Fear in a handful of dust

[manicrant-blog]

Why do we try to correct the behavior of domesticated animals?

I'll tell you why: because they're stupid. They lack the knowledge and the self control to avoid things that harm them. I suppose we have that in common.

[manicrant-blog]

Generation Whitewash

Why does it seem like everything important that happened in our culture took place in the 60's and 70's?

This is a question that I've asked myself a lot, and one of the things that worries me the most about our generation. Why hasn't our generation produced anything of significance? 

Is it because we're too young and our time hasn't come? I'm 20 years old, and many popular musicians are young twenty-somethings, so that can't be the answer. But it seems to me that all my peers care only about pointless menial things, like texting, or partying, or trying to find some bullshit job to help them pay for their next xbox game. And those are the "irresponsible" ones. 

I have a theory: our culture is the way it is because it no longer has any subversion in it. No one wants to take any risks. We live in a society where puritanical values and political correctness reign king. Swingsets and carousels are banned on playgrounds because children might get hurt. We can't say certain things because it might hurt someone's feelings, even if the observation is correct. Media is censored (again, "for the children) to protect them from harmful ideas like profanity and sex and violence. Because we wouldn't want them to get the erroneous impression that these things actually exist.

Not all media is guilty of this, but the alternative to the puritanical is certainly no better. Corporations have taken sexuality, a beautiful and crucial part of the process of creating new life, and use it as a tool to peddle worthless shit; thereby reducing it to the same status of worthlessness. But that is a rant for another day.

Our generation has been suppressed. Not in any grandiose fashion, but because they have been raised with the idea that any subversion or deviation from the socially acceptable is harmful to yourself and to others. Nonconformity is dangerous. How wonderfully Orwellian. The only thing that comes close to subversion is the mainstream media's attempts to produce trivial nonsense to keep people entertained or to sell them something. But of course, within the approved limits, otherwise "public outrage" ensues; and groups like FOX news or the American Family Association swoop down upon you.

Our generation hasn't produced anything because they have been taught fear. And the only way to harmlessly subvert that fear is to mindlessly entertained. This must stop. Our generation must re-learn the lessons of counterculture movements of the 60's and 70's; not to reproduce them, but to re-apply them within the context of our own time. We must do this if our generation hopes to ever have an impact on the world. Otherwise, we will continue to be the whitewash generation, and I will continue to refer to it as such.

And I'm sure many of you are pissed at me for producing an essay-length rant on this, but in case you haven't been paying attention, a big part of this is about not being afraid to piss people off. So deal with it.

[manicrant-blog]

Chicken Soup for the Soulless

I created this blog at the encouragement of a friend, and I thought it would help me to be more creative, or contemplate more often. But I realized that this is the first time that I will really be putting my thoughts in a public light. It seemed daunting at first, but I'm over it now.

"But why the name? Why 'Fear in a handful of dust'? That sounds pretty morbid." I've been accused of being morbid more than a few times. But to answer your question, It's from "The Waste Land" by TS Eliot:

"And I will show you different from either

Your shadow in the morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you

I will show you fear in a handful of dust"

Although my interpretation is taking these lines horribly out of context, I feel that it encapsulates very well what I will discuss in this web space. Whether you are a theist or an atheist, you believe that on some level, we are all just dust- be it star dust or literal dust. That's all we are, a self conscious handful of dust. Here I will talk of the past, the present, and the future; desire- and fear. Once you endure it all you may begin to see the world through my eyes.