Throwback Series: Solitary Importance in the modern world

The throwback series is an opportunity for me to clear my Notes application on my iPhone and to keep my older writings on the cloud. These are unedited and may be very, very bad. 

Written December 3, 2009

Solitude holds a crucial significance in society today, as a society lacking such could only be speculated to amount to a thoughtless, depressed slave state. Without contemplation or contemplative meditation, the human mind loses sight of the ultimate goal in life, not to mention a noticable lack of improvement in social interaction as well as one's accuracy of  expression of past occurences. It is quite incredible what one can learn of one's self after deep contemplation. The sense one may understand after a social interaction is more clearly analyzed when under a barrage of contemplation; by regards to what one potentially could have more accurately expressed, as well as in gratification of what one aptly expressed. It is nigh certain that even without intending to reflect on past events, contemplation is subconscially performed if for example, something is learned during that particular event, then it may be compared with a currently ocurring event; thus it is considered to be contemplated. With the constant flow of life never halted to reflect on past events, life is nearly meaningless. When experiences are not recreated and enjoyed once again to a possibly fuller extent in our minds, life can be succinctly described as "taken for granted."     

It's so funny

It's so funny how whenever I go home for the weekend using Amtrak from Milwaukee to Union Station and then Union Station to the various southwest suburbs how I see the very same kids, the same kid I used to be.

All wearing the miserable khakis, the dog-collar-like lanyard, the longish, uncomfortable hair, the bursting-with-books backpack that always seems to tire even the strongest and most muscular of College Preparatory students' backs, the exhausted expressions they wear almost daily and the faces of relief each Friday.

"Just this train ride separates me and being home and relaxing," I would think to myself each Friday.

I remember how much I disliked the tumult the school provided me. Piles upon piles of homework, I would have to wake up at 5:40 a.m. each morning to get to a mere 8:00 a.m. class and how desperately I yearned for sleep all throughout the duration of the week.

The school wasn't bad, it was just unnecessarily difficult paired with an arduous commute each morning and afternoon. I grew from not minding the daily Metra rides to deploring them.

They're awful. They're noisy, bumpy, uncomfortable, often smell of unburned hydrocarbons from the archaic diesel engine that drives the polished steel barge that carries miserable business people and students to their miserable businesses and schools.

Above all, they're not even particularly fast. Honestly, Metra trains are reminders of what the British Revolutionary-era steam-powered trains were like, the ones that rocketed that nation to economic prosperity in the 1800s.

We are living so behind the times; where bullet trains in Europe and Japan reign.

Daily Women's Rights Activists

I am fine with women's rights. I am not some behind-the-times, nearly-senile, old fool who cannot come with grips with the sheer fact that women, unbelievably, are also human beings.

However, when it comes to my new job (as a parking lot attendant) I cannot stand one peculiar character quality.

That is, the sense of entitlement some of the particularly female parking structure patrons feel to outrightly ignore every last action I perform.

I am not a rapist. I am not a sexual predator, offender, or whatever deviant description you wish to throw at me. But some women sure act this is to the contrary. So why do you show such ambivalence to interact with your friendly parking attendant at every last opportunity you have?!

At least give me a smile in return!

There are far too many female patrons to count who are in such a hurry, who are so self-centered, so aggressive, so impossibly late for appointment x that they cannot so much as give me a thank you.

No, my job is not an exercise of sainthood. It is not an unimaginably selfless task I perform each day; it involves simply letting patrons through the fiberglass gates.

However, if you could just, for a mere moment, remove your blinders, and realize that there is a human being inside the booth that is letting you through the gates, in the very same way you so gravely value your human being-ness, and give me some sort of acknowledgement. Rather than hiding behind your Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, your leather-wrapped interior, and your name-brand everything to be so militaristically, stoically inhuman!

 There is a women's revolution happening. And some, not all, women seem to feel it is their inalienable right to act like (forgive the term) utter "bitches."

I Need to Get off from my High Horse

When writing, I feel invincible. I can say (or say I will do) anything I want. The pen (or in this case, the keyboard) is my sword, slaying any injustice or wrong I see with the world I can imagine. 

But often, and I admit this, I get rather carried away. 

I take things in real life too personally. I see too much wrong with the world and am sometimes not willing to acknowledge someone else's perspective on the matter.

Worst of all, I have this inner, fervent desire to promote and push my opinion on others. I post my opinions to this blog so as to function as a public diary. So people can read them if they wish.

My writing is juiciest and most controversial when people actively seek out what I wrote. And that can be good for everyone reading and bad, as we've learned, for the person it targets. 

It is a bad habit. But to be a good person, I need to admit my faults and admit when I screw up. 

I need not be so arrogant as to make a point that it humiliates, insults or offends someone. 

People don't like their bad parts shown off to the world. 

My Reputation

Do you think I care about what you think of me?

Do you think I care, even one bit, about how much one can hate me?

Do you think I care if you think I act pompously?

Do you think I care when I receive flak?

Do you think I care about how you think I act?

Do you think I care about how you think I look?

Do you think I care about how you think I speak?

Do you think I care about how you think I write?

Do you think I care about how you think I interact with others?

Not in the slightest.

Because I know I will work harder than you in the end. My skill will triumph, my confidence will prevail and you, you will be proven wrong.

Time, and time again until you can no longer refuse to admit the bitter truth.

Why do I Have any Credibility?

Why do you read my blog? Why are you reading these exact words at this moment?

Why do you trust what I right?

This blog is drivel. Garbage. Chickenscratch. The scribbles in the back of a toddler's first notebook.

Don't come back here. Don't read my thoughts. My opinions. My stories. My ideas. Scat! Amscray! Get outta here!

I am a horrible writer. I couldn't paint a canvas white. That's how bad I am.

If you're so upset with me. Don't come back here. Ever again.

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm making it up as I go. Most days, I forget who I am.

Leave my blog alone. It's a diary that no one deserves to read. I call it the "diary of forbidden badness."

This is a waste of your time to read. Not half as much of a waste of time as it was to type these wretched words on this gloomy page, however.

Approximately 98 percent of the content on this blog consists of rants and mindless musings.

Don't waste your time on this blog ever again.

A Blog about a Blog: Something I actually care about

In my journalism course here at Marquette, I am beholden to produce content for my new Weebly site. Visit my site, if you so dare.

It is pitiful. I never wanted to make it. Nor cover the Virginian-Pilot. Who cares about mainstream news? Not I.

I bit my lip and continued to write for my journalism course. A few days prior, though, I created something I am truly proud of.

That is MarquetteMotors.com. My brainchild. My life and love centered around cars, all wrapped up in a hard, candy shell. Or website.

So to turn this blog post into more of a persuasive essay, why can't I simply continue perusing a form of journalism for which I actually give a you-know-what about? It makes no sense. None whatsoever.

I recently read chapter two of JournalismNext by Mark Briggs, as per class assignment. And everything  the book described were all the trials and tribulations I am now facing with MarquetteMotors. So why can't I go forth with MarquetteMotors, rather than fiddle around with a silly, user-UN-friendly, unintuitive Weebly, for which I have little care or concern?

In fact, I am learning more with my own website than I think I ever will with that silly Weebly site. And most of that information is self-taught!

I figure this comes from me actually caring about what I'm writing about...? Small wonder, Marquette.

I care about my topics, I care about being ahead of the curve, I care about producing content on a daily and thus, timely basis and most of all, I care about my readership. All of which was described by JournalismNext. So don't tell me I didn't do my homework.

Evolve, Marquette University's journalism program. Evolve.

Grating Behavior

THERE ARE FEW THINGS that irritate me as much as the idea of the American police officer. The very thought of an indignant, ignorant, presumptuous fellow who thinks he knows everything and anything about you, your situation and your intentions of that exact moment. And he is at that moment determined with every last strand in his body to give you a ticket.

I am not here to write about my horrible experience with an American police officer, however. Rather, of the threat of one.

A few hours ago today, I visited the airport where my dad flies out of to get some "track time" as I like to call it.

At the "track" I devised, there is a long straight, which leads into a sharp 90-degree right hander that goes to a wide straight so you can clip the apex and track out with out lots of exit speed. After the short straight is a wider 120-or-so-degree right hander that transitions into a Sebring-style section of large, bumpy tiles of concrete. Racy. Next is the very tight, short chicane of first gear-corners. Finally is the 180-degree corner where we started.

Ahem. So while I was busy with that and "improving" my lap times, I see a man giving me a fist in the sky as I pass Sebring corner. On the following lap, I slow down to greet the onlooker. He says, "Right on man! Keep on going!" I say, "Well I figure since there's no planes or people here, it shouldn't be a problem." He reveals to me he's a mechanic and hasn't seen any planes come in all day anyway. We talk for some more and it happens he knows my dad and he used to race motorcycles on the taxiway in Lansing. Suffice to say, he supports this behavior.

Later I see a blue Subaru BRZ. Being the opportunist that I am, I thought to invite the driver over to join in. But to no alas. He simply pulled out of his parking spot, paying no due attention to yours truly, and moved only to park somewhere else.

I drove to his car, wanting to see if I could persuade him to come by. He wasn't in the car. Pulled up to a hangar, he was probably talking to one of his long-time buddies. That brings me to another point. Everyone at this undisclosed airport somewhere in Illinois is close. So I stood out.

The actual Sunset Bend at Sebring for which one of the corners on my custom track owes its namesake.

As I wait on Sebring corner for the blue Subaru to emerge, a white Ford Explorer approaches my car. I see an "M" precede the truck's license plate and the lettering is in green. I take this to be a sign. "Alright, he's either a cop, has cop connections or was a cop," I thought to myself.

I panicked. But in panic situations involving the law, I play cooler than I usually wish I do in retrospect.

He pulled up to my car and said "You've been driving like a jackass. I already called the cops. They're on their way." He turns his boat of a vehicle around. He follows up, "My name's Chris. You can tell your dad that."

Fuck you, Chris. From one assumption to the next, "Chris" thought he had me all figured out.

No, Chirs, you're the one in the wrong. There is literally no-fucking-place in this stupid state to drive briskly for enjoyment. Also, douchebag, all the tracks are closed for winter. I am not some off-the-street-scumbag who decided to "practice" his illegal street racing skills on a private airport. No, I am trying to become a proper racing driver. Y'know, the ones that drive on tracks? Nevermind...

As the even-more-rebellious-than-me child you probably were, you had ample opportunity to burn rubber from stoplight to stoplight in the muscle cars that you and your adolescent friends could afford. Now. America is a driving hell. With speed limits lower than my age, drivers who couldn't be more apathetic nor drive much slower or with less skill, driving on public roads blows.

Can't you sympathize with me for one measly thing? I am done with school for winter. I am dreadfully bored. There was literally no one. NO ONE. At the airport that day. Who, and for that matter, what on God's green earth was I going to hurt? There is plenty or runoff area to my track's corners, so it was even difficult to hurt myself!

So what am I to do? Let me make myself clear here. There was no one to be seen on my little track. I didn't seen a single aircraft during the time I was there and above all, if there was a motherfucking airplane coming my direction, by golly, Chris, dontcha think I'd pull over into the bleeding grass?!

I am familiar with the area. I know what to do in emergency situations. I have been coming to that airport since I was a little tike. People compliment me on how much I've grown after not seeing me for about 15 years. People know not only me and my dad here. You could say we're a part of the airport's community. It's just assholes like this that don't understand that and frankly, have too minuscule an IQ to even begin to wrap their heads around that.

After the confrontation (for which my dialogue consisted of nothing) I panicked. I drove out of the airport. "Chris" was waiting for me on the way out. I contemplated flipping him the bird. Yet I figured have too much class for that.

Then on my way back home, I realize I was tricked. It was a false threat. I played with the idea of going back and telling him straight, but I will be back with my race car. Or even tonight.

I patted myself on the back and thought, "Good job, Michael. You were the bigger person in this instance."

I decide to blog about it to relieve my stress and here we are.

Facebook: A Blog Made for Babies

I am used to taking flak. I am used to being made fun of. I was essentially raised on a message board as a tween. I got yelled at constantly for nit-picky little things like how I used my Goddamn commas!

I am used to taking even the harshest, most grating criticism. If you have any criticism of me in any capacity, feel fully willing to let me know about it. I am willing to do anything I can to alter my current behavior if I see it necessary. People on Facebook, however, are different.

Facebook, I admit, is a place where people share information and the happenings of their everyday lives to a limited audience; to people they know they can trust, a.k.a. their "friends." (which Facebook decides to call them anyway).

Even still, I feel the Facebook users have far too thin a skin. None. And I mean a metric calculation of 0 Facebook users can take any criticism, flak, crap nor shit, as it were.

I say one snarky comment, and BOOM. We are no longer friends. Or I get confronted with a text informing me to delete whatever clearly sadistic thing I just let out for the world to see. I am the nadir, the bully, the "evil one" in most cases. Lighten up, people!

99% of what I say is a joke. Especially if it is followed by a winky face, smiley face, and more often than not, an ellipses.  

I am sick to death of having to ask for forgiveness when the intention of my message was not earnest in the first place.

My theory then is, that peoples' brains are far too small to realize that despite whatever I wrote shows up as pixels on a backlit screen, that there is a voice that goes along with it. One that is rarely serious.

If you can just imagine my voice behind those obviously horribly cruel and wretched words I wrote on your wall, you'd then, just maybe, realize that I was never being, nor had I ever even the slightest, smallest or even tiniest intention of being serious nor perceived in a serious fashion.

Some people.

Impolite to Phone?

Why is it considered impolite to phone someone these days? Everyone seems to prefer to text over anything else. Has society gotten to the point where we deliberately avoid social contact in favor of personality-less pixels on a backlit screen? Or are texts preferred so as to supplant "real-life" social contact?