Typical Sunday randomness

My typical bit of Sunday rambling...

• I discussed it earlier, and I am now certain of it: I really am living my life in reverse. Well, at least the roughly 14 - 21 age period of my life. In many ways, the 13 year old version of me would be absolutely ashamed at some of my lifestyle habits today. Older and wiser - which does not necessarily translate into a more conservative, stiffer lifestyle. In my case, it has been just the opposite. I only wish that I had come to this realization a few years ago. The challenge going forward in my life is finding the perfect balance between long-term prudence and short-term enjoyment; between a requisite level of planning and rigidity and my new mentality, which demands a certain degree of flexibility and impulse-driven exploration.
  
• But I do wonder, am I biting the hand that fed me? Or at the very least, being a bit hypocritical in my approach to this. And I wonder about it on more than one level; I suppose it's a sort of natural cognitive dissonance. Here's the problem in a nutshell: I've enjoyed the level of success that I have because of the somewhat overbearing and excessive elements of my personality in my earlier years. To turn around now as a "reformed" 21 year old and attack some of the excesses of those years is to attack my own foundation, in a way. I also tend to feel a bit of cognitive dissonance when it comes to my career choices; I love what I do and think that I will make a great career out of it, but I do at times wonder if I'm missing the big picture. Those are long-term questions, of course, but ones that I never would have even contemplated as little as one year ago.
• Miami hit 88 degrees a few days ago, while we haven't even reached 40 here, with intermittent snow showers all day long. In fact, we will not hit 40 degrees until Saturday - with a chance of snow each and every day this week. You know, I have studied the Rust Belt diaspora in great detail, but I feel as if I only now truly understand it. This is simply not a pleasant part of the country in which to live. The dreariness, the decaying buildings and infrastructure, the freezing cold weather; collectively, all of it is a remarkable burden on the spirit. In Florida, I might awake at noon in January to 80 degree weather outside, a sunny day, and people socializing around the pool in shorts and flip flops. Here, I wake nearly every day to 30 degree weather, completely overcast skies, and snow. It is a remarkable burden on the spirit. And that's not even dealing with the general economic malaise that has constantly gripped the region since the 1960's. Interestingly, the locals rarely challenge the view that this is really a downright awful region in which to live; many of them, in conversation, express a desire to move elsewhere. Most of them already have family and/or friends living in Sun Belt states like Arizona or California.
  
• Speaking of the Northeast, transplanted New Yorkers are a remarkable breed. As a Floridian I know this well, but I keep getting reminders - it is astonishing that some of them, even 20 years after leaving the City, still exist in that sort of rigid, hyper-aggressive Bronx mentality and never can seem to adjust to how inferior the rest of us are. Not "rudeness" per se, but rather a total inability to recognize that life outside of the Bronx is, well, life outside of the Bronx. Shit is different. Some of them need to be told that they're not in a daily competition for survival. I personally hypothesize that it is because most of them have never spent any significant amount of time in the part of America beyond Hudson County, New Jersey - and certainly not in parts of the USA west of Pennsylvania or south of Maryland; or to put it a bit more bluntly, while New York City may been the quintessential manifestation of cosmopolitan urbanity, at times New Yorkers can act like egregious hicks. Think about it: a hick, at the root of it all, is a person who spends their entire life in one zone, never daring to venture into the unfamiliar. Having lived in four very different states and considering myself culturally flexible, I find that I have remarkably little patience for that condescending perspective. And you can almost always differentiate the New Yorkers that have traveled extensively and lived in several different environments from the hoodrats that sort of ooze out of some back alley in Kings County before moving to the other 99.999% of the country and never being able to adjust.
  
• I think I've suggested it here before, but had Florida passed Amendment 2, I was strongly considering a move to California. The state has a fabulous climate, world-renowned diversity, an incredible powerhouse of an economy, and (supposedly!) liberal politics. So I guess that I was one of many who was taken off guard by the narrow passage of Proposition 8. But the more fundamental question is: Why should I allow a group of bigots to run me out of a state?
• I don't have too many positive things to say about Pittsburgh as a city, but Pittsburghers are among the nicest and most down to earth group of people I've ever encountered. In everything from how they drive to how they interact with strangers, the contrasts between Pittsburghers and Floridians - particularly South Floridians - couldn't be stronger. The first week that I spend back in South Florida is going to be a bit of a culture shock.
• The Jonestown mass suicide occurred 30 years ago this week, and several of the major news networks have been running specials on those atrocious events. I'm certainly not one of those in-your-face militant atheists, but I do wonder how people are so damned ignorant that they cannot realize that events like this irrefutably demonstrate the remarkably corrosive, damaging effects of religion when it is used as a basis for "reforming" the secular structures on which contemporary Western democratic societies are based. The Founding Fathers did not randomly place separation of church and state in the First Amendment; it's the First Amendment for a REALLY damn good reason. Anybody who believes otherwise should simply read a text on European history and its perennial excesses of bloody religious strife. I also challenge them to name for me one theocracy in the history of the entire world that protected civil liberties and eschewed ideology-driven warfare. I suppose drinking the Kool-Aid is still a rational approach for some, alas.
  
• My grades this semester aren't going to be as high as I would like. However - reflecting my evolving personality and mentality - that doesn't really bother me at all. I'll still graduate with a Master's degree from one of the finest universities in the world. What does bother me is the fact that I haven't learned as much as I expected - something I plan on aggressively addressing throughout the rest of my grad school years by establishing a reading schedule that sits aside at least two hours per day for reading, whether on school work or otherwise. I was so busy during my first Mini that on some days I barely had time to glance over the newspaper.
• On bitterly cold nights like this, I think about the people struggling to pay their heating bills; the homeless sleeping under bridges in this very city; the people for whom this season is always a significant obstacle not in terms of comfort, but in terms of basic survival. It is a natural reflex of mine; some call that my "bleeding heart liberal" side showing through. I frankly don't give a damn what they call it. There is something wrong when, in the richest and most powerful country in the world, people who have been laid off from their jobs because of this faltering economy can find themselves - and their children - on the streets of Pittsburgh on a cold, snowy night like this, all so that some landlord, in the name of the sacrosanct profit motive, can find another more financially stable tenant. Something is fundamentally flawed in that system.
  
• The biggest threat that Barack Obama faces is contending with the impossibly high expectations of many people. I have no doubt that he will be one of our finest contemporary Presidents, but he is not some sort of Liberal Messiah who walks on water and makes trillion dollar deficits disappear in the blink of an eye.
• I'm praying (figuratively, of course) that the Republicans somehow nominate Sarah Palin in 2012. Can you imagine? Were that to happen, we would be ensured one of the greatest election nights ever.
  
• I've essentially made it through this semester, and through the year 2008 - which has presented shifts in my life of a magnitude that I never would have imagined a year ago. So I'll close this post with the lyrics of one of my favorite inspirational songs from one of my favorite artists, smooth jazz queen Sade, called Keep Looking. You can listen to it here if you'd like.

Some will tell you that you're wrong
You do it all the wrong way
Some will tell you that you're wrong
That you don't know the way

They enjoy cheapness
Don't show your weakness
Don't let them bother you
They enjoy cheapness
Don't show your weakness
Oh no

It's no use sitting down
Don't walk round with a frown
Oh no keep looking
It's no use sitting around
With your head in your hands
Oh no keep looking

Say let my life alone

Some will tell you that you're wrong
You do it all the wrong way
Some will tell you that you're wrong
That you don't know the way

They enjoy cheapness
Don't show your weakness
Don't let them bother you
They enjoy cheapness
Don't show your weakness
Oh no

It's no use sitting down
Don't walk round with a frown
Oh no keep looking
It's no use sitting around
With your head in your hands
Oh no keep looking

Keep looking
Keep looking

Don't lay awake at night
Thinking about your worries
Thinking about your problems
Don't lay awake at night
Thinking about your worries
Keep looking
Don't lay awake at night
Thinking about your problems
Thinking about your troubles
Don't lay awake at night
Thinking about your problems
Keep looking

Keep looking

If you never let it show
They're never gonna know
Keep looking

If you never let it show
They're never gonna know
Keep looking