Good Grief

 

In order to try and make this post work, I'll give you a sticky note version of existentialism; abandonment is key. Kierkegaard felt that there was an unbridgeable gap between God and Man and Sartre figured that even if there was an unknowable and unreachable God, it wouldn’t change anything about the human condition. We live in a constant state of abandonment and the only ones responsible for our actions are ourselves. For the Peanuts gang, their abandonment comes from adults rather than deities. Adults are always out of frame and completely silent, leaving the children to turn to themselves for answers. Can you blame Lucy for seeing a psychiatric need amongst her friends? Can you think of a better example of abandonment in this strip than Linus facing a Halloween without The Great Pumpkin each year?

One of the freedoms allowed by this abandonment is despair. If a person is ultimate responsible for our actions and, thus, the creation of our own being, then we are nothing more or less than what we do. The coward can stop being cowardly and the brave man could back down. This causes despair. It's not that Charlie Brown can't go over to the Little Red Haired girl, but that he doesn't, even though he can. That's what kills him about his situation.

Please though, don't think that I view Peanuts as an entirely defeatist and depressing; it isn't, and neither is existentialism. In fact, Peanuts perfectly captures the optimism of life as well. Why does Charlie Brown always try to kick the football? Why does the team keep coming together despite never posting a winning season? Why should Linus keep sitting in that pumpkin patch? There is an infinite gap between the past and the present; regardless of what has happened, there is always the possibility of change. We exist, and we are responsible. It's almost as terrifying as it is liberating. 

Jerry the asshole

Oh, Tom and Jerry, the slapstick classic. Kids have laughed for decades at Tom's failure to beat Jerry and all of the harm he meets as a result of his efforts.

I started thinking about old cartoons today, and I realized just how messed up the premise of this show was. Tom is supposed to be the bad guy here, and for what? Trying to rid his home of vermin? For protecting the family's food from theft and possible disease? Because Tom retaliates against Jerry for invading his home, we're supposed to root for the mouse?

Jerry was a manipulative bastard, plain and simple. How many times did he trick Spike into taking out Tom, either through convincing Spike that Tom was out to get him, or by letting Spike get the brunt of a hit? Jerry knew he couldn't win through shrewdly turning Tom's plots back on him all the time. No, he went out and got some muscle. Worse still, Spike is usually portrayed as the dog of the same people whom own Tom. Pitting the two domestic gardians of the home against each other makes it easier for Jerry to acheive his goals.

One particular Tom Jerry cartoon that comes to mind went something like this: Tom inherits a vast amount of money, but the inheritance comes with a clause that he will lose all the money if he ever harms a mouse. Jerry decides to be a complete prick about this by stealing Tom's money, eating the extravagant food right off of Tom's plate and even causing grievous bodily harm to the poor housecat, all because he knows Tom can't retaliate. Eventually Tom snaps and beats the crap out of Jerry, because there are some things more important than money, like the happiness you gain from taking revenge on the little bastard that made your life miserable.

An even worse episode featured Tom dying and being refused admittance to cat heaven because he spent his life chasing Jerry, the rodent who invaded his home. Nevermind that cats are supposed to eat mice; apparently, to get into cat heaven you must eat nothing but food from a tin. Sorry alley cats, you're going to hell. Worse still, the cat St. Peter referred to Jerry as an "innocent mouse". The result is that Tom is temporarily sent back to Earth and can only get into heaven if he can get Jerry to sign a form by a time deadline. For the rest of the episode, Jerry refuses to sign his name on the stupid form out of spite and while he ultimately does, it's too late and Tom is chucked into cat hell where the cat devil throws him in a boiling cauldron with a pitchfork. Hillarity ensues.

Always root for Tom. ALWAYS.

The Dudes Templar

We the Dudes of the Dudes Templar, in Order to form a more perfect dudeness, establish manliness, insure complete heterosexuality, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of chicks to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Dudes Templar.

As the dudes, we have a prime derecttive: to get the chick. We must help one another to obtain our goals in order to prosper as dudes. There are limits to this though; there is a point where a man must say no and ditch his efforts on the chick and let her go. Under no circumstances do hoes come before bros. There is one exception to this law: if a man is ensured absolute possibility of getting some action, he may skip the bros for his hoe.
 
If a dude has committed himself to chick, he must remember his bros; though, the bros must respect his hoe as she is expected to respect the bros. The bros must not hog too much of the hoes time with the fellow dude, and the chick must not consume all of the dude’s time with the bros. There should be an equal distribution of time between the two parties to insure peace on both sides. Once the dude breaks up with the chick, she is now fair game to the other dudes; sleeping with your buds ex is considered a high moral victory. If that chick were to dump the dude, then she either becomes an outcast, or fair game by the other dudes. If a dude were to go all the way with a woman and marry her, then he is considered retired from the dudes. If the dudes consider the marriage to be a mistake, they may try to make their troubled dude reconsider. The only way the dude can be readmitted is to divorce the woman and rejoin.

From getting a date to getting some wang dang sweet poontang, dudes must stand by each other when the going gets tough. Whether they must play the wingman and ward chicks off or hook a brother up, they must help each other obtain the goal. Under no circumstances shall men cock-block for personal gain. A man shall not bad mouth a friend to a woman to make her hate him in order to move closer to getting in her pants. Not only is this wrong to do, but it’s a bitch move that can seriously knock a man away from achieving his own goal.
 
Dudes must never meat-ride one another nor should they meat-ride women. As a man, he is not jealous of other men, for we are all equal. A man who praises another and constantly tries to get his friends to do the same is a meat-rider. A meat-rider is no better than a brown-noser.
No dude shall ditch his dudes to join a group of other dudes. To recruit new dudes to your group is acceptable, but to leave and join another is treason. If a dude does this, not only does it increase tensions between the two groups, but the dude shall forever be deemed an asshole. His motives will be deemed stupid and he is no better than a resident of San Francisco to the dudes he left.
Dudes must band together to destroy succubae. We all know who they are; they take your friend and distance you from him. They suck his soul and nothing else. Their goals are to destroy the dude’s group as a whole and join the dude they’ve stolen in holy matrimony, or worse, ditch him on the street once she has finished her evil deed. Any man with a known succubus should be quickly quarantined from her before she cuts his balls off.

As part of the Dudes Templar, he has made a pact that he shall never ever ever in his whole entire life, turn to the dark side; I speak no other the homosexuality. To do this is to sign away your manliness and join the ranks of the ever growing gay man. Now, a man does not shun the gay man because he is a homophobe, for that would imply that dudes are afraid of gays; dudes shun gays because they do not share the same goal. It is acceptable for a dude to have a gay friend, but the gay man may never be a dude due to the simple fact that he is playing for the other team.

Dudes must assist other dudes in the judgment of a chick. They must meet as a council and consult if the woman is of proper ranking to be “bangable”.

Then there is the conflict of chick cars; any man who drives one is not a man. If you do not get less than 25 miles per gallon on your car, you have a puss-mobile. The less MPG or the more GPM you have, the manlier the car. And under no circumstances should you ever drive a hybrid or electric car; not only are they bullshit cars designed to appease environmentalists, but they have built in ovaries in the glove compartment. The acceptable car for a man would be a muscle car, truck/SUV, tank, dragster, race car, etc… There are exceptions to this law, especially if one is on a tight budget. This section of the Templar must be interpreted as more of a goal then a law to follow.

One thing a dude is defined by is the food chain. Any animal that is edible is fair game, even if it tastes bad because taste can be fixed with an applied amount of hot sauce. Whether it is red meat, white meat, or mystery meat, it contains valuable nutrients that insure strong manliness in the growing dude. Tofu and soy meats are for tofu farting fairies, and if a man is eating it, he is either been fooled by a vegan or he is controlled by a succubus.

Dudes must never fight like women. Women are notorious for starting huge rifts between friends where they fight with rumors, gossip, bitching at one another, and destroying each other’s social lives. Dudes fight with fists and also may use their environment to help smash their enemies face. This heavy fighting of flesh and blood usually ends with a victor determined and no lives are destroyed, similar to the theory of Thunder-Dome from Mad Max 3. Under some circumstances, the two fighters are friends afterwards. When two dudes are in conflict, there is to be no kicking of another’s scrotum. This is a bitch move designed for chicks and chicks alone.
 
As dudes, we are all known to have the mental capacity of men; we are known to have stupid ideas. They usually involve sharp, explosive, flammable, and/or projectiles. If you think they might be harmful, they usually are. A stupid idea is usually followed with a bet, that way the person who came up with the idea doesn’t receive the pain of the stupidity and gets to laugh at his fellow dude hurting himself. If a dude is smart, then he knows better than to accept the bet. In the event a dude accepts, he must participate; there can be no backing out.

The actions a dude takes not stated in these rules are acceptable as long as they follow the said rules. Their attitude, personality, persona, etc… is all determined by the man. The actions a dude takes cannot be determined by this document, but hopefully it can guide him to live a life of manliness, women, and wang dang sweet poontang.

O Pioneers!

I've talked about living in a way that would celebrate Hemingway's philosophy, a life that would go out and face life as something where success is quantifiable and concrete. I've come to realize, however, that a Hemingway life doesn't do much for me. In fact, I think people get so wrapped up in shunning emotionalism and only embracing absolute values that they lose sight of what really matters in life. We should embrace life as a collection of moments which we are granted the opportunity to make the most of. The meaning of life is simple: live as fiercely and passionately as you can. As Whitman said, it would be a joy

to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!
To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!
To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with
perfect nonchalance!
To be indeed a God!

Nothing in life is more important than taking the time "to dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!"

You may ask, why bother exalting in life when the world has much less good than ill? How can you embrace something seemingly filled with plodding, empty, useless sorrow? The answer is simply that you exist and that you have all the say in the world as to how your life shall be! Remember always to resist much and obey little. The greatest discovery of the twentieth century was that you don't need chains to enslave somebody. Once you give up that sense of youthful defiance, you have given up freedom. 

Make no mistake; I'm practicing what I'm preaching. I've spurned the walks of dreams for the miracles that surround me. Whenever the feeling arises, I leave the sameness of the streets, sidewalks, and houses for the open road and a vague destination. Very soon, I shall set out for a city of ships, for a

City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and
out, with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores! city of tall façades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!

Do you understand the joys of youth? Right now, for me the world is one of companions, adventures, joy and laughter. Nothing can keep me from taking in the bright autumn days and engaging in childish games. Come! Sing, dance, be merry! Please, make sure to never lose your sense of wonder and enchantment; the world would be such a boring, tedious place without it. We can not tarry here, for once we stop, we lose ourselves. I'm going to be a sailor of ships, bound for whichever port I choose.

I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how
long,
Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will
suddenly cease.

Don't ever let your voice cease.

On the road

On Saturday afternoon, my friend and I became bored and decided that it was time to make questionable decisions, as college students are wont to do. He was bored in the piney woods of east Texas and I convinced him to come over to Waco because, depressing as it is for him, we have more to do. While talking about what we should spend our time doing, a thought occurred; our friend has held the fact that we don't ever visit her over our head. Why not go off and visit her spontaneously?

She goes to school in Las Cruces, New Mexico. To clarify, that's 686 miles from Waco and 862 miles from Nacogdoches. That's a lot of damned driving. Oh, and we didn't leave Waco until midnight. The following are just some highlights of our impromptu roadtrip.

- Four hours into the trip, in the dead of night, we were driving along without any worries and nearly smashed head first into a totaled car in one of the two lanes of the highway. It was (apparently) a one car crash that left the car unrecognizable and the driver off on the side of the highway bleeding from the head. Seemed like her airbag didn't deploy, which means that when she said "My face hurts" it probably meant "My face is broken". We pulled off the highway and turned our headlights on facing the wreck so people could see it; the first person to come across the wreck swerved into the concrete barrier and avoided plowing over the woman. We hung around for an hour helping out until life flight picked her up.

- Waking up and seeing a damned mountain in the distance

- Discovering Huddle House. WHY IS THIS NOT EVERYWHERE?

- Dozing off and wakng to my friend's screams of "OH SHIT" because the gas station which looked nice from the highway, actually looked like a band of raiders had hit it in a post-apocalyptic world. The fact that we were travelling through the badlands didn't help.

- Speaking of apparent apocalypses, we took an exit expecting a town with gas. After all, the sign on the highway indicated there was civilization there. What we found looked like this.

UNSETTLING!

- Seeing the army of cops and DEA officers in El Paso. Also, we're pretty sure we witnessed some killings on the other side of the border. And, to think, my buddy didn't want to hop over to Juarez for a drink.

- Saw my friend blahblahnobodycares

- A group of people with torches (no shit) chasing two people up a mountain.

- Windmills, as far as the eye can see.

- Speed limits of 80mph!

- A coyote fight.

- To cap the highlights, we came across a Fort Worth/Dallas radio station featuring a DJ with quite possibly the most depressing taste in music. In fact, we decided the man was going through a soul crushing breakup based on his refusal to switch subjects. True, every song he picked was good, but when they're coupled together, an hour or two of breakup songs can get to a person. For god's sake, he played Baby Come Back, Ain't Too Proud To Beg, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Crying, Love Stinks, Good Riddance, and Can't Stand Losing You. Those were the first seven songs! He even dipped into country with Tear In My Beer, You Were Always On My Mind, and Pop A Top Again.

I rolled in a little after midnight feeling disgusting. After showering and finishing my homework, I crawled into bed close to three in the morning to get ready for my 9:20 class. My buddy had worse luck; he had an extra two to three hours to go PLUS an 8:00 class. Woe.

That's the story of how I learned I'm an impulsive person who will dive into something without thinking of the consequences. All that's left now is a run in with alcohol and gambling.