Not that i expect to die soon, but there are some points I want to make about the people that give eulogies at my funeral (and yes we all will have one).
If you cant send me a letter or email within a year or 2's time, dont stand up in front of people and front like we were close. It takes all of 80 cents to mail a letter to japan from america. I know who has taken the time to send me letters and/or cards and it is a surprisingly small number.
I dont want people going crazy, crying, carrying on and such when they couldnt take 1 minute a year and send me a birthday or christmas card. Now there are certainly people exempt from this because they were caring enough to send me cards. I appreciate them for that. But i cant stand the idea of people that havent contacted me in months or years to be at my funeral crying like we talked everyday.
Dont front. I remember during the 80s that was a popular saying. Dont pretend to be something you arent. Stop frontin. Frontin would be people that cant bother to ask for my address in japan to send a christmas card crying and going crazy like they cared. Thats bunk. Seriously. People show what they believe and think by what they DO and not what they SAY. Talk is cheap(See Rush Limbaugh). People that believe in Christianty for real, do what they read. People that front are asking for forgiveness everyday because they continue to do what they know they shouldnt.
I hope when im laying in my casket (or on a prye before being creamated which i prefer) someone reads this.
I have seen so many contradictions. Too many to name. Im not even trying to pretend im perfect, because i am far from it. But looking around me, its the same contradictions over and over. People love to use the word "Love", but how can you know you love someone that you knew less than a year? Why is it that love must come in a certain package, i.e. handsome, tall, relatively wealthy, and whatnot? Why is it that "Love" so often lasts for about 10 years or less then results in a divorce? Why is it "Love" until someone gets laid off.
I miss substance. The age when everything wasnt made of plastic. Plastic is the best example of how the human being has "evolved". It is a compound originating from oil, something of substance, and created into, everything. Computer shells, shirts, houses, whatever. We as humans have found extravegant, ornate ways of taking something of actual value and filling stores with a cheap derivative of it. Wal mart, a store full of chinese made plastic (more or less). The point of my rant is, how long does a plastic...anything last? We buy it, use it until it breaks, then chuck it.
As humans, we have become that kind of species. The emphasis isnt on value anymore. Its on appearence and convienience. We dont want to pay people a good solid wage to make the things we need to live. We dont even care about those people or their living conditions. We only want the convienence of a low price and the appereance/color we choose.
So it is of no surprise that i dont want a bunch of crying and such at a funeral full of people that i havent communicated with in more than 5 years. A room full of people who never considered visiting me overseas (props to my sisters and brother for showing the desire yet constricted by funds). Im here right now. Checking my email everyday. Opening my mailbox everyday. Send me a couple letters or emails, then we can chat a little on the phone. I hate phone calls out of the blue.
You want to try, go old school and send me a letter(email). Sit down, take 10 minutes and devote it to what you want to say to me. You dont have time to do that, you dont have time for me.
And Im gone.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
In need of a change.
I guess now i can admit several things to myself. Number one, i havent been in love in almost 3/4 years. Number two, its time to stop checking my email waiting for someone in my family to email me. Number three, it time to stop expecting anything more than a token phone call for my birthday or Christmas.
I can pretend to be happy, but at the core of my unhappiness or should i restate, my dissatisfaction with those who are supposedly "closest to me" is the fact that i havent fitted in anywhere in a very long time. When my family worked properly, i.e. birthday, thanksgiving, christmas gatherings; christmas cards, sunday stuff, it was very easy to feel part of a family that gave me confidence to go out in the world and do my thing. When I was young, my thing was the books, studying. I certainly regard myself as a very intelligent individual. But when i fought my way to a 3.5 gpa after my first year at Georgia Tech, and coming home badly in need of money, my father basically told me get a job, and ill sell you a car. My supposedly successful father telling me this made a very deep impression on me less than 3 years after the passing of a mother who i know would have reacted in the EXACT opposite manner to such news.
Needless to say, my demeaner and approach to life and family changed. Very slowly, it began to seem that people only associated with me only to get things out of me. Not always the case, but outside of my brothers/sisters/cousins and grandmother, it was overwhelingly the case with family. Helping my uncle with his meat business for 2 months and getting about 200 or so bucks for it. Helping my aunt with church programs and getting gas money out of it. And of course, anything having to do with my father the last 15 years, at the center of it was him demanding money from me.
My problem is that i havent truely felt that someone truely cared about me and my best self interests in many many years. With kids, it always legit. Kids are upfront about what they want, and show appreciation even when they dont say it. They are honest. And they know when someone cares for them. We as adults owe it to kids to show them that all that stuff we teach them isnt bullshit. That its not the outside but the inside that matters. That hard work pays off before nepotism. That we owe more to the world than just looking out for ourselves and our "group".
Yet with adults, its much different. Kids dont really understand much about how money affects people except that they need it to live. But with adults, some of us become absorbed by our preceived self importance because we are richer, taller, better looking, more famous, better educated or lighter skinned. Even family. But we still lie to kids about things that we dont do ourselves.
I am defintely in need of something. I need to be reminded that people want to be around me for more than just what i can do for them. I need to still believe that love in its true innocence is still possible and still exsits.
I hate that my skeptism is so right so often. That my company can so willingly break the law to save a few bucks and smile and lie to me to my face. That adults place status on things other than willingness to work to better ourselves and the world around us. That people place money above people. That people act in social groups based on whatever, and live most of their private lives in these small social groups.
I think i just need to fall in love again. or maybe i just need someone to send me a thoughtful letter. or maybe i always get like this around the anniversary of my mother dying. maybe i could have used a birthday/christmas present of some kind from someone "close" to me the last 4/5 years. Whatever the case, maybe socially, i am not the person that is willing to walk into the room and start joking to make everyone laugh and like me. Maybe im not the person that can rattle off lyrics to the most popular songs. Maybe im not the person that has the most friends or the newest clothes. But dont want to be any of those things. Being liked by a lot of people has not been my aim for a long time.
I dont want to be popular if it means being compromising core beliefs about people and the world around us. I dont want alot of friends if it means that i must turn my nose up at people not like me because of any reason outside of their desire to better themselves and the world. I really just want to be myself and be loved for it. I guess that is what everyone wants, even if some of us dont have it.
Im not even sure how i became this person. Maybe its seven years in asia without even a hint of anyone wanting to visit. Maybe its having my heart broken a couple times. Maybe its all of the family structure and organizations of my youth being built on a crumbling sand foundation. Maybe its that after 33 years, i have yet to find a place via family, socially, or emotionally/romantically. Maybe i was just born in the wrong time. or Maybe i just a guy who is here for a purpose that is different than just making alot of money, making alot of friends, and finding romantic love. Maybe my lot is different than most because of the path I chose to travel.
I will not lie when i say that i feel there is a higher purpose to why i do some of the things that i do. Why have i coached basketball to japanese kids for 3 years for free? Why have i stayed in japan over going back "home"? Why i am so irritated by the world i see around me? Why i am more interested in politics and social issues than the average person? Why i dont subscribe to a major religion?
Maybe my greatest dissatisfaction is that as techonology evolves and we call ourselves becoming more "advanced"; our relations between other people is moving the opposite way. In america, the rich are using to government to steal from the poor. In asia, people place continue to place disproportionate value on skin color. In the middle east, poor palestinians are being killed off like america did native americans.
Maybe my dissatisfaction is a result of me seeing how people are and knowing that as long as people continue to live lives worried about hair length, account balances, social status, skin color, ipod verson, car make, and reality shows; we as a human race are in for great calamity, and in the not too distant future.
But hey, who am I? im just a nobody. Just my thoughts on what i see.
And i know this for a fact. The absolute most destructive emotion for a human being to have is not hate. Hate still means you care about something, and even allows a chance to change a persons heart.
But it isnt hate i see in people. It is apathy. Apathy to changing myself and the world around me, apathy to the wars that scurge this planet. Apathy to age old things methods about race. Apathy to current events. Apathy to intercultural relations. Apathy to those people that are outside of my "group". Apathy to things that dont directly concern you on a daily basis. Apathy to changing my views on how i view people different than me.
And it is this apathy that alarms me the most.
I can pretend to be happy, but at the core of my unhappiness or should i restate, my dissatisfaction with those who are supposedly "closest to me" is the fact that i havent fitted in anywhere in a very long time. When my family worked properly, i.e. birthday, thanksgiving, christmas gatherings; christmas cards, sunday stuff, it was very easy to feel part of a family that gave me confidence to go out in the world and do my thing. When I was young, my thing was the books, studying. I certainly regard myself as a very intelligent individual. But when i fought my way to a 3.5 gpa after my first year at Georgia Tech, and coming home badly in need of money, my father basically told me get a job, and ill sell you a car. My supposedly successful father telling me this made a very deep impression on me less than 3 years after the passing of a mother who i know would have reacted in the EXACT opposite manner to such news.
Needless to say, my demeaner and approach to life and family changed. Very slowly, it began to seem that people only associated with me only to get things out of me. Not always the case, but outside of my brothers/sisters/cousins and grandmother, it was overwhelingly the case with family. Helping my uncle with his meat business for 2 months and getting about 200 or so bucks for it. Helping my aunt with church programs and getting gas money out of it. And of course, anything having to do with my father the last 15 years, at the center of it was him demanding money from me.
My problem is that i havent truely felt that someone truely cared about me and my best self interests in many many years. With kids, it always legit. Kids are upfront about what they want, and show appreciation even when they dont say it. They are honest. And they know when someone cares for them. We as adults owe it to kids to show them that all that stuff we teach them isnt bullshit. That its not the outside but the inside that matters. That hard work pays off before nepotism. That we owe more to the world than just looking out for ourselves and our "group".
Yet with adults, its much different. Kids dont really understand much about how money affects people except that they need it to live. But with adults, some of us become absorbed by our preceived self importance because we are richer, taller, better looking, more famous, better educated or lighter skinned. Even family. But we still lie to kids about things that we dont do ourselves.
I am defintely in need of something. I need to be reminded that people want to be around me for more than just what i can do for them. I need to still believe that love in its true innocence is still possible and still exsits.
I hate that my skeptism is so right so often. That my company can so willingly break the law to save a few bucks and smile and lie to me to my face. That adults place status on things other than willingness to work to better ourselves and the world around us. That people place money above people. That people act in social groups based on whatever, and live most of their private lives in these small social groups.
I think i just need to fall in love again. or maybe i just need someone to send me a thoughtful letter. or maybe i always get like this around the anniversary of my mother dying. maybe i could have used a birthday/christmas present of some kind from someone "close" to me the last 4/5 years. Whatever the case, maybe socially, i am not the person that is willing to walk into the room and start joking to make everyone laugh and like me. Maybe im not the person that can rattle off lyrics to the most popular songs. Maybe im not the person that has the most friends or the newest clothes. But dont want to be any of those things. Being liked by a lot of people has not been my aim for a long time.
I dont want to be popular if it means being compromising core beliefs about people and the world around us. I dont want alot of friends if it means that i must turn my nose up at people not like me because of any reason outside of their desire to better themselves and the world. I really just want to be myself and be loved for it. I guess that is what everyone wants, even if some of us dont have it.
Im not even sure how i became this person. Maybe its seven years in asia without even a hint of anyone wanting to visit. Maybe its having my heart broken a couple times. Maybe its all of the family structure and organizations of my youth being built on a crumbling sand foundation. Maybe its that after 33 years, i have yet to find a place via family, socially, or emotionally/romantically. Maybe i was just born in the wrong time. or Maybe i just a guy who is here for a purpose that is different than just making alot of money, making alot of friends, and finding romantic love. Maybe my lot is different than most because of the path I chose to travel.
I will not lie when i say that i feel there is a higher purpose to why i do some of the things that i do. Why have i coached basketball to japanese kids for 3 years for free? Why have i stayed in japan over going back "home"? Why i am so irritated by the world i see around me? Why i am more interested in politics and social issues than the average person? Why i dont subscribe to a major religion?
Maybe my greatest dissatisfaction is that as techonology evolves and we call ourselves becoming more "advanced"; our relations between other people is moving the opposite way. In america, the rich are using to government to steal from the poor. In asia, people place continue to place disproportionate value on skin color. In the middle east, poor palestinians are being killed off like america did native americans.
Maybe my dissatisfaction is a result of me seeing how people are and knowing that as long as people continue to live lives worried about hair length, account balances, social status, skin color, ipod verson, car make, and reality shows; we as a human race are in for great calamity, and in the not too distant future.
But hey, who am I? im just a nobody. Just my thoughts on what i see.
And i know this for a fact. The absolute most destructive emotion for a human being to have is not hate. Hate still means you care about something, and even allows a chance to change a persons heart.
But it isnt hate i see in people. It is apathy. Apathy to changing myself and the world around me, apathy to the wars that scurge this planet. Apathy to age old things methods about race. Apathy to current events. Apathy to intercultural relations. Apathy to those people that are outside of my "group". Apathy to things that dont directly concern you on a daily basis. Apathy to changing my views on how i view people different than me.
And it is this apathy that alarms me the most.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
