2003-01-30 - 4:06 p.m.
bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored ...
I'm sure there is work I should be doing but I just can't bring myself to think about it. So, here we are.
Question: why do we do things that piss us off? I mean, really. I found myself reading something today that I knew would piss me off. I KNEW that if I read much further I was just going to be angry again. I also knew that my anger would change nothing, and it certainly wasn't helping me. So what the hell was I doing there?
Occupying time, I suppose. And doesn't that seem like to root cause of "drama"? We're bored. We don't actually have real things to do or react to so we'll make something up. Or borrow someone else's something. Then we can whip ourselves up into some kind of emotional orgasm but, in reality, not made a difference at all.
Another problem, built right into the above statement, is that we are looking for something to *react* to. Reacting is passive, an armchair quarterback way to live life. And for a lot of people it serves very well. They seem happy with the drippings of life, what filters down to the bottom of the pan and you can just cruise by and sop it up with a piece of bread ... you barely have to chew. (odd life-as-meat-juice thing there) And, hey, drippings are all good, no truck with drippings. But, it seems to me, that the really interesting stuff - the stuff you can tell stories about - is the stuff you had to hack off the roast yourself. The stuff you had to position yourself at the kitchen door (so you would be the first in line) for. Carefully watching to see just when the cook takes off their apron and starts washing their hands. I'm ... going a bit far here.
But, yeah, that stuff. So your story doesn't start with "I once heard about this thing" it starts with "I once did this thing" or "I was there when". Better to have your own opinions, senses, and narrative than borrow someone else's, don't you think? Better to be able to claim the action and result of a thing than say "hey, I'm just the messenger".
I say that too much.
We seem to have built up a society that doesn't want you to directly experience much of anything anymore. Almost everything, our jobs, our media, our waistlines, just amounts to drama. Huh, no wonder it's so hard to break the pattern. But it's no excuse, either.
bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored ...
M
