Not In Love (ft. Robert Smith)
Crystal Castles
While I am not not in love - I am also not not in love with this song.
March 2011
5 posts
“I think that a good person can sometimes do wrong out of ignorance or weakness or wrong thinking, but when hard times come, the goodness wins out after all. And a bad person can often seem good and trustworthy for a long time, but when hard times come, the evil in him gets revealed.”
—Alvin Journeyman by Orson Scott Card
Feeling overwhelmed . . .
and entirely owned by corporations. I think I’m generally an optimistic and happy person. I don’t really stress about my life because in the grand scope of things, it’s fucking fantastic. And in general I enjoy myself, appreciate what I have and I consider my time well spent. But when it comes to politics and the overall state of this world I’m incredibly cynical. I worry about global warming, consumerism, the waste of so many resources, war, murdering animals, gun control, the richest 1% literally owning this country, what an asshole America is to everybody else, the backseat education takes on the list of things that matter in our culture, and the moral dilemma of raising children in a world we won’t be able to inhabit for long if things keep up the way they are. I could go on and on but the fact is I worry to much. I think if everybody worried about it as much as I did maybe things would be different. Who knows.
Most of all, I’m just tired of people thinking they’re so damn entitled … to anything. I’m surrounded by it constantly, and it brings my spirits down. Regardless of race, class, religion, country … people are all the same. And we are all sharing this planet … even if none of us want to act like it. Bottom line, we all just want to get by. That illegal immigrant? He’s probably got kids he needs to feed, just like you. That homeless guy on the corner? Fuck, he’s homeless … I’d want a beer too. That woman with no health insurance, she just wants to live a little longer … not rob and steal or kill anybody. People are not poor because they deserve it (though they sure are treated that way), and casting judgments without understanding is the cruelest thing we can do.
Everybody just wants to get by: food, water, shelter. When the term “socialism” is mocked, I can’t say I understand that. Yes, when it comes to policy and how it’s carried out, there are bound to be better ways than others. But what is so bad about everybody being taken care of? Coming together and creating a better system for all of us? Not letting those who sit at the top exploit the physical labor of others and give nothing back? Instead, we let the media instill fear us … convince us that we need guns to protect ourselves, and lock our doors at night because everybody else is out to get you. The world is full of “crazies” and you better watch out, dammit. There is always an “us” and the “other.” But that distinction doesn’t have to exist, if we don’t want it to.
We are all the same.
We are all the same.
“When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me— it still sometimes happens— and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous— not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time…That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful… The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.”
—
Ann Druyan, talking about her husband Carl Sagan
Love the one you’re with.
