So, I have been reading my friends blog for a few years now, and honestly, I think I need to give up. I got to this post, and god it really has to stop. I think about that post, and its follow up as sort of a symptom of thought. If you follow that up with this post, I sort of think that you get an interesting taste sensation.
This is not about the people who wrote those posts, but rather about the ideas within them. So, I hope no one takes them personally.
My question is this…when is this going to stop? I grew up in a generation of people who said that there was nothing to do here, that this place sucked, and that we were going to leave as soon as possible. Well, I left, and then I came back, and honestly I love this town. I do not really love it, because I think that the issues that take place are deep seeded, and not going to change anytime soon in my lifetime, but I do like being here.
I remember when I worked at the newspaper, and a good friend used to walk to work carrying a lunchbox. God knows I have no idea why anyone would carry a tin lunch box, but that was his choice. The cool thing is, no one bothered him, and honestly aside from maybe the occasional chuckle, no one gave it a second thought. No one. He was a guy with a lunch box, others were guys with baseball caps, and others were women in hula skirts. No one cared.
I find it interesting that the poster in the blog laments that she is not she is ridiculed, but rather that she is not respected. The whole lament is not that she feels oppressed, but the whole lament is about not feeling celebrated. They point to others who are celebrated, or dominate whatever scene they are talking about. But, the fact is this seems to be simply envy.
I love me some envy. Envy used to feed my out of control rage for a decade, and when you catch on to that fact, that seemed like a good moment for me. Let us say that Diddy right now is dancing on a yacht with a supermodel in the south of France right now. Well, thats great. Do I envy that? Nope. You know why, because I like what I am doing right now. Typing on this keyboard, with friends who care and love me. I could envy all sorts of things, and grow more angry each day, so angry I am simple beyond help. But, what does that matter. What difference does it make what Diddy is doing, or what anyone is doing?
At some point, we do what we do. And we either like it, or do not. What others do, well, that has little to do with how good a snickers bar tastes.
I am also fascinated by this grass is greener idea. In the second post, the author comes up with an idea that is must be better in NYC. Well, you can change NYC with Austin or San Fran, or Portland or whatever. If we are sad, we can be anywhere, and we are going to be sad. If we are resentful, why does the scenery change make us unresentful.
A local city celebrity has a blog , and a greaet amount of focus is travel. But not travel like travel shows or travel writing, but this sad little compare and contrast thing. Oh if only Wausau had that, or only if Wausau had this. I find that sort of thinking to be, well, lame. Especially from someone like this.
But, then I find this place. I know both of the people involved. One grew up in a small town, with big town dreams, almost identical to the first blogger referenced here. The second one, I am not so sure about, but I know that this dude has snark the size of a truck. But, both of them seem to want to write blogs that celebrate the moments of their lives, instead of pointing out other things.
I think we can choose to live in our moments. To eat our yogurt for breakfast, and not thinking about granola. I think we can eat our brought from home lunch and not think about Chang Garden. Or, we can continue the same anthem we had in high school…that no one gets us, no one respects our ideas, that we do not fit in. And realize that we are not looking for the other person to change…but rather we are upset they do not like us. And we do not like us. The world is a hard place.