Floating Leaf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
floatingleaf) wrote2009-11-27 10:50 pm
floatingleaf) wrote2009-11-27 10:50 pm
Entry tags:
wherein I rant and rave and go off on tangents like there's no tomorrow
Let me start with a little disclaimer to the previous post: I thought at first seeing The Road didn't really bring me down all that much... but its effect is sort of catching up with me, I'm afraid. Or maybe its the effect of reading too many articles on current political/social/environmental issues. Even though creators of the film - Viggo included - keep saying it's not really about that and not meant to be seen as a 'warning', I can't help making the connection. There's just too much evil around these days - or maybe it's been around for a while, but I somehow managed to avoid seeing it or thinking about it. Well... no more. Sometime within the past year or so, my eyes have been gradually pried open to the so-called 'bigger picture' beyond my own self-centered existence... and it's not a pretty picture at all. It's very scary, and very disturbing. No wonder I subconsciously resisted seeing it for so long. The Road just gave me a very vivid answer to the question of what all those disturbing phenomena I've been reading about might lead to in the end. And an answer like this is way more than enough to give you nightmares.
I don't want to be some fatalistic 'prophet of doom', but I just can't help feeling overwhelmed. And I don't know how to deal with it. Trying to ignore it somehow no longer makes it go away. I feel like we're all sitting on a little raft that's slowly but inexorably floating towards that big roaring waterfall in the distance. It might take a while before it tips over, but do we just sit and try to enjoy the ride as best we can? Or do we jump into the water right now and pray that there is an afterlife after all?...
As anyone reading this journal knows by now, I have a strong tendency towards escapism. Facing reality has never been my strong suit. Even my own personal reality - let alone the reality of a world rushing headlong towards its own destruction. "Serenity to accept the things I cannot change" (my typical life philosophy) sounds extremely inadequate in the face of that. But I also have a strong need for stability and inner calm - and if I cannot find it, I am unable to focus and get on with life, so to speak. And it looks like my inner calm depends precisely on being able to ignore what's going on around me. So it's either happiness or sanity for me, I'm afraid.
Funnily enough, when I was younger, I didn't have room in my head for such concerns, because I was too preoccupied with being 'unhappy in love', unhappy with myself as a person, or unhappy with a thousand insignificant little things that I can't even recall anymore. Now that I finally got over all that petty stuff, I realize it was only keeping me from seeing the big scheme of things in which not being 'happy in love' is truly the last problem on earth for anyone with a brain and a conscience. Go figure.:/
Having said all that, I might just as well add that I started writing a new A/L ficlet yesterday. Mostly because I was in dire need of a distraction. You know, something to make me stop replaying the gloomiest scenes from The Road in my mind. And I realized that only happy A/L would work. Purely hormonal, plotless, smutty A/L at that. Escapism? You betcha. At its best.:P And as long as it works, I'm not about to complain. Porn - or fluffy romance, in my case - is probably the cheapest, least harmful antidepressant ever invented. As well as the only one I'm on right now, thank you very much.;)
But speaking of A/L - I almost forgot to mention that I finally received my reward for winning the latestlegolasaragorn ficathon guessing game. Yes, that was back in August - but since the main organizer of said ficathon was akashaelfwitch, who lives a few blocks away from me, we decided she would just hand me the reward in person instead of sending it by mail. And somehow we hadn't had a chance to meet since then - until last Wednesday. But better late than never, they say. So here's my reward: a gorgeous LOTR-inspired journal in a decorative box, with a matching bookmark. I don't think I'm going to keep a handwritten journal ever again - but I might use it as another 'secret scrapbook' for A/L screencaps and manips, of which I have saved tons over the years. Yes - a perfectly immature, teenage pastime. Not as cheap as writing pornfic, since it requires the purchase of nice paper and expensive color toner for my printer - but equally satisfying.:D
Another thing I almost forgot about is that today marks exactly three years since I was hired by my current workplace. The company has changed it's corporate owner twice since then, but for all intents and purposes, it is still the same company, and it's officialy the longest time I've ever been with the same employer. Which means I get 15 days of paid vacation next year (in addition to 3 personal days, 10 sick days and all national holidays, including the Friday after Thanksgiving). And no raise, because they still can't afford raises for anyone. In fact, they laid a few people off again this month. Not on my team, though. We have plenty of work to do and are not disposable as of right now, thank God (not that I truly think God has anything to do with that... but I digress). Which is not to say it will stay that way for the forseeable future. If there IS a forseeable future. But yeah... I still have a job, I can afford my rent and bills and food and Netflix, I have health insurance, hot running water, electricity and high-speed internet. So who cares if the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Apparently there's plenty of reasons to be ecstatically thankful anyway.:|
[I am being sarcastic not in the sense of not appreciating what I have, but in the sense of seeing how little all these things matter when faced with the possibility of a major natural - or man-made - disaster that could destroy the planet. As someone wrote in a comment to an environmental article I was reading a few days ago: "Forget global warming - we will starve first!" Or as in that morbid Eastern European joke about old people saying in reaction to distant prognoses of some major political upheaval: "I am not afraid of that - I have cancer!". Or... you know, you get the picture. It just feels wrong to be so smugly satisfied about such mundane stuff when you know you are basically a pawn in someone else's game, an expendable 'human resource' in a corporate culture (I first typed 'corpirate' - Freudian slip, anyone?...) that couldn't care less about human dignity or the wellbeing of future generations. When you know that even the little you have can be taken away from you any minute, because someone 'up there', on the higher rungs of the social ladder, decides they haven't stolen or exploited enough. When you see people so much worse off it makes you feel guilty for being able to enjoy your own simple pleasures, such as they are. When you realize there is no justice, no equality, no compassion in any social system we humans ever managed to create. When you almost wish you had been born without a brain, or a heart, because having both and being able to use them hurts too much. When...
But I think I am beginning to repeat myself. Time to shut up. How did this post get to be so long in the first place?... Stop raving, woman, and go back to your happy, porn-filled mental bubble. While the tattered duct tape still manages to somehow hold it together, anyway...]
I don't want to be some fatalistic 'prophet of doom', but I just can't help feeling overwhelmed. And I don't know how to deal with it. Trying to ignore it somehow no longer makes it go away. I feel like we're all sitting on a little raft that's slowly but inexorably floating towards that big roaring waterfall in the distance. It might take a while before it tips over, but do we just sit and try to enjoy the ride as best we can? Or do we jump into the water right now and pray that there is an afterlife after all?...
As anyone reading this journal knows by now, I have a strong tendency towards escapism. Facing reality has never been my strong suit. Even my own personal reality - let alone the reality of a world rushing headlong towards its own destruction. "Serenity to accept the things I cannot change" (my typical life philosophy) sounds extremely inadequate in the face of that. But I also have a strong need for stability and inner calm - and if I cannot find it, I am unable to focus and get on with life, so to speak. And it looks like my inner calm depends precisely on being able to ignore what's going on around me. So it's either happiness or sanity for me, I'm afraid.
Funnily enough, when I was younger, I didn't have room in my head for such concerns, because I was too preoccupied with being 'unhappy in love', unhappy with myself as a person, or unhappy with a thousand insignificant little things that I can't even recall anymore. Now that I finally got over all that petty stuff, I realize it was only keeping me from seeing the big scheme of things in which not being 'happy in love' is truly the last problem on earth for anyone with a brain and a conscience. Go figure.:/
Having said all that, I might just as well add that I started writing a new A/L ficlet yesterday. Mostly because I was in dire need of a distraction. You know, something to make me stop replaying the gloomiest scenes from The Road in my mind. And I realized that only happy A/L would work. Purely hormonal, plotless, smutty A/L at that. Escapism? You betcha. At its best.:P And as long as it works, I'm not about to complain. Porn - or fluffy romance, in my case - is probably the cheapest, least harmful antidepressant ever invented. As well as the only one I'm on right now, thank you very much.;)
But speaking of A/L - I almost forgot to mention that I finally received my reward for winning the latest
legolasaragorn ficathon guessing game. Yes, that was back in August - but since the main organizer of said ficathon was akashaelfwitch, who lives a few blocks away from me, we decided she would just hand me the reward in person instead of sending it by mail. And somehow we hadn't had a chance to meet since then - until last Wednesday. But better late than never, they say. So here's my reward: a gorgeous LOTR-inspired journal in a decorative box, with a matching bookmark. I don't think I'm going to keep a handwritten journal ever again - but I might use it as another 'secret scrapbook' for A/L screencaps and manips, of which I have saved tons over the years. Yes - a perfectly immature, teenage pastime. Not as cheap as writing pornfic, since it requires the purchase of nice paper and expensive color toner for my printer - but equally satisfying.:D Another thing I almost forgot about is that today marks exactly three years since I was hired by my current workplace. The company has changed it's corporate owner twice since then, but for all intents and purposes, it is still the same company, and it's officialy the longest time I've ever been with the same employer. Which means I get 15 days of paid vacation next year (in addition to 3 personal days, 10 sick days and all national holidays, including the Friday after Thanksgiving). And no raise, because they still can't afford raises for anyone. In fact, they laid a few people off again this month. Not on my team, though. We have plenty of work to do and are not disposable as of right now, thank God (not that I truly think God has anything to do with that... but I digress). Which is not to say it will stay that way for the forseeable future. If there IS a forseeable future. But yeah... I still have a job, I can afford my rent and bills and food and Netflix, I have health insurance, hot running water, electricity and high-speed internet. So who cares if the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Apparently there's plenty of reasons to be ecstatically thankful anyway.:|
[I am being sarcastic not in the sense of not appreciating what I have, but in the sense of seeing how little all these things matter when faced with the possibility of a major natural - or man-made - disaster that could destroy the planet. As someone wrote in a comment to an environmental article I was reading a few days ago: "Forget global warming - we will starve first!" Or as in that morbid Eastern European joke about old people saying in reaction to distant prognoses of some major political upheaval: "I am not afraid of that - I have cancer!". Or... you know, you get the picture. It just feels wrong to be so smugly satisfied about such mundane stuff when you know you are basically a pawn in someone else's game, an expendable 'human resource' in a corporate culture (I first typed 'corpirate' - Freudian slip, anyone?...) that couldn't care less about human dignity or the wellbeing of future generations. When you know that even the little you have can be taken away from you any minute, because someone 'up there', on the higher rungs of the social ladder, decides they haven't stolen or exploited enough. When you see people so much worse off it makes you feel guilty for being able to enjoy your own simple pleasures, such as they are. When you realize there is no justice, no equality, no compassion in any social system we humans ever managed to create. When you almost wish you had been born without a brain, or a heart, because having both and being able to use them hurts too much. When...
But I think I am beginning to repeat myself. Time to shut up. How did this post get to be so long in the first place?... Stop raving, woman, and go back to your happy, porn-filled mental bubble. While the tattered duct tape still manages to somehow hold it together, anyway...]
no subject
Also, I suspect it's the same where you are as where I am - day after day of grey November skies. That plus seeing "The Road" would be enough to send any normal human being into a bit of a funk. Cut yourself some slack, hon, and give Legolas a soul-stealing Aragorn kiss for me.
no subject
Yes, but maybe if we all stopped running away from reality, we'd be able to somehow change it for the better. Maybe. Not that I have the first clue how to go about that. *sigh*
day after day of grey November skies
Actually, the sun came out yesterday. AND today. But it was pretty gloomy for about a week before that. And November is always a bad month for me, mood-wise - that 'seasonal depression' thing usually hits me with a vengeance, lol.
That plus seeing "The Road" would be enough to send any normal human being into a bit of a funk.
Yeah, well, that and the fact that I actually read the news these days, as opposed to only reading slashfic.:) I thought that's what being mature and grown-up was all about: reading the news, knowing what's happening around the world. But it only makes me understand better why I never really wanted to 'grow up' in the first place.
Cut yourself some slack, hon, and give Legolas a soul-stealing Aragorn kiss for me.
Heheh. I'll try. Actually, I was just thinking I should have attempted to finish the fic yesterday, instead of spending hours writing that miserable post. I just don't know how to prioritize sometimes...;)
no subject
I have a thought like this in the back of my mind pretty much all the time. I don't know what to do with it. If I think about it too much, it's terrifying.
I guess I've come to the conclusion that I have to be thankful for what I have right now and I have to focus on right now or I'll go crazy. But should I be thinking about it more? Should I be trying to do something? I think myself in circles over this.
I was destroyed for days after reading The Road.
*hugs*
no subject
Yes. That's the practical approach that gets me through the day. The lid that covers the raging chaos underneath... *sigh*
*hugs back*
no subject
We're still awaiting "The Road" out here in the hinterlands. Heaven only knows if it will ever arrive, and preferably before I'll need to make a move.
*hugs*
no subject
It really is. I am still amazed at the sheer amount of delight and comfort I derive from this pairing, even after all those years.
Sometimes we need to be distracted from the world around us or we'd all be insane.
True, but my problem is, I spent most of my life studiously avoiding too much info on current affairs - so now that I no longer avoid it, it tends to hit me like a freight train every once in a while. *sigh*
I'll keep my fingers crossed for your ability to see the movie - and for everything else, too. *hugs back*