Active (pop) culture

When you say you will, it really means you might
When you don't come through I shut up, it may start a fight
Feel like such a fool. I believed in you
I compare the likes of you to the things I do.
Then the bother builds. I go through it at times.
You'd think I'd be used to it, but I don't have the time
to deal with your deceit or wallow at the feet
of empty promises or it's royalty

I never asked you to change
I only needed you to be there for me
And now I need you to stop taking advantage of me
Well I'm not coming around anymore
You can call it "fucked up" if you want

Smile if you will, a mile if you can
I don't care, I don't need to be the better man
I'm sorry if it's not the decent thing to do
Talk about it. Maybe one day you'll see the truth
One thing that I know. Friends they come and go.
A lesson learned in life and I have you to owe.
I'm growing every day, and fools get in the way.
If I whistle loud enough will you come and play?



when I was younger, like in high school, I was the guy that just tuned out in class. I didn't pay much attention after about sophomore year. I mostly just sat in the back of the room daydreaming and scrawling whatever random bits of angst I could dredge up into my notebooks. I didn't even bring books to class most of the time. I pretty much stopped doing homework all together in seventh grade. It's a testament to how easy it is for a kid to slip through the cracks that I was able to graduate high school at all.

These days I don't have the freedom afforded to a punk-ass teen. I have to work, I have bills to pay. I can't just veg out in class anymore. As a result, I don't write nearly as much as I used to. I think this trend exists for most people who might have been prolific writers as teens. Some might say that as we get older, our lives stabilize and the hormones and pressures of fitting in and all that crap that pushes us over the edge in school ends, so we don't need to outlet all of our emotions on paper anymore. Others might say that as we grow, we learn to express ourselves more directly, to others, or maybe even that we have less to express. I don't know which one, if any is the correct theory, in fact bits of them all might be right. I just know that since I don't write like I used to, more and more frequently, I am looking for alternate modes of expression. I find a song that approximates what I'm feeling and put it on a mix tape, or I'll be talking to someone or writing a letter and I'll quote a movie. Or I'll use a situation from a book I'm reading to illustrate a point. I don't generate thoughts and words and feelings anymore, I just recycle them. This is the second time that I've started a post out with lyrics from a song. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but it might have been better if the song was my own. It might have meant more if the feelings started from within me, not within someone who had a similar emotion.

In the long run, this type of behavior, this database of pop culture expression, might serve to homogenize the communication of human experience. Something has to get lost, and obviously it will be the more deep, more rare, more difficult to express and essentially amazing emotions that will die out. There are very few people out there who care to take the time and put their feelings down on paper for future reference. There are even fewer who do it in such a manner that it's interesting to others. Not that everyone isn't entitled, or even worth reading about, but it's the ones that can do it in a manner that doesn't blend in so much with every other bit of information out there that, I feel, is worth listening to. I'm part of the problem. I'm not the most creative person on the block, but I love trying, so I'll keep at it. I just want others to try as well, because as much as I love to share, I love for others to share with me.

manic