It’s 3 AM the morning after Christmas and I know I should be asleep but I can’t. I just keep thinking.
There’s so much to think about. There’s a new year and a new semester and I have the chance to change my life. I have the need to change my life. I don’t even know what it is, but I have this need to explode across somewhere, that I’ve been bottled up and there’s so much potential and energy and ideas that I can’t keep it in anymore. I want to dedicate myself. I want to stop procrastinating and sabotaging myself. I want to be a daytime person. I want to write, and often. I want to listen to more music, and make more music, that which I haven’t done in years. I want to have life on my own terms and vivaciously; to strike out with the force of mind and will to make a mark on the great big world that I can tell my grandchildren about. And I want grandchildren.
That’s another thing when I’m home is I notice more and more how my parents would make such excellent grandparents. I love them so, and I love my brothers, and as we all get older the dynamic changes and I see our roles changing. Patrick will be 17 in February, which absolutely amazes me. I found a picture of him and me in his baby cradle. I had snuck in there to join him and he just has this look of utter fascination towards me and I’m giggling. I am regularly amazed by how well our parents raised us. My dad once said before I was born that they talked about it and agreed: “yes—let’s have some kids, and raise them too.” That’s very important I think. You raise them. I can’t imagine the sacrifices they’ve made for us. They’re both such incredible people I wonder what they would’ve been without us. But they did have us, and the world is better for it. I keep thinking about if I want kids, and I do, but I can’t make that commitment yet and I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I could be as good as them. And part of that is because I couldn’t raise them the same.
That’s what really frightens me about this last election, what really truly chills me. I don’t think I want to raise children in this country. It’s scary. The system is scary. The people in American society are scary, and I’m not talking about things my mom is afraid of like murderers or child molesters but just people on the street. Average people who would screw you over in a heartbeat if they think it’ll make their lives just a bit better. To make some money, or just to get their way. There’s so many dumb laws and nobody remembers the law of grand Karma. If everyone treats everybody like shit, then everything goes to shit. I want real morality and that’s a societal problem not a presidential one. It doesn’t matter one fucking bit what the president thinks of unborn babies. He’s demostrated in a disturbing variety of ways that he’s willing to kill actual, breathing human beings. But that alone isn’t frightening. We’ve had plenty of twisted politicians in the past. But usually democracy recovers and rights itself. To believe that the people would willingly re-elect representatives like the Bush administration is the most bloodcurdling thought for American democracy since… well, ever. That’s why there are so many Americans in denial. The other half I can’t speak for since I really can’t understand them. I know them though, some are even my relatives. All I can say is faith is no excuse for ignorance right or left. And fear, fear of terrorism, is no excuse for blind faith.
I don’t condemn Islamic terrorists. I don’t. They’re people with problems, and they’re trying to rid themselves of those problems any way they can. In a primitive reactionary and violent way, perhaps, but the only way they’ve found effective. Some fault America as the source of those problems but a lot of Americans can’t see that at all. On a meta-level, it’s the clash of civilizations and it’s inevitable and probably about time. Now the American people might be personally, tragically responsible for the actions of their government and the decadence of their culture. Democracy is uniquely accountable in that way. Re-electing Bush was a big ol’ fuck you to the arab world and all it’s legitimate concerns even though they don’t take kindly to foreign cultures anyway. It says so in frickin’ Genesis. In choosing Bush, America chose to fear. And that more than anything a terrorist could do will break this country.
But mostly I try to keep my mind off things like that.
I try to think of new ways to amuse myself on the internet. Or new things to say to people. I try to think of new things to create, when I’m feeling ambitious. I try to write in my journal so I don’t forget my life. I try to remember that I’m still alive. I hang out with people and we’re alive together. I dream sometimes of intricate and surreal beauty. My life is small and so is yours buddy. I’d like to be a great writer or inventor or musician, but I am humble. I don’t expect to be. I hope to live and live well. That’s the best any of us can ever hope for.