But Please, Goddammit, You Gotta Be Kind!!!

Wow. There are cobwebs on this blog.

I have been jotting down notes in some of my To-Do notebooks, which has served as my all-purpose thought machine for the year. All the crazy shit's passed, most of it anyway. Colleges done with, got into Brown, rejected it (surprisingly), found a new love in UCLA. Majoring and minoring in two totally completely different subjects, which is what I wanted all along. I'd rather be a throwback polymath than some shiny specialized gadget in our Brave New Economy.

In the past week a good amount of the people I have spent the last four years with have or are flying to their new homes, all across the country. Philadelphia, Boston, DC, Virginia, et al. You try to accommodate time to see everyone in time, but sadly many slip through cracks. Not a good thing at all, but for some reason I have a better feeling about it with this group than the previous ones. Mission is a very tightly-knit community, and I have the sneaking suspicion that I will have several more chances to say final farewells to everyone.

As if we were all going to die or something.

From MCP on to UCLA. This short little intermezzo between my two acronyms of schools is coming to a close. I filed, with much hesitation, my two weeks notice at The Movie Experience. It's interesting however, most people develop a sense of pointlessness to their labor after filing such a document and begin to slack. I started to attack jobs with more energy and vigor, as if I am trying to squeeze the last drop of experience I can acquire from this place. Experiences handling overpriced snacks, scrubbing kitchens with steel wool, working with co-workers who all seem to have some brilliance emanating from them, and from dealing with customers.

What I am going to miss most is dealing with the customers. I always hated how at most fast-food joints or service places the workers seemed so automated, as if everything they needed to be told to say "have a nice day" to whoever passes the checkout aisle or whatnot. I never understood why people did not play with this opportunity to connect to fellow humans. The paycheck at the end of every fortnight is great, but it is little conversations that I have with everyday people that make my day.

Case in point, an elderly lady comes into the theatre just about everyday, to the point that we all instantly recognize her. None of us know her name, but to all of us collectively she is known as "Silver Fox." Silver Fox purchases a ticket to any movie in the theatre, and spends a good five hours checking out any movie she damn well pleases during this time, catching bits and parts to every single offering we have. She purchases snacks during this time, and she comes everyday, so we do not bother her, though she often gives us lectures how we can better the cinema (indeed, while many employees ignore her I think she probably is the best person to consult on this mater). One day she approaches me about Tropic Thunder.

"Tell me, what do you think of Tropic Thunder as being in good taste?"
I told her that Tropic Thunder would not fit any conventional understanding of the phrase "in good taste."
"I was hoping you'd say that. The movie is purely offensive! I was thinking of bringing some friends, but they had buddies that go their heads blown off in Vietnam. I don't think they would appreciate it at all. There is no redeeming thing in that movie at all."
I thought about this statement for a moment, and then told her how I had to disagree. First of all, Tropic Thunder was not a comedy about the Vietnam War, it was a comedy about actors attempting to use a war movie to further their careers. In this sense the movie plays a role of satire, ridiculing selfish actors who have solely a career interest in making good movies as well as the materialism prevalent in modern society. Granted, a Vietnam veteran would surely not be the ideal audience for the movie, but the comedy is geared towards a younger audience.
"How does that excuse the movie?"
I told her that in my opinion movies, or any art form for that matter, aims to extract emotion from its audience. The primary way it achieves this is by portraying a common experience amongst a wide group of people. People cry in a movie about war because they may had family that died in service, or a stand-up comedian makes people laugh because he makes a observation that we have all made before, but never thought anyone else noticed. For our case, Tropic Thunder is funny because we share the experience of seeing all that materialism on television, and we can laugh at it together. This not only makes us happy because the observation is funny, but also because someone else has made that observation and we realize we are not alone. That is the magic of comedy, to get a bunch of anonymous people to laugh together at something they all recognize as absurd. In that way Tropic Thunder redeems itself.
"Hmph. I never thought about it that way. Well, agree, to disagree."
I agreed to that. To tell the truth I was invigorated by the conversation, and it made me think of other things going in life. Experience is not only something manipulated by art to create bonds. We do it everyday, in the form of friendship.

Friendship for the most part is based on 95% shared experience. They are formed initially by a shared experience and are developed by further ones. The first encounter, trips to movies, trips to concerts, conversations about life- these are all things that can referred to later, and help to give the two people a sense of history together. There is something very pleasing in knowing that the good memories a person has involve you, or even were decisively shaped by you. You are part of their narrative and they are part of yours.

It is for that reason that many relationships tend to erode over time when distance and disconnect become much more salient wedges between lives. The root of that relationship has been restricted from growing and developing, hence the plant becomes stagnant. The best of friends can become complete strangers in a matter of months in this way, as I am sure everyone has felt at one point or another in their lives. They later become friends with other people, and you find other people with whom to kick around, and that past friendship seems lost under several layers of dirt and time. You begin to think of that friendship was worth anything, or if it was just all bullshit playground politics.

I used to think in such a way, but I am not so sure. Maybe I feel this way now because everything is changing, and people are leaving and entering my life so quickly. I simply have not had enough time to ground myself anywhere. We are social creatures, and we want to befriend people with whom we can interact and share experience, build new ties. Even vagabonds will make transient relationships with people they meet on the road. We still maintain the ability to make bonds with old friends, but as they are far away we are more inclined towards creating connections with those around us, in our vicinity.

This is not manipulation, I think. Love, friendships, and all that jazz isn't in my view then a plant. It's more of a candle, one that can be lit, set aglow by activity and shared experience which emanates a brilliant light. It may be put out, but it will always retain an ability to be lit again, provided the proper tools are used. The candle is pretty and beautiful in its own right, but the real value is in the light that it creates.

Perhaps we need to see the value not in the relationship itself, but what was generated from it. The memories, the life, the lessons, the love. In the thick mess of 6 billion people we found another person, affected each others lives, and left a mark in their history, so that one corner of their narrative will be us, waving from a Polaroid.

Maybe that's why we're social. Maybe that's what we're looking for.
Maybe I'm tired, too. Oh well. Enough rambling for one night. Cheers.