(no subject)

[dot_fennel]

Why am I awake? Doing things that could just as well be done in daylight, theoretically, but speaking of daylight, here's what Aes Rock says:

We the American working population
Hate the fact that eight hours a day
Is wasted on chasing the dream of someone that isn't us
And we may not hate our jobs
But we hate jobs in general
That don't have to do with fighting our own causes
We the American working population
Hate the nine to five day-in day-out
When we'd rather be supporting ourselves
By being paid to perfect the pastimes
That we have harbored based solely on the fact
That it makes us smile if it sounds dope

Okay, nobody's paying me to get better at this... and it may not matter how good I am... and I may never find a way to tell... and you don't get what you want just because you tried hard... and I don't know how hard I can try anyway... but Aesop Rock has something else to say:

"But-- but maybe I do." Yeah yeah, maybe it's all over
Maybe I won the game before the machine ate my quarter

On the other hand, it's like, if you don't give up when things look worst, when are you going to take the hint and GIVE UP already?

Comments

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

If you don't give up when things look worst, then maybe you'll succeed.

I don't give up; I simply lose track

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I used to be afraid that I would forget things. Then I started to understand the loss of memory as an active process -- I can forget as necessary, I can put things out of mind, I can be more mindful of other things.

I used to fear the power of my mind. I feared it would leave me one day and I would be "normal". I now understand that my mind is a tool, that its drift and ebb are part of greater cycles.

So I don't "give up" anymore -- I forget what I was doing. I accept that there are things a subconscious part of me has decided I must ditch. Sometimes I lose the wind in my sail, and sometimes I lose the sail from too strong a wind.

However, I am still driven. I still have forces inside me that only now, as I mature, can I channel. It is not that I love less strongly; I can simply see high water marks where once I didn't have a levy. It is not that I am less prone to anger; I simply know how to turn that into something useful long enough to get beyond it.

I can still be provoked into a challenge. I am better at picking the challenge now. When i see something I want to develop, I know that it is not that I must seize this asset. I understand cultivation involves a hand at rest.

I didnt make it through this much life to decide to take the first hint and give up.
When I was thining about moving to Boston, I would choose a weekend to visit. That Friday night would offer some ridiculous weather oddity -- one time it was hail-laden tornadoes, another time it was a freak snowstorm -- to stop me from leaving out of work. I'd still go. I'd drive back home and find sunshine and clear driving.

I thought these were hints not to move. Then I decided these were simply hurdles -- if I survive them, I get to a better level.

Two and a half years have passed since I moved to Boston. I am very glad I didn't give up, even when I'm broke or annoyed.

-tinderbox of the mind, Dante

[mangosteen]

Americans may spend eight hours a day "working for someone else's dream", but what's even worse is when they're given the time and find out they never had a dream of their own.

"Most people who long for immortality wouldn't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." --unknown

[dot_fennel]

I don't know who said that either, but the more commonly quoted form is "Millions long for immortality... "(etc.) which has somewhat less of the poisonous implication that the speaker is of a superior race and would know exactly what to do with said immortality. I mean, it's probably true that some people don't use their free time especially well and wouldn't use it any better if they had more of it, but I don't see much point in pursuing the matter except to justify taking away the free time of people SUSPECTED of being wastrels, which would be vile.

[mangosteen]

I always considered the quote to be fairly neutral, in both forms.
Rather, I believe that the implication is that humans and immortality are immiscible in general.