I'm more or less broke and in an act of pure desperation I'm trying to make some money via my writing. so please click here to read my newest post. Thanks, but only if you clicked on the link.
Good night and good luck
Edit: Apparently I can't do simple html so just copy and paste this:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4871172_like-whats-going-mens-sweet.html
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Who Am I Now?
There seems to be a prevailing need in American society to define everything. We become very uneasy if something or someone can fit neatly into a box. Where all this comes from I have no idea, but looking back through time it seems that this need is less cultural and more something that we all share as human beings. The ancient Greeks came up with elaborate myths to try and explain why things are the way they are. Here in modern times, we have Dr. Phil and the E! Network to tell us about the world at large.
This phenomenon tends to reach its apex in high school, when everyone is defined by their social group, i.e. the jocks, the Goths, the rich girls, the wallflowers, the ruggedly handsome loner who comes out of nowhere senior year to date the best looking, most popular and remarkably complex girl in the school*, the stoners, etc. After high school such defining wanes considerably, although people still tend to be defined by their job or their family.
I recently read Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, which for the most part deals with how most people tend to view themselves as characters in literature, a film, TV show, ect. Vonnegut believes this is a sort of illness that most of America suffers from. Not only do I think he's right, but I'd also count myself as among the victims of this epidemic. However I really don’t think my problem of identify with fictional characters is as fatal as Vonnegut makes it out to be. For the better part in my life I've often thought of myself as a character in some sort of narrative. I’ve also been known to try and make my life more like a fictional characters’. For the latter part of my high school career as well as my first few years of college I tried as hard as I could to be an elitist like John Cuasak in "High Fidelity"**. And who could forget the awkward few days I tried to be like Tyrone Slothrop. Thankfully for mine and humanities sake this didn’t pan out.
If you had asked me a few months ago when I was working 50+ hours between two jobs, I would have told you that my life was all too closely resembling the Loverboy song Working for the Weekend (a song I’ve always kinda liked, but never one I wanted to model my life after.) Now in moments of reflection I see that my life closely resembles a lead character in a Walker Percy novel. Only I don’t have the money, grandiose existential adventure, southern culture and two-dimensional sex icon/savior figure female character.
So really my life is nothing like a Walker Percy protagonist. I guess that means I am nothing…
Until We Meet Again
** Or maybe that’s only in John Hughes and Cameron Crowe movies
* 85% of cases of men trying to be fictional characters involve John Cusack
This phenomenon tends to reach its apex in high school, when everyone is defined by their social group, i.e. the jocks, the Goths, the rich girls, the wallflowers, the ruggedly handsome loner who comes out of nowhere senior year to date the best looking, most popular and remarkably complex girl in the school*, the stoners, etc. After high school such defining wanes considerably, although people still tend to be defined by their job or their family.
I recently read Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, which for the most part deals with how most people tend to view themselves as characters in literature, a film, TV show, ect. Vonnegut believes this is a sort of illness that most of America suffers from. Not only do I think he's right, but I'd also count myself as among the victims of this epidemic. However I really don’t think my problem of identify with fictional characters is as fatal as Vonnegut makes it out to be. For the better part in my life I've often thought of myself as a character in some sort of narrative. I’ve also been known to try and make my life more like a fictional characters’. For the latter part of my high school career as well as my first few years of college I tried as hard as I could to be an elitist like John Cuasak in "High Fidelity"**. And who could forget the awkward few days I tried to be like Tyrone Slothrop. Thankfully for mine and humanities sake this didn’t pan out.
If you had asked me a few months ago when I was working 50+ hours between two jobs, I would have told you that my life was all too closely resembling the Loverboy song Working for the Weekend (a song I’ve always kinda liked, but never one I wanted to model my life after.) Now in moments of reflection I see that my life closely resembles a lead character in a Walker Percy novel. Only I don’t have the money, grandiose existential adventure, southern culture and two-dimensional sex icon/savior figure female character.
So really my life is nothing like a Walker Percy protagonist. I guess that means I am nothing…
Until We Meet Again
** Or maybe that’s only in John Hughes and Cameron Crowe movies
* 85% of cases of men trying to be fictional characters involve John Cusack
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