falling out of rhythm



"Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it." -Salvador Dali


I'm a dork and a ginger. What else could you possibly want to know?

Why am I frustrated?

     Hmm, that’s a tough one. Except, wait. No. It’s not tough at all. It’s easy. There’s so many things to be frustrated at, so many reasons to want to give up and to just feel so helpless. There’s that old saying that “Something’s gotta give.” That’s what I’ve been counting on. I push and I push and I push, but nothing gives. I try different spots, I push at different angles, I pretend I’m Luke SkyWalker and just stare at it, willing it to move, but nothing gives. I’m convinced that it’s all just one giant riddle, one big asinine game in which you’re given no clues and in which there’s no way out. You can’t just say, “Alright I give up, what was it? Who did it? It was the butler, wasn’t it?” No one will answer your pleas of, “Uncle!” No answers are given. In fact, I don’t think anyone knows the answer. The one big guy who would know the answer is the biggest riddle of them all. We all think the other knows the secret, knows the way out, but the truth is that none of us do. We drive each other crazy and build hatred and trust shatters, because each one of us thinks that there’s something we’re not being told. We all think that the other person can do something for us, that they can give us a Get Out Of Jail Free card or can blow the whistle and call timeout. There’s no cheating in life, though. Throwing the cliche in: I guess that sometimes you’re just dealt a bad hand. I can’t help wondering though, Is the deck rigged? I mean if it’s really all just odds, if a person’s misfortunes are simply the result of a bad spin on the Ol’ Wheel of Fortune, then odds say you’ll win big soon, right? Isn’t that supposed to be the give? We push and push and life takes and takes and takes and takes until we have nothing left to put into it, but then something gives, right? You bet all your money in the casino and keep on losing it, till you’re down to almost nothing, but then you win it all back and more, right? I put all of myself into everything, it’s who I am. I’m the person who can’t complete a task if she doesn’t believe what she’s doing. I cry if I can’t find passion within myself for something, because I know that I can’t fake it. I can’t sit there and write empty words, and I most certainly cannot show up to class with work I’m not proud of. That may sound stupid, and I suppose it is, but it’s something I just can’t do. It’s for myself, but it’s also for my teachers and my parents. I know that they’d tell me it’s okay if they knew how much I cared. They’d tell me that I don’t need to give 110% at everything even though every single faction of life begs to differ. They don’t understand that I’m doing it for them too, that I feel guilty handing in incomplete assignments or BSing a test. They don’t see that I’m not just some selfish whiny brat, but that I genuinely care to make other people happy. Yeah, turn it all in again and you could say that’s still selfish, that the smiles on their faces are for my own personal happiness. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be, though? Who in their right mind would condemn a saint for enjoying the good works he’s done for others? No, I’m not comparing myself to a saint. I’m on polar ends, but the message is still there. It says that it’s okay to enjoy making other people happy, that it’s even admirable. Why then, I ask, does it reap such horrible results? How come the saints always get martyred for their cause? How many people will have to suffer before the world gives in and stops resisting what is essentially good and right? How hard could it possibly be to just stop it all? Everyone complains about the system and how it’s so limiting and how it stifles creativity, so then why the hell is it still in place? Our country is deep in debt and we’re fighting our ancestors’ ancestors’ wars, why, again? It’s almost hilarious how we detest limitation, yet we’re the only ones with the power to break it. We hate the rules we have the power to change, then cry and murder over it, and then struggle and fight to maintain the very system we despise. I’d bet everything that that’s what will end us. It’ll be that incorrigible need to progress and do everything better and faster and more efficiently. It’s already happening to us, we force ourselves to work inhumane hours, and the children of our generation are told that everything they do is just not quite good enough. Homework is dumped on us, and I almost wonder if it should be legal. I mean, school did not used to be this demanding. Only because we’ve progressed and changed has it become this way, and it’s a ticking time bomb. Psychological problems become a part of us so early on now, the anxiety and the depression are through the roof, and the effects on our future are untold. We learn to feel like we’re not good enough, that everything we do could always be just a little bit better. It could be better written, it could be done in less steps, it could be neater or prettier, hell, it could be anything more than what it is. Being the age at which we’re most impressionable, these thoughts are ingrained in us for life. How does a grown man succeed at his job when he still has this deep, wrenching fear in his heart that everything he does is wrong? It’s good to strive to improve because it motivates us to keep on going, but there has to be some sense of balance. There has to be a give. We can’t just learn that we’re not good enough and live to never see that proved wrong. Why do people jump off bridges and choose to end their own lives? I have a theory, it’s because when they were about to jump, and they asked themselves why they shouldn’t, they couldn’t think of an answer. They stood there precariously on the edge of life and death, and decided that they didn’t have enough to offer life and that death would be more forgiving. They were trained early on in their life that they could always do better, and it manifested in their brain as, “I am not good enough and I never will be.” Is this not sickening? Does this not make our stomachs twist in knots, and our hearts heave in agony? Yes? THEN WHY DO WE PROMOTE IT? We are all hypocrites and pretenders, we are a self-destructing race that cannot stand to acknowledge its own artifice. We have the power to change it all, to at least try to do good and make good, but we don’t. We choose not to create a better world, then spit in the very face of civilization. We’re spitting in our own faces, sealing our own fates, and depriving ourselves of our very own happiness. It can’t just be one person, we all need to change. The one man that stands and says he’ll fight the power and live to be happy and make others happy, he get’s screwed over every time. Why? It’s because we sit there and let life bully him, then tell him we’re sorry for his trouble and wear sympathy on our faces. I was always told that not standing up for someone was just as bad as being the one to put them down, so why can’t we own up to our crime? Something’s gotta give, and it’s not them, it’s us.