Three reasons the world isn't as bad as I sometimes think it is.

1. I am Alive.

Twenty-eight years ago, the scientific and medical estimate for life-span of people with cystic fibrosis was age 12. A couple years later it was upped to 16. Then a few years after that, age 21. I spent the majority of my time growing up under the assumption that I was going to depart this mortal coil not long after I was legally allowed to drink. Needless to say, this impacted my psyche and life outlook a bit.

BUT, also obvious, that has not come to pass. I am seven years pass the deadline established then, as medical science has progressed to the point that a large portion of people with CF live full lives (some are in their 50's now). There is no longer a hard cap on lifespan. Every day and month and year is amazing to me, as I honestly never expected to be here experiencing them. The fact that I even HAVE a future to look forward to is spectacular. Which leads to:

2. We Live in The Future.

When I was growing up, the most amazing piece of technology to me was the Commodore 64. MY PHONE IS NOW MORE POWERFUL THAN THAT. Where I can say (all the time, in fact), "We didn't get the future we were promised," (no jet packs, flying cars, laser pistols, etc.), we in fact got a completely different one. Slightly more mundane and low-key, yes, but if you said to your parents in the past, "When I am your age, everyone in the world will be able to instantaneously communicate with each other on devices about the size of a baseball card," they would have scoffed at you in disbelief as a lunatic. Music, film, art, communications; all these areas are so far advanced in this time, and so quickly and subtly, that I suppose it's easy for us to overlook the amazing things we have at our command. The internet, iPods, hybrid/electric cars, cell phone, nanotechnology. Awesome. Which leads to:

3. Tomorrow is Unknown.

There is a definite undercurrent of cynicality in much of what I write here, I know. And it's hard to not be sometimes. The political climate is muddled at best, the dearth of truly INSPIRING media is disheartening, and while we make the best with what we have, the economy is, to put it plainly, shit. But it's easy to forget that it's not always going to be so. We don't know what's coming. The future is not yet written, and while, yes, it could most definitely be worse, there's just as good a chance that it will be BETTER.

And that's something we can't, we shouldn't, we MUSTN'T forget. Because to forget that is to descend into pessimism and cynicism and despair, and maybe I'm in the slowly shrinking minority here, but I can't be that way. I can't not believe in the future. I can't not see the best of what we could be, the best of what could be coming. I can't believe that this is all there is to us. Not in a strict religious way, because I am openly faithless, but definitely in a spiritual way. I have to believe that humanity is more than what we are now, that we are more than the sum of the past whatever-thousand years, that there is better things coming. And I guess that makes me more of an anachronism every day. But I have to believe in something.

And the future is what I choose to believe in.

The Cost of Boredom (or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb)

I am having a very boring evening. (I KNOW, I know. A very exciting topic for a blog post, but trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.) My plans all fell through, no new ones presented themselves, and my various friends were busy or indisposed. "So what?" I thought. "I have plenty here to keep me occupied. I have books, I have movies, I have television. I am set. I am mighty in my entertainment options."

And, oddly enough, I was wrong.

I am an entertainment junkie. I freely admit this, in fact, I proclaim it as a boon, most times. A culture's entertainment says a lot about the culture itself, and I revel in analyzing the hell out of everything I take in. As I've grown older (and maybe [but probably not] wiser), my intake has grown more and more refined. I see less movies than I used to, and watch much less television. Much of this is due to the aforementioned refining, some due to lowering standards in entertainment presentation (but that's another entry I think. . .) The point is, I have a lot of experience in media. I have cable, I have dvds of both films and television series, I have a couple video game systems (all older ones though, nothing newer than the N64), I have music, I have books and comics and magazines, hell, I have my guitar. And yet, tonight, when I had time aplenty to use/abuse any of these things, nothing was satisfying my ennui. And this bothers me.

This bothers me not because of what it implies about my habits or my psyche, but because it struck home to me how much I actually have spent on these various entertainment strategies. I have dropped sums of cash on dvds, books, instruments, etc., and yet none of these could fill my void (so to speak.) The current American culture of leisure demands that we be pacified at all times by the opiates we choose, and MY DRUGS WERE EXPENSIVE BUT DIDN'T WORK. The money spent on these things could have been used on more utilitarian things (with the exception of the guitar, since that is used in my "line of work"), but I decided to put it towards pacifying my inner nerd. And what do I have to show for it? An overdeveloped analytical streak, a large education in pop culture, and really, very little else. So, that's a little sobering.

The main thing that occurs to me is how much I depend on inter-personal relationships now. In years past, I was very much a solitary person. I had friends, lovers, all sorts of acquaintances, but I was perfectly happy being alone and doing things by myself. And I do still on occasion enjoy it, as I use that time to write. (I apparently never actually FINISH anything I start writing, but I do start them!) But I spend much more time with my friends and significant other, just. . . being, I suppose. And to tell you the truth, I think I'm happier that way. An interesting self-discovery, I think.

Anyway, thanks for the indulgence. Hopefully, I'll have something involving cartoons or film up here soon.

And now for something completely different. . .

Number one: the Larch. The. Larch.

expletives and exclamations

This is my first post in April. I really have no excuse for why I haven't been posting, so I apologize to all my regular readers.

And by "all", I mean JayV and Beth. Maybe.




Ok, actually, no one is reading. But that's never stopped me before, dammit!

In any event, things are coming, writings and links and videos and comics and such. SERIOUS BUSINESS and what-have-you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life...

To tide you over, here is an awesome picture, followed by the funniest comedy sketch ever.