humanity is made by humans

2012.07.11

eventually, we all get old and become nice and good people.

it's just a matter of slowly decaying, inside and outside, melting away under the sun and sound of daily demands. it happens first without us noticing. in fact, we take it for growth and riping, learning and enjoying so many exciting things that we do the first time. then slowly, more and more with anguish, we learn that there are limits and borders, time restricts and the lack of finance, missed opportunities and the overall deadweight of moving on under full steam, through that treachery sea of life.

some when the first full panic attacks appear. a friend gets seriously injured. a parent dies. some annoying little skin problem turns out to be irreversible. cancer lures around the corner, threatening with statistics and gruesome warning pictures on every pack of cigarettes. getting up in the morning feels like an ordure. we catch ourselves thinking those conservative, ridiculously safety thoughts that we hated our parents for when we were teens.

all this has to be leveled with radical doses of positive thinking. live, laugh and lies to our face in the mirror, counting those crow feet lines around the eyes and declaring them to be just laughing dimples. then comes the zen classes, the yoga exercises, the biodynamic relaxing and anti-stress adjustment workouts. followed by excessive vacation trips to las vegas and, increasing amounts of single malt whiskey per evening to be able to sleep.

it's all still ok and it's normal and it's the way how all things go. we still are under control, there is so much to see and discover and we haven't even saved a fraction of the planet yet, like we bragged to in a side kick when we were twens. for too long, we live and live on and further on as if this life will go onwards, forward, continuing, develop, climb up and upper-up into a never ending succession of achievements, every day, every year a contribution into the golden account of experience. its all about finding the way forward, the advantage, the gain and the profit... as if the course of our lives would be drawn as a route on huge map of the ocean, each coast line a shimmering promise of wealth and adventure. and we don't see how we're just running in circles, like decapitated chicken do for a minute or so, when they are dead already.

and we ACCEPT this as normal, what can we do. with compliments of serenity, declaring a misery for good since we have no power to escape it, boxing it up in buzz words of "life cycle" and "ying yang" and calling it challenge instead of a problem.

but normal isn't good. it's just mediocre and dull.

each and every one of us bows down under the pressure of normality - and i mean NORMality, not just being average. because yes oh yes, we all know the heroes and guinnes book of record holders, as well as the insane monsters and murderers and tyrants and poor bastards that didn't make it so far, because they missed the golden middle.

all i'm asking is a little less uniformity, a little less "norm" in all this variation bullshit we're getting, all these pseudo choices of "would you like your steak rare/medium/well done, with oyster/barbecue/thousand island sauce, your coke with ice/lemon/rum, your iphone in pink/black/white/slime green, your shocking news on fox/cbs/cnn or whatever... all these differences that are NONE at all, just variations of the same bullshit.

and no butterfly wing in brazil causes a tornado in china. eventually, you and me will get up and do it all by ourselves, in whatever times is left before the big bang.

I don't know whether your monologues fill me with a sense of optimism or pessimism, energy or melancholy... always seems to be a combination. But always thought-provoking and that's the essence of it.

davids · 2012-07-13: 11:56

DANG!!!!! THAT LAST SHOT IS THE BOMB. WOW!

maharba · 2012-07-13: 15:10

I really like this post and love the last shot!

mariadamaris · 2012-07-13: 16:20

OK before I start reading I'm going to comment on the PHOTOS.... the first thing that struck me is that no where (not even California) have I ever seen so many people jam packed in to so little walking space! I got claustrophobic just "looking"! 8^)

Secondly... LOVE that last shot... putting it in to my favorites.

DancingDolphin · 2012-07-13: 18:45

OK, here's my take on your essay. I am enough older than you to recognize that you are at perhaps the WORST age bracket in life. It's a time when MANY people have been married at least twice... have had their careers either take off or not with little options for things to change... have settled in to what is likely to become the financial bracket that they will continue to live in and many are unhappy with... kids if they had them have gone on with their own lives... and they probably hope that their dog will fill the void....they remember their dreams and still think they 'might' have been possible "if only".... people start dying, and people start getting terminal illnesses.... etc. If one is lucky enough to LIVE through this phase, and some won't, one comes out on the other side with yet another perspective. And "in the end there is one dance you'll do alone'. 8^)

DancingDolphin · 2012-07-13: 19:07