I fear like the mope might be directly proportional to media consumption. Or maybe vice versa. I watched two movies tonight, the first a documentary a Little Wings/Microphones tour in the Northwest and the Lizze McGuire movie that Bz and I picked out at the library. The LM movie was fun to make fun of, maybe a waste of time, but made me feel old. I’ve been out of high school longer than I was in it. I can’t follow the conversations of the kids at the skate park. There’s some poem that says
“To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth–
this was the Ancient Law of Youth.
Old times are Past, Old days are done:
But the Law runs true, O Little Son !!!”
which is pretty stupid, but the idea of some timeless ideals or values of youth is a pretty nice one. If there’s one constant about youth maybe it’s that you’ll be disappointed with the absurdity of the world but when you’re old enough or experienced enough to realize that you aren’t bound by this, you lack the enthusiasm to do anything about it.
I wrote this in response to both conversations I had tonight with Cathy and this message board stuff:
I never had cable growing up, but last year my brother downloaded a bunch of episodes of Pete and Pete off the Internet and I thought it was totally amazing. Really creative and positive, I’m sure it helped a lot of kids have an adventurous outlook on life and feel a little better about having an unconventional sense of identity. It makes me sad though, because I don’t see many things like this in the media anymore. Also, like a lot of things that I see in pop culture and I think are nice and make me happy that they exist, I also feel really sad about them. If these things can exist, and be pretty popular, and be viewed by millions of people, how can the world still be such a stupid, ugly place? I feel like I listen to right-wing talk radio or watch Fox news and part of me thinks that it’s so unfortunate that this manipulative hateful media seems to be so effective. Still, part of me wants to hope that maybe positive media can move people to think in other ways too. Maybe the ability of any media to have much influence in the way the world works is pretty limited. I guess that I just wish that media like Pete and Pete that reflect ideas that are close to me and that I think are pretty good things fealt more like a celebration of the world and less like a respite from it. Things are pretty good for me, so maybe it’s sad that these little pockets of idealized nostalgia still make me feel better.
I’m feeling like I want to talk to someone really bad. I want to be excited by conversation and the excitement of others. Ryan and I have been having the same old debates which is always challenging and interersting but leave me increasingly feeling that their persistance might be a sign of my weakness rather than my growth. I talked with Theo a little tonight about politics, future aspirations, and things that made him hopeful for a more reasonable world. It reminded me that I want to read Cradle to Cradle very badly. It was nice to talk to someone and to feel like the conversation was a new one. I’m glad that Theo moved to town.