Life, and my ideas on it...

[ArtKing1239]

First of all, I want to preface this by saying the information displayed in this post is by no means fact. It is my opinion on the way things are, and a bit of my philiosophy on life.

 

 

Today marked the end of a week my friend and I spent together. You see, I moved in August to Grand Rapids, MI, from Midland, MI. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, as my home in Midland marked the longest period of time I'd ever spent in one place - 7 years. I grew up there, and moving caused friendships I had cultivated during that time to weaken. Anyway, during that time we had done a lot of talking; mostly about the same old stuff, milling over past experiences, and laughing at times which in reality we had found awkward, or frightful.

 

It was during this time that I realized what life really is - and that, in the long run, it has no meaning for anyone except you and those you've impacted. I'm by no means a religious person, and I believe that man doesn't pass on a soul; no, man passes on a legacy. The way you impact people now, and the way people remember you when you pass on, is the closest thing to a soul anyone can hope to grasp.

 

While pondering the meaning of my life in relation to those closest to me, I found that most of my friends (really brothers, in all honesty) and I share one common thing... art. Art of all forms; music and visual being the most prevalent. I also found that I had strong beliefs on the subject, some of which I'll share here. My goal in this post is to present my belief system in a way that it can be debated with me, by other posters in this forum.

 

As for art, for me it is a release. Art is the only thing I really work at, really try my hardest to expand my boundaries. Art is definitely definable, no matter what some might think. It is the presentation of sensual stimuli; different people like different art as it appeals to the senses. I find that certain forms of art ring falsely to me, and it disturbs me as a person, because I think Americans are becoming more and more integrated into the idea of pop culture, where there are different forms of It, and if you don't have It you're Nothing. And Nothing is something trendy people seem to hate, not only in the sense of lacking material goods but also in lacking this sense of coolness, and being In. The reason for this is that if you're not In, you're Out, and Out is a very cold place to be during the winter. This disturbs me mainly because in today's climate what seems to be In is rap music, bling bling, skateboarding, nu-punk, Abercrombie, and as always money. And anyone who thinks you don't need money is a fool. I've never agreed with the attitude most rappers present with their music; low morals, low humor, and an idiotic snese of immortality in the face of certain death. Neither do I like the nu-punkers, because what they are trying to embrace is a poorly copied version of something that's been done before. Bands today who display the true viscerality that originally was "punk" music are not to be found on MTV; they're in clubs, doing poo gigs for poo pay... because they love it. People are out to make the quick buck; they're succeeding, and more power to them, but it still disturbs me nonetheless. Eventually, everyone is going to be out to make the big quick Buck, the market will be saturated with new, talentless Talent, and there'll be no-one left to do the jobs that truly need to be done.

 

Which brings us to another trend in America; laziness. I used to refuse the idea that Americans were becoming fat, that everyone was just jealous because we had more of everything than the rest of the world. However, I was recently told a story by a paramedic who had gone to a house on a heart-attack call. He pulled up in the ambulance to two trailers parked side-by-side. One trailer was fairly normal, if a little dirty; the other's floor had fallen out. But, because they were too lazy to properly dispose of the other trailer, they just left it, and threw their refuse in it. If the guy had taken a day to move it, they could have been living a much cleaner life. It's not like they didn't have the money; the guy who told me this story said they had the biggest T.V. they he had ever seen. The mindset of the average American today - and don't get me wrong, I love my country - is one that infuriates me. It's never anyone's fault, and it can always be done tomorrow. I don't know if any of you realize this, but the effective tax rate in America is something like 46%. That means that anyone who works lives half of their lives for someone else; mainly going towards welfare checks for those who don't do anything and social security for those who may have worked hard, but spent their lives paying so much money for those who don't do anything that they have no money for retirement.

 

The state of things makes me weary, as an American, just thinking about it. It gets even worse, though. The way children act towards adults today does nothing to make me optimistic for the future. Kids and teens today expect what they want, when they want it, to be delivered to them immediately. They get everything paid for, including a car from daddy and cell phone from mommy, who probably live in two separate houses, each secretly blaming the other for creating the spawn of the dark lord they call their son or daughter. Teens especially get so immersed in pop-culture (excuse me if I get redundent) and the idea of some foolish sort of rebellion. Rebellion is proving society wrong when it tells you you're incapable of doing something; not calling them an turkey, continuing to fail, and asking for gas money later.

 

Anyway, it's getting late, I'm tired of typing for now, I'll expand on this later. Feel free to assail any points I've made thus far.

[ohGr]

many of these things you have pointed out i have found true, with the bands who play gigs for *censored* all pay, ive found that the death/black metal scenes scenes are a good example, many of them just like to play, and there are only a few bands desperately after money, not the fans, the respect, the opportunity, but it all about the money for them, which is a stupid thing to focus on, money instead of respect, its all about if you like it or not, ive found that walking through the city in a metal t-shirt (band shirt) i get complimented by other metalheads (fans, if you will), and sometimes i even begin to talk to them about music, as for other music types, two people who think their black wearing....a rap t-shirt, come across eachother, they'd either be hostile, or ignroe eachother, same for all the other types of music...except techno, they dont like band-shirts.

with the whole typical teen thing, id agree with you on that one too, i might be only 14, but im much more mature than 90% of the people in my year level at my school, their always going on about SMS'sing the girls from the girls school, rambling on about gang wars and crap, it makes me so sick sometimes i leave the school, and dont bother going back for a few days, the fact that back then, people didnt judge others by their looks (by tattos they did), and now days, its all about wether she has big....jugs....is "hot", half the time when someone says that, id just make a smart-arse comment, although, there are the people who push it too far, i remember this kid at my school, who thought i said "f*** you" to the teacher instead of him, in a sarcastic way, now, at this point, i was about to go nuts, this guy was threatening me, and even tried to throw a chair at me, at this point, i found out who my friends really were, the ones who stood up against him, the ones who supported me, who unlike some others who i thought were friends, stood up for me, which can mean alot for anyone.

so yes, many of your points are right.