I’ve changed a bit, from becoming more in tune with my brainwaves to dating a guy instead of a girl. Here are some observations/lessons learned/ideas I’ve collected along the way.
All pot smokers are not pot heads.
This comes through observing people smoking and vegging out (slumped on the couch, watching tv or a movie, and eating) and my own experience. I have read books I wouldn’t understand sober, played guitar, sang, meditated, and contemplated quantum mechanics. People call me intelligent, but I just use what I have been given, which is my brain. Weed does not hinder this intelligence, but actually reinforces it. Maybe it would help to know that Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize winner for discovering the double-helix structure of DNA and the genetic code, smoked pot and took LSD.
All my friends have two jobs.
All of them. And it makes me sad because it’s not mine, or my friends’, or my family’s burden to carry when every place left to get a job doesn’t offer enough money or hours to pay for a studio apartment. Some literally can’t pay for food on their own, and still work one or two jobs, or try to do this crazy thing called go to school and work. Lots of them graduate with no jobs, and are on food stamps in the meantime. If everyone you know is or has been on food stamps, or has two jobs, then at some point there’s only so much one person can be blamed for (Not working hard enough? Not trying to get a job? Not working six?) before we might want to look at what everyone is doing that might be to blame (working for companies that are being irresponsible and greedy). Maybe you get it.
TV is becoming reality.
Really. Before Jersey Shore made it real, girls didn’t look like they came from Jersey Shore, because none of us even knew or cared what girls from Jersey Shore looked like. Now, that girl on the corner is a Jersey Shore girl.
On the TV, you can go to Wal-Mart and Save Money, Live Better. When have you both gone to Wal-Mart and saved your money?
Besides stupid, untrue and illogical lies that it creates with stereotypes and commercials, TV has made our lives to be some sort of role we are supposed to play. You have been given an employee handbook with scripts of what you should say to Customer x when they ask Question y. What you need to say when they buy this to get them to buy that. These are conversations and interactions we are having with real people that are fake, pre-determined and scripted. Scripts are only needed when there are actors and actresses being told to play a part. Any other time Kristin Stewart isn’t being told what to say, she is Kristin Stewart, and not Bella Swan. Real life is going to Wal-Mart and maybe having your cashier say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.” All other times, welcome to the show.
We are less intelligent as a species than any other.
We think of our big brains as evidence that we have higher intelligence, but what we should be able to see from our own science is that even real, solid, tangible things (gold, apples, etc) can in reality be full of air. No other species on the planet acts like us. Does that make us more intelligent, or less?
You just need to think.
We rolled our eyes when our horrible middle school teachers told us “you can’t always get what you want.” But really, we now actually know we can’t have something we did not work to get. Just because knowledge is not something you can hold in your hand does not mean it’s not real. It is real, you have it right now just like you have your Iphone, and you have to use it to make it work.
Facebook is not just a place to be social. Facebook is a business too.
This might be even more important than realizing TV isn’t reality. Facebook is a computer, just like your laptop is. It’s just a whole lot of them, owned by somebody else. That’s why it keeps all of your information when you log off… it’s the same as when you log off your computer and you still have all your stuff when you get back on it tomorrow. You share data with Facebook, in the form of your statuses, photos, and life information (your date of birth, your address, etc). Think of your data like you do your money. Once you give your money to someone else, it is not yours anymore. But with data alone, Facebook does not make money. So Facebook sells your data to other companies and they give Facebook money. Since this now is why Facebook exists, you just need to look at your Facebook page like you would a really big ad. The ad is just talking and interacting with you now.
The barriers we have between us and other people can, and will, break down.
This can only happen when we do two things. First, think of a time when you did something stereotypical. Like, if you are a mom, you bought a mini-van. But you bought it because it is practical, easy to transport your kids in, and there’s room for Sparky too. Second, since you know you don’t fit a stereotype but you just do things that are stereotypical because they make sense to you (mom buying mini-van), you should realize that everybody else is in the same boat as you. You also know logically that every person hates doing stereotypical things, because if you are woman driving, then you can’t drive. If you cut your hair short, you are a lesbian. If you like being outside instead of inside all day, you are a tree-hugger or nature-lover. If you have four cats, you must be the crazy cat lady. Since none of these stereotypes are true when they are stereotypes against ourselves, then the only thing we can guess is that when we make assumptions based on stereotypes about other people, we are just driving a wedge between who we think they are, and who they actually are.
We talk to our families like we’re on stage.
Because our family is our family and we love them, we go out of our way to never upset them, challenge their beliefs, or hurt their feelings. But the only way to do that is to literally not talk to anyone, ever. So because we are trying so hard to pretend like love means shielding someone from ever hurting or ever being in pain or discomfort, we are missing the real ways we genuinely love another person. What would seem like love to you: Your Aunt never speaking a word to you about your faith, never asking you: How was church? What do you believe in most? Or your Aunt asking you how was church? What do you believe in most? Even if she isn’t religious, even if it might piss off grandpa, even if she actually cannot relate to anything you might say? She went through a lot just to ask you how you are because that is what’s most important to her.
I may see things differently, and consequently be sharing unpopular views about things. But I think if you really contemplate some of my views, you will find them truthful and relatable. It takes being willing and unafraid to see to really grow and learn and think.
Facebook collects information about you. It stores this as data on its servers.
This is not news. This is Facebook.
Jami Write 