Why are we all trying so hard?

Gosh, sometimes you can just tell when someone is trying too hard. Well, I guess like me tonight, when I was trying to make conversation with my coworker when we took two residents out to eat- it was painfully awkward at times. And hey, the guy is reasonably cute and quite original, so I was a little stuttering and weird. Seriously, why can I just be smooth and graceful? Alas, that is not my lot in life. I have been blessed with wonderful awkwardness and klutziness- not the most wonderful first impression.

But I also get strangely annoyed when another person is trying too hard, and it's obvious. Like, this guy I'm chatting with online, he's working up to the good questions, trying to impress me or whatever. Honestly, who cares, just be real. I am rather wearied of the notion of having to impress another person- it's all rather pointless, wouldn't you say?

Isn't it a bizarre dichotomy, that in this culture, we have a hard time doing something that isn't selfish, but yet, we are always doing things for other people, to gain their approval or affirmation. Working for the approval of others is a tiring game, and completely futile in the end. How much of who we are and who we are becoming is based upon what others think versus who we truly are?

I guess I'm not being very eloquent in trying to express my thoughts right now. I have been mulling over many of these ideas for the past few weeks, most of the summer, actually. This summer has been a deconstruction of sorts for me, taking apart so many things that I used to think and believe, and looking at it critically and trying to understand it.

But, perhaps it's not so logical and methodical as I try to make it seem. Maybe it's a lot of me rejecting my old ways, and a lot of me searching and wondering if there is such thing as transcendence. I often wonder how much of me is a product of my culture, and how much of me is who I truly am and who I am supposed to become.

Why do I always blog on here really late at night? This is the time when my thoughts and words are the least coherent. But, the reason that my thoughts are so jumbled is a result of an email from a friend, which set me to thinking about our American culture. Here, it will express me better than I can express myself right now:

What did you mean by: "our society teaches us to shift focus from the things that really matter."?

Because of capitalization, the distillation of emotional content in media, and the bureaucracy of our government, people are taught, from a very young age, to be consumers. They are taught this through endless examples, from what you eat to what you wear to what you do forentertainment, to what you think will make you attractive/worthwhile,and the list goes on and on. Children are bombarded with media images that show them what "things" will make them happy (from cerealcommercials to toys to the type of music they listen to) and how theycan be successful in the world (through popularity, wearing the 'right'clothes, listening to the 'right' music, etc, basically fitting in) This has many far-reaching effects on individuals from self-esteem issues based on classicism, all sorts of addictions, and finally the shifting of focus from anything that really matters:

We are not taught how to love, we are taught that if we buy/sell/produce ___ we will then and only then be worthy of love. We are not taught how to express our feelings, we are taught how to buy/sell/produce that will alleviate or distract us from feelings. Weare not taught how to think for ourselves, we are taught how to buy/sell/produce that which will allow others to accept us so we don't have to think for ourselves.

Images of violence desensitize children from the far-reaching implications of tragedy and death. Images of so-called normalcy desensitize, distract and filter out the hard realities in the world from children so that they never gain a concept of the extremeconditions which others live in. Even as adults our information is filtered through media conglomerates that dictate what is newsworthy and whose version of the news "story" should be heard and presented as"truth or fact". Together media and consumerism work together fighting hard to shift focus from what really matters to "things" for some kind of instant--but temporary--gratification.

When we die, we don't take anything with us. If anything, we take truly unsayable things. The long experience of love, the pain of loss, the feelings and impressions made by the people who loved us, or who we loved, the memory of the mistakes we made, our hopes and dreams and deepest desires. The feelings we cultivated as children that never went away.

Many people, I think, will reach the point of their death, and realizethat everything they ever did, they did for money. (In some way or another). Many will also realize they never made a real decision: onethat was not a reaction to anything but their true self, one that was not a result of some rebellion, or in some sublimal way a reaction tothe desire to please their parents, etc. That to me is the tragedy of society.

Anywho. That's what I meant.

There ya go. That's the eloquence I wish I had tonight.