Saturday, September 30, 2006

"Two more days"


Storytelling Saturday is here...and may get a little preachy

(But first: An emphatic movie recommendation)

Once upon a time...

I was on the Q101 bus during the morning rush hour. It was genuinely nice to watch the bus driver interact with his regular passengers...but one exchange really stood out. A weary man, maybe 60, labored his way up the steps and onto the bus. The driver remarked with a chuckle: “Two more days.” This made the tired man—along with a few other worn out commuters—smile with hope. You see, it was Wednesday and these folks were essentially wishing away 48 hours of their lives so they could have permission to do what they really wanted to do. (Of course, for most Americans, this means shopping, playing video games, and watching TV...but that’s for another post on another day.)

Isn’t this precisely how we are programmed? “That’s life” and “You can’t win ‘em all” and “Take the good with the bad” and “Hey, it could always be worse”...we endlessly settle for less pain instead of demanding more pleasure. “It’s always been like this,” I’ve been told, ad nauseam. “You can’t fight City Hall” and “Besides, it’s never gonna change.” After a while, it starts to sink in and so many of us willingly embrace mediocrity, even boredom. Our humanity and our capacity for critical thought is pounded out of us from Day One. No wonder it’s so damn easy to not only get us to buy into this culture...but to also defend it with our very lives.

As the Situationists used to say: “The real state secret is the misery of everyday life.”

Who else wants to spin a yarn?
The comments section awaits...

Tyler Durden sez: “This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”

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Posted on 09/30 at 06:06 AM
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