Never be afraid to do your own thing…

Illustration:  Pexels

…said Marie Antoinette…

Photo:  Lina N
Unsplash

This covers so many things…

Photo:  Alesia Kozik
Pexels

Okay, so…

I was looking something up, and if people tried to do everything the sayings we see everywhere said, they wouldn’t have time to eat or sleep.  I didn’t copy many of them because they are so depressing.  Be happy, Be grateful, Think outside the Box, Dream big, Don’t be the same be BETTER (that on is really terrible), and on and on and on and on, in a never ending litany of things to make people feel bad, inadequate or just miserable, as if they aren’t good enough the way they are.  IT’S SO PATHETIC.

One sign they don’t sell is:  DON’T READ SAYINGS

These never ending INSTRUCTION ON HOW TO LIVE, FEEL, AND WHAT TO DO,  are an attack on the minds/lives of of those who read or believe them.  I am so happy I didn’t grow up in this kind of hysterical insanity.

There is no such thing as wasting time.  Only in America do people believe that one has to do something every single second they’re awake, or they’re wasting time or lazy.  And who else could you be besides yourself?   Even when you’re pretending to be someone else, you’re still yourself…yourself, pretending.   No matter what you do, you’re still you.  It’s crazy to do this to people.   So many sayings tell people to BE HAPPY, in a world that pretty much doesn’t make a lot of people happy.

These messages can be depressing to some people who might think they are doing something wrong, because their lives don’t match the six million signs that tell them how they should feel and what they should do.

Why do people have to be told how to live?

If people want signs maybe they should say:

You’re always you

Not doing anything is doing something

However you feel is okay

You know, sayings that are more positive and life affirming.   I can’t believe people buy into all the books and signs and sayings that are so silly and destructive.  After all these years on the planet, how did people suddenly forget how to get through the day without a sign telling them how to feel or what to do?   It’s just so weird to be reminded to be happy, busy, grateful, bright and all the rest.  Something is really wrong with that.  It’s like homework every second of your life.

Okay, so…

You know all those lovely sayings that float around absolutely EVERYWHERE?  Whenever I see one I wonder if the person who wrote it lived in a cottage with a white picket fence. a dog names Spot, two loving parents, a kind grandmother, nice neighbors and no dead bodies in the street in front of their house.

The sayings seem desperate.  As if the person writing one is demanding that the world be a fairy tale place and if we only believe what she wrote, it will be.  Or, maybe the things those people write are actually FOR the people with white picket fences, who may have lovely lives.  I suppose that’s possible.  I personally do not know anyone like that but I’m sure they exist…somewhere.

All I know is that every time I see one of he sayings I either gag, or wonder if people actually believe what they’re writing.  But, if they are writing for a small percentage of the people who are alive, then they have done a good job.

I read about peace, love, joy, gratitude and think of the gangs, the dead kids, the dark and dank rooms in which some of them live.  I think of the gunshots and screaming they hear.  Feel the terror they might feel just walking to school.  I think of the women trapped in houses by brutal men, the violence that lives everywhere and then I go back to all the fancy script and flowers of the inane sayings and wonder, what the hell is going on?

Who believes that stuff?  How does sexism, racism, all the isms fit into to that script?  Do the writers think the poor and hungry just don’t have the right attitude?  That they simply don’t understand?  If they just close their eyes and think happy thoughts, everything will be alright?  Food will magically appear on their tables?  Migrant workers won’t be poisoned, have actual bathrooms, and places to live while they tend the grapes the people who write the sayings EAT?

I’m thinking the people writing the hearts and flowers are the one’s who don’t really get it.  Life is hard to impossible for a LOT of people.  Where are the signs for them?  What would they say?

FIGHT BACK

WE KNOW HE’S BEATING YOU, JUST THINK POSITIVE THOUGHTS

SORRY YOUR KIDS ARE DEAD BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME

DON’T LET YOUR BACK PAIN FROM WORKING IN THE FIELDS BOTHER YOU  JUST START A JOURNAL OF HAPPY THOUGHTS AND THANKS

BEING HUNGRY ISN’T A BAD THING, SMELL THE WEEDS AND BE GRATEFUL

THE DEAD KIDS IN THE STREET DON’T LAY THERE LONG, NO WORRIES

WE KNOW MINIMUM WAGE IS A JOKE, BUT THE WHITE GUYS  WHO RUN THINGS DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE ANYTHING AT ALL THEY JUST WANT MORE FOR THEMSELVES SO THEY CAN BUY SIGNS SAYING THEY DESERVE TO BE HAPPY

I mean really, think about how some people live and look at the HUGE GIGANTIC GAP between people.  Then ask WHY that gap exists.

It exists because the people in power want it to exist.  That’s it.  Plain and simple.  That is the answer to EVERY SINGLE QUESTION.  Violence exists because the men in power WANT IT TO EXIST.  Violence is how they control us.  WAR exists because the men in power want it to exist.  War makes money for THEM.  Dead kids don’t bother them.  All the answers are the same.  Every single one.  BECAUSE THE WHITE GUYS IN POWER WANT WHAT EXISTS TO EXIST.  Anything they don’t want…isn’t there.  Things like equality, peace, you know, those things that aren’t worth anything and are actually threatening to their power structure.

Anyway, I think those happy, cheery, signs are like rubbing a cheese grater against my lips.  It’s like seeing a tear in reality.  It’s probably just me, but I really hope not.

Hey, I’m just sayin’.

Who said Nobody is perfect? Who gets to decide who is perfect or even what perfect IS? I think “perfect” is just one more made up meaningless word that controls people and makes them strive for something that never existed in the first place.

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Destination…

Isn’t the destination wherever we say it is?  Isn’t every second of our lives a destination that we have to experience before we can go any further?  Are there tiny, small, medium and big destinations?  The gas station, or flower shop, is a destination, right?  So what’s the BIG deal about the trip.  We are always tripping and getting to our destination.  We put weird things on signs, cards, and we write silly things in books that are meant to be profound…but they are not.  Trips and destinations are normal acts of everyday life.  Neither one is a big deal.  Kind of the mountain out of a molehill thing.

My destination today, was visiting a new (to me) Independent Book Store.  But my first destinations were the shower, getting dressed, getting in my car, and on and on, until I reached the shop.  Then my destination was to find books, then to get home, then to have lunch.  The journey back and forth just reminded me that the light on my dashboard kept telling me that I need air in one of my tires.  It was raining and I was singing and trying to not think about the journey, but the bookstore. Traffic was medium to heavy and some construction was going on but not bad enough to have people screaming in the street.   Waze was telling me how to get where I was going, since I’m lost the second I pull out of my driveway.  Think about your journey to work…IT’S THE JOURNEY, NOT THE DESTINATION THAT’S IMPORTANT.  LOLOL  Tell that to your boss if your late.  Think about the journey back and forth each day…all about the journey.  If you’re on a bus, el, or train you see a lot of sleeping people, or those who never look up.  Their journey doesn’t seem all that great.  Their destination, however, could be a nice meal with people they love, or not.  For those in cars, gridlock isn’t soothing, enjoyable, or something you would like to do for fun. Blast your music, do whatever, but it’s insane to think driving, or sitting, on an expressway is nicer than BEING where you want to BE.  It’s not.  You can play the metaphor game, mix up definitions and words, so that the journey is enlightening and wonderful (and maybe it is) but you wouldn’t be on a journey at all,  if it wasn’t for the destination.  It’s always the destination that matters.  If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any journeys in the first place.  We only move to get somewhere else.

I’m not saying that journeys can’t be fun, I’m saying that they serve a purpose.  The purpose of a journey is to get us to our DESTINATION.  

If I’m going to Paris, I WANT TO BE IN PARIS.  Sure I’ll try and make the 13 hour trip as pleasant as possible, but I don’t care about the journey…I care about being in Paris.  I wouldn’t take the trip for any other reason.  The journey is not something I would pack for and then never get off the plane, but simply turn around and go home again.   Every second I’m on the plane takes time away from my destination.   I can laugh on the plane, meet nice people, eat, read, and do what I can TO MAKE THE TIME GO FASTER, until I get to my DESTINATION.  If you’re squashed into a seat between to very large men, the journey can be a bloody nightmare…then you can’t WAIT to get to your destination.

Maybe it’s just me.  But the whole thing seems so silly.   The trip/destination thing is not profound in any way at all, at least not to me.   The destination is all that ever matters, no matter how much fun the journey might be.

Okay, so…

Something I noticed, while reading an entire book of quotes, is that the people who wrote them usually lived at a different time, in a different place and had no idea what it was like to live in a modern city, or world, actually.  Many of the writers had absolutely nothing in common with life today and have been dead for a million years.  That’s why the things they wrote don’t make sense, are irrelevant, or seem ridiculous.  Even the more up to date sayings are out of touch.  I must admit that seeing the word “man” used in some of the quotes, to represent both genders, was eye-opening, since that has gone out of style and good riddance.  The things written in the book were so silly, or even harmful, promising people all kinds of things, if they just believed, or acted in certain ways…all of which were false/lies, that I had to pen my outrage and the cruelty of their words by writing all over the pages.

How about this one:

There is no
wealth but
life

–John Ruskin

Sure, I know what he’s trying to say but tell that to someone who’s watching her kids die from lack of medical treatment, clean water, or food.  Tell that to a kid who gets shot in a drive-by, or one who watches her mother dying slowly by work three jobs to feed her. Life sucks for a lot of people.

Those who have their needs met, write most of sayings in quote books and you can tell that by the way they don’t seem to understand how other people live.

Here’s another one, by a guy who didn’t like kids:

All your dreams
can come true–if
we have the courage to
pursue them.

–Walt Disney

Hmmm, let’s see how that one works.  John, Bobby, Martin, Lennon, most people living today…yeah, no.  They were murdered for their dreams.  If your dream is to get a bag of fries, then sure, if you just walk to a place that sells fries…your dream comes true.   If you’re a woman, or a minority, however, billions of you can have the same dream…like the dream of not getting raped, beaten, murdered or discriminated against…and all of you dreaming TOGETHER, won’t CHANGE anything.  Those dreams don’t come true.   Those dreams have nothing to do with courage or pursuit, they have to do with the way we allow the world to work…and it works through power over others and hatred.  Nothing people do, gets those dreams to come true.  We can’t dream war away either, that’s another dream that’s dead in the water because of economic greed.  So yeah, another stupid saying.  The sayings tell you to dream BIG, but they what they don’t tell you is that your dreams can only come true under certain conditions, in certain places and if they are allowed to come true.  They don’t tell you that you can be killed for your dreams or that it helps to be born into wealth and have rich friends either.  Ask the Panthers ask the people beaten for peacefully demonstrating.  We can’t dream an honest and sane government.  So the saying should be:  Your dreams can come true if they are very, very tiny and you don’t bother any white powerful males with them.

I’m going to stop reading sayings because I’ve given up hope that there are any sayings that have meaning, or actually matter.  And I’m tired of seeing all that stupidity actually written down on paper.  The overwhelming majority of them are just lies to try and give people false hope.  Some of them are actually cruel because they put the responsibility of succeeding on the reader, when the writer knows all the while that what they are promising is impossible.

 

 

I know where I’d sit…

Picture from:  Pinterest

We get to choose…everyday.

Always remember…

Picture from:  Pinterest

Each of us can ONLY ever see things from our own perspective, anything else is impossible.  Therefore, whatever we look at is only real to us, our own take on what we see.  When people look at us they see what they see from their entire life experience (world view), including their specific upbringing, culture, beliefs, prejudices, hates, expectations (realistic or not), things they love and admire (even if they aren’t there) and all the rest.  So there is no actual reality, there are only individual realities.  If we are lucky, we meet people whose realities are a bit like our own and then we can understand each other better and be friends.  At least that’s the way I see it…that’s my reality. 🙂