Just take someone else to the ballgame.

I Guess You Want a Cute, Witty Title Here

I guess this is the part where I talk about how much I’ve changed over the past ten weeks, mention how much more aware I am of environmental issues. Here I say how drastically my views on eating and our food industry have shifted and how my eyes have been opened. That’s what is expected, right? No, thanks. I’ll pass.

Yes, Food Inc. was interesting. Yes, I thought the milk from Snowville Creamery was delicious. Yes, I did learn about problems threatening our environment. Don’t get me wrong, all of that is important to an extent. I’m just so sick of seeing and hearing so much insincerity and self-righteousness plague so many who call themselves “activists”. I read essay after essay, blog post after blog post, saying how people never expected to learn/change so much in one class, before proceeding on to over-dramatically describe the issues that have grown so dear to them.

It’s not the interest that bothers me. That’s great, as long as it’s well intentioned. No, what I really take issue with is the “phoniness” of it all, as Holden Caulfield would say. Let me break it down for you. See, after this course, about 95% of the class will say they have a newfound interest in the environment. Of that percentage, around 50% will be lying. Of the other half, the one that is genuinely concerned about the environment, 25% will lose their interest within the first month, and the remaining 75% won’t last the first year. You can say it’s the thought that counts, but I’d much rather prefer honesty.

It’s not that I hate the environment. I don’t. I’d be foolish to, considering how much we need it. Hell, I recycle. I don’t buy bottled water unless necessary, and then I reuse that one. I love strawberries and celery and often choose chocolate milk over soda. Sounds good, right? Well, I only recycle at home. At school, I throw everything in the trash because I don’t want to take the time to sort it. I may not buy bottles of water, but I buy plenty of bottles of soda and cans of energy drinks. I eat at fast-food restaurants because they’re cheap, convenient, and they taste good. I smoke, I litter, I even used up all the bandwidth on Netflix during finals week. I know a lot of my actions are lazy and selfish, but at least I’m honest about them. I don’t think I’m all that bad; bad habits are just bad habits. Humans are selfish by nature, and I’m just doing what’s easiest for me. There are more important things to me right now than whether we’ll drive ourselves to extinction in 2015 or 3015.

In fact, maybe this had to happen. The environmental situation, I mean. Maybe this whole shitty world is just a product of human life. After all, we’re a virus and Earth is our host. Humans are essentially the only species that harms the earth. The rest of life is part of a cycle. Sure, today’s society is lazy, apathetic, etc.; the bigger problem, however, is that humans have transcended their nature. Was it natural for humans to build large factories polluting the air and water? How about the invention of cars, populating roadways everywhere? Did humans naturally evolve to create nuclear weapons? All of these things are considered problems, but perhaps it is in our nature to synthesize, to invent, to consume. A question I’ve found myself pondering lately is this: “If we unwittingly started over, if some unobtrusive divine entity were to press ‘rewind’ and human existence happened anew, how differently would it all actually play out?” I tend to think it’d all be very similar. I’d like to think it’d be a totally different, better world, and that our problems in this one are just the result of a bunch of prior screw-ups, but I can’t. I just don’t believe that.

I guess these questions are unanswerable, but so what? It forces you toward self-realization. Introspection is a good thing. Writing is a good thing. It is a staple of our society, in terms of communication as well as art. Rhetoric, as briefly touched upon in early classes, is everywhere. It is the force behind why people say and do what they say and do. Unfortunately, the course title, Writing and Rhetoric, is a misnomer. I’d say a more suitable name would be A Concise Introduction to Environmental Writing. Because that’s exactly what the class was. Why, in a Freshman level English class, is so much emphasis placed on environmentalism, and so little on the art of writing? The most we covered that pertained to writing was works cited pages and the grammar review day. Oh, and logos, ethos, and pathos. But those must not matter since we only talked about them once. Although I do have to admit, it was amusingly infuriating watching the class focus gradually shift toward environmentalism until, by the last few classes, we talked about absolutely nothing pertaining to writing or rhetoric.

I’d say the one thing that pissed me off most was also the most egregious example of the biased, unequal presentation of the course: the Eco-events. College kids steal an article from the first “green” site that came up on Google, paraphrase it, then add their own opinions in their own unique style. Very cute. However, since the course is titled Writing and Rhetoric, I can’t be the only one to find it odd that there are seven times as many Eco-events required than there are rhetoric samples. It’s easy to see where the priorities lie, here. When the half of the students don’t even understand the difference between “it’s” and “its”, your focus shouldn’t be on hugging trees.

I guess it comes down to the fact that I just don’t care. I have no interest in doing Eco-events, no motivation to write this essay on topic, nothing. I’d rather spend my time reading, watching movies, writing on my own, hanging out with friends and having worthwhile discussions, spending time with my girlfriend, being happy—you know, things that are actually productive. I’m sorry, but I just cannot bring myself to half-ass an assignment just for a grade and acceptance. If I have no interest in something, there becomes this mental block in my head that keeps me from even attempting to do it. Such is the case here. I’ve been actively trying to finish this work, including the Eco-events, for the past two weeks. It just isn’t happening. Call me lazy, pessimistic, arrogant, pretentious—whatever you want. The fact of the matter is I just can’t do it. Thus, we end up with this long, unstructured rant.

Another thing I can’t stand, sort of in the same way pseudo-environmentalist people bug me, is the pretentious college type. The kind of arrogant asshole who flocks to other arrogant assholes, and they all stand around together obnoxiously discussing how much homework they have or how many credit hours they’re taking next quarter, all at a volume level that’s around forty decibels too high. Even at the Athena, in the early evening, at an almost empty showing of Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, I heard it. The only other people in the audience were two girls, conversing in pre-movie chatter about their quiz grades for the quarter. Is that all life is to people? Time to do mostly bullshit work so you can feign the act of learning well enough to get a little piece of paper to hang on the wall? To our society, that piece of paper is viewed as a magical key to a brighter future. Money can’t buy happiness—but a diploma can.

Media Mind

I think our society just has its priorities out of order. I’ve seen just as much news coverage on Charlie Sheen as I have the earthquakes in Japan. And you know what? I’m more interested in Charlie Sheen. That’s not me being an asshole, that’s our culture. We’re so conditioned to take interest in the trivial things, the material world. Look at our media, for example. Networks like MTV and VH1 fill every timeslot with unnecessary coverage of whichever celebrities are being talked about at the time, or shitty reality shows that glamorize a reckless, shallow lifestyle. Jersey Shore plays in bars and dorm rooms all over Athens; not long after, I hear certain “interaction” in lines around town. Here’s an example of what I heard, verbatim, in Wendy’s last Friday:

Bro 1: Yo, what are you studying for, bro?
Bro 2: Huh?

Bro 1: What are you studying for tonight?

Bro 2: Oh...uh...I dunno, like Geography and Math and stuff. stuff.

Bro 1: Why don’t you just say, “Fuck that,” bro? We’re getttt getting’ drunk tonight!
(takes food from Wendy’s manager)
Bro 1(cont.): Sweet, thanks, bro.

Do people like that demand programs like Jersey Shore, or do programs like Jersey Shore demand people to act like that? Whatever the answer, the world is still a little worse off.

If it weren’t for the media, maybe the Green Movement would actually be respectable. Photos of stars like Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio caught being “green” are printed all over magazine pages. T-shirts and stickers proclaiming “Green is the new Black!” that, ironically, only draw more attention to the movement’s superficiality. Newspapers and news networks section off a “green” division simply to earn higher ratings. It’s all bullshit.

Going back to Charlie Sheen for a minute, I’m glad he’s doing what he’s doing. It’s nice to hear someone be honest and say, “I’m proud of [my drug use]. I was crushing seven gram rocks and finishing them, because that’s how I roll.” I’m sick of all the celebrities who get into trouble with drugs, pretend to be sorry, go to rehab, come out and give insincere motivational speeches on Oprah, then relapse back into the same thing. Now, I’m not saying Sheen won’t relapse. He said that, not me. But damned if I’m not siding with him on this one. At least he’s honest.

That reminds me…

F**k Censorship

I hate censorship. With a passion. Very much. There are very few things that I despise more than censorship and the actions that have been taken in its name. It’s counterproductive, really. I believe education and censorship are two opposing forces—you have one, you lose the other. Society’s view is that if you don’t want your kids to be corrupted, everything better be censored and chopped up so they learn good things, not bad ones. I think that’s flat out idiotic, and, frankly, irresponsible. See, I think that parents should educate their kids on what’s appropriate to say and when, and what you don’t do to other people. After all, think back to your own childhood: Wasn’t part of the attraction to “Parental Advisory” labeled music and R-rated movies the fact that they were “bad”? That you weren’t allowed to hear/see them? If adult material is demystified and treated respectfully, censorship will not be needed.

Even worse than censorship itself is the hypocrisy that occurs within it. If you were to listen to the radio for a few hours straight, you’d notice that, in addition to total censorship, you also don’t hear “goddamn” or “asshole”. Instead, the words “god” and “hole” are removed. The same goes for most TV networks. Bizarre, no? What’s so bad about adding “hole” to “ass”, which is obviously considered far less offensive? Another thing: Why can’t artists swear on the radio, but Ke$ha can sing about being a raging nymphomaniac in the middle of a drunken orgy, and Flo Rida can describe how good it feels when girls perform fellatio on him. What’s going on here? Slang terms and catchy beats don’t change the subject matter. Same with movies. Show a realistic sex scene that is a pivotal point in the story, and you’ll get an R; make an entire movie of gratuitous, stylized, but bloodless violence that has nothing to do with an extremely clichéd and ridiculous story, and you’ll get a PG-13. ‘Cause, let’s face it, studios want money.

But who doesn’t? We’re all assholes, and we did it to ourselves. Or maybe no one did it. Maybe we’re just selfish assholes because that’s how evolution worked on us. After all, we aren’t all that bad. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. The bottom line is we’re here. We exist. The things we do, in the present, are our conscious decisions. So be vegetarian, a bro, a slut, a douchebag, a senator, a president, a drug dealer, a prostitute, a pothead, a heroin junkie, a “Green” activist, a pretentious bigot, an asshole, a city worker, a multiple felon, a hitman, a teacher, a lawyer, a filmmaker, a writer, a janitor, a martyr, a priest, an astronaut, a homosexual, a stripper, an anti-Semite, a Nazi sympathizer, a singer, a dancer, an engineer, a terrorist, an atheist, a mortician, a cop—be whatever you’d like. Just be honest. ‘Cause that’s all you’ve got.