Saturday, September 17, 2011

Babble

So, my friend has gone back to school. This is awesome.

He told me about a writing assignment where he has to write about smoking and drinking on campus, and why he would be for or against them. The interesting thing is that he has to advocate for one or the other, and at the same time see where the other side is coming from.

I thought that this was interesting, and was going to partake in the assignment myself, although it was going to be entirely for self-indulgent purposes. While hanging out with another friend this evening, I was inspired to do something better.

I'm going to take the stances a step farther, as I am apt to do with most situations. Instead of doing it for the topic of smoking and drinking on campus, I am going to be comparing the New King James version of the Bible with a Bible that was intended for children, and was published recently.

The reason for this is the fact that the small peoples' version of the Bible is intentionally leaving out a lot - certain key elements of stories - and I personally don't think that this is correct. I am going to compare what is written in one with what is written in the other.

I am going to do this because I need to formulate the opinion of whether I am for or against how they went about doing this. I will be taking Sunday (appropriately) to choose a few books of the Bible and read them side by side to see how they differentiate, if at all, and then I am going to recount my experience to you all.

The entry for that should be done by Monday.

I look forward to the experience.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Why Today Is Now Meaningless

I don't think that I need to sit here and tell you all what day it is. You'd have to be Helen Keller to not know, what with the news, radio, and TV all reminding us that on this day, ten years ago, some religious zealots completely crippled our sense of security as a nation by flying two passenger jets into the World Trade Center.

Ever since that day, our country has been gripped by fear, hatred, misunderstanding, and complete civil unrest. We have stood idly by and allowed the Federal government to step in and give itself powers that it shouldn't have, and take away right that we've had for years and took entirely for granted. And the worst part? We've been encouraging it this entire time.

I'm not going to sit here and talk about the TSA's at the airport, or the phone bugging that was going on in the first year after the event, or even the Patriot Act, which I feel has been turning citizens into suspects ever since that fateful day. The reason I'm not going to talk about these things is that if you're reading this, chances are, you already know. Further, chances are, you don't really care.

And that's what I want to talk about.

Ten years ago, I was sitting in school, taking a test. I was in the tenth grade. The day was going good, and even better, it was almost over for me. About halfway through my class, a girl opened the door to the classroom, told us all to turn on the news, then rushed off on her way to tell all of the other classes on the floor. Like any other human being, we let our curiosity get the best of us, and we turn it on to watch a video loop of the first plane as it slams into the tower. Of course, we all watched on in complete horror as the second plane did the same thing to the remaining one. There was a collective gasp as the towers collapsed.

"What's going on, here?" I remember thinking. Waiting patiently, the news reveals that the perpetrators are none other than zealots of the religious sect Al Qaeda, and that this is an honest-to-goodness act of terrorism. As the story develops, I go from being shocked and afraid to downright mortified.

As the story progresses and two more planes go down (one into the Pentagon, and the other shot down by our Air Force), we begin to find out details. The biggest question we had was "How did they manage to pull this off? What weapons were used?" In the end, we find out that they were using what basically amounted to prison shanks to keep people at bay. Seriously?

You're telling me that 3,000 people had to die that day because absolutely nobody on any of those planes was willing to stand up and bum-rush some asshole with a shiv that he crafted out of a pair of nail clippers and/or disposable razor? Yeah, you may have gotten hurt, but you'd have saved literally thousands of lives in the process. But at the end of it all, every single person on those planes was too pressed about their own self and their own safety to even give their fellow man a second thought.

This attitude has persisted in our society way before, and even after, this fateful day. Many will tell you that ever since that day, ten years ago, there has been no shortage of patriots. Sure, I'll give them that, but these are people who I would call Bandwagon Patriots. They're only being patriotic because it's the trendy thing to do. Where was your sense of patriotism before 3,000 people lost their lives?

Many will claim that it was there, but many and more would be lying. They couldn't have had a sense of patriotism because they never thought about it. And to this day, they still couldn't tell you what it really means to be a patriot, beyond waving the flag and saying "Woohoo!" to those warriors that come back from overseas.

This is not patriotism.

Many people these days cannot even tell you what the flag really means. That flag - the Star-Spangled Banner that we are taught from a very early age to respect - means more than just "freedom." That narrow-minded answer angers me far more than what words can describe. That flag represents blood, sweat, and tears of men who fought and died for our rights; rights that we've been giving away for the past ten years.

Benjamin Franklin once said that "those who would give up essential liberty for a bit of temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." I'm sure you've all heard it before, but I want you to stew on that.

Folks, do you know what's going on around you, right now? Go take a walk outside, and I can almost guarantee you will see people everywhere wearing "patriotic" clothing - things that undoubtedly evoke the image of an eagle, or perhaps silhouetted towers against an American flag background. Sure, these images make a heart flutter with pride in our resilience as a nation, but read between the lines.

They have turned 9/11 into a marketing ploy. It's become nothing more than a way to make money, and it's disrespectful to our dead.

A country singer - I forget which one - released an album on this day a few years ago that was supposed to be all about his feelings on the day. The songs were very generic, and sounded all the same. The emotion in his voice was barely registered on the radar, and people still bought it up like it was water after the nuclear apocalypse. He was broke before the album, and now is rich again.

People today will be buying things at discounted prices as various retail outlets have sales in remembrance of the terror attacks that have put us where we are today. I want someone who lost family in the attacks to answer me if they feel their kin would really want them to buy a mattress at 50% off as a way of remembering who they are and what happened to them.

Further, there will invariably be attacks on local Muslims and their mosques. I can't imagine that there won't be today, and if there isn't, I will be shocked. This will happen because we've been taught that it was Muslims who did this to us. Never you mind that it was a zealous sect of them that did this, and not the ones that are repeatedly telling you that theirs is a religion of peace.

"But they were the ones that blew us up!" you might say. Yeah, but again, those were extremists. A large portion of the Muslim faith wants nothing to do with these assholes. Let me ask you this: If you claim yourself a Christian, do you want to be associated with Westboro Baptist Church? It's the same principle here, only far, far worse for them.

Doing these things - wearing clothing to honor blood spilled that you bought with money, holding "commemorative" sales to make a profit, hating on people that have done nothing to you, waving the flag whose meaning you can't even describe beyond "freedom!" and what not.... it's not being patriotic. It's being stupid, narrow-minded, and overall, un-American.

To be patriotic, you have to be willing to stand up and fight and die for the freedoms of your fellow man in this country, with absolutely no exceptions. You have to be willing to hear a guy on a soap box on the street corner, talking about things that make your blood boil, but stopping anybody that would try and stop him from talking. Patriotism is going out and being willing to die for what you believe in, but also for the rights of others to believe what they will, as well, even if you don't necessarily agree with it.

"I may not agree with what you say, but I will gladly fight and die for your right to say it." - Voltaire

Patriotism is something that is shown through more than just wearing red, white, and blue. It's more than fireworks during Independence Day. It's more than knowing that we have a piece of paper called the Constitution. It really boils down to understanding these things, why we do them, and why they're important.

9/11 is no longer important. When something gets turned into a nation-wide marketing scheme and is abused for people to make money, it ceases to hold its relevance in my eyes. I will remember the attacks ten years ago, and I will remember them with a tear in my eye and a frown upon my face, not because I am sad for the people who lost their lives that day, but because I am sad that their memory is now being shamed by us turning this day into what we have.

I am an American. I am a patriot. I no longer give a crap about this day, because it has now become meaningless in our pursuit for the love of money, and public image. We want so badly for everyone else to see us in our colors, showing our American pride, while we continue to let those who want our money more than anything else continue to disrespect our dead civilians and soldiers both.

Of course, this is just my opinion on the matter. I could be wrong.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

You May Not, But I Do

So, a while back, I made a promise to start getting more personal in these blogs. When I first made that statement, I wasn't entirely sure what I meant by that. That post took a lot out of me, both mentally and emotionally, and I had hit a brick wall when it came to following up.

I don't think that I'm going to have that issue anymore.

What I want to talk about tonight is something that I didn't realize was on my mind until having a great conversation with two really good friends - one of which has a blog of his own.

There are many people out there who say that they "don't care." I feel that the term is misused almost every time that it exits someone's mouth-hole. Contextually, anyway. There are four kinds of people who say this phrase: A) They don't understand what it really means; B) Someone who is in complete denial of a situation and wants nothing to do with it; C) Those who are choosing to abstain; and D) Those who really mean it.

In person A, we have the type of person who claims that they don't care about anything at all. Out of the options, these this is the one that I honestly can't stand. Sad thing is, most of us are this person, especially when we're teenagers. This is the type who wants to appear to be cool in the eyes of others, and therefore wants an air of mystery about them, or perhaps they want their opinion to seem superior.

Most of the time, they're just stupid.

These people are lying to themselves, because deep down, they honestly do care. They are the kind of person who seems to have an awful lot of opinions about a world they claim to not give a crap about. They are arrogant, hot-headed, and just all-around neanderthals (as far as this writer is concerned) who don't know what it really means to not care about anything at all.

You people who do this need to wake up. Do you have any idea of the low that you have to be to reach the point of not caring? I've been there - and I'll go more into that later - and it ain't pretty.

With person B, they don't inspire wroth more than they do pity in my eyes. These are the people who, when approached about something about themselves or someone close to them, they make a subconscious choice to just tune it out. You can talk to them about it until you are blue in the face, but it just never sinks in. They tell you that they "don't care," and it's because they're not willing to face whatever it is that you're talking to them about. After all, it's easier feign indifference than it is to admit you're wrong.

People who fall into category C are interesting. These are the kinds of people who make an active choice to not care. They are the kinds of people who won't read the news, for example (one that was presented to me tonight, as a matter of fact), because they don't like the effect that it has on them. They keep up on current events though what people at work or home are talking about, and maybe sneak a peek at headlines while in line at a convenience store.

Then you have the folks in category D. They are few and far between, and there's a reason for that.

To reach this level, you have to have hit such a spot in your life that you are at the absolute rock-bottom. Any lower, and you start getting into Hell itself. At this level, you have ceased to care about anything at all.

At first, it starts with not caring about what's going on around you. The only thing that matters is you. People become nothing more than playthings, and are there only to be used for whatever you can get. When the bridge is burned, who cares? Certainly not you.

Shortly after that, you hit the level where you stop caring about your personal health and hygiene. After all, it doesn't really matter. You're just going to get dirty and die in the end anyway, so what's the point?

Eventually, you get to the point where stop caring about everything entirely, and suddenly the idea of death becomes really appealing. That's.... not a point I ever want to visit again.

As I mentioned before, I was this person at one point in my life. I was addicted to drugs, and making every attempt I could to just absolutely self-destruct. It was not a fun point in my life, and given the chance, I would do it all differently. Every single bit of it.

The people who fall into category A infuriate me so much because they simply do not know what they're talking about, and I hate that they think it's cool. I assure you, folks: it isn't. If you have any bit of empathy whatsoever, you can imagine what it's like to have zero emotion about anything, and realize how scary that really is.

For those of you that don't, just ask someone who does. Maybe they can explain it better than I can.

Most people snap out of their selfishness far before they ever get to that point. They wake up one day and realize what it is that they're doing to themselves, and others. There are people out there who don't, however, and that always ends in complete tragedy.

The point of all of this is that I want a little more thought put behind your words. Think about what you want to say before you say it. Words are powerful, and the effect of them can be awesome, or tragic. Words cut deeper than any knife. They penetrate further than any bullet, and will leave scars worse than the hottest fires.

At the end of the day, we need to learn how to better communicate with each other. We are going around our day-to-day routines, and we mindlessly blurt out powerful phrases like "I don't care," with absolutely no thought as to the meaning behind it.

If you're in category A - and I know for a fact that several of you who will read this are - then you need to just shut up. Stop claiming not to care, when you so obviously do. If you didn't care, then you wouldn't have anything to say about whatever it was that was going on.

If you're in category B, please wake up and realize that people are only talking to you about something for your own good. If you just stop and listen to the things that others have to say about something, you'd be amazed at what you could possibly learn. Don't dismiss something that someone says - especially when it pertains to you - just because you don't want to hear it. Chances are, if you don't want to hear something, it's because you need to hear it.

If you're in category C, then I have no real gripes about you. You just keep on existing. You're at least taking measures to prevent yourself from going off the deep end in life.

I'd say something to category D, but those people wouldn't read this, anyway.

So, the next time that you're about to say that you "don't care," I want you to remember what I've said tonight. I want you to actually think about whatever it is that you supposedly don't care about, and figure out if you really don't care about it, because you simply never know the effect of what your words could have.

If we would all just start saying exactly what we mean to each other, we can start moving forward and making this world a better place. And if not better, at least far more tolerable.

Of course, Dennis Miller said it best: "That's just my opinion. I could be wrong."