Everyone wants to complain about how the world is, but none of them want to admit that the reason it has gotten to here is due to their ignorance of the events that led to this point.
And there lies my problem with society as a whole - at least in the USA.
Our parents feed us toys and entertainment throughout our childhood as a means to reward us for good behavior and give us a cheap babysitter. We grow up idolizing those who entertain us as though they are somehow more human than we are, or perhaps something other than human is a more accurate way of phrasing it.
Of course, some of us grow up to realize they are simply human - full of flaws and suffering the same as the rest of us, and to some affect, in ways we can't imagine. I know I wouldn't want to live under the microscope.
But I digress - our lust for ignoring life outweighs so greatly our lust to change our lives for the better, and it happens in such a manner as to allow a joke of a human being - Donald Trump - to become the president of the United States of America. It allows the completely generic sounds (and messages) emanating from "bands" like Chainsmokers to make number one selling hits.
We build our society around such a generic sense of humanity that we don't even have humanity left in the over arching masses. How can we truly expect anything other than a glorified reality television celebrity to be the president? Of course, that is negating all the obvious signs of racism, bigotry, and fascist notions he shows on a near daily basis. I don't even have to mention how his attacks on proper journalism is wholly attacking democracy at its core - if you can't have honest journalism then you can't have an informed society, plain and simple.
This came into fruition most prominently, for me at least, recently when someone told me that people just listen to music to have fun. Even if that were true (which, I most certainly don't believe). it doesn't mean that fun has to come at the cost of actual artistry. It most certainly doesn't mean that the music has to revolve around generic lyrics and a group of people sitting around trying to figure out a means to create a number one hit for the sake of money.
Realistically, however, music is the easiest form of art for people to relate to. The sounds are mood inducing or mood reinforcing from the start. The lyrics can work extraordinarily well to make the listener feel less alone - and let's be real, we are all alone.
It reminds me of lyrics from the Interpol song, Leif Erickson - "If your life is such a big joke then why should I care?"
And that's precisely it then, isn't it? If someone doesn't even take their own life seriously then why should anyone else care for their problems? The problem, of course, is that because so few people take their lives seriously (and then whine and cry about how bad their lives are) that it runs into everyone else's lives. If you don't take the most minor things seriously then the big things will be overwhelming to deal with.
By the time things get so serious as to having a fascist, racist, bigoted, compulsive liar as a president - well, all the average person can do is sit back and say, "what am I supposed to do about it?"
-Dustin S. Stover
And there lies my problem with society as a whole - at least in the USA.
Our parents feed us toys and entertainment throughout our childhood as a means to reward us for good behavior and give us a cheap babysitter. We grow up idolizing those who entertain us as though they are somehow more human than we are, or perhaps something other than human is a more accurate way of phrasing it.
Of course, some of us grow up to realize they are simply human - full of flaws and suffering the same as the rest of us, and to some affect, in ways we can't imagine. I know I wouldn't want to live under the microscope.
But I digress - our lust for ignoring life outweighs so greatly our lust to change our lives for the better, and it happens in such a manner as to allow a joke of a human being - Donald Trump - to become the president of the United States of America. It allows the completely generic sounds (and messages) emanating from "bands" like Chainsmokers to make number one selling hits.
We build our society around such a generic sense of humanity that we don't even have humanity left in the over arching masses. How can we truly expect anything other than a glorified reality television celebrity to be the president? Of course, that is negating all the obvious signs of racism, bigotry, and fascist notions he shows on a near daily basis. I don't even have to mention how his attacks on proper journalism is wholly attacking democracy at its core - if you can't have honest journalism then you can't have an informed society, plain and simple.
This came into fruition most prominently, for me at least, recently when someone told me that people just listen to music to have fun. Even if that were true (which, I most certainly don't believe). it doesn't mean that fun has to come at the cost of actual artistry. It most certainly doesn't mean that the music has to revolve around generic lyrics and a group of people sitting around trying to figure out a means to create a number one hit for the sake of money.
Realistically, however, music is the easiest form of art for people to relate to. The sounds are mood inducing or mood reinforcing from the start. The lyrics can work extraordinarily well to make the listener feel less alone - and let's be real, we are all alone.
It reminds me of lyrics from the Interpol song, Leif Erickson - "If your life is such a big joke then why should I care?"
And that's precisely it then, isn't it? If someone doesn't even take their own life seriously then why should anyone else care for their problems? The problem, of course, is that because so few people take their lives seriously (and then whine and cry about how bad their lives are) that it runs into everyone else's lives. If you don't take the most minor things seriously then the big things will be overwhelming to deal with.
By the time things get so serious as to having a fascist, racist, bigoted, compulsive liar as a president - well, all the average person can do is sit back and say, "what am I supposed to do about it?"
-Dustin S. Stover
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