| Lately I've been
doing some heavy thinking. This isn't the type of thinking I enjoy doing, or anyone would
for that matter. It's deep thinking, it's rest of your life thinking. It's the type of
thinking that applies to everyone of us. These thoughts have gone through all of our heads
at some point in our lives, now it's just my turn. I often do this kind of thinking, but recently I watched the movie, The Caveman's Valentine, and it threw a gallon of gasoline on the fire in my head. In the movie, Samuel L. Jackson puts on one hell of a performance as a mentally deranged bum. The movie has some touching and insanely interesting moments, that are made possible by the performance of Jackson. This movie stuck in my head like many other movies have before it. Movies that made you thinking, movies that you talked about for months and even years. Movies like Fight Club, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Memento, A.I., American Psycho. Movies that we either so well written, so different, so thought provoking, or had those moments where the actor, WAS the character. These movies were engrained in my memory, some touched me, some baffled me, some even pissed me off. But there's no doubt, at least some of me changed after watching these movies. I know how ridiculous this sounds, but we are the generation of movies, music, tv, and videogames. These things shaped alot of what we are, no matter how much we want to deny it. They make you feel or think, when you're only a witness..when you have no part in the actual events. Like Jay Z said, "You're only a customer." Movies, Music, books, poetry, plays all these things affect millions of lives everyday. Fight Club only made $30 million in the box office, but I know it struck a nerve with people at and around our age. Actors and musicians make you think, bring tears to your eyes, or keep you up all night thinking. Will any of us ever have that chance? Will our "art" ever change anyone? We'll probably never act, we'll never stand behind a camera and shape our vision, never write the great American novel. How can WE touch someone? How can we make people lean back in their seats and think? This isn't about being famous or rich, don't we all want the chance to pour everything we have into something and have a few people listen/read/watch and feel it? We're the generation of meaningless lives. Who cares how much money we make? What difference does it make how big our offices are? What does it matter that we have weekends off? We'll never fight in a war, we'll never be president. We'll work...and then we'll die. Are we living our lives just waiting for the moment we can retire? How senseless is that. We work for 30 years, just for the one day that we can eventually stop. We wake up at 7 am and go without seeing our friends and family for a company that will forget us a year after we're gone. "You're not a pretty unique snowflake." "We're the singing dancing crap of the world." Quotes like these keep coming up in my head, and you know what...they couldn't be more true. If we keep on the endless cycle we're stuck in, we're going to look back on our lives with disappointment. We may have families, children, and wives who love us..but don't squirrels have the same thing? We're all after the 401 K nut, the lake house retirement nut, the motorhome nut. But does it have to be that way? I'm not saying we should all run out and quit our jobs, give up on life, or anything like that. What I'm saying is, we've got alot to say but we're sitting around silent. You argue and tell me, we don't have the opportunities, money, or time to put together a book, screenplay, or play...why isn't GYEAH.com or the internet in general a nice easy solution? Why can't we just pour out everything we have in a nice easy HTML format? Why does it have to stop at gyeah.com? Why can't we get together and do something that could change a few people's lives. Why can't we have jobs that we love, instead of ones we loathe. Why is it the only thing we have to show for our jobs is a paycheck? Why can't we point to a person and say "because of my job, that person smiled." I'd gladly put years of work into a project, if I knew it would let people have a glimpse into my head. No matter how well you flip burgers, or how many people you check out at your register...you'll never really touch anyone. No matter how perfect you are at taxes, you'll never change a stranger's life. So why don't we all get together, why don't we try and do something we never dreamed of. I know I'm just as guilty as everyone. I save my pennies to buy DVDs and videogames and get more and more complacent with life. I spend my free time dreaming, instead of trying to live out these dreams. I'm working towards a business degree that at the end of the day...I don't really want. I want to have a family, I want to have a good job...but more than any thing I want to do the things we all talk about. The things that get discussed when we've had a few beers, when we're sitting around talking shit about our jobs. Everyone, everything as big as it or they are now...started like us. Stanley Kubrick didn't start out making cinematic masterpieces, hell his early work could have been on an episode of Mystery Science Theater getting the hell mocked out of it. So why can't we start out with just a dream and see where it takes us. The jobs, the Xboxs, the leather couches...they'll still be there at the end of the day, but we'll enjoy them so much more if we're willing to risk failure. I don't know my real purpose of this article, I just wanted to get some things off my chest and head. I wanted to see if perhaps a word or two could spark something in us. I know my life has been changed by just a few words and thoughts. So I say we get off our asses, get together, and make something happen. The GYEAH Staff, the readers, our friends, our significant others, our families...why don't we get together and try and live out our dreams. If we fail, we know we can just go back to sleep and have a million more ideas. What do you think? I want to be a part of something that sends goosebumps down my arms. Don't you? |
-Now that you've read something, he's written. Wouldn't you like to find out more about The Goc? Here you go. |
