Affection

I can get personal occasionally...there's room for that, right?

Figured something out. It always feels good when that happens. I guess its not completely brand new information, but its light shed to a different part of my brain. Like I moved a lamp in my head.

About twenty years ago, I was an opinionated prick. Now, I can say I’m just opinionated. My partner in crime was also an opinionated prick. I won’t call him out in cyberspace, but he knows that I’m talking about him. We were young and smart and we had concrete ideas we were just certain about. And…we were mostly full of it.

Opinions aside, I had a problem when we talked about our likes and dislikes. He, and everyone around me, just didn’t understand that when I loved something; from a movie to a time period to a book to a singer to a breakfast cereal to a vacation locale…I loved it. I defended the things I love as if part of me was in the band that recorded the song or part of me was in the movie I could not stop defending.

So my good friend, being a little more normal than I, used to wonder why I took it so hard when someone disagreed with me. And even more than that, it troubled me that I couldn’t convert people to my way of thinking.

Had I any guidance in my young life I might have figured out I was an ego-freak. But I had to do my own thinkin’.

As a burgeoning curmudgeon; as a man on the cusp of old-fartitude, I can look at that kid now and not think he was such a prick. Now I know him for what he was. He wasn’t mean spirited. He was just an emotional wreck.

When I am touched by something, I bond with it. I am very chick-like in that regard. So be it, man. You could spend ten years breaking down mathematically that the Beastie Boys aren’t super duper awesome and you could not convince me. Sworn testimony, legal experts. DNA evidence. No dice. Same goes for most of the music on my iPod and the movies on my shelf out there. I am not an art enthusiast. I am a sponge. I am transformed by it. It does become a piece of me. Its time I recognized that.

My favorite radio show ended on Friday. Radio is strange because it keeps you company like a good dog at your side. You learn intimate details and with four hours a day, you feel like you are part of the proceedings even though you are worlds apart. I have a droll, boring, eventless life most of the time and now the thing that kept me company is gone. I know it was just entertainment and I should be more busy. But I’m not. And I feel a little loss. But I’m okay with that.

I take it personally. I am affected by it. That’s a tough life but it has its rewards.

So my point of all this is to keep this in mind the next time you are trashing something. I’m very guilty of this. Most of the internet is. Someone out there was touched by a Maroon 5 song. (Ugh.) There are those who think everything Adam Sandler has done is genius (Oh my.) And, there are those who believe the CSI shows are thought-provoking and well-written TV dramas (I think I’m gonna be sick…).

The entertainment/art has nothing to do with you, but the person you’re debating is a fellow human being, right?

I can’t think of a good ending to this, since I’ve made my point.

How about:

Opinions are like assholes, and so are you.

Or:

How about shutting the hell up and creating something better?

Or even:

All of the crap we love in our lives is basically a bunch of waiting room material anyway. So while we’re all sitting around waiting until our number is called, why bust balls?