A Long Post

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."
-George Bernard Shaw

I was reading something a friend of mine wrote today on her ever-infamous Myspace. A few things she said really... intrigued me. I'll sort of restate some of what she said in what I say.

It really is hard to talk about yourself when you're just 16, and still have no idea who you are and what you're made of. It's somewhat difficult when life has just begun for you, and when you still have so many experiences to go through even if you have been through a lot. I think some people forget that sometimes.

I think, even if we know it somewhere deep inside that there are bigger things in life, people still get too caught up in the business of materialistic and superficial things. Right now, for instance, I am on my laptop, ranting about...life, on the internet, that probably no one will read. haha. That's aside from my point though.

Another thing she had written was about how it was hard to just find good people now-a-days. "Someone who will just listen and not judge, someone who will just take you as you are."

I thought about this for a couple of minutes... she really is right, in my opinion. But, I think it goes a little deeper than just someone who will listen and not judge. I'm usually one to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I'm going to go ahead and say that I could pull any bum off of a bench in a park in NYC and get him to listen to my problems for an hour, and I can find a few people who won't judge me, too. But when you think about what genuinely makes someone a good person, an actual, real, good person, there's a lot more to it than just that. I'm not talking about perfection, or some all-out animal rights activist or anything in that sense...

I can't think of many people who I know who aren't selfish or way too caught up in other people's business. I don't know many people who are really honest and loyal, who stay true to themselves and others, or someone who is courageous no matter what, who will stick up for what they believe in no matter what anybody says. I don't know many people who do their best to help others with 5 minutes of their day, or someone who still fully believes in chivalry and kindness even around strangers.

What I do see though, everyday, are people who forget the basics of common courtesy and respect. I know too many people who care too much about what others think, and who care so much about the dramatics of someone else's life. They can't see that all of that is so incredibly minuscule and insignificant to everything else that is still going to happen in that person's life. Honestly, I have to say that it really annoys the shit out of me that people have their heads shoved so far up some peoples asses that I'm not sure they can ever get their head's out. I hate that I'm surrounded by closed-minded teenagers who care about nothing but the melodramatic no-matter happenings of everyday life that aren't going to mean anything in 5 or 6 years.

It's so stupid to hear so often "Oh my god, I hate Jane Smith. Rebecca said she saw her at Megan's party last weekend smoking weed, and then Alyson told me that she saw her making out Ryan Dawson in Greg's truck. I can't believe it. That means Ryan is cheating on Ashley, and I hate that I have to be the one to tell her after this class. She's going to be heartbroken!"

Seriously? Get the fuck over yourself. Who is Ryan? Are him and Ashley going to get married? Will you be living with Jane in 5 years? Are any of these people going to be a part of your life after high school unless you make some great effort to make them still be a part of your life? Which, by the way, if you do do that, it may mean that you have no life because you are obsessing with the idea of keeping old friends who did stupid things in the past that degraded your level of intelligence and limited your ability to grow as a person, who have most likely moved on themselves?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I also can't stand to know that some people cling to their pasts, and can't let go of things even though it probably is due time that they did. They keep themselves from growing as people, and they limit themselves to small-town lifestyles. Maybe some people are content with that, which is perfectly fine. But, if you're one of the people that I know who are always talking about how they are going to get out of this small town and go start somewhere new, and then never get out and do anything about it, what does that make you?? Pitiful? Incapable? Undetermined? What??

I find it hard to understand that humans would do such a thing to begin with since we are naturally curious creatures. I can't grip how people talk about growing and moving on, but then never do either. They stay myopic, they never change, and life never expands for them. They drive by the same shops and homes, same street signs and corners all of their lives, and it just makes me think... don't you ever get sick of it? Do you never want to explore and meet new kinds of people, who have different perspectives than you, who can open your eyes to worlds you never thought possible?

That makes me think of something else.... do people never want to be exposed to the different kinds of real magic other people can show them? I'm not talking about card tricks or anything, I'm talking about things like... love, or understanding, learning, or new experiences.

To make sense of all of this, I guess I should say that.... by all of this, I'm meaning to say that... in order to find good people, you have to be around well-rounded people, but, how can you do that if you are surrounded by people who refuse to become well-rounded, and who refuse to face the music or learn the lessons of life? How can there be good people if there are only people who obsess with the materialistic and insignificant?

That's all for now... I'm going to continue thinking without writing about it.

--Vesper