyss that I don't feel that I'm ready to face. Things are so structured until now and I think now is the first time in my life that I can name certain people that I wish would be a part of it. (Am I coming back around to a point?)

Do we have an identity before our teenage years? Are we just cookie-cutter preteens that like the other things that the other preteens like until we decide that we don't care what anyone else likes? Maybe that's why we develop personal tastes and then look back on what subsequent and following generations of preteens like and think "God, I'm glad I don't like that cookie cutter stuff" even though we totally did.

If you haven't caught my drift yet, my main field of interest is the phenomenology of experience which I know seems kind of broad to those who have the vaguest idea of what that entails but I feel like it's the quintessential something that defines us as human beings and something that needs to be explored and understood. Time passes and it's the fundamental measurement by which we measure our lives. Believe me, I know. I wrote a 15 page paper about it. Our conceptions of past, present, and future are measured by memories, attention, and expectation respectively. Without these we wouldn't have any way by which to measure our lives and by my understanding our lives wouldn't carry any significant meaning (another existential issue). The point is, we look back on the past and compare it rather unfairly to the present and look at past events somewhat nostalgically thinking that things are somehow worse (here's where it will tie into the next few posts). Whether this is true or not is kind of irrelevant since things are how they are (though the continental philosophers would disagree) and there's not a lot anyone can do but desperately cling to memories.

Again, I'm not 100% sure what I'm rambling about since when I outline these posts at 2am as I'm trying to fall asleep it seems so much more potent and relevant but as always I apologize for whatever confusion might have arisen from your topical reading of this and praise whatever errant thoughts might have organically sprung from whatever words that you have read. Look forward to more concrete and hopefully more coherent and cogent thoughts in the near future.

EDIT 1 (1/3/12):

So I was re-reading this in a better state of mind and decided, surprisingly enough, that it wasn't as totally incoherent as I thought it was as I was reading, though it does lack the content I was hoping for. Hopefully this will fix that.

I used to be different. I used to be a quiet kid who didn't know what he wanted all the time but wasn't really all that concerned because time wasn't anything more than when I had to go to bed or get up for school and the future wasn't anything more than the teacher workday or the looming colossus itself: summer break. I used to think that people's opinion was based entirely on how fast you could run or whether or not you scored a run in kickball and we're all just going to kind of stay young and go to school together.

I thought girls were little more than cute things that that I wanted a girlfriend for some reason. The only music that existed was either the music in the movies or on the channels I watched or my parents music which was inherently not as good and never could have been (it was just noise and people screaming about stuff I didn't understand). Similarly movies were just things where people talked and it looked kind of real and they would often say stuff that I didn't get but my parents laughed so I laughed along like I got the joke.

Friends were people that lived close to you or went to the same school that thought you were cool too and you could share secrets about other students with and the group you were seen with defined you only as far as the gossip that was spread about any particular member--kind of like your group was only as the strong as the rumors about any one of you. Most importantly, my parents were just things that had jobs and money and things called bills and that's just how they've always been. They just annoy me when I'm trying to talk on the phone or play video games and they keep telling me to go to bed or do my homework but I need them to drive me places so I put up with their crap in exchange for being able to hang out with my friends--and that's how it will always be.

Not much has changed.

Nostalgia is a sticky mess that is easy to get trapped in and harder still to get out of and it's not something that I have to deal with anymore. Blame it on the meds or finding new, better things but I've been finding it easier and easier to throw old stuff away because it doesn't seem as important. Magical veils that surrounded memories have decayed and I now see them in different lights and most of them are therefore much less significant than I originally thought. That doesn't mean necessarily that they have objectively decreased in significance it's just that I guess I don't remember them in the same way anymore and what bothers me is I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to think about anything in my past.

I know that's kind of nutty to think about but if you consider that like newly opened wounds, memories are so much more potent and significant in direct proportion to their events of origin. That is, we cling to them with desperation relative to when they happened. For example, you never want to forget your first kiss between you and the person who just broke your heart because you feel like if you don't think about that memory constantly it will be like it never happened. Which I suppose is, in a way, true.

You look back on how silly you were to cling to things that in retrospect seem pretty insignificant and wonder how you could have been so naive to not anticipate much more significant events in your life. Again, we find ourselves at a Catch-22 since memories are always more significant than your predictions of what will happen in the future. Some might disagree but my evidence for this is in the idea that the future terrifies us so, as always, we cling to the known. What's more known to us than the past?

But what I find when I shake my head at high school kids in their skinny jeans and stupid hair and laughing obnoxiously loud about something that I probably wouldn't find funny is that I know that was me and I'm sure someone did that when they saw me and my idiot friends trolling about the mall. While everyone comes to that realization I think what is most surprising to me is that our perception of different generations changes as we learn more not only about our own lives, but the lives of others. By gradually filling the shoes of our parents we outgrow the shoes of our youth and wonder how they could have ever fit us. We shake our heads maybe not because we don't like their clothes or their music but more so that we don't understand what it's like to be them anymore. The memories we have of doing the things they're doing seem insignificant compared to our more recent experiences of more important things so we shake our heads saying, "they don't even know." That was a complicated sentence. Let me see if I can rephrase... Well, I can't.

Maybe it just has to do with not being able to remember how impressed we were with ourselves and doing things that in retrospect were kind of lame. Who knows. We seem as a culture kind of fixated on how things are always getting worse. In many ways, they are. Objectively speaking. But in many ways things are just changing which isn't inherently bad. Humans tend to be reactive and I think things will turn out okay as they always do.

On Creativity and the Artist

So I've made a realization... or at least a decision. Perhaps one based on the other.

Growing up we're really only told about a fraction of what life is really like. Before I continue I understand your apprehension to attribute to me any sort of legitimate knowledge of what life is really like; I think that a 21-year old college senior facing the abyss of adulthood has an interesting vantage point from which to base their views on. That said, I believe I know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, when we're growing up we're told that we're going to finish high school and go to college and then go to grad school and get a white collar job doing sort of kind of what our parents do or at least what our friend's parents do. It's like the the weirdest modified form of an agrarian/Old-world kind of view. And for a while I thought that's what I was going to do too. I thought I was going to go to college and do pretty well and then go to law school and become a lawyer for the vast majority of my life and then I'd retire and die. While this is still a possibility, I'm getting the feeling that this isn't necessarily the path that I should be on.

Again, they tell you as a kid that this is kind of what you're supposed to do--goading you into the maths and sciences or specializing in something like international politics (which seems like a really fancy way of saying you watch the news a lot). But they never really tell you that it's okay to not strive for a mid- to high-paying white collar job because I guess if they told everyone that then no one would. But what about the people that can't or know they just don't want to? You never get that encouragement to pursue passions or the arts. [Though don't get me started on the public school system not encouraging the students to pursue anything... because they don't.]

What college has taught me more than anything else (and here comes the point), is that I'm good at a lot of things. Before I get branded narcissistic, I want to qualify that by saying it taught me that I'm good at a lot of things I had never before imagined I would be good at. I've become something of an actor and consider myself pretty good at it. Someone told me yesterday for the first time in my life that my singing voice was beautiful. Beautiful? That made my life. I never philosophized before college or wondered about the nature of things. I didn't observe people or read Sigmund Freud for fun. I've come to realize that I am a creative person--that I look at things differently and have different capacities than many people.

But I'm sitting here just talking about my talents, I'm getting at the fact that maybe, just maybe, white collar work isn't for me. I'm not saying I'm going to be a vagrant. I'll work. But what I am saying is that I'm okay with only getting by as long as I have time to stretch my creative limbs.

If my parents are reading this, I'm sorry. I feel like I just came out of the proverbial closet and now they're sitting at the computer shaking their heads thinking they could have done something different and maybe I wouldn't have turned out this way. Then again maybe they would prefer I wear dresses as long as I'm still an accountant or a lawyer. I'm kidding (halfway). But why can't this be okay? Why isn't it okay to be an artist? Or a philosopher? Or a struggling anything?

It is okay. No one is saying it's not. But you look at people who work in grocery stores or are career baristas or waiters and you think, Wow that's sad... guess they never had a chance to go to college. Why does that have to be the mindset? Maybe they love their jobs. Or maybe they hate their jobs, they just love not having to take their work home with them or work 80-hour work weeks. Maybe they love interacting with people and don't care about living paycheck to paycheck. Again, no one is saying it's not okay for someone to live like this, but I want to see if maybe we can look at it not so much as them being deficient in some way that others are not, but instead that this is who they are and that's all they can be.

I love philosophy. Obviously. Nothing gets me going like a debate over human nature or political philosophy or even metaphysics. I think the most snide comment I get about being a philosophy major is, "What, are you going to be a philosopher?" My response is, "Yeah, why the heck not?"

I think this world needs creative people (and here comes the second point.) Yes, of course we need people to do politics and science and farming and accounting and all that stuff. But humans are the only species with the capacity for upper-level reasoning and temporal memory. We measure our lives through memories and the passage of time and we plan and we love and we create. We are the only species who seek to find meaning in our lives and constantly seek to find our true nature. Sure, I would love to make a ton of money grinding numbers or trying cases, but I'm not ashamed of being a human being who loves to think and be creative--even if that means not making a lot of money. This is just who I am. I know it seems like a cop-out to say that I want to spend my life enjoying being human because you can do that all the time. But what I do know for sure is that I don't regret anything. I don't care what people's perception of a good life is. No one should.

It's like I said--life is an abyss. You fill it with whatever you want. Some just tend to add more color than others. Me? I couldn't do without it.

Futility

Sometime last week I started writing a post that I thought was rather good--potent, relevant and all that. Anyways, I was just working on it and I realized I had no idea what I was talking about when I wrote it.

And that's really the point of this post: what am I doing? What am I talking about? I don't even read crap like this in my free time, why should anyone else? Makes me wonder what people do read though--if they read, obviously.

Should people read philosophy? No.

Philosophy leads to lucidity and lucidity can be a dangerous thing if you're anything like me.

I suppose putting my opinions on this blog and on my internet radio show is a lot like screaming them into a wind tunnel--no one will ever hear them.

Which leads me to the word of the day: Futility.

Expecting perfection

It's safe to say that we're brought up with certain expectations about our lives. We grow up with our parents as a model--a house, a job, a spouse, a car--a whole life leading to the success the led to you. But there's a bit of a gap between having and not having and I think it takes some time to realize that--maybe for some, more than others.

But after time we kind of develop an uneasy contentment with a lack of material comforts. We go off on our own, accepting moderate destitution (as only upper-middle class white kids can do) in hopes that one day we'll have the job and the money to live as comfortably as we would like.

The only thing we never really seem to reach a similar level of comfort on is relationships. Blame it on Disney or the media or romantic comedies or whatever, we have this level of expectation about who we want to be with. There's an expectation for the palpable chemistry from the first glance and then just a series of perfect interactions that leads to that magical first kiss and then... who knows.

We want them to be just like us but not enough like us that we hate them. We want them to be like our parents (Freudian style) and be liked by our parents but not so much that we hate them. We want them to like the same music but not all of the same music but definitely like the same kinds of movies because god knows we don't want to watch crap movies with them unless we both think they're crap. We want them to be talented yet endearingly flawed, confident yet endearingly insecure. We want them to be as smart as us but not dumber or smarter than us because we don't want to feel like we're constantly being one-upped.

We want someone beautiful but accept that beauty is subjective (sometimes). Actually, physical beauty seems to be affected by what we know of the person. Like a series of filters or something, the more we know about a person (for better or worse), the more differently we view them. We learn a bad thing they've done and all of a sudden they're less attractive. Or you learn something really adorable about them and now they're much more attractive. Then as soon as the relationship is over, the filters are removed... or are they? Maybe it's chemical but I think it's all psychological.

We tell ourselves that we'll accept the perfect person and all of their flaws but when we meet anyone we pry open those flaws and make them more than the are--we expect existence before essence or to fall in love before the flaws.

We've got an image in our head of a person. We don't know who it is but we love them deeply and fully. Whether we realize it or not we compare everyone to this person and when we find a good match, we latch on. This seems great and all but the subconscious of a human is anything but fallible. We are open to so much more suggestion than we realize and adding onto the fact that we're incredibly self-destructive, how could we ever know what's really good for us?

I've always viewed relationships as an empirical and mechanical study of people and their qualities, but I think it should be viewed more as a chemical reaction--a rush of neurochemicals as unique as a snowflake... or whatever. And I think the exact ratio of whatever chemicals are flying between your synapses is always different depending on the person. And maybe, just maybe--a certain mixture of stuff causes attraction. Maybe, just maybe, a different mixture of stuff causes love--if that even exists.

It's a lot like the nature/nurture thing in psychology--a question that we will never ever know the answer to. Do we fall in love because we expect to? Or because we can't help it? Is our attraction determined by chemicals or by previous experience? Most people would say both, in both cases. But I can't make that call since it could go either way.

But I think my overarching point is that our expectations are likely to tend to cloud our perception of things. In fact, it's kind of hard psychological theory that they do. Not that there's anything we can do about it. We just learn--because our expectations are usually just that: figment's of our imagination and not really grounded in any sort of logical reality. I'm just saying... life and people aren't perfect. It's just how it is. We all know that. Unrealistic expectations can cause you to miss what's in front of you. I'm not saying goals are bad things to have because what you should expect is a certain standard of what you realistically deserve. Everyone should have a place to live with a sustainable job and someone to be good to them and love them. But its important to not have your head in the clouds looking for something better.

It's funny because I think a lot of my contemporaries are starting to realize the worldly limitations when it comes to jobs and a future. These are rough times we live in and think the idea that we were going to graduate from college and have a sweet job was kind of unrealistic. Maybe not at the time--but it certainly isn't as much of a reality now. I'm starting realize my own limitations and what I can and cannot do; what I didn't set myself up to do; how all of my mistakes compound to make up the reality that I live in. I say mistakes because you don't ever realize anything is wrong until it comes up. All of a sudden you realize that the way you thought things were going to turn out... well... didn't.

You were just expecting perfection.

Agoraphobia and Xenophobia

You know, I can't imagine being afraid of both going outside and foreigners. Even if you're able to go outside, everyone is terrifying. Regardless, I think having either would be a terrible way to live. [This of course is coming from someone who has neither--who is looking in from the outside so what do I know] If you're xenophobic, how does anyone go from stranger to friend? I understand being terrified of Mexicans, the Chinese, or the British (because they're foreign you terrible person) but what about the guy down the street? Everyone is foreign.

"Oh Dylan," you might be saying to yourself, "I see what you did there. You tied this post back to your previous one. You're a genius."

Thanks. I try. But that's not what this post is about. I just got back from London (sort of) and being around all those foreign people (The Brits, obviously) made me think a lot about the world and how we view foreign people. Okay, when I say foreigners I simply mean people from another country. It could be the way anyone views anyone else.

We generally accept the idea that most people in the world hate us. That wherever we go, people are going to hear our crass, yankee accents and automatically make assumptions and judgments about us. You know how I know they do that? Think about British people. Who comes to mind? For me, it's Emma Watson, Jason Statham, and Maggie Thatcher. In my head, every single British citizen is one of those people. And honestly, I get off the train at Paddington and I hear the accents and that's really all I hear. I hear exactly what Hollywood and the movies and media have told me British people are like. So it's interesting when a British person does an American accent or impression because 9 times out of 10, provided they're not being serious, it's going to be a southern accent with a lot of hard R's or something. But if you think about the average Brit's average interaction with Americans, it's in the movies or the media where they see us being indulgent and generally on our worst behavior.

And think that's where a lot of xenophobia and stereotypes come from--the media on the whole. If you think about what you see in our media it's all just scandal and gossip and rich people being rich and greedy and poor people on the major extreme of ignorance and necessity. The funny thing is--we know that's not representative of day-to-day life of most Americans. But of course, the media has to report on the extremes because they need ratings. They need to report on Casey Anthony and that senator sending picture messages to underage girls because that's what Americans sink their teeth into or something. Well the rest of the world sees that garbage too. Maybe, just maybe, the rest of the world hates us because all they see of us is us being absolutely retarded all the time or indulging in our animalistic tendencies all the time. Or maybe they just watch all our terrible movies. On every single double-decker bus in London was an advert for either the new Conan movie or Cowboys and Aliens. And honestly, that's the impression that they have of Americans.

Crazy, you might be thinking. But do we have a different impression of the British or anyone else in the world? Not really. The stereotypes we hold of everyone else in the world are based on the tiny instances in which we observe them.

But does everyone really hate us? I don't think so. I don't think that's the case at all. What do we do when we see a British person in America? We hear the accent and we stop and stare and triple-take and try to listen to what they're saying and doing and if we talk to them we're super interested about where they're from and we generally try to be nice. I imagine that when the average European (because I'll try to stop picking on the British) hears an American accent, they do the exact same thing because it's different. They aren't staring at you because they hate you (most of the time), it's just different from what they normally hear. Now of course they might hear you and instantly hate you, but that's like any stranger anywhere hating you--it's motivated by belligerence and ignorance. Or maybe you were being an idiot. Ever think of that?

I think if you asked anyone in the world what they think of when they think of Americans, they might say John Wayne, a Wall Street businessman, and a cowboy. (Sorry ladies.) But that's all they see. Like any stranger, if they got to know you, they'd like you, I'm sure of it. And some are just interested in your existence.

But what's with the fascination of world travel? (Here's where agoraphobia kind of fits it, but I was really just trying to stick with the pattern.) Well if you read Stuff White People Like you know that white people like foreign things. It's exotic and not as mainstream as american stuff. In fact, if you do read Stuff White People Like, you know more about hipsters and less about white people as a whole. Anyway, they have a saying: The grass is always greener on the other side. We always think that things would be better for some reason if we lived in a different place like Italy or England or something cool like that where we could be fashionable and around people with strange accents. The fact is, I missed America in just the week I was gone. I miss driving on the correct side of the road and not having to mentally convert everything to dollars to figure out what I was spending and being able to speak loudly in public because I'm not afraid of people hearing my accent. I don't know if many people [hipsters] realize this, but moving to another country doesn't grant you freedom from the problems of being American, it just allows you to take on the crap that people in that country deal with on a day to day basis. You still have to deal with stupid people, taxes, crap politicians, and the daily grind. It just kind of pisses me off when people tell me genuinely that they day dream of leaving America and moving to another country because they don't like something here. I'm not saying there aren't legitimate reasons to move out of the country like job prospects or chasing the affections of a hot European actress but what I don't understand is why some people are so desperate to get out of here. Being over there is going to be exciting for a whole twenty minutes until you realize that gas and everything else is super expensive (comparatively). I'm just saying...

If it wasn't for modern technology, we wouldn't know the other existed. Louis C.K. does a funny bit on people complaining. He's talking about people complaining about traveling in airplanes--how the seats are so small and the food sucks and it's boring and being cramped with people sucks and how security blows blah blah blah. Louis just says Hey! You're in a chair in the SKY! You're traveling in the air over an ocean! That's freakin' amazing! Stop complaining!

And it's amazing how small the world is. I can send instant messages and skype with family in England if I want and that's incredible considering how far that information has to go. I guess the point of all this mess is to just talk a bit about how we view the world. I don't think anything will ever change. There's nothing wrong with a little xenophobia, but check your sources first.

Relationships

I haven't seen Just Friends or its counterpart No Strings Attached but the concepts of the movies alone got me thinking about relationship titles.

I think we can all agree that relationships are one of the most complicated things in the world. For clarification, if you've latched onto the tone of past posts, human interaction is easily the most complicated thing, and a relationship is any interaction you have with anyone. Duh.

Stranger is a relationship title. It's a title for any relationship you don't have... Or at least not quite enough to be an acquaintance which is a word for someone who isn't a stranger, but not quite a friend.

But I think it's a funny thing how we have to define everything in our world, down to our interactions with people. Of course, we have to define the physical and non-physical worlds and morality and art and everything that we have but those things seem relatively concrete (even if the interpretation is not). But I think it's interesting that we have to define our relationships in such concrete terms as friend, especially because relationships in themselves are not concrete or tangible at all. They're based on oral and implicit agreements and are subject to deceit and fault and yet again, we define them so rigidly.

Point is, if you tell someone that you're just friends, everyone kind of knows what that means. It has specific limitations and right and privileges. Now of course, if you tell someone you're just friends but you're secretly physically involved, now you're just a liar. It's just a specific terms with such a universal meaning for something that could mean different things to everyone.

And of course there's the notion of best friend which is some imaginary tier of friendship that involves being more intimate than your normal friends merit and infinitely more intimate than with acquaintances but yet something about this person sets them apart and earns them a special distinction. Somehow adding the word best to a title gives it prestige and adds all these responsibilities and expectations. It's funny because becoming best friends is like dating... how do you know when it starts? A hangout becomes a date becomes two dates and now... you're dating? One secret between friends becomes three and now you're best friends? I don't know. That's more subjective than anything, like knighthood right?

Think about how miserable you are when you don't know what your relationship label is. You're sitting there at a movie with a girl/boy you like and you're not even watching the movie--you're only thinking What are we? Then you awkwardly say goodnight at the end and all you can think about is your relationship label because all of a sudden if you said it and agreed upon it, it would make things easier. And it's true. It does make things easier. When two people sit down and say a label, things are easier because all parties involved know what that label implies and entails. They now know without having spell it out what the boundaries and rights are of the relationship. If a boy and a girl sit down and agree to be just friends, they know that there's no emotional or physical relationship to be had. If the boy says, "Hey I like you," and the girl says "Hey I like you too," then all of a sudden the relationship takes on a label and the rights of the relationship are more clearly defined and no one has to spend $11.25 to sit there thinking about it for two hours.

I think Facebook has had an interesting effect on relationship titles. Obviously, everyone you're friends with (including the 200 people you may or may not actually know all that well) is going to know the instant you add someone as a relationship partner. It's going to be a big deal, people are going to "like" your new status update and comment saying things like "OH MY GOSH SO CUTE" and whatever and I think adding the social aspect does some odd and horrible things to a relationship. I mean, from my previous definition of the topic I would say that relationship-defining terms are strictly between the two people to decide. Obviously, you can share the good news but the terms friend, boyfriend, acquaintance, best friend, enemy are really just for you to know where you and someone else stand. Once you give that title it's pedestal on Facebook for everyone to see, I feel like it all of a sudden becomes a permanent memorial to the integrity of the relationship whether it's real or not. To be less vague, once everyone know it exists, it's existence is a social responsibility. People will notice if you screw it up. But then people are also privy to the intimate details of your life and everything just becomes very real when other people know about it. I'm not against having your relationship status on your facebook, but I say give it a significant amount of time before you put it up there. Make sure your stupid relationship status isn't going to appear on my newsfeed every week because it keeps CHANGING.

The fact is, even though we have these concrete terms with these more or less concrete deno-/connotations, relationships aren't that simple. Every term has an asterisk when it comes to defining how you interact with someone. Not to say there's anything wrong with that. I'm a HUGE advocate for defining relationships. Even if it can't be defined in a single term like friend, it's good to know what you mean to someone. Think about it. If you have any unclear relationships in your life, clear them up. If this means telling someone how much you appreciate them as a friend or if they've been upgraded to best friend status or even if they've always been your friend, they'll always appreciate hearing it. Of course, don't say it like you're dying though. Don't give anyone cause to worry. If you like like someone, tell them. Knowing they do or don't like you back is going to feel much better than not knowing. And of course, if this advice means telling someone you don't like them or making sure your relationship has clear boundaries, then that's what you got to do. Again, everything's better when everything's clear. Then you make sure you can say I told you when someone tries to say you've been dishonest with them. I know there's a few relationships in my life I'd like to clarify.