Belated political post ... and "home"
I'm sitting here at home, Waco home that is, behind my mother's hard-and-fast Republican computer complete with September 11th screen saver updating at six thirty in the morning because I came to a sudden realization about politics, or maybe its not a realization and maybe its not about politics but its something and, as I told someone earlier in the night, I am overcome with an insatiable urge to write. So before I head off, for a second time, to sleep I'm going to put down some thoughts before my mother and her boyfriend wake up and start moving around the house, which shouldn't be too long.
I'm reading Fear and Loathing on the Campaing Trail '72, and while its dated and I don't know exactly whats going on all the time or even who these long dead candidates are, Hunter Thompson sort of pulls you into the whole election thing, and being a brilliant, weird political junkie (and not to mention a fine, original journalist--probably the only journalist I like ot read in the first place) Thompson sort of draws you in.
And then I realized, all of a sudden, that this was an election year. That a little less than two months ago we re-elected a president and sent another man home the biggest loser in America. And its not hard to believe that Bush won, because I just take a look at my mother's computer and realize that a whole generation of hard working Americans feel the same way she does (after all, she's not the only one that snatched up September 11th bumper stickers or American ketchup and created a whole economic boom based on misplaced patriotism). What is hard to believe is that an election already happened.
I know I'm not the type of guy who keeps up with politics, or even the world in general--sometimes huge events pass me by because of my refusal to watch television or just my general lack of interest in the hard facts on what is going on in the world--but it is hard for me to believe that an entire country, or just the hundred million voters, can forget so quickly about a presidential election.
Leading up to the big day, November 2nd, the only talk on anyone's lips was politics. Politics. Politics. No other conversations were to be had, sides were being drawn, and it was a matter of grouping together with your allies and insulting those who didn't fall directly in line with the things that you believe are so sacred. Then, suddenly, a day or two after the election (when everything was more or less official) the political talk seemed to cease, as if the memory of the election had been erased from everyone's memories except for those few hardcore political junkies (some of whom wept, literally wept, for the future of the country).
Politics is like every other ever-changing trend, like music or sports, there is so much to keep up with. But in reality, there's nothing to keep up with. The issues change but the personalities don't. The politicians today are really the politicians of the forties, fifties and sixties--old enough, only now, to have an impact on the shape of the country. Few issues ever really hit the American people hard enough to make them voice themselves in any meaningful way (the Vietnam war may have been the last of these, when American as a whole got together and forced the political establishment of this country to admit that, yes, the war was wrong).
This past election it was all about the War on Terror, which everyone agreed needed to be fought. When everyone agrees it shouldn't be an issue. I don't remember hearing about anyone's stance on anything major, just the usual partisan bullshit--everyone falling into line with what they are expected to believe with the occasional exception that manages to float its way through.
So I didn't vote. I don't like partisan politics, I don't like the way our government is necessarily set up (both in some of the broad strokes and finer details), and thinking about what Hunter Thompson is saying in this book I think its obvious that since the sixties there hasn't been one overwhelmingly good candidate. It has always been the "lesser of two evils" vote. And I think if someone came out that I wanted to vote for I would know, because they would be fresh and they would get press for it. They would get press for not falling neatly within the party lines, but of course the way our government is set up it would be hard for that person to get elected because if they didn't fall neatly within the boundaries of one party or the other they would be a third party candidate, and as we know third party candidates do not get elected president (and very few even had a good run at the polls).
I don't know, as usual, if I'm coming off sounding like an utter moron on this post or not. But I'm writing what I'm thinking and not censoring myself, which is hard to do anyway but even harder at this time of the morning.
It's just sad to see a country so ready to forget so quickly. (And just a note, I'm really working on my differentiation between "its" and "it's" because its a mistake that I know I make quite often and that I need to remedy if I want to sound like the affluent young man that I seem to be.) A country so focused on its day-to-day life that there is no time to really reflect on the immediate past, to really look at a decision objectively and question it and allow it to take shape in our minds, and too busy to really look forward to any kind of significant future.
That last paragraph is probably dangerous only because I'm not one hundred per cent sure I believe what I just said, or if what I just said even makes coherent sense. But I'm tired and I could really care less at this point, I just want to goddamn write.
It's quite weird for me to be awake in my mother's house (because its not longer really my house anymore) at this time of the morning, borrowing her computer so that I can type out this post. I'm the type of person that is most comfortable in my own domain, within my own walls where I am king of my proverbial castle. I like the security of being "home." In this house, even though I lived here for so long, everything seems foreign to me. I'm sitting in my own room, almost in the exact same spot I used to sit. I've posted from this general area hundreds upon hundreds of times and now it doesn't feel like I've ever really set foot in here before. It's sad really, sitting in a room which I used to sleep in. Sitting in a room I spent most of my high school career. Looking around at the odd, rustic furniture that I would never allow in my own home. Remembering where my bed was, the kind of crap that littered my floor. It's all so odd. So strange. To feel like an alien inside of walls that were one time my solace.
Now I live alone, and there is that immeasurable sense of relief when I walk through my door after a day at school or elseewhere, like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders. Here, there isn't that kind of sense. I am a guest, and I feel that I should act like one, but at the same time I think I should feel more at home. But it's not my space anymore and therefor it isn't my home anymore. It's just a building, with walls and a roof and carpet and tile and wood and metal, that my mother and her boyfriend inhabit. It is their home, not mine. And as welcome as I am, it's still a very odd, sad, disheartening feeling.
But I'm glad I'm out away from this city, out away from my family, because it gives me a sense of living in the real world even though I know I'm nowhere near it. I'm not working, I'm not doing much of anything but going to school and sitting in my room. But its closer to the real world than I've ever been before because I'm the only person I can depend on. And it's a good feeling, even if I am lazy and won't go shopping or do much of anything if I don't have to. It's still a good feeling, and I know I need to overcome my own laziness so I can really take a step up in level of maturity. After all, I'm not doing much of anything else.
So I'm going to go try and sleep again. My schedule is still all messed up, but I don't want to sleep until two tomorrow. I still want to wake up at noon which is about five hours or so away (because I'm posting on the internet I don't think its going to put the correct time stamp on the posting, according to my mom's computer it is now 6:49 meaning that I have typed for well over twenty minutes, verging on thirty). I'll post again, most likely, before I leave Waco. Or maybe I won't, it depends on what leaps into my mind and if I have the alone time to sit down and get to write for twenty or thirty minutes and let my mind just go. Party of me is very afraid of having my mom read my journal, another part of me really apathetic, and the biggest part of me not concerned at all because I know if I just ask her politely she will respect my "privacy" (because if I'm going to post it on the internet there really is no privacy involved, but out of respect for me she would, I'm sure, refrain from reading) and leave it be.
I'm going to attempt to sleep some more, now. Try to get myself back in tune with normal people since I'm destined to be around them for some more time. And I'm sad that my vacation is slipping away so quickly and I'm soon going to be thrust into school again. As much as I love it (I'm University Honors for Christ's sake) I don't really like all the bullshit and stress that goes along with it. It's a love hate relationship, really, but it's one that I wouldn't give up, probably, for the whole world.
I'm off to a bed which is not my own.
Later.
I'm reading Fear and Loathing on the Campaing Trail '72, and while its dated and I don't know exactly whats going on all the time or even who these long dead candidates are, Hunter Thompson sort of pulls you into the whole election thing, and being a brilliant, weird political junkie (and not to mention a fine, original journalist--probably the only journalist I like ot read in the first place) Thompson sort of draws you in.
And then I realized, all of a sudden, that this was an election year. That a little less than two months ago we re-elected a president and sent another man home the biggest loser in America. And its not hard to believe that Bush won, because I just take a look at my mother's computer and realize that a whole generation of hard working Americans feel the same way she does (after all, she's not the only one that snatched up September 11th bumper stickers or American ketchup and created a whole economic boom based on misplaced patriotism). What is hard to believe is that an election already happened.
I know I'm not the type of guy who keeps up with politics, or even the world in general--sometimes huge events pass me by because of my refusal to watch television or just my general lack of interest in the hard facts on what is going on in the world--but it is hard for me to believe that an entire country, or just the hundred million voters, can forget so quickly about a presidential election.
Leading up to the big day, November 2nd, the only talk on anyone's lips was politics. Politics. Politics. No other conversations were to be had, sides were being drawn, and it was a matter of grouping together with your allies and insulting those who didn't fall directly in line with the things that you believe are so sacred. Then, suddenly, a day or two after the election (when everything was more or less official) the political talk seemed to cease, as if the memory of the election had been erased from everyone's memories except for those few hardcore political junkies (some of whom wept, literally wept, for the future of the country).
Politics is like every other ever-changing trend, like music or sports, there is so much to keep up with. But in reality, there's nothing to keep up with. The issues change but the personalities don't. The politicians today are really the politicians of the forties, fifties and sixties--old enough, only now, to have an impact on the shape of the country. Few issues ever really hit the American people hard enough to make them voice themselves in any meaningful way (the Vietnam war may have been the last of these, when American as a whole got together and forced the political establishment of this country to admit that, yes, the war was wrong).
This past election it was all about the War on Terror, which everyone agreed needed to be fought. When everyone agrees it shouldn't be an issue. I don't remember hearing about anyone's stance on anything major, just the usual partisan bullshit--everyone falling into line with what they are expected to believe with the occasional exception that manages to float its way through.
So I didn't vote. I don't like partisan politics, I don't like the way our government is necessarily set up (both in some of the broad strokes and finer details), and thinking about what Hunter Thompson is saying in this book I think its obvious that since the sixties there hasn't been one overwhelmingly good candidate. It has always been the "lesser of two evils" vote. And I think if someone came out that I wanted to vote for I would know, because they would be fresh and they would get press for it. They would get press for not falling neatly within the party lines, but of course the way our government is set up it would be hard for that person to get elected because if they didn't fall neatly within the boundaries of one party or the other they would be a third party candidate, and as we know third party candidates do not get elected president (and very few even had a good run at the polls).
I don't know, as usual, if I'm coming off sounding like an utter moron on this post or not. But I'm writing what I'm thinking and not censoring myself, which is hard to do anyway but even harder at this time of the morning.
It's just sad to see a country so ready to forget so quickly. (And just a note, I'm really working on my differentiation between "its" and "it's" because its a mistake that I know I make quite often and that I need to remedy if I want to sound like the affluent young man that I seem to be.) A country so focused on its day-to-day life that there is no time to really reflect on the immediate past, to really look at a decision objectively and question it and allow it to take shape in our minds, and too busy to really look forward to any kind of significant future.
That last paragraph is probably dangerous only because I'm not one hundred per cent sure I believe what I just said, or if what I just said even makes coherent sense. But I'm tired and I could really care less at this point, I just want to goddamn write.
It's quite weird for me to be awake in my mother's house (because its not longer really my house anymore) at this time of the morning, borrowing her computer so that I can type out this post. I'm the type of person that is most comfortable in my own domain, within my own walls where I am king of my proverbial castle. I like the security of being "home." In this house, even though I lived here for so long, everything seems foreign to me. I'm sitting in my own room, almost in the exact same spot I used to sit. I've posted from this general area hundreds upon hundreds of times and now it doesn't feel like I've ever really set foot in here before. It's sad really, sitting in a room which I used to sleep in. Sitting in a room I spent most of my high school career. Looking around at the odd, rustic furniture that I would never allow in my own home. Remembering where my bed was, the kind of crap that littered my floor. It's all so odd. So strange. To feel like an alien inside of walls that were one time my solace.
Now I live alone, and there is that immeasurable sense of relief when I walk through my door after a day at school or elseewhere, like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders. Here, there isn't that kind of sense. I am a guest, and I feel that I should act like one, but at the same time I think I should feel more at home. But it's not my space anymore and therefor it isn't my home anymore. It's just a building, with walls and a roof and carpet and tile and wood and metal, that my mother and her boyfriend inhabit. It is their home, not mine. And as welcome as I am, it's still a very odd, sad, disheartening feeling.
But I'm glad I'm out away from this city, out away from my family, because it gives me a sense of living in the real world even though I know I'm nowhere near it. I'm not working, I'm not doing much of anything but going to school and sitting in my room. But its closer to the real world than I've ever been before because I'm the only person I can depend on. And it's a good feeling, even if I am lazy and won't go shopping or do much of anything if I don't have to. It's still a good feeling, and I know I need to overcome my own laziness so I can really take a step up in level of maturity. After all, I'm not doing much of anything else.
So I'm going to go try and sleep again. My schedule is still all messed up, but I don't want to sleep until two tomorrow. I still want to wake up at noon which is about five hours or so away (because I'm posting on the internet I don't think its going to put the correct time stamp on the posting, according to my mom's computer it is now 6:49 meaning that I have typed for well over twenty minutes, verging on thirty). I'll post again, most likely, before I leave Waco. Or maybe I won't, it depends on what leaps into my mind and if I have the alone time to sit down and get to write for twenty or thirty minutes and let my mind just go. Party of me is very afraid of having my mom read my journal, another part of me really apathetic, and the biggest part of me not concerned at all because I know if I just ask her politely she will respect my "privacy" (because if I'm going to post it on the internet there really is no privacy involved, but out of respect for me she would, I'm sure, refrain from reading) and leave it be.
I'm going to attempt to sleep some more, now. Try to get myself back in tune with normal people since I'm destined to be around them for some more time. And I'm sad that my vacation is slipping away so quickly and I'm soon going to be thrust into school again. As much as I love it (I'm University Honors for Christ's sake) I don't really like all the bullshit and stress that goes along with it. It's a love hate relationship, really, but it's one that I wouldn't give up, probably, for the whole world.
I'm off to a bed which is not my own.
Later.