People are interesting. Focus on the adjective there, interesting. People are good or evil, plain or extravagant, fun or boring, influential or demoralizing. But every single person is interesting when given the chance. I'm known on occasion, well quite frequently actually, to express my inner-most loathsome feelings for the people of today, the people I am forced to surround myself with (with the exception of those I love) but today, something’s changed.
Earlier I was thinking about a particular class of females who simply do unintelligible things, and then blame themselves afterward, claiming “it was all my fault.” I simply cannot comprehend this. Let’s face it, we all know these people, the self-destructing women of today who are banking on a man to see them as a woman in distress or something, and ultimately feel responsible for acts the stupid woman committed, those men who will do unimaginable things to “save” them. Anyway, I was thinking to myself how much I despised them. Because what man would fall for some brainless, lying, dependent, quite pathetic women, when they have the rest of us independent, ambitious types to choose from. I was enraged at the populous, stomach turning, cheeks burning and all. And then I realized that I really should not let people like this affect my life. Blaming people for their actions never did anyone any good, bitterness just leads to Botox, in a quite literal and metaphoric way. Just because people act or behave in ways that I particularly don't agree with, does not necessarily make them bad people (although in some cases it really does). People, including myself, behave very differently under individual circumstances and we must accept the fact that we are not omniscient, and cannot empathize with every person’s decisions. However, I've never been one to side with Homer's Carpe Diem philosophical disposition, seizing the day or moment without prior conscious planning never did anyone any good. So I am not saying that one should just act on their impulses all the time, the key is moderation (and a small glance into the future). Although, I do admit that I am one to sit around and deliberate how things could have went better with more clever words, or how things could be better if I could just for one minute stop reliving the past.
Anyway, I’m straying. People are fascinating really, at least to me. And I am aware that this is a very trite, very un-intellectual revelation to have. However, my original point was to lead to this thought I had the other day, among many I assure you, this one stood out. I was thinking over a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a few of my close friends. The car-full of people were singing along to some pop-country song. I’ve mentioned before my hatred for country music. My friend looked in the rear-view mirror at me, and noticing I wasn’t singing, he asked “Don’t you like country.” I was a little taken aback, because no one, and I mean no one, has ever heard me utter praise for the genre or could find it in my music collection. Anyway, I was polite and as my friends were enjoying their music to its entirety, I just shook my head. He then posed to try to find a station that I would like, only after waiting for the song to end to switch the channel, trying to not be so obvious I assume. 89x was where it landed on some goo goo dolls song I can’t remember. I do admit, I liked the song. The rest of the car agreed and we began discussing our own music tastes, once my channel-changing friend asked me what I listened to. Now, it’s never been easy for me to describe my particular taste in music, so I usually just go with “old stuff and indie and folk.” No one ever understands what this means. They just simply nod, accuse me of listening to “emo,” or reply, “well I like everything.” This is the particular answer that triggered my theory-hashing brain. I physically and mentally cannot understand what this means. No one in the world likes all kinds of music. No one. If I were to rock out to Mozart in my car, my friends would look at me as if I’ve lost my mind. (Nothing against classical, because I’ll listen to it on occasion.) No one likes jazz (well at least not the people I know who claim they like everything), nor would they ever listen to Billy Joel on normal occasions. People who say they like everything (and here's where this is going) simply cannot define themselves. Either they are afraid, or not able to establish a respective taste to one particular thing is beyond me. But people seem afraid to define themselves. Most of the people I know, I could describe in one sentence; “She’s ambitious but a little too moody” “He’s ambivalent and drinks a lot.” But these are definitions that I prescribe to them, and really have no idea how these people see themselves because they are too afraid to do it. Whether this definition limits them, or they are simply afraid of causing waves in relationships is beyond me. But all I have to say is this is your life. It’s yours to cause as many ripple effects as you can conjure and influence as many people with your tastes as you can. Define yourself, “find out who you are and do it on purpose.” I’m just so tired of everyone following in every one else’s foot steps because they’re afraid of what others may think, or how they will be judged. There is only one judgment people have to worry about anyway. But who am I to say anything about the “I like everything” kind of people. Just because I happen to think that being picky is cool and ultimately makes me unique, maybe people find that bothersome to have to oblige to my every preference. (as a side note, something I find intrinsically amazing, if you go to dictionary.com to look up a word, a sullen man-voice will say it to you if you click on “hear”.)
I really have no deep, mind-altering conclusion for these stream-of-consciousness run-on paragraphs, accept maybe a lesson to myself, not to judge people based on their actions, but solely on their definition for their favorite music. Which if you really think about it is a terrible conclusion, because you can never really tell who a person is by the music they listen to. I know this one kid who loves underground rap, which I at first judged him heavily based on this assertion… because lets face it, its rap, only to find out later he has a love for the Beatles. So, moral of the story, don’t judge, just live amongst the crazy, interesting, fascinating people we are stuck on this earth with, except maybe if they say, “well I like everything” or “it’s all my fault.”
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