my mid life crisis will be the equivalent of the san andreas fault exploding into what scientists refer to as "the big one".
seeing as how my "pre-life crisis" is a series of aftershocks ranging from 4.2-6.7 on the richter scale... i am expecting nothing less than a massive/catastrophic disaster of which the world (or more accurately: myself) has never seen.
i am restless. i am tired of going to school. i am bored with my environment and if i didn't love people so much (ie: friends, famfam etc) i would be gone faster than you could spell my full name. i need to stop reading kerouac. i need to stop wikipedia-ing places i only dream about. i need to delete google earth's launcher from my computer.
why isn't anything enough for me? why can't i just be happy that i live in a place that isn't overly gross or tiny, that i have a family who expects things from me and wants me to succeed, that i am getting an education when many people in this world don't...
reading all of this writing by someone who feels like, in a way, that i do gives me this whole idea that a bohemian lifestyle is still possible in these days of fast paced waste. i don't want to be someone who settles. i don't want to do anything if i don't feel something for it. i don't think that doing things because you "have to" is a good reason for doing anything at all. why am i the only one who still FEELS anything around here?
i had a discussion with a friend recently about how times have changed. i was born in the wrong time. i was born in the wrong body. i truly believe that the only way you will do good in the world and to others around you, is by knowing who you are and what you stand for. i know that i won't be able to accomplish this until i find someplace that scares me.
i'm restless. i'm tired. i miss you.
i need to find my own route across.
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i have pictures of.. brontosaurus' on my desktop. always have, probably always will. everyone always makes fun of me since unlike my friends some half naked girl isn't spread across my computer while spread across something else as wallpaper, but i think along the same lines as you here.
the generation we were unwillingly born into is awful. i always thought and wondered how much easier would life have been back in the prehistoric era (i swear, jurassic park kept this irrational pondering to a minimum). there was no need for those who thrived back then to worry about new cars or clothes or anything material as the world does now. they weren't under strenuous pressure to obtain a post secondary (or for that matter) education. they never had to deal with the massive amount of debts that brings.. issues of racism, sexism, political correctness. for the most part, any of our daily responsibilities/issues.
although seeing half your friends torso devoured by a t-rex probably wasn't the coolest visual to experience back then; i've always envisioned society in that era to be more subcultured and diversified and less systematized. it probably didn't matter if you were black or white or green, IF A T-REX WAS TRYING TO BITE OFF YOUR FUCKING HEAD EVERYONE WOULD CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER. all everyone there was for, was to survive day in and day out. and of course to procreate.
what probably makes this generation so awful now is the flynn effect. humanity (believe it or not!) keeps getting more and more intelligent. we spend more time in school than your parents do, cram for more tests and on average are smarter. our kids will be smarter than us, and so forth. and now more than ever we look for answers for our purpose on earth, though it probably hasn't changed from the dino times. all we're here to do (i think) is again procreate, but we're at a point in time now where we no longer look up at the sky and think god is pissed when we see a lightning storm. we've become too intelligent, we keep thinking since we can understand the complexities behind.. anything, say the magnetic shift of the poles there has to be some grand reason behind our existence other than we evolved.
yet there probably isn't.
which makes for a lot of empty feelings.
i guess judging by this you aren't the strongest fan of organized religion?
i'm torn on the issue of religion.
i do believe that everyone should have their own views of what god and religion entail, not some preconceived notion that was implemented hundreds of years ago... but i think there are pros and cons to organized religion..
pros being:
- a place of belonging and social cohesiveness due to group mentality
- a sense of safety for children (ex: when you die, you go to heaven and are taken care of... a sense of morals and values to uphold even if it's out of fear of god)
cons:
- it limits people views and beliefs to a certain standard and idea which sometimes can ostracize others
- it's outdated and in some ways, harmful to society depending on how strict the religion is (ex: the pope shitting on birth contol and not taking in account the possibility of AIDS/STI/STD transmissions)
i mean, growing up immersed in religious views is fine, but once you hit a certain age i think you need to start branching out and finding your own independent relationship with whatever god or deity you chose and believe in.
i just think that there is too much conflict originating out of religion when the point of being religious is to love and honour your parents, your neighbours, your friends, family, anything. and a lot of the time it brings about war and destruction. i hate fundies for this reason. i hate fanatics for this reason.
i am still trying to really decide how i feel about this issue, but that pretty much takes me to now in my opinion.
hmm, you're absolutely right. since it was the exact same experience with me. my mom is this fanatically devout catholic woman who would willingly believe jesus killed the dinosaurs by lighting their tails on fire with a makeshift 19 BC molotiv cocktail over a period of two million years (since hey. dinosaurs probably took a long time to catch on fire) if it was written as such in the bible.
my parents divorced when i was about seven years old, but she always continued to drag me to church every sunday with and without dad, even though dad wasn't a very prominent figure in my religious upbrining anyway. it was very awkward. as i continued to grow older i had a lot of questions about the authenticity of god and faith i was brought up just believing was the one true faith. i tried asking camp and youth counsellors at our bible studies but they were all blind with bias and would just refer me back to some place within the scriptures, instead of actually discussing the possibility of an alternative god/faith with me.
i wrote a lot about it, too.
You believe a divine hand helped shape the universe: a concept which completely escapes me,
Personally to me God doesn't exist, but I believe everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.
God to you is a worldly savior, the creator and essence of life and your sole reason for being,
God to me is an invention of man; immortalized by centuries of our deepest insecurities.
I believe religion is used to promote humanitarianism and to encourage temporal harmony,
But more importantly God's embraced and preached about so we don't all sovereign anarchy.
How crazy would the world be if Jesus was devulged as non-existent?
And how ironic is it that all religions follow the exact 10 (or more) commandments?
You believe when we die physically; we're re-united with all our departed loved ones spiritually,
"Spiritually" doesn't make sense to me however, I mean what exactly are "we"?
Arguably many believe "we" are our souls, and our souls control every emotion and bodily function,
Is it coincidence then when we're brain damaged our bodies slip into an internal state of dysfunction?
Why do you continue to pray to a God who has never once answered your prayers?
How can you believe every 'miracle' God performs is real when he's never visibly there?
How can you blindly confide your faith into a presence you've never (or will never) see?
Which leads me back to my assumptions about post-mortem insecurities..
So what happens when we die? I believe that's it, nothing spiritual like an afterlife exists;
If plants simply decompose and rot upon death, why can't humans?
i eventually moved into my dads house shortly after doubting the power of god. my dad's also a very religious man but he never once preached to me about what i believed in and instead encouraged me to find my own faith, even if it wasn't what he personally believed in.
an even longgger story short: i admired his way of encouraging me to do my own soul searching and to find my own beliefs. i stopped going to church since i was about 13, and just turned 22 this last january. i decided i'd go and check out a service again for the first time in almost ten years. i'd recommend maybe you do the same one sunday!
it's a different, almost surreal experience when you're older and have neglected church for a long time. especially once you're old enough to shake off that "fear of god" mentality. but maybe that's how you can find your faith, if you do feel you belong there and don't second guess it too much.. eh, god is most likely for you. and god is a wondeful thing, even though i'm nothing near what anyone could call an active christian now. since again due to what you said is very true, that social cohesiveness and group mentality. it does make you feel like you belong to something bigger. it almost even pushes and motivates you to succeed. i was probably my happiest as a christian. everyday still felt like.. that "new day"? like you anticipated what it brought and were happy with the new experiences.
but when i sat through the church sermon recently, i can say it felt like everyone had been brainwashed around me. they openly chastised the devil when one of their members was diagnosed with breast cancer; yet turned right around and praised god when another had just been successfully operated on. the likelihood that both saw the same doctor and same pair of hands isn't that out of the picture, but they just assumed it was two forces that caused each ailment. anyway. i'm rambling now.
god now made me thankful i was so devoid of faith in my life.. even if i was happier as a christian, i can honestly say i wouldn't have been happy turning out like the latter where i believe/d the shell of my very existence was brought forward by someone no one has ever actually seen.
It is not my fault that certain so-called bohemian elements have found in my writings something to hang their peculiar beatnik theories on.
--Jack Kerouac
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