Wednesday, May 28, 2008

All Thats Left Is Whats Debatable Again.

It's been annoying me ever since you asked and I gave a crappy answer, considering it's what I want to spend my adult life teaching. I should be able to explain to my students why history is important, why it is so much more than a bunch of old dead guys and dates, and why they should give shit. But it's difficult when it seems like nothing more than facts. Events that took place in a time that never mattered to you, had no adverse effect on what is going on today. And it's especially hard when we all realize that we won't end up in any history or record books and that eventually we will be forgotten. I understand that will all of these things stacked up against it the subject of history seems, to put it mildly, boring. Antique. Unnecessary.

But if you will just allow yourself to stop looking at history as a dead and decaying subject and instead realize that it is very much a living, breathing thing. History is what is happening right at this very moment, it's what happened yesterday, it's what will happen tomorrow or a year from now. It may be a terrible example but, our kids are going to ask us what it was like to be alive when September 11th happened; where we were, what we were doing. Hell, they may even ask us what we were doing when the blackout in New York happened. All of it is history, we may not see it that way, but it is. We don't even know what future generations will find fascinating......maybe the "Emo Movement"?? This recession will be talked about, close to how the Great Depression is talked about. I'm not saying we'll be in bread lines and we'll tack on signs outside our towns telling people that transients aren't welcome, but in our century its probably as close as we'll come. We'll talk about George W. Bush like our parents talk about Nixon. History is not old and dusty, it just has a bad reputation for being that way, because that is how it is taught most of the time.

I was wrong when I said we learned from our mistakes. We don't for the most part. Otherwise, we wouldn't still have genocides, only in different countries. There wouldn't be anymore war, world or civil. American's wouldn't be trying to shove democracy down everyone's throats because they would know that you can't force a form of government on a people. But these things still happen, of course they do; because people, especially world leaders, are morons and it's a shit, shit world. Except, I believe we, as a human race are capable of learning from our mistakes. Countries by themselves have learned from their past; America no longer practices slavery, Britain is no longer colonizing India, Russia is no longer Communist......probably. So yeah, the world is not perfect, but I think we can try.

On of the most important points to me, although maybe not to anyone else, are the people throughout history who have died for what they believed in, or shown that greatness is possible. Those men and women deserve to be remembered. Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Lindon B. Johnson, they deserve more than to just be remembered as dead presidents. Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth I, Harriett Tubman, Rosa Parks, Catherine the Great; they all deserve more than to be remembered as merely women. The soldiers of the Revolutionary, Civil, and World Wars although we may no know all their names we can learn about the battles and their culture and remember them for what they sacrificed.

I could keep going, but I can't really tell if I've made my point or not. We don't disappear once we're gone, whether we know it or not. Everyone makes their mark in history, it just depends on how big you want your mark to be.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Till the Green Apple Grows on a Sour Apple Tree

Loose ends.

My life is a bunch of loose ends. Oh, I'm not trying to sound overly dramatic or make anyone feel sorry for me, it's just a fact really. It always feel like I have a million little things to finish.

Probably my fault most of the time.

Skepticism is a good emotion, even if you think its not. I promise its one of the best tools a person can have. Hold on to it if you keep nothing else. It's a hard lesson that I had to learn. I lost it and I trusted blindly.

The bitterness returns full swing.

Its hard not to let the bitter feelings, thoughts and mindset return. Its so much easier, so much safer. No one gets hurt. You don't have to trust, don't have to hope anymore.

Its the hope thats the worst.

So what am I doing now? I'm allowing myself to hope, and I'm not sure why. I'm skeptical, oh God. I can't afford to be hurt like that again. I won't survive. But I can't hide forever either.

Conundrum.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Just Because We Use Cheats Doesn't Mean We're Not Smart

God its been forever since I've actually written something on here. I'm considering putting this site on facebook or something, not because I want more people to read it but because I want people to understand. I tell someone that I went crazy and they give me a look like "yeah....sure, ok". But if they read the things I posted through August and September they'll understand. You can't help it.

What a scared naive little girl. And before that, what a starry-eyed idiot. Its amazing how much things have changed and how much things have stayed exactly the same. There are moments. I think everyone has them, moments when you know things are going to work out or get worse. I've had several, of both. But I'm no longer stagnant.

The stagnation was probably the worst, it was probably what was driving me to feeling so crazy, so close to that borderline between sane and over the cliff. Nothing moved, nothing changed, nothing happened, nothing got better or worse. It was as if I were being punished for something I hadn't done, for something I wasn't even aware of.

I'm getting too pretentious and stupid. My point, and I do have one. Is that things are better, but they aren't great. But I don't want them to be. I would be worried if everything was great. I would be worried if I had a ton of money and I'd met the love of my life and I were living in little rock in a great apartment and my car ran just fine and I had a fantastic job. I would be waiting for the bottom to drop out. I would expect a meteor to hit the earth or for a bomb to hit or something. Small time disasters are good if you think about them.

Last summer was too perfect. I had no complaints. Oh, I'm sure I did at the time, but looking back it was too great. I had the perfect guy and an awesome house that was constantly filled with people. I live with two of my best friends, I was working and I was always busy. And then look at what happened. The bottom exploded out from under me.

So I'm a little ok with the fact that everything kind of sucks right now.