What We Have Going for Us | The Hairpin

So I was feeling rather down the other day about my prospects in life, and my sister sent me a link to help make me feel better.

It did wonders for my mood that day, and I re-read it every time I feel discouraged, and I thought I would share it with all of you, maybe it will effect you like it did myself.

What We Have Going for Us | The Hairpin: "There are a few things people forget to tell you.

 

Each year of your twenties is worth three in regular time. The decade moves like dog years except that in the end you suddenly turn 30 as if you didn’t just age a single lifetime. Something happens between the ages of 20 and 25. This is your first go-round as an adult. Your brain shifts and closes and hardens like the soft spot on an infant’s skull. You try harder. You begin to stand up on those baby deer legs and learn how to carry yourself in challenging situations. You eventually grow into a human who is brave enough to wake up before brunch is over, and offices start answering phones with “good afternoon” instead of “good morning.” You’ll never quit being an animal, however.

Around 25 or 26 you will decide to really feel the rain on your skin. It may hurt. By this time, you have already made the big move from your parents’ nest. You’ll look around, survey your life and decide what to carry with you. Who to carry with you. This is the first time you let go of living life by reaction.

Make a list every morning of the smallest expectations. Note each item with a box, not a bullet. Draw an“X” inside each box after completing its corresponding task. This will give you a sense of accomplishment greater than simply striking through. Today you will email the last flagged address in your inbox. Today you will buy handsoap. You will end the night with a single window’s width of tabs open in your browser. You will sleep. It’s OK to add completed items in retrospect, if only to record your performed adulthood.

We are not so mysterious. If you want to get to know someone infinitely better, meet their parents for five minutes. We are attracted to people who were loved in the ways we were loved as children. We are attracted to people who are lacking in ways we understand.

We are all terrified to take our clothing off and equally eager to show our genitals to each other. Do not be so afraid. We tell people we love them when we are unprepared. When we don’t mean it. When we’re drunk. When we’re sober but filled with so many delicious chemicals in our infant skulls standing on our baby deer legs naked in the dark that we may as well be drunk.

Mostly, your relationships will end. You will hold people close to you with the knowledge that everyone is on a timeline. That everyone’s heart will eventually stop beating. Most of the time, though, things will not be this grim. If they were, no one would get laid.

The right people will be your memory bank. The right people will bring out the best in you.

Some people are the wrong people. Do not confuse them with the rare people who are inherently evil or bad. These people are just not for you.

There are the friends you meet for the occasional happy hour, and there are friends with whom you have longstanding Taco Tuesdays. Taco Tuesday means a bottle of wine for each person and peeling back the business-casual mask of the weekday while relaying mortifying tales of performed adulthood to one another. You hit reply all. You cried at your desk. You said “I love you” when you were unprepared or drunk or sober. Any day can be Taco Tuesday. These are the people who fill in your blanks. These are the right people.

We are social but we are not social media. We are social but we cannot survive on content alone. Sometimes being passive consumers of content works against us. If you don’t do it today you’ll put if off and then it will be awkward when you decide you really, really want to email this person. So do it today. Or don’t do it. Or maybe do it tomorrow, but if you don’t do it today you definitely won’t do it tomorrow. Again, make a list. Wash your face.

There is no IRL. This is everything."

More coming soon. Sorry about the hiatus everyone, I had some plans that fell through, so we are back at it here :)

Birthdays and Black Holes

Scientists recently watched as a passing star was shredded by a black hole, which is significant since black holes are invisible to the naked eye until they are in the process of devouring an energy source, such as a star. That whole news story can be read here, but I want to talk about something it else it got me thinking about.

We are all going to die. At some point every single one of our lives will end due to some condition. Cancer, disease, etc. But what this news article got me thinking about is that all the things we associate with death are things we understand (to an extent).

I can handle death by random illness, or perhaps less commonly a random act of violence. Not that I want to die, dying scares the hell out of me, but I can comprehend incurring a fatal injury or disease. However, the fact that I could die due to some random cosmic act is something I had never explored at any length up to this point in my life. 

Ungodly Radiation Incoming

I know it isn't likely, and this isn't the beginning of me becoming someone who worries about the world ending at any given point, but I find the thought of my death being attributed to a wave of radiation from a star exploding in some distant galaxy to be rather unsettling.

Or perhaps more likely, the idea of my life ending because of a massive solar flare from our own sun raining down an ungodly amount of radiation upon me seems like a total ripoff. 

I would much rather get the cancer or full blown AIDS, at least then you get some sympathy, and maybe some cool or insightful stories.

When I get to the pearly gates of Heaven or the fiery ramparts of Hell I want to be able to have a good death story for my partners in necrosis. That would be much more badass than to be left standing before my maker saying "Oh, I don't know, I was playing some video games and here I am, you tell me."

By the way, it's my birthday, so there's that. 

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Success

 

In High School and for a time after, my success was to get any full-time job and live out the rest of my life. I was the guy who had no aspirations. Anyone that knew me then would claim, and correctly so, that I truly did not give a damn about anything as far as life after High School, even my family would have told you that my plans were to "chill" and go to college. But even as far as college went at the time, I was unmotivated and directionless. 

Two days after High School graduation, I left Michigan to visit some friends in Dallas. Long story short, I fell in love with being in the busy atmosphere and all of the friends I had went to visit were amazing. One of them needed a roommate. I volunteered. But of course to do this, I would need money to pay rent for the apartment I would be moving into. And to do this, I would need a job. But this would be no problem because I had no self respect or ambitions, so as long as whatever job I could get could pay the bills, I would be fine with it.

Enter Wal-Mart

I had put out over 100 applications at one point. Two interviews and a few phone calls later, I was now a Wal-Mart employee, and I was living the dream.  Making $9.40 an hour working overnight. Spend my nights working my ass off (working there was NOT easy) and spend my days just chilling with my best friends. It was the life. However, somewhere between getting yelled at for having overtime and getting yelled at for cutting my overtime, I became disenfranchised with my working conditions. The dream had started to fade, and it was time for me to say goodbye to my friends (knowing I would be back some day) and head back to Michigan where I would begin the next step on my way to self-actualization.

Success at this point had taken a dramatic turn for me, for the better, but not by much. I knew at the time I entered college that I no longer wished to work for any sort of large corporation. I will be damned if I am ever just a number to some random big business ever again. It was the most dehumanizing and degrading thing I've ever been a part of, and I made a vow to myself at the time when I left Wal-Mart that I would not repeat it. 

So I had that. I knew that whatever I did, I would enjoy that, and enjoy chilling in my free time. During my first semester in college, I went through a few renditions of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. The first was some type of auto mechanic, my uncle owns a shop in Beaumont, Texas and I would be guaranteed a job there. So this choice was practical, but after hearing a few people around me talk cars, I realized that I could not care less about cars or how they work, much less how to fix them, so that was out. The next plan was to be a medical marijuana dispensary owner. I was completely serious about this one, but after looking into it and assessing the risks involved as far as legality, combined with the fact that I would be stuck in this Godforsaken state, I decided that this would not be the life for me.

Me

And that is where we are at now. One week removed from my first semester at college in which I got a 4.0 (see, I'm not dumb, just not motivated), and I have a real dream of success, but this one is much more serious than any previous ideas. I've decided I want to write. This fulfills two of my needs in a career; mobility, and self management. I do not know if this is realistic, but what dreams are? This is the first dream I have ever really had, and I plan to run with it. This will be my success. 

So if you are one of my returning readers, please, hold on tight, and enjoy the ride with me. And if you are new, and this is the first post you have read of mine, welcome, I am ecstatic to have you.

--Kameron

As always I fully encourage any criticism, advice, suggestions, or general discussion in the comment area.
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His Name Was Kameron

Hello everyone, I am the aforementioned Kameron. I have been really nervous about my first post, and as such, I have been putting it off quite a bit up until this point. I didn't know what to do for this post, but I think for now I will just let you guys know about me and what I am about, and maybe a bit about where this blog will be going in the future, assuming I can figure it out for myself.


As far as my life experiences go, I must admit that I am still a bit limited in this area, perhaps a bit too much. This is part of the reason I am starting this blog, so I can get myself out there as a writer and a person, and hopefully get to know some of you in return. I am currently a starving college student. I live with my mom and dad at this time, but I have lived out on my own in Dallas before deciding to come back to Michigan to further my education. We own three birds and a chinchilla, which I will most likely talk more about in a future post.


I am extremely interested in film, books, music, and video games. I used to play a little game called World of Warcraft quite a bit, but I have recently tapered off on that in pursuit of school and writing. As far as movies and music go, there are way too many favorites for me to list them all here in this post, but perhaps if you guy's wish, that could always be a future post. The same generally goes for books, although a couple of my all time favorite books have to be Lord of The Rings (a collective sigh of "of course" is heard around the world) and The Book Thief.


I am starting this blog because, for one, I believe it will be a great way to keep me writing during my time away from school. I also will enjoy the opportunity to write something aside from purely academic ventures. Thirdly, there are a lot of opportunities on this here internet, and I feel like this could be a good jumping off spot for me to get involved in some communities around the web. And, because I always intend on being honest with you guys (which I realize that at this point, there are no "you guys" reading this) I do hope that the content I post is quality enough for me to consider monetizing it a little bit. These are hard economic times, as we all know, and specifically where I live it is extremely difficult to find a job. Especially for those of us who have no interest in becoming mindless drones. So obviously, if this can at all help me get through college or any such thing, that would be the best case scenario. We will see. Hopefully at some point, I would love to start making some videos for you guys, and I also currently have a podcast in the works.


As far as the content that will be available on this blog in the near future, I really want to give my insight on some news that matters to me (and should matter to most everyone else). I also intend to, perhaps less commonly due to money restraints, review books, games, movies, and music with my little spin. All of this is up in the air at this point, because when I read over that it seems like it could get a little dry. Of course I fully intend to mix a good bit of myself in here and there. I hope to post at least once a week, and ideally a good bit more than that if things work out the way I hope they will. I am open to any advice though and I encourage you to give suggestions as you see fit!

Unless something comes up I think would be good to post about before hand, my first real post will be about A Clockwork Orange, just to kick things off. I have never seen this film before, but it has always been on my list of must sees. It should be a good one.


 I fully encourage any criticism, advice, suggestions, or general discussion in the comment area.
And if you wish you can contact me at thecynicalreport@gmail.com and like/share the blog on Facebook and Twitter using the links on the side!