My taste is very simple. Much like Winston Churchill, I simply enjoy the best. I like my coffee black, my milk whole, my meat red, my tobacco full, and my whiskey strong. As far as women; well, I like those too. Altogether I’m a fairly easy man to accommodate. My chief difficulty however, is in people.
I’m from Texas. Home of the brave, land of the free…range. That never really occurred to me until I moved here to Manhattan. Home of the money slave, land of the free…cage. Back home it wasn’t uncommon to pass by a few fields on the way to a friend’s house. Over here the only fields you pass are small block of land that haven’t been constructed on yet which is usually offset by a construction notice of the next exciting city rectangle to come. I was born and raised in a community where my neighbors were always beside me and now I live in work in a city where my neighbors are above and below me.
I’ve never worked harder than I have here in Manhattan. I’ve also never felt more insignificant and worthless than I have here which is rather odd just because, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Funny how that works. As many years as I’ve been here now there’s something so enchanting, so charming about this city I still can’t put my finger on. I’ve seen some and even had to do some pretty sneaky things to get by here in the city which makes me feel like such a snake at times. It’s hard to feel that bad about it though, as much as I’d like to. Imagine how bad a sneaky reptile would feel at the mercy of its snake charming circumstances. Socrates once implored the importance of what it is to know thyself. As much as I’ve grown to know who I am I’ve learned some hard lessons in what it is to love and respect myself. During the process I’ve also learned what it is that I don’t like, even deplore about myself. Whenever I see these deplorable qualities of mine in characterized in others it really stirs me up. All of which brings me back to my original point; people I don’t like.
We live in a culture that conditions us to do things that radically oppose each other. In one hand we’re to conform to a glamorous world of materialism and then we somehow manage to promote a rather excessive degree of individualism. This new breed of animated individualism has inadvertently created a sort of god like mentality in many of us. “I’m ME!” is the new banner we’re raising over our children and enforcing in our culture and the result is becoming more and more outrageous. It’s not hard to notice anymore how we’ve abandoned glorified virtues like commitment, parental respect, modestly dressed women, and even abstinence (YEAH I said it) in order to make room for our elephant individualism. Yet even in a culture of abandoned virtue and prescribed ego it all fits well in the consumption glove.
Be who you want to be! Not that any respectable culture should have ever discouraged such regards but it’s easy to see how that’s changed in today’s age where we’ve gone from telling young men they could be astronauts on posters when they’re at school to telling them they can be girls on TV when they get home. Do what you like! Do what makes you feel good! Our culture of individualism has become so god like now it’s no wonder people are so damn sensitive these days. Heaven forbid people’s feelings are inconvenienced by opposing thought or disagreed with on ethical grounds. I guess it’s pretty easy to step on Zeus’s toes when Mt. Olympus is crowded with so damn many of them. How did this happen? I wish it was just one persons fault. It’d be a lot less exhausting than being pissed off at everyone.
Another qualm I have with this culture is probably the same I’ve had with most cultures throughout the history of time. Everyone wants to live a thousand years but no one wants to get old. I’ve already embraced as much. I’m one of the oldest man you’ll ever meet in such a young body. To this day I’m still not too sure what the kids are referring to with that funky street word of theirs, ‘block.’ But whatever it is I’m pretty sure I’ve been around it a few times. I’ve got more experience than a ship wrecked captain and more stories to tell about them than a well seasoned sailor. There’s such a thing as many but for someone my age it’s more like a thing of too many. That’s partly why I think my soul is so wrinkled.
But unlike most of us! Hell! Even unlike myself, I’m looking forward to the old man within emerging to his fullest form. To curse Harry Potter kids and speak without consequence, which is my precise intention with this writing medium. If I have as much to look forward to I mine as well start now. I’m reminded of what that good ole boy Marcus Aurelius once said about it. You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man for a long time.
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