Long - oh well

Warning: like a true LJer I’m going to talk about me a lot here today. This is long, sorry, and I still don’t know how to link long posts to pretty little links in a short post. Don’t get mad – at least I wrote this stuff – it’s not like another damn quiz or picture :p

Last night while I watched “Bowling for Columbine,” I was really taken with the homicide statistics and the link made with our ‘culture of fear.’ I’ve spoken out about this quite a bit myself – how the news is constantly running on about things that scare us in order to get us to watch their show and boost their ratings. Fear sells. Interesting side note: fear and sex sell products – how far removed are we from animals when our sophisticated thoughts and behaviors are still primarily motivated by primal emotions? Everyone uses fear to sell – the right wing uses fear of fags a lot right now, though crime is a good second runner up in their literature. The left wing uses fear as well, usually showing us how scary the right-wing agenda is to solicit funds. For a brief time I subscribed to the “Skeptical Inquirer,” which exists only to objectively study pseudo-science and fight against the proliferation of non-scientific beliefs as they affect public knowledge and policy. I left them because they constantly bombarded me with fund-raising literature that was pointing out every alarming trend and potential threat to rational thought. They were just as bad as the people they were fighting against when it came to their fund-raising. I am afraid that the ends do not justify the means, and I don’t want to support a good cause that uses bad methods to further themselves. Problem: how in the hell would a society work it’s way out of this fear? I can’t think of a solution outside of education, but it seems that rational discourse always is beaten by a good dose of fear. I’m not thinking of a single realistic way this cycle will end.

On a more local note, my small female friend left the movie to walk home to her place in a bad neighborhood. I don’t feel particularly safe walking around there, yet she says she is living there partially out of rebellion of that fear that people have of the poor, minorities, or whatever else looks scary at the moment. I’m torn between feeling that’s really cool of her, and fearing for her safety. I can think of two of my friends who have left bad (and good) parts of DC after they were in fact assaulted (both briefly strangled oddly enough). The only two women I know that were raped by people they didn’t know (that told me about it) include a girl raped in DC, and another kidnapped in VA by DC men who took her to DC and raped her. I see ‘ghetto’ kids riding the subway on the ‘safe’ VA lines for entertainment value – harassing people, hurling verbal sexual assaults, threatening and acting threatening, because they can get away with it in that locale. On the other hand, another great story in the news right now is about how 3 high-school kids in a really rich suburb lured an escort to their rich suburban house and beat her with a baseball bat and sexually assaulted her. I’m a fear-based person myself, so the fear for her safety will probably remain stronger than any desire to test the theory that poor neighborhood with high crime rates where people drink outside and just stand on the corner is just as safe if not safer than a gated suburb. Perhaps I’m just less scared of what I’m familiar with, perhaps poor neighborhoods have far more violent crimes.

I’ve spent a depressing morning reading the paper. Speaking of the news perpetuating a culture of fear, I read articles about Nigeria’s insane Muslim practice of law and how their inhumane practice is carried out. I’d be more critical of the practices if there weren’t tons of articles talking about how the judge is being ordered to remove the 10 commandments from the entrance to his courthouse in this country, non-violent drug offenders filling the new privitized jails, or the 3 strikes insanity. It’s been postulated that he is using this issue to propel himself into a political career. So, shoving Christianity down people’s throats is a way to get ahead in this country (duh). I’m just a bit baffled that these things are even issues. Since the time of the birth of each of the these religions – Christianity being a fairly young 2,000 years old, we have learned what causes lightning, that sickness is caused by tiny cells rather than giant demons, and have a much better understanding of how the world works. Still, these ancient pointless artifacts drive people to act like idiots. Why do these large societies hang onto these pointless belief systems and inaccurate portrayals of history? Why isn’t science winning out? Why aren’t new religions popping up and replacing the old ones if all they do is fill emotional needs? Why the hell do people not question these belief systems and move on? I can’t even fathom an answer.

I’m also kinda sad. This is not a great thing to reveal about myself, but I’m noticing that the more time I spend with people the sadder I get. I was sick for a while, and noticed that I was generally happy (albeit frustrated with being ill for such a long time). I got better, and have been out doing things with people ever since – take that stir-craziness! It’s weird though…spending time with people makes me feel alone. I really like to belong – I really like to feel a part of something. On the net or watching tv, I feel connected to the world around me. Talking to people, listening to their words, watching their actions…I don’t feel like a part. I don’t understand why they think that, I don’t know why they care, I don’t know why they don’t care, and I feel very different than they are. I think about my age and how many people and types of people have left me feeling this way. I once had a friend, who I’ve quoted a lot lately, point out that if you have the same complaint about people over and over again, that the problem has to be the person making the complaint rather than the many people they encountered. I revisited that issue when darling Mr. Ko referred to a person as a leaking cup. He took his coffee cup and said ‘You know, if this cup leaking, what I do by moving it over here? See, here it mess up everything, so I move it over here. But the cup is still leaking! See, I’ve got another mess over here!” People and leaking cups…

I have tons of friends, most of whom I see for short bursts and many of those bursts involve watching media or being drunk, often both. In other words, it’s not really social interaction. Chemical haze, bright lights in dark rooms, loud noises, and a swirl of people and sensations keep any genuine interaction from occurring. I have a short threshold for social interaction, even when I like it. A good 2-4 hours of being around people and I’m dying to be voluntarily isolated again. This doesn’t apply to sexual situations, I wonder why that is. I’m thinking gee, at this age maybe this is just how I’m going to feel for life and I should just get used to it rather than seeking any type of change. I tend to think that patterns that occur over 34 years are likely permanently molded into my mind – that I am incapable of significant change.

Ok I’m now out of steam. Off to do lovely mundane things again…