Most Nights I don't know anymore...

Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck
Some nights I call it a draw
Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle
Some nights I wish they'd just fall off
But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh, Lord, I'm still not sure what I stand for oh
What do I stand for? What do I stand for?
Most nights I don't know anymore...
~ Fun

So this past week, I was in a funk... do I know why? Nope... I had ennui, metaphysical angst... I wanted to run away and hide separately... I wanted to cling to someone and punch someone in the face... All in all, I'm just glad I'm feeling better now.

This song has been playing nonstop on my ipod... for some reason I can't get the lyrics out of my head. Especially the line "What do I stand for?" What do I stand for? What do I stand for? Sometimes I feel like support has been dwindled down in our techy society. I can like something on facebook or twitter or youtube or geez... even the Independent.co.uk social reader... So... showing my support for something doesn't really involve more than the flick of an index finger.

How much thought am I really putting into all this support then? Are all these things the things that make up me? "Most nights I don't know anymore..."

This past year (2012) there have been some insane arguments... Limbaugh's remarks on women, the Presidential campaign, Occupy everything, whether or not this or that is a conspiracy, the fiscal cliff... I can't keep up with all the words that have been printed and posted about all of these things... I can't keep up with all the things being debated about gun control and being conservative and liberal and I absolutely detest all the super sarcastic and droll oversimplifications that people keep posting as gifs or images on facebook... "Tell the conservatives to stay out of my vagina" and whatnot... it's SO much more involved than that... for reals.

So... in a world where I'm constantly representing myself to the public, constantly having a personal style for everything from my phone case to my shoe laces, "What do I stand for?"

Now, the lyrics to the Fun song may or may not be about the deluge of information and creating identity in a multi-pluralistic society (I'm pretty sure I just made that word up), but that's how I'm taking them... My lips can create castles... I can talk and talk and comment and post and like and engage and build up this Platonic ideal in my head of who I am and what everything I do means and everything I am means... and some nights "I wish they'd just fall off..." and I want to hurl my laptop across the room because there's nothing important to be said... is any of it actually important? How important is everyone's voice? How do I choose who to listen to? Is my "liking" of certain voices constitute a political or economic (and therefore political) choice?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I guess that's part of how I've felt this past week. Like there was a part of me I couldn't escape, past and future... I was seeing "ghosts" and wanting to shadow box and hide at the same time (and not in any way which would make me like a ninja)... I was letting things which are past control my future, even if it was just in my head... and I really don't need to.



And now for you, and for me, a deluge of classic literature and quotes...

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;

That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. ~ from "O Me! O Life!" by Walt Whitman

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you." -Lao-Tzu

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. – H.D. Thoreau

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. -from "Ulysses" by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I don't know how much you'll appreciate these quotes... honestly, I'm having second thoughts about posting them, because, they are quite common. But oddly enough, these are the words that give me the courage to throw my voice into the mix, even if I'm not contributing anything new. I don't want to worry about being chic and fresh... I want to be authentic, and not worry about what everyone else is thinking about my posts, but just express my thoughts.

My thoughts... well... I'm worried about the authenticity of "interest" in today's society if it's so easy for me to be interested in so many things and generally know almost nothing about them. It concerns me that the world seems to be turning into a popularity contest where consensus is used to judge the value of everything.

I just have the feeling that deep down some things will contradict other things, and at some point, I'm going to have to fight for one at the sake of the other, and people will disagree and possibly hate me (depending on how much of a jerk I am, I suppose), but... isn't it just the nature of the universe that things are going to be opposed?

Unlike R. W. Emerson said "Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day"; I want to speak slowly and thoughtfully and when I speak, believe myself, with timeless thoughts and words that smack at truth so that when tomorrow comes, today's experience has brought me closer to wisdom, potentially at the sake of popularity, economy, or politics. And while I think I know what some of those things are so far, some nights, I don't know anymore...