Fire in the Wind

Once again, Nelly McKay says if for me:

"Because I'm tired of being sweet and nice
Fuck you once and fuck you twice"

Listen to the whole song and read the lyrics before you pass judgement.  Links below for those who have in the past missed that there were links within the text.  ::sigh::

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JR7xeUE92w&feature=related

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nelliemckay/identitytheft.html

Sometimes I wonder why I bother writing and scribbling so much when I find someone else can express my thoughts better than I can at times.  And this ties into the title of this post (somewhat):  We've become a society of people defined by what we like (music, movies, books) and not by what we do (I don't just mean your job), and this annoys the shit out of me. 

Conversations are about movies and books.  The more you can quote from pop culture, the wittier conversationalist you are.  The more you've read or watched, the more accomplished you are.  Though this makes socializing much easier for mostly introverted nerds like myself, I still find it pretty sad.  I've spent alot of my life just absorbing other people's creations (watching movies, reading books, listening to music).  Though I may spend more time than the average person also writing and creating music myself, I'm still forced to define myself by my "favorites".  "What's your favorite movie?"  "I dunno, I like alot of them."  "What music do you listen to?"  "Um, what have you got?"  "What kind of books do you like?"  "The ones with words in them...and the ones with pictures."  Though I have learned to give conversationally appropriate answers to these questions, I feel like I'm expressing nothing about myself when I do this; I'm only continuing the farce of keeping myself and others entertained.  Who I am is what I do.

I hate it when people tell me "You're not what you do."  If I'm not what I do, then just what am I exactly?  Just a compilation of all the music I listen to, books I read and movies I watch?  Just a collection of other people's creations to keep me entertained?  The truth is: you are what you do.  If you spend most your life working at a job you don't like, well tough, that's how you will be defined when you're dead.  People don't list the favorite movies and tv shows of the deceicted at funerals. 

You might be thinking, "Wait a minute, Rae.  People will be remembered for other things in his/her life too.  And even if they aren't, since when do you care so much about how people remember you?"  First, let me ask you a question: what do you know about your great-grandparents?  Stop.  Think about it.  I'm betting not much.  If anything, you know their occuption and where they lived.  Maybe you know a little more about one particularly interesting ancestor that never lived to meet you personally, but that's probably it.  My point being, where you live and your occupation is all most people get written about in the history books, and by history books, I mean the public census archives.

Second, we ALL care about how we are remembered.  Some people care less than others, but the vast majority of humanity needs the acknowledgement of other people.  The existence of twitter.com should be convincing enough evidence of this.  Face it.  You care about how many people will remember you and for how long.

So, what's the point? to this post? to your life?  Sometimes the point of something is to just be.

Rae