Family Values

My parents are one of the many couples from the past generation that has divorced, and ultimately it's for the better. Louis CK did this bit about how shitty marriages compound on kids and then they grow up and marry other people from shitty marriages and pass it onto their kids. It just all becomes so heavy. At the very least they should get some peace even if it means in two separate households. And that's the truth. The truth is often funny when it's just so bizarre, yet it can be kinda sad if you let it really sink in.

He also did this bit on his show with his Mom visiting by surprise admitting that she's a lesbian. She used to be all alone and neglected, but then she never really showed any affection for her two sons. Louis' brother on the show always loved her, but she can't even say it back. When confronted she just leaves the room.

What I love about Louie show is how honest he is about things. Things are shown in a very raw kind of form most of the time. These things he mention are the truth about a lot of families. Parents and children on pretty much every other show are expected to have this unconditional love for one another, and regardless of the tragedies that happen in life family is always there for you. In reality this just isn't the case. Unless you have good parents who really cared about you, not just cared for you, this kind of loving relationship isn't natural. I honestly believe any kind of love is never automatic. It has to be developed.

The same thing goes for siblings. Just because you live together and share some common genes doesn't really mean you will all get along. People change as they grow up and develop into different people. The good parenting thing mentioned above usually helps form good relationships between siblings too. It helps for the family to share experiences together, but still be open to the different paths that open up between family members. Sibling rivalry isn't so common for no reason. Not everyone wants to fall into the shadows of those older than them, so they try hard to differentiate themselves and create value for themselves in the family. If your siblings aren't open to these changes it just pull them apart.

Love has to develop. And anything that develops can fail to develop or it can be broken.

Having family and living under the same roof only gives people lots of opportunities to interact. It doesn't guarantee that they will care about one another or love one another. That only happens when they share their experiences together in a positive way and make it through the bad experiences. The belief that love is automatic and unconditional is a myth. It has been shown time and again that people cheat, abuse, harass, exploit, and cast out those they are supposed to love. These things only happen because the love was never there or because it was lost somewhere along the way.

Sharing blood and sharing names is only a start. It's the effort along the way that really matters. This is why we can learn to love strangers who become our partners and our friends. Family who don't talk to one another are no closer than strangers in a building. It takes effort to make family into partners and friends in life too.

Love is not a guarantee. It is something that we work towards and fight for.

Dealing

Life in a city is full of all sorts of complications. Having to go to school, having to work, driving, parking, finding places to live, paying bills, buying groceries, and all this other stuff that is part of modern survival and it all sucks. Historically, or more prehistorically, all any living thing ever did was find food so that it could live to find more food. That was the whole point of life, to keep living. Now getting some grub is relatively easy (compared to prehistoric times), but that isn't considered really living anymore.

When people live in today's world what they mean is being able to enjoy all of these new and strangely intriguing opportunities. We want to be able to try new things and learn about different things that interest us. The value of food is still there. People love food. But people love movies, games, music, art, sports, technology, they love all kinds of other things. What these things do is eat up time which also happens to eat up money. So we need to work to trade time for money, and then trade this money for time.

Time can be spent on all sorts of things like a nice dinner for example. What we are really paying for at this point is not having to cook, not having to clean, being served, and time to sit and eat with whoever it is you are with, including yourself. The time we have with those we love is really valuable. I always love a good date.

We also buy time in physical packages like clothing or technology. We buy the time that people took to design those things, and we also get time to use the things we bought. We buy experiences too, like outings or vacations.

With all of these amazing things we can do with our time it can be hard getting the money we need to buy all the time we want. The more stuff we buy the more we have to work to pay for them, and also the less time you get to spend using the stuff you already bought. Dealing with something like this is hard. We work so hard to pay for simple things like food and shelter that there is little left for fun stuff. So we work harder or change jobs to get more money, and in the mean time we indulge in little things along the way. A little junk food here, some booze there, maybe some smokes, or any vice of your choice.

The honest truth, though, is that the desire to have more than what you have is constant. We are biologically wired to stuff ourselves because food used to be hard to find. When you get some you better stock up or else you won't have enough for the next hunt. We will always want more. That is something we can't get away from. What I think can change instead is what we want more of.

People all want something that is of high value. When houses provide high status people want better houses. Certain brands are considered highly valuable so people hunt those down. Even the high class set various levels of value on certain types of lifestyles. Mostly the value is set on physical stuff. But there is a movement going on right here on the internet. People are starting to value their voice and sense of self-expression. They like making content and sharing it with others. At the least they like contributing a vote for or against something. If things continue to progress this way the value of creating and simply participating in culture may take up much of the consumer space. We will want to partake in online communities more than we want to have physical stuff. Of course sometimes participating means having physical stuff, but a lot of the time it doesn't. We just need to speak or type.

We always want more and dealing with that pressure is hard. I don't think we should change. Wanting more has gotten us to where we are now. We should want even more. We should want to learn more, talk more, create more, engage more, and express more. This is what will make dealing with things easier.

Love is all you need

It's that time of the year again. And having worked retail over many holiday seasons it has taken its toll.

Things are always different on the other side. Grass is greener. But with retail it is just very eye-opening and a little bit aggravating. You watch all these people step into line buying things for people they hardly ever see, and most of these things will probably end up as gifts people never use.

Some of these shoppers you know have never stepped foot into your store all year. They even tell you that sometimes. "You know I never come in here." But yet here they are, spending money on gifts mostly because other people are and they don't want to feel left out and/or guilty. Showing up to a party without gifts automatically warrants dirty looks from the people that supposedly love you. So, a lot of people end up going out to get things against their own free will.

Sometimes it's sad to see. There are some customers that pull up to the till that you are pretty sure have no idea what they are supposed to be buying. All they have with them are junk food and random knick-knacks that says generic in the loudest way possible. All they know is they can't show up empty-handed, yet they have no clue what the recipients actually want. Not even the slightest. At least some people attempt buying a cheap bargain book that is somewhat related to some general category like music or science. 1001 Facts on the Greatest Rock Bands of All Time. But a candy cane and a chocolate bar mostly means 'meh'.

On the other side are those parents or close aunts who load up on two bags full and more stuff stuffed in their armpits for their 2 nieces and nephews. They know exactly what these kids want and spoil the crap out of them. It's like giving a junky the best fix ever. Get them addicted while they're still young. Then every year they will want more and better things until the day they have their own children to pass on the tradition.

And it's never the awesome uncle or the best dad in the world getting these mounds of stuff. Most of the guys that pass through the till have like 2 magazines with them on expensive audio equipment and maybe some sort of crude joke book for their buddy. Sometimes they ask for a newspaper.

I can't really blame them though. All the wives and girlfriends and daughters that come around all say the same thing. "Argh, I have no idea what to get for him. It's just impossible." It maybe a cheap shot to say this, but it's probably because women don't take on the interests of men. Women don't buy those tech magazines and read up on boring guy things because they don't get it. Strangely enough, men will sheepishly look in the relationship section, or fashion, or read the synopsis on female oriented literature. They try to look better, learn to dance, and be romantic, but for a lady to understand computers, programs, comics and other nerdy geek stuff? Impossible. And that's why women have no idea what to get for guys.

Yep. It is that time of the year again. It is the season for love, but only because it is trending.