Oct 10, 2005 10:20
Before I get started let me say that "... is a Real Boy" by Say Anything is a fine, fine piece of music. Purchase it immediately. You will not regret it. These are the lyrics of one of the finest anthems on this masterpiece:
"ADMIT IT! Despite your pseudo-bohemian appearance and vaguely leftist doctrine of beliefs, you know nothing about art or sex that you couldn't read in any trendy New York underground fashion magazine. Proto-typical non-conformist: you are a vacuous soldier of the thrift store gastapo. You adhere to a set of standards and tastes that appear to be determined by an unseen panel of hipster judges, giving your thumbs up and thumbs down to incoming and outgoing trends and styles of music and art. Go analog baby! You're so post-modern. You're diving face forward into an antiquated past, it's disgusting! It's offensive! Don't stick your nose up at me!
Yeah, what do you have to say for yourself?
You spend your time sitting in circles with your friends pontificating to each other. [You are] forever competing for that one moment of self aggrandizing glory in which you hog the intellectual spotlight, holding dominion over the entire shallow, pointless conversation. Oh we're not worthy. When you walk by a group of quote-unquote normal people you chuckle to yourself, patting yourself on the back as you scoff. It's the same superority complex shared by the high school jocks who made your life a living Hell. And it makes you a slave to the competitive capitalist dogma you spend every moment of your waking life bitching about!
Yeah, what do you have to say for yourself? I'm proud of my life and the things that I have done. I'm proud of myself and the loner I've become. You're free to whine. It will not get you far. I do just fine with my car and my guitar.
Well let me tell you this, I am shamelessly self-involved. I spend hours in front of the mirror making my hair elegantly disheveled. I worry about how this album will sell because I believe it will determine the amount of sex I will have in the future. I self-medicate with drugs and alcohol to help treat my extreme social anxiety problem.
You are a faker! You are a fraud! You're living a lie! Living a lie! Your life is living a lie! You don't impress me! (Admit it!) You don't intimidate me! (Admit it!) Why don't you bow down, get on the ground, walk this plank?
Yeah, what do you have to say for yourself? I'm proud of my life and the things that I have done, proud of myself and the loner i've become. You're free to whine. It will not get you far. I do just fine, my car and my guitar. I am done with this. I wanna taste the breeze of every great city. My car and my guitar. So you've come to be made of these urges unfulfilled. Oh, no, no, no, no! When I'm dead I'll rest."
On real estate and hypocrisy. In this struggle for social justice, it’s important to understand the issues. It’s important to know what you are fighting for. And it’s important to understand the dangers of moderation and compromise. As I said, recently, some of my friends are ideologically changing. But, as I will discuss now, their political and social changes are not properly maturing. They still are philosophically lost and they aren’t aligned properly. The causes they support conflict with one another. That frustrates me greatly (but, keep in mind, it still frustrates me less than how they threaten my individuality).
Here’s a story that applies to my current frustrations:
Sometimes my brain farts. Surprisingly, this is a bad thing. I make stupid judgments, I talk out of my butt; sometimes I just make up stuff. But other times - it just works. I find myself not overanalyzing a situation to see where I should ideologically fall, I just start talking and the right words come out… maybe not the right words. But the correct words do.
For instance, I was talking to my friends at fourth meal about buying a home. I think buying a home, especially in Philadelphia, is a great investment. Real estate is an awesome venture that ultimately results in a lot of profit. I don’t really like profit, but that aside, real estate is a pimping industry.
My friend was telling me that he owned a home. And that he got the loan for the down payment of that home from his parents. To help him pay the mortgage, he’s raising support (he’s a missionary, basically) and is also renting out rooms to his friends. I asked him, “When the home gets paid off and you have this $200,000 asset, will the people who helped you pay for it (the people that rented it), get a piece of it?” He said no.
I wondered how it was possible that one man could profit that greatly, literally, on the backs of his friends. Sure, I’ve worded that a bit harshly, but they are indeed paying rent, and their rent is directly paying for his mortgage. But they aren’t going to own any of the asset that they paid for. Their contribution is very important. It is absolutely crucial to his cause. But they will not be rewarded for it like he is.
I asked him why he taking this approach. I got typical answers, “Convenience.” “Practicality.” “Efficiency.” He told me that if he were to do it my way, it would be slow. Things wouldn’t get done. Leaky faucets and broken refrigerators wouldn’t get fixed. It would take a lot of planning and discussion and it would move too slowly.
This way, he can have people rent a room and he’ll be able to provide that service for them. Their position is replaceable. To be a landlord takes time, energy, and organization. He attends zone meetings; he fixes things in the home and so on. I understood his perspective. He position, as the person who has provided the money upfront is much less dispensable than his roommates’ position. And including them from the beginning (or now) would be too hard to manage.
Well, as you probably already know. I’m a jerk when I discuss anything remotely political or religious. And this was no exception. I said things I shouldn’t have said and was called out on it right there (my friends don’t delay in telling me I’m being rude). And the most beautiful part of our conversation was that I was forgiven before I even acknowledged my mistake (which, for the record, was just a few moments ago).
The ideological richness of this conversation was driving me mad. And the sad part is that most people at the table agreed with him. I’m mean, we’re talking about people who aren’t conservatives, people who call themselves socialists, liberals, and so on. And they support that kind of entrepreneurship? Oh, boy, that made my stomach cringe.
I talked to my roommate after the discussion and he tried to explain his perspective to me. He basically said, on a small level, conservative ideas make since. They are “realistic,” as he put it. He spoke of being anti-capitalist on a large level, on the global level. I was perturbed. I basically told him that I couldn’t disagree more. If I’m not willing to live out my convictions on a small level, then I have no place telling the U.S. where it should be. If my lifestyle flourishes and is enjoyable because of capitalism - then I better like capitalism. Because when the system falls, and oh baby it will, my PowerBook, my veggie burgers, and my pants are going with it.
I left these conversations relatively happy and content. Finally, after weeks of experiencing challenges to my own individuality, I was able to set myself apart once again. As I mentioned before, socialists out for capitalist gain frustrate me. But if those socialists are people that also threaten my individuality, they don’t bother me so much. Be different from me even if your differences are damaging to society. But get ready, because I’m going to eat you and your neoconservative buddies alive and tell you to get some compassion.
In other words, unless I like you, you are screwed.