Happy Get-Screwed-Over-Season!
I am merely passing the greeting over from Sophie, who is the one person whom I think truly knows what this day represents. In any case I think it better reflects the cultural legacy of this day than name-dropping a couple courting idiots from the Middle Ages (both named Valentine).
Maybe I should go see a psychiatrist. Maybe a psychiatrist should see me. That way I could open the door, welcome them in, kick them in the groin and slam the door in their faces. Then I'd open the door again and throw a bucket of ice-cold water on them.
Indeed, such are the thoughts that go through my head on this day. Such anger, such frustration. I can literally taste the Dark Side of the Force flowing through my fingertips. My co-worker Tori had better watch out lest that radio playing the same goddamn R & B songs over and over again suddenly explode into her face. But I kind of like Tori (though she's quitting), so that won't happen. Maybe I'll just vandalize a few SUVs with environmental messages and call it a day.
I understand that my point-of-view may be coming off as completely depressing. This is my intent.
Valentine's Day is the most fucked up fucking fuckday in all existence. It's shit. It's basically a day that makes single (and recently single, and temporarily single, and wish-they-were-single-but-are-instead-stuck-with-a-less-than-desirable-person) people depressed. No holiday should just by its nature make people depressed. This kind of pressure and discrimination really shouldn't be something built into a holiday's genetic code.
There is no other holiday that has this potential for angst built into it. Hell, I don't think I could INVENT a holiday that fucks people up as much as Valentine's Day.
In Japan, for example, and this is something my friend Toshi told me yesterday, on V-Day the girls have to give guys chocolates. Not so bad, right? Well, they have to give LOTS of guys LOTS of chocolates. Talk about a major purse vaccuum. And then only one month later do the guys reciprocate by giving some stupid gift or some shit, and most often they do so only to their girlfriends. Crazy.
In Korea there is something called Black Day, which occurs on April 14th. My Korean friend told me about this long ago, but it was only after reading the Wiki article on the accursed holiday am I reminded of this day's significance - everyone who didn't get something on Valentine's Day bonds together to deat jajangmyeun (Korean black sauce noodles) as a way of mourning. WTF.
I don't think most people understand just how damaging the whole fucking concept of Valentine's Day can be. It creates deadlines and connections in your head that relate to romantic relationships. Connections that are more often than not completely false and fucked up, like giving roses is a good idea (roses smell like shit, plus you're killing flowers), diamonds are pretty (people die over those fucking rocks, and the top diamond traders have the damn things collecting dust in storage facilities for fuck's sake), and that every kind of love we are capable of expressing can be summed up into little cards and put into little envelopes. Pretty much the only good thing to ever come out of Valentine's Day are the rapid advances in chocolate technology, and even that is debatable when one considers the continuing age of prosperity that was first brought on by the advent of the invention of the Gummy Bear.
Valentine's Day drains taken people's wallets and energy, makes single people feel like shit, breaks up relationships (it seems to do this even months beforehand; studies have probably shown that the very gravity of the concept of Valentine's Day destroys synapses in the brain that connect the neurons that allow couples to experience their own definition of love, and with the barrage of sexy-pretty-idol-models and the insistence of the masses for and delivery of the media of concrete and baseless definitions of beauty and oversimplification of morality and humanism, its shallowness has helped redefine the very nature of romantic love itself.
I mean, the closest other thing I can think of - and this is not even in the same fucking ballpark of evil as Valentine's Day, mind you - is how some people get angry because they feel that CHRISTMAS of all things is everywhere. No matter how many priests tried to molest me as a kid, I hardly ever considered myself Christian (and really don't anymore, though it can be a fun religion and I have nothing really against it per se) but I'll be damned (and sent to hell, and scorched alive) if people start having to call normally-Christmas-associated evergreens "holiday trees" just so a couple people can feel that their country respects their whining. I mean, yeah, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed by their idiocy, and all they can bitch and moan about is that they're oppressed because a lot of people like celebrating Christmas. Fucking wusses (I'd use this space bring up some questions about how agnostics/atheists are THE most despised religious group in the world, but geez, for another time, man).
Change topic!
One thing I've noticed about America is how easily it ignores or sidesteps truths that are not reflective of the ideal black-and-white world that exists within its own inherent media biases.
The USA is becoming a country of people who are so unsure of themselves that they have to continue to put other people hailing from other cultures down in order to feel superior to them. It's like the crab mentality we have back home in the Philippines, except it's directed at outsiders who threaten the status quo [read: smart Asians], and it's laced with layers of xenophobia and a recent past of conquering, claiming and exploiting. Throughout the past 100 years it's hard to make a claim that America hasn't been abusing her power, flooding the world with extreme and subliminal media messages of its power and relative superiority to all. Capitalism makes choosing winners and losers easy; those with money have power. Those in power make the rules, and those rules direct the course of an elaborately networked worldwide marketplace that shapes the attitudes and personalities of its little worker drones. We have been bombarded with this kind of shit since we first saw cereal commercials as a kid (Trix is for kids, and kids ONLY, no bunnies allowed; this product is exclusive to you and only you can appreciate it, it is special, go tell your stupid-ass parents to buy some, etc....). We can complain about things, but we can never change the social order. No, this place is just too stupid and too fucked up. It's no longer a democracy. It's a country manipulating and shaping its people to become isolated, cultist and weak, rather than being the kind of country where people feel equal and comfortable with one another (racism) and thus understand fully the most important basic trait of humans: when it comes right down to it, we are all the same.
BTW, Angelica, thanks so much for the book! It's awesome! I don't always agree with Klosterman, but wow, his insights really are intriguing. The book in question, friends, is Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, and it's a thorough and entertaining deconstruction on the past half century of American pop-culture.
But back to the ranting.
I hate humans.
People think that they are so special. People think that they deserve some kind of special treatment just because they possess what another might not. But all it really is is just a delusion created by the ego-self to justify our own selfish actions and thoughts. Because people here (I've begun to see this in me, too) are often too busy justifying themselves, they never really stop and think about what it is that they are justifying. They assume that if they grew up thinking a certain set of values is okay, is concrete, is definite, then they don't ever have to think about them again once they grow older. They think that they have to drive their life for the first 20-odd years, and then it begins driving itself. This is, of course, completely problematic for them.
These are all horrible generalizations for someone normally considered a 'nice' person to make, and I understand that this could be the bitterness talking, I'm aware of that. But I'm also aware that I can't let this shithole called Los Angeles wear me down, and I can't keep these feelings cooped up inside, and I have to try and be strong. If being strong means lashing out at what I think are serious problems on my fucking LiveJournal site, then I will do so.
Take the Asian Survivor Guy, Yul Kwon.
This is the face of awesomeness.
This is a guy whose amazing qualifications were completely downplayed by the media just because he was an Asian-American. I'd elaborate on it, but there's an article here that already does a fantastic job of it.
ARTICLE AHOY!
It's so empowering that the guy actually won. In your face, everyone who didn't think he would win! Grarrrrr!!!!! But yeah. More for another time. I have to get going. I'm going to miss my bus, and tonight I have elaborate plans I would not be late for, mostly involving getting hammered with wine, beer, vodka, Coke, cognac and some painkillers, watching some porn, playing Pac-Man on my cell phone and passing out all night.
Yes, I think I've finally burnt out.
Alice doesn't seem to think so, but she's been wrong before.
Oh, and by the way, hello everyone. How has life been since I've been away? Do tell. :)
Maybe I should go see a psychiatrist. Maybe a psychiatrist should see me. That way I could open the door, welcome them in, kick them in the groin and slam the door in their faces. Then I'd open the door again and throw a bucket of ice-cold water on them.
Indeed, such are the thoughts that go through my head on this day. Such anger, such frustration. I can literally taste the Dark Side of the Force flowing through my fingertips. My co-worker Tori had better watch out lest that radio playing the same goddamn R & B songs over and over again suddenly explode into her face. But I kind of like Tori (though she's quitting), so that won't happen. Maybe I'll just vandalize a few SUVs with environmental messages and call it a day.
I understand that my point-of-view may be coming off as completely depressing. This is my intent.
Valentine's Day is the most fucked up fucking fuckday in all existence. It's shit. It's basically a day that makes single (and recently single, and temporarily single, and wish-they-were-single-but-are-instead-stuck-with-a-less-than-desirable-person) people depressed. No holiday should just by its nature make people depressed. This kind of pressure and discrimination really shouldn't be something built into a holiday's genetic code.
There is no other holiday that has this potential for angst built into it. Hell, I don't think I could INVENT a holiday that fucks people up as much as Valentine's Day.
In Japan, for example, and this is something my friend Toshi told me yesterday, on V-Day the girls have to give guys chocolates. Not so bad, right? Well, they have to give LOTS of guys LOTS of chocolates. Talk about a major purse vaccuum. And then only one month later do the guys reciprocate by giving some stupid gift or some shit, and most often they do so only to their girlfriends. Crazy.
In Korea there is something called Black Day, which occurs on April 14th. My Korean friend told me about this long ago, but it was only after reading the Wiki article on the accursed holiday am I reminded of this day's significance - everyone who didn't get something on Valentine's Day bonds together to deat jajangmyeun (Korean black sauce noodles) as a way of mourning. WTF.
I don't think most people understand just how damaging the whole fucking concept of Valentine's Day can be. It creates deadlines and connections in your head that relate to romantic relationships. Connections that are more often than not completely false and fucked up, like giving roses is a good idea (roses smell like shit, plus you're killing flowers), diamonds are pretty (people die over those fucking rocks, and the top diamond traders have the damn things collecting dust in storage facilities for fuck's sake), and that every kind of love we are capable of expressing can be summed up into little cards and put into little envelopes. Pretty much the only good thing to ever come out of Valentine's Day are the rapid advances in chocolate technology, and even that is debatable when one considers the continuing age of prosperity that was first brought on by the advent of the invention of the Gummy Bear.
Valentine's Day drains taken people's wallets and energy, makes single people feel like shit, breaks up relationships (it seems to do this even months beforehand; studies have probably shown that the very gravity of the concept of Valentine's Day destroys synapses in the brain that connect the neurons that allow couples to experience their own definition of love, and with the barrage of sexy-pretty-idol-models and the insistence of the masses for and delivery of the media of concrete and baseless definitions of beauty and oversimplification of morality and humanism, its shallowness has helped redefine the very nature of romantic love itself.
I mean, the closest other thing I can think of - and this is not even in the same fucking ballpark of evil as Valentine's Day, mind you - is how some people get angry because they feel that CHRISTMAS of all things is everywhere. No matter how many priests tried to molest me as a kid, I hardly ever considered myself Christian (and really don't anymore, though it can be a fun religion and I have nothing really against it per se) but I'll be damned (and sent to hell, and scorched alive) if people start having to call normally-Christmas-associated evergreens "holiday trees" just so a couple people can feel that their country respects their whining. I mean, yeah, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed by their idiocy, and all they can bitch and moan about is that they're oppressed because a lot of people like celebrating Christmas. Fucking wusses (I'd use this space bring up some questions about how agnostics/atheists are THE most despised religious group in the world, but geez, for another time, man).
Change topic!
One thing I've noticed about America is how easily it ignores or sidesteps truths that are not reflective of the ideal black-and-white world that exists within its own inherent media biases.
The USA is becoming a country of people who are so unsure of themselves that they have to continue to put other people hailing from other cultures down in order to feel superior to them. It's like the crab mentality we have back home in the Philippines, except it's directed at outsiders who threaten the status quo [read: smart Asians], and it's laced with layers of xenophobia and a recent past of conquering, claiming and exploiting. Throughout the past 100 years it's hard to make a claim that America hasn't been abusing her power, flooding the world with extreme and subliminal media messages of its power and relative superiority to all. Capitalism makes choosing winners and losers easy; those with money have power. Those in power make the rules, and those rules direct the course of an elaborately networked worldwide marketplace that shapes the attitudes and personalities of its little worker drones. We have been bombarded with this kind of shit since we first saw cereal commercials as a kid (Trix is for kids, and kids ONLY, no bunnies allowed; this product is exclusive to you and only you can appreciate it, it is special, go tell your stupid-ass parents to buy some, etc....). We can complain about things, but we can never change the social order. No, this place is just too stupid and too fucked up. It's no longer a democracy. It's a country manipulating and shaping its people to become isolated, cultist and weak, rather than being the kind of country where people feel equal and comfortable with one another (racism) and thus understand fully the most important basic trait of humans: when it comes right down to it, we are all the same.
BTW, Angelica, thanks so much for the book! It's awesome! I don't always agree with Klosterman, but wow, his insights really are intriguing. The book in question, friends, is Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, and it's a thorough and entertaining deconstruction on the past half century of American pop-culture.
But back to the ranting.
I hate humans.
People think that they are so special. People think that they deserve some kind of special treatment just because they possess what another might not. But all it really is is just a delusion created by the ego-self to justify our own selfish actions and thoughts. Because people here (I've begun to see this in me, too) are often too busy justifying themselves, they never really stop and think about what it is that they are justifying. They assume that if they grew up thinking a certain set of values is okay, is concrete, is definite, then they don't ever have to think about them again once they grow older. They think that they have to drive their life for the first 20-odd years, and then it begins driving itself. This is, of course, completely problematic for them.
These are all horrible generalizations for someone normally considered a 'nice' person to make, and I understand that this could be the bitterness talking, I'm aware of that. But I'm also aware that I can't let this shithole called Los Angeles wear me down, and I can't keep these feelings cooped up inside, and I have to try and be strong. If being strong means lashing out at what I think are serious problems on my fucking LiveJournal site, then I will do so.
Take the Asian Survivor Guy, Yul Kwon.
This is the face of awesomeness.
This is a guy whose amazing qualifications were completely downplayed by the media just because he was an Asian-American. I'd elaborate on it, but there's an article here that already does a fantastic job of it.
ARTICLE AHOY!
It's so empowering that the guy actually won. In your face, everyone who didn't think he would win! Grarrrrr!!!!! But yeah. More for another time. I have to get going. I'm going to miss my bus, and tonight I have elaborate plans I would not be late for, mostly involving getting hammered with wine, beer, vodka, Coke, cognac and some painkillers, watching some porn, playing Pac-Man on my cell phone and passing out all night.
Yes, I think I've finally burnt out.
Alice doesn't seem to think so, but she's been wrong before.
Oh, and by the way, hello everyone. How has life been since I've been away? Do tell. :)