What is it with this phrase? I first heard it at the restaurant I work in, among my co-workers, then from my bosses. I wondered where they got such a phrase, but I figured it was some kind of restaurant thing like "on the fly" or "86'd". Like it was their version of "let it go". Suddenly, however, I heard the phrase come out of more and more people. I started hearing it from my college friends and other people my age, too. So then I wondered if it was just another one of those passing generational things. Then I started hearing it from members of my parents' generation! What? I know how that generation easily picks up the words and phrases of my generation, but usually they sound foolish doing so. Not this phrase. They somehow own this phrase, saying it with deep feeling, wagging their heads. How has this meaningless piece of faux philosophy suddenly crept into the hearts of so many?
And what do they think they mean when they say it anyway? Are they saying "let it go" or "that's life" or "get over it" or "nothing makes any sense"? Are they trying to be existential or pragmatic? Allow me to reiterate, this sentence is meaningless. They are either saying that the thing has identity or simply that it exists. They may be trying to imply something of the existential or pragmatic flavor, but what they are saying is that that thing is itself. Somehow I doubt that they are contemplating existence when they say this, because they only apply this idea to all the bad things that happen in life.
My boss is incompetent and is firing the only useful person in my department.
Oh well, it is what it is.
Millions of people are dying from hunger, and we're using food to fuel our engines.
Well, it is what it is.
Women say they want nice guys, but then they only date assholes.
Ah yeah, it is what it is.
What are they implying here? "Well, there's no point feeling anything about this, because it exists." "Because this thing has identity, because it exists, it is unchangeable, and because this thing is unchangeable, there is no use thinking or feeling about it." How many assumptions go into this line of thought? First of all that every identity or everything that exists is unchangeable. Second of all, that when you think or feel something about a certain thing, you are trying to change it. This is ridiculous. You are doing neither. You are either trying to understand that thing or you are reacting to it. These two things have nothing to do with changing anything, so that even if you granted that they are saying what they think they are saying (well, you can't change it), it is still ridiculous.
Additionally, if you disregard all that reasoning and apply this crazy logic to anything, you can't just apply it to the bad events and situations. You have to apply it to the whole world, even the positive things.
"I won the lottery and gave half of the money to charity."
Hmm, it is what it is.
"My boyfriend proposed to me, and we're going to start a family."
Yeah, it is what it is.
"I've never been happier in my life."
Oh, it is what it is.
In these examples, the phrase finally reveals itself as the misguided crusader that it is. So I wish all these people would stop spitting this idiotic phrase as their catch-all for every bad thing they hear. If something bad happens, feel free to feel something. If you can have emotion about the good things, then you can have emotion about the bad. I wish the world would stop trying to delete half of itself. We need to go back to the good generational phrase that everyone once adopted: THIS SUCKS!
Let me just add, that every single time I hear this phrase, my skin doesn't just crawl. It feels like someone is taking a cheese grater to my back. There might be some irrational repulsion here as well.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Indian Rock
Indian Rock, something simple like that. A giant bolder formed from God knows what, right in the middle of these little woods. I scramble up the stone while they throw the frisbee back and forth below. I imagine them climbing all over this cold surface as kids to play "King of the World", then as teenagers to smoke a joint. How big this rock must have seemed to them then, and these woods endless. They didn't even notice these things grow smaller as they grew bigger. I envy them their childhood.
It's a strange thing, being in love with two people at once. It isn't about choosing, it never is. The idea of choosing is something forced on the lover by the beloveds, because the beloveds feel jealousy. The lover never feels the need to choose.
But really I was in love with his entire life, including his best friend, his hometown, his family. I loved him in his environment, not as something isolated that I could pull into my own world. He was his best friend and his mother and his nephews and the biodynamic farm and the Waldorf upbringing. He was hiking up Hook Mountain, canoeing to the tiny island for a picnic, playing flip cup with his best friend's little brother, drinking too much coffee, drinking too much beer. He was for me an entire life, a life I wish I had lived and tried to live. So, was it a love born of envy? He was a brooding writer with a nurturing mother. Everything I wanted to be, and I didn't even know it.
But that's the thing, isn't it? I am selfish in the end. I want to be everything. I use people, love them and use them. I want to live their lives for a while. I want to be, for a time, the brooding writer with a nurturing mother, the recalcitrant druggie with spoiling parents, the arrogant ignorant with no father. I want to be the selfless philosopher, the conceited athlete, the reckless traveler, the driven worker. I love their lives, and I want them all for myself, all at once. So, I take them, one at a time, since I can't have everything all at once. When I get bored with one life, I drop it for a new one. Everyone I meet, I take their lives into myself. I want to own each one. I am a heartless cameleon with no skin of my own.
It's a strange thing, being in love with two people at once. It isn't about choosing, it never is. The idea of choosing is something forced on the lover by the beloveds, because the beloveds feel jealousy. The lover never feels the need to choose.
But really I was in love with his entire life, including his best friend, his hometown, his family. I loved him in his environment, not as something isolated that I could pull into my own world. He was his best friend and his mother and his nephews and the biodynamic farm and the Waldorf upbringing. He was hiking up Hook Mountain, canoeing to the tiny island for a picnic, playing flip cup with his best friend's little brother, drinking too much coffee, drinking too much beer. He was for me an entire life, a life I wish I had lived and tried to live. So, was it a love born of envy? He was a brooding writer with a nurturing mother. Everything I wanted to be, and I didn't even know it.
But that's the thing, isn't it? I am selfish in the end. I want to be everything. I use people, love them and use them. I want to live their lives for a while. I want to be, for a time, the brooding writer with a nurturing mother, the recalcitrant druggie with spoiling parents, the arrogant ignorant with no father. I want to be the selfless philosopher, the conceited athlete, the reckless traveler, the driven worker. I love their lives, and I want them all for myself, all at once. So, I take them, one at a time, since I can't have everything all at once. When I get bored with one life, I drop it for a new one. Everyone I meet, I take their lives into myself. I want to own each one. I am a heartless cameleon with no skin of my own.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Internal Battles, Part 3: Meanwhiling Away
Zimbabwe's opposition leader banned from holding rallies and arrested twice in the past week, leading up to the re-run of the Presidential elections. Current elected president threatens war if the opposition wins the election. More proof of failure of imposed democracy, as if Kenya was not enough. Alexis De Tocqueville knew that a country's government must grow organically out of it's mores in order to be properly nurtured and to flourish. Beyond a more than persuasive argument for this theory, he offers Mexico's attempt and failure to adopt the United States' exact constitution for an example. I suppose the western cultures just want to offer more examples for the doubtful. I suppose since our own governments are so perfect and free of corruption, we ought to concentrate our efforts on imposing our beliefs on the rest of the poor, unfortunate world.
Meanwhile....
The square people with their square heads wile away their time in their square houses with their square yards staring at their square boxes with its strictly-regulated, square broadcasting. But I understand why they don't want to know. I understand why they do their best to keep their heads tucked out of the rapid fire of bad news. Even the ones considered aware of or even active in the problems of the unfortunate and helpless, these people only have the energy, the heart, to care about one thing. These martyrs have to choose just one thing to focus all their energy into. Because how do you deeply care for the entire world? Who has a heart so big? You have to leave some room for yourself. So of course I would rather buy my Dolche and Gabana sunglasses than try to choose which cause to fight for. Better to stay inside the square world.
A girl stares at the black wall flying by, in the honeycombs under the city, and wonders where she can find a man. A man who could be her lover and her beloved. A man who might respect her as much as she does him. She left a man, whom she loved dearly, and who doubtless loved her, but he loved his own life and his own thoughts more. She left him in a hopeful state of mind, with the faith that she could find someone who would not only love her, but who would also care about her life and her thoughts. She believed she could find a man who would get excited about her pursuits instead of jealous of them. She would try to do the same for him. So far, no one, and hope is fading, but she refuses to settle.
Meanwhile...
Women in Mexico City can't travel to work without being fondled, gawked at, cat-called, and even raped. The city had to make women-only buses and train cars to try to reduce the occurrences. They say the problem is that it is embedded in their culture to treat women as mere sexual objects. If the women take the incidents to court, judges question them on their lifestyles and the way they dress. They try to figure out how the women bring these incidents on themselves.
Meanwhile....
The square people with their square heads wile away their time in their square houses with their square yards staring at their square boxes with its strictly-regulated, square broadcasting. But I understand why they don't want to know. I understand why they do their best to keep their heads tucked out of the rapid fire of bad news. Even the ones considered aware of or even active in the problems of the unfortunate and helpless, these people only have the energy, the heart, to care about one thing. These martyrs have to choose just one thing to focus all their energy into. Because how do you deeply care for the entire world? Who has a heart so big? You have to leave some room for yourself. So of course I would rather buy my Dolche and Gabana sunglasses than try to choose which cause to fight for. Better to stay inside the square world.
A girl stares at the black wall flying by, in the honeycombs under the city, and wonders where she can find a man. A man who could be her lover and her beloved. A man who might respect her as much as she does him. She left a man, whom she loved dearly, and who doubtless loved her, but he loved his own life and his own thoughts more. She left him in a hopeful state of mind, with the faith that she could find someone who would not only love her, but who would also care about her life and her thoughts. She believed she could find a man who would get excited about her pursuits instead of jealous of them. She would try to do the same for him. So far, no one, and hope is fading, but she refuses to settle.
Meanwhile...
Women in Mexico City can't travel to work without being fondled, gawked at, cat-called, and even raped. The city had to make women-only buses and train cars to try to reduce the occurrences. They say the problem is that it is embedded in their culture to treat women as mere sexual objects. If the women take the incidents to court, judges question them on their lifestyles and the way they dress. They try to figure out how the women bring these incidents on themselves.
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