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Sunday, July 24, 2011

The pulpit,..?

Today is Sunday. I am not a religious man, so it has been a bit since I have stepped foot in a church. I am a spiritual man and I do believe their is a difference. I think its important where people get their validation. That being said I am going to preach a bit this Sunday. I am going to preach in a way that is life affirming, and gets you to ask yourself questions. These are questions only you can answer. These are things only you can do something about.

You see I have issues with where our culture is as a whole today. I see a huge level of apathy, and stupidity. This is a dangerous combo. Our priorities have shifted in such a way that this is also becoming visible to the world. Let us look at a few parts of our culture and see what I see in them, and then you can tell me what you see in them.

Last week on television the number one show was the women world cup. America versus Japan, which I can see. It was an event, the super bowl of women's soccer. The second highest show was Pawn Stars. According to one rating site Sponge Bob square pants rounded out the top twenty five with seven episodes taking spots. You can see the chart here.

Yesterday I watched my Facebook page erupt with condolences for Amy Winehouse and her family. Amy Winehouse was a pop star that was battling addiction for several years now. I am not saying her death was any less then another, but I am also saying it was expected, yet in one hour I saw thirty seven status updates concerning here. Two of those updates where local news stations. One of the news stations had over ninety comments in an hour. Yet over ninety people died in Norway and I only saw three status updates about that, and about four minutes on the local news total for the week.

What is it that has us watching Sponge Bob enough to fill up nine slots out of twenty five in a week where so much is going on? What is it that we as a people are more concerned with the death of a strung out addict pop star than those of eighty children killed by a right wing fundamentalist dressed as a cop? Since when did entertainment supersede social awareness?

You see we as a people have a fixation on our pop stars and media icons, to a point that if somebody tries hard enough they can build enough false celebrity that they actually become a celebrity (Paris Hilton). We as a people seem to think it is more important to see what they are doing, and how destructive their lives are. So we feed the need these attention whores have. They get a negative feed back loop, and we can't seem to look away. We killed Amy Winehouse or at least we helped. Is that why we are so interested in her death?

Wouldn't it be nice for their mental health and ours if they did not become a walking reality show? If the expectation of their entertainment value did not overlap the bounds of their trade? Athletes only interested us when they where on the field, actors on the screen, or singers on the stage. Yet for some reason we think that some cracked out junkie that happened to have the genetic fortune to have a good voice is going to some how hold a golden nugget of social redemption and we look at these icons for moral direction or life affirming wisdom.

We are a consumer culture and that is not just in our hard goods. We consume ever damn thing around us without regard. We are blind in our gluttony. We demand the monkey dances for us and we consume the lives of our entertainers. We like our sacrifices fast, cheap, easy and tasty. The best marinade seems to be the tears of the victim. Salty sweet. We carry so much over into all aspects of our lives and we can not find balance.

Extremism is extremism. If you are a Jihadist moron fighting the cause of the great pedophile, the hoarder in their junk filed hovel, the typical mass media spoon feed mind numb homicidal asshole, or the right wing blind subhuman ass hat in a cop suit sending his message out by killing children, you still suck. Extremes rarely find balance. The only thing they find is pain and suffering. Yet we celebrate those traits in us and in others.

So if you seek external validation look no further then joining your next reality TV series. Look no further then living vicariously through the eyes of the next pop star icon that is on the block to be consumed. On that note why couldn't you all just eat up Justin Bieber, I mean really what a waste of space there. At least Amy Winehouse had a voice and better hair. You can keep looking for this external validation, or you can grow the fuck up and validate yourself. You can let go of the extremes and stop being a tool.

Stop fucking rubber necking and wrapping yourself up in the Jerry Springer syndrome. You know that feeling you get from watching that show or the cornucopia of other shows that maybe your life is not that bad because it does not suck nearly as bad as the others. Just because somebody else is suffering a great tragedy does not mean you life is not tragic. Most are just a tragic waste.

It all boils down to responsibility, personal responsibility. When you are not only accountable for your own actions, but you are all you need to hold yourself accountable for those actions then all that celebrity bullshit does not matter. Your hero's actually have more weight and are closer to home. So fuck America's got Talent, lets watch what really matters and take care of our focus.

Its just said to me that more people can tell me how they voted for So You Think You Can Dance, yet they can't tell me one percent of the voting record of the last elected official they voted for. The same people can tell you how much money some icon whiny attention whore spent on their last car, house, or shoe shopping spree, but they can't tell you why there is an argument over the debt ceiling. Self indulged consumers. Obese cows sitting on the couch demanding the world feed our need like over stuffed children. I say get up and go play outside, go play outside your comfort zone and plug into the world. Validate yourself, and become aware of what is really going on.

4 comments:

  1. Going to try this again. Hear Hear! I have been saying for years that we need to quit giving these people the publicity we have when they pull stupid crap. If we ignored them when they pull their stupid moronic actions and gave our attention instead to those regular joes who get up every morning and honsetly try to make the world a better place, then maybe they would realize that they are being morons and change their behavior. People are so starved for attention they will literally kill to get even the negative kind. I may get yelled at for this, but I didn't even know who Amy Winehouse was, and Lindsay Lohan was a great child actress, until she started believing in her own hype and became stupid. These parents who keep killing their kids? They have watched others get their 15 minutes of infamy and want it too. So why not turn off the tv, pop in a CD, go for a walk or something else when the media are giving these morons what they want!

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  2. I don't think I read a single comment about Amy on my Facebook page but a bunch about Norway. Heck I had to look up to verify who Amy was. Just saying...

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  3. Says something about the friends I keep then :)

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  4. Yeah we're awesome lol. The first one was me and this one is me, Tori. For what ever screwed up reason it won't let me post as me. Will work on that.

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