h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hmm, where to begin. First the banal, my exams are going fine and I may even pass them. It's not over yet though.

Now the rest.

Key events (in chronological order):
1) Read Radio Free Albemuth - President Freemont turns out to be a communist and no different from anyone else.
2) Read lots of Hunter S Thompson particularly stuff on politics
3) Have to listen to horrid people rejecting anything outside their retarded 9-5 existence.
3) Read Dharma Bums by Kerouac
4) Read Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu


To short circuit this list I will cut directly to the point. I am sick and tired of this society, and the western world. The need to get a dull conformist 9-5 job has worn my tolerance down and I am literally furious. I will not follow the road my parents did and accept security in place of living. If I look at their situation, my Mother is 18 years behind on the career she wanted because she took a safe, easy route. My father is in a job he hates with a passion and no real chance to escape it because of choices he made while he was shortly older than I am now. I do not want to live a half-life and die full of regrets. I want to do what I want to do and not what is required to get by. I could go on reiterating and rephrasing this point until I am blue in the face but the message is this "I opt out of your system".

I know that all I wrote above sounds like hollow, retarded hippie/beatnik rhetoric and I am unapologetic for that. I think that the Beats had the right idea, unfortunately their energy and momentum went against them and their force was dissipated and too many of their number opted right back into the system they were supposedly trying to destroy. Since then we as a generation and a culture have become horrifically apathetic and conformist. However none of this means that I can't plough my own farrow in the same manner as people like HST, Fugazi, Burroughs and so many others have. I know how naive this may seem but I have had milder forms of these feelings and ideas when i was in my naive idealistic phase. This time however I am enraged and repulsed and it will take a lot now for me to accept a quiet life.

On a slightly related note, I have begun reading about Buddhism alot and while I am far from becoming a buddhist I certainly find a great deal of it very interesting and I hope to learn at least a few lessons from Buddhism.

Well my vitriol is almost spent so I shall sign off and hopefully return soon, maybe not so angry but still as independent.

While sniffing around to see what h2g2 has to say about Buddhism I came across your journal entry. Perhaps it was my karma . Anyway, as you're curious about the subject, I thought I'd point you toward a buddhist organization that's a little different from the traditional zen style. Perhaps there is a group which meets near you. You could look here if you've a mind to. http://www.buddhanet.net/euro_dir/eur_uki1.htm

I've been going to meetings and events occasionally as a non-member for a little more than a year here in the USA and have found parts of the practice to be very helpful in balancing my life. Seems as if every time I go to a meeting I learn something that really specifically applies to the things I'm dealing with, makes me look at things from a different perspective. Maybe the same would happen for you.

Anyway, pardon the intrusion... it's not my habit to do this sort of thing, but I just thought that perhaps it would help.

Best wishes!

MoG

Now don't I feel foolish. I think the link I gave you was to a more traditional form of Buddhism. The organization I was on about is SGI. Here it is.
http://www.sgi-uk.org/

Hey,
Thanks for the link, I shall go and check that out in a second. I'm still finding my feet buddhist-wise, I've been reading a book about Zen and some kind of very broad view of the subject. Anyway I shall check back in later and tell you what I thought.

First off, there can't be any harm in reiterating the fact that I'm aware that Comrade J. Rumble is unlikely to get this for some time; this is as much getting things out of my brain as it is conversing with the Comrade (it's good to keep the two separate, Rumble-Ego conversations generally spiral out of control, their two mildly twisted minds fuse and act as a symbiote, each feeding off the other and becoming a horrifying Gestalt entitity with the final result being more gruesome than the sum of it's parts, tangents shooting off like roots of a diseased mutant plant, poisoning the earth forever. But I digress). In fact, I'm not sure if this is for Comrade Rumble, a casual observer or me. If it doesn't flow or make any sense, then you can assume it's for me. Secondly, I'd like to note that I'm aware that I've been "The biggest shirk for the longest time", my presence here has only been felt as a voyeuristic ghost, reading the posts of others and not bothering to find my password to reply. I'd like to say now that this is the beginning of a new Ego, but I credit you with more savvy than that. So, onward.

This reply addresses specifically the section of the entry on opting out of the system. I have to say, I feel exactly the same. Now, when you hear someone use the word 'system' and 'conformist' in a derogatory manner, it's an easy step to imagine them sitting in a darkened bedroom, the flickering blue incandescence of the monitor highlighting a clean, rosy cheeked face topped with barber shop perfect spikey hair. We pan down and see a bootleg RATM hoodie purchsed from Area 51 and a spikey leather bracelet from same. This person is angry at the world because his mum wants him to tidy his room and his dad occasionally tries to have a pleasant conversation with him, despite the fact that dad "doesn't understand" him. This image is wrong like Charles Dickens. Now, I'm not saying that my (or Comrade Rumble's) bedroom is tidy, but that's not the point. All I wanted to do was get across that this isn't the usual ill thought out, half-believed nonsense posted in so many forums and blogs by frustrated teenagers web wide in an attempt to see who can quote the most song lyrics and sound tormented.
A couple of years ago, I was a fairly arrogant young fella and would have thought of the nine to five "Heh. I won't do that,". Now I've matured (a little, I know), I can't help but say "I CAN'T do that,". I'm not saying I'm better than someone who opts into the system, if anything I'm weaker. I don't have the strength to keep on at something I don't truly care about. I really couldn't do a job I didn't care about; I'm not saying I won't end up with a structured job that I go to regularly, just that I won't be able to if it's not something I give a damn about.
I'm a substandard musician and an uninspired/uninspiring writer, so I haven't got an easy route out, but I'll be damned if I don't do my best.

Having read what I've written, it seems the first bit was for you, hapless (possibly hatless) reader, and the second bit was probably for me and Comrade Rumble. If you happen to have stumbled across this unhelpful brainspew, I am sorry and can only attempt to repay the minutes I've stolen from your life by directing you to corporatemofo.com, where they can explain things a lot better than I can.

Lurkers are everywhere, ya know.

What are you doing so you can make sure that you won't have to work at a job you don't give a damn about?

Studying. Sounds vague, doesn't it? My hope is that it will either open doors to vocations I'm attracted to, or it'll endow me with the brainfulness to figure out further routes to take.

Any ideas as to how a man with no discernable talent can do his own thang? What thang should he do? What thang should he not? Should he stop saying 'thang'? The answer to the last question is yes. The answers to those previous are floating about out there somewhere, if one should collide with your head please send it in on the back of a postcard. The best answer will recieve a tube of Lipsyl.

I'm aware that the criteria for this competition is blurry at best, what with dictionaries these days so loathe to include clear definitions for 'thang'. Post what you like, as this Lipsyl will probably turn out not to be mine, anyway.

Well, first of all, if it feels good to say thang, by all means do so. Aren't you trying to avoid being a part of the system? Nothing wrong with the occasional redneck pronunciation to keep 'em on their toes, ya know.

What are you studying? Are you learning anything useful? And what is a tube of Lipsyl?

Personally I prefer to travel in squircles. They have their own inherent beauty and nobody (self included) is quite sure which direction I'll veer off in next. It keeps life interesting.

Thanks for the support on the thang issue, I'll try to keep it up. Hopefully not to the extent that it's my main defining characteristic, though.

"Hey, Lauren, you see that post? The one your brother wrote, with the bitching and moaning and the poor articulation of half thought through ideas?"
"Brother?"
"Yeah, you know. Lives in your house, known you all your life."
*Blank look*
"Skinny. Glasses."
*Blanker look*
"Says 'thang'."
"Oh, the 'thang' guy. Whatever."
"Wanna go throw something at something else?"
"Yeah."

I am currently studying some old rubbish with a view to doing Philosophy at university. I did two years at college doing Computing and Physics and Maths and other dreadful nonsense (due to the ease of slipping into a career after finishing such subjects), but found myself really despising it towards the end and fouled up proper. I then signed up again for courses I really care about (Philosophy, Poltics, English Language and English Literature), and it seems to be going pretty well thus far. Whether or not I'm learning anything useful is a matter of opinion, but if the use they're going to be put to is idle argument with people in cafes then it's working.

Lipsyl is a sort of lip balm for chapped lips. Mmm, soothe me, Lipsyl! The good news is that it's strawberry flavoured. The bad news is that it's not mine. Ho hum.

Work wise, I work in a bookshop at weekends, which allows me to drink coffee, read for free and look disparagingly at people asking for the new Jilly Cooper book. It's a happy coincidence that these were the three things I enjoyed doing most before I took the job.
What about you? Are you studying, working, painting a mural, hoeing, doing community service for sticking your tounge out at old ladies?

"...and you will know my name is Tha Ego when I lay my thang upon thee."

A note: I meant hoeing as in gardening; turning sod, not tricks. You could do both in a garden, I suppose, but results might be somewhat limited due to the lack of thoroughfare for Johns.

hmmmm.... four out of five ain't bad. I study on my own terms, which means I read a lot and incorporate the useful bits into my interaction with the world. I work (gotta pay the bills) as a makeup artist and have just started my own business doing photography and digital artwork. I paint with oil pastels and acrylics, make big, primitive, colorful things. The garden is doing well though I don't have to hoe as it's all in pots outside. Fortunately I haven't been caught sticking my tongue out at lil ol' ladies, so I'm not doing community service.