My art.

There is Nothing Better Than Falling in Love With a Book in the First Chapter.

Currently Reading Confessions of a Pagan Nun: A Novel By Kate Horsley see related

Summer's Out For School

Currently Listening Made of Bricks By Kate Nash see related

Just close your eyes, it'll all be over in a nano-second.

The idea on the table is this:
To have a revolution, the public must be aware of their oppression and of their oppressors. The people have to realize a certain disdain in the society to see change as necessary. For a society such as this one; one of great wealth in very small sectors leaving a vast majority miseducated, mislead and unaware of any reason for hope, we find ourselves in a very strange predicament. Where do we go from here when everything the general public hears, reads and views is a distraction? What do we do about everything being more and more convenient but we are more and more in indebted to these conveniences? If we don't have money at the moment to buy that great pair of shoes we just charge them. These technologies and conveniences of the information age require for many circumstances to own a credit card or debit cards of sorts. There are only a few brands in which you can go by, so we empower those who make things easier for us. Easier, easy, convenient, fast-- but are these truly good things?
There is a debate about kids and learning how to spend money. This question at hand is with the beloved American game of Monopoly. Remember fighting over who could be the banker? You felt so special and important when you were the banker because you got to give people their money and show off your mathematical skills-- I was always a horrible banker. But now we see a turn in the generational divide, that being that the banker is now obsolete if you buy one of these new fangled game boards equipped with computer technology and a slew of credit cards that the kids use to buy their properties. For a game that used to be revered and loved by parents and teachers as a fun way to learn money and budgeting, the newer generation is given a plastic card and denied any real and deeply embedded idea of what money actually is. It's a bunch of ones that make a certain amount. It's not a plastic card that takes away the burden of learning the skills of how much you've actually worked for. What does this mean for the future of this country and of this world? That convenience is just more fun? That if we have these credit cards that maybe someone will actually sit down with the game of Monopoly with their cousins and sisters and Grandparents and actually finish a game? I personally have never actually finished one. We usually got sick of people stealing our properties mercilessly and nickel and dime-ing us every time we by chance stopped on a certain part of the street. Sorry I had to tie my shoe. But in a way that was the beauty of it all-- you added some numbers, yelled at your sister, made your Grandma go bankrupt because she owed you rent and then you just called it a night because it was 2 in the morning and you spent all day swimming and were absolutely exhausted. At the end of the day, most people don't like cheating others out of money for no good reason. Perhaps I don't like Monopoly at all, especially now.

Radio, TV, iPods, Cell Phones, Internet, Google, YouTube, Video Games, Beauty Magazines.
When I refer to these things as distractions and illusions and entertainments for entertainment's sake, know that I am not anti these things. The point of the matter is, is that when someone thinks about this country, this generation, and the most important influences upon it, these things come to mind. These are the conveniences right at your finger tips. You don't need money to access them, you don't need an education, and you most certainly do not need effort in which to use, worship, and obsess over these things.
The point of all of this is that how can a society so over saturated with entertainment and distractions see what's really going on and view their situation as a problem?
If I (when I say I, I mean we, when I say we, I mean the general public, I'm not pointing fingers or saying it's everybody... Let's say majority) am riding in the car I turn on the radio and slam on my breaks to keep from hitting the 80 year old man I almost hit because I was scanning the stations for music that "fits me", then I just get pissed because none do--I'm just too above this. Then I get home and I have dinner with my family with the TV on. Then when they piss me off, I slam my door and listen to my iPod recently stuffed to the brim with pop hits and rap songs of which I have no real connection to, only that everyone else listens to the same thing and I might as well have them in there in case someone takes a peek at my newest playlist. They have to like what i listen to, right? Later when I'm researching things for my latest homework assignment I hop online and Google the subject and get some vague ideas and general statements of which I can paraphrase into an A paper. I get bored so I start YouTube-ing "Kitty Videos" which takes about 3 hours of zombie stares to "accomplish". I get tired so I finally hop into bed when I receive zero texts or phone calls from that time period from my boyfriend who wastes his entire life away on video games and always forgets to call me. So I pick up the latest issue of Seventeen off of my floor and flip through the pages of images that make me hate everything about myself. So I skim through Cosmo and learn the "10 Ways to Please Your Man" which might come in handy the next time my boyfriend bothers to tear himself away from the computer screen. I'm not holding my breath.
Catch my drift?
There's nothing wrong with this until years from now one realizes they've achieved nothing.
Was there any mention of one on one conversation of the most important political ideas or any time spent actually reading anything or any self meditation or quite time of any sort? No. Nothing. I'm not saying that I haven't been guilty of every single one of these crimes, and I'm sure you're not innocent either. The fact being that, it's not the point to be a hermit to these things but rather to be aware of the blatant over saturation of all of these things. We see and hear so many ideas, while being good and informative--vaguely--  when do we hear nothing but silence and are left with our own thoughts and outcomes of these situations? Do we have any time for that at the end of a rough day like that? There's no time. Everything's fast. If your pizza's not delivered in 30 minutes, you get it free. Desktop computers are out and laptops are in so you can bring it everywhere. Put your cell phones on vibrate that way you can stay plugged in during possibly the most important lecture of your collegiate education.
At a certain point, the elections come back around and you realize that the political situation is so confusing and a burden to your current lifestyle that you either forget being a part of it all together or get all the information you need from a chain email your coworker sent you during his 20 minute lunch break.
When information is so readily available how do you sort through all of the crap to actually read something which is poignant and spot on; something that puts everything into a new perspective and you finally understand your situation?
Where do we begin?
Well we start not by throwing all of these things away. I'm not telling you to throw everything in a communal pile for a good ole' "book-burnin' " style bon- fire. It's not that.
But first we must be aware of their effects and how we actually do worship these things.
One can't go on vacation and leave all of these things behind without feeling completely naked.
We don't know what silence is anymore.
We don't even know what our inner dialogue sounds like amidst all of the noise and distractions. It's a mass illusion. Before we can even start debate and rhetoric as to which steps to take to get us out of this whirlwind of great confusion we must simply be aware. Be aware and keep talking. Get mad. Get inquisitive. Never stop questioning. Never stop believing the power of one. One person tells 20 and so on.
Realize that those in power started out as only a few; but also realize that to get power means taking power away from someone else; unless the power is simply in the people as a whole-- as a great unit standing up to the small percentage of very wealthy people. Such amounts of wealth should not only be in the 2% of the American population.
Let us realize that we have the numbers.
It's okay if you're a small group fighting for the betterment of society. You will anger some, but you will also start up debates. Some people, perhaps, just aren't ready to learn. But that time's a coming so get out of the rut. Be a physical manifestation of ideas.

"They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers." -Jim Morrison

"Ideas are bulletproof." -V for Vendetta

"We say that the... genius is always ahead of his time. True, but only because he's so thoroughly of his time." -Henry Miller, Preface to The Subterraneans, by Jack Kerouac, 1959

I'm not anti-fun or anti technology. I'm just more so pro tactile learning and awesome conversations rather than small talk bull shit. I would not be an art major if I didn't think that the ways of this generation is completely important. I would not be an art major I shunned technology either. But, to be fair, I also wouldn't be an art major if I wasn't severely pissed off about something; unless painting flowers and rainbows was all I was out to do. Everything is a technology, even if it can't be plugged into a wall. I love art and talking about ideas of religion and philosophy and politics. By no means am I an expert but if I keep talking and keep questioning and keep pissing my friends off, then at least I can say I've fully heard every side of every debate and they've heard mine. Talking it out is the only way to find out how you truly feel about the things you think in your head.
I love silence and just happen to believe that silence in this country and especially this generation is unheard of and just maybe obsolete. I am a cynic. I'm very fed up with the way things are, so I completely understand why people tend to steer away from long drawn out conversations with me involved. Especially my close friends. But the longer and longer I speak with more and more people, I see that people are desperate for intelligent, well thought out conversation. I think most people hate small talk as much as I do. I also see a change in the fear of speaking of religion and politics earlier thought of as the two things you never talk about. A great deal of people crave this kind of conversation. How can you truly know someone if you don't know what they believe in to the deepest part them? I for one don't have a single close friend of whom with I've not had these conversations.
I am mad. A favorite professor of mine says she almost gave up on this generation as a vehicle for change until a conversation had with me and some other class mates about the current political and ideology of this generation. It's of the most importance. It's everything that we do and have so we must not hide from it.
The mind set has to be there, and that's the first step we must take. All of us.

 If I've failed to prove my point or my stance on how I feel in general, feel free to view the video at the top of the screen because I can't say it any better than that. Quoting that just wouldn't do it justice. Some things must be seen and heard; as contradictory as that sounds.

Currently Reading Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market By Eric Schlosser see related

Let's hear it for truth.

It's time for the good 'ole strawberry to get a pat on the back for the most truthful fruit out there.
Mom bought a package of strawberries yesterday, they were perfect. All of them.
I had one, and it was amazing.
Wake up this morning, go over to the strawberries and they were ravaged with MOLD!!!
Oh noooo!
There were about 4 that were salvageable.
So I cut them into slices and ate them and at that moment I realized the truth of strawberries.
They live totally unprotected.
There is no exterior layer to protect them from the elements.
When sliced, they are like sunbursts with rays of light beaming into the core of their being which is pale and you can see where it all originates.
Strawberries are only good when they're ready to be good.
Sugar only  masks what is not yet ready for perfection.
You can not rush a strawberry.
It will turn on you in an instant.
All of that beauty will be taken back because of it's defenslessness against that hellish mold.
The strawberry is now my favorite and most respected fruit.

You cannot rush perfection.
And they are only perfect for a moment.
You cannot rush love.
Strawberries are very tempermental.
So are people.

I'm so hurt that the mold could take over at any moment.
Soon after I would be thrown out like rubbish.
I feel abandoned and unconsidered.
How foolish of me to think that someone could actually find happiness with me.
However they search elsewhere and I'm left hanging high and dry.
With no closure in sight.

What a farse.
Want to be happy?
Truly happy?
Here's how:

1. End contact with anyone in your life up until this point.
2. Sell everything, including mercy.
3. Buy a one way ticket to New Zealand, the promised land.
4. Never look back.

There's a catch right?
Sure.
The resonating guilt you will feel for leaving everyone clueless as to your whereabouts and whether or not they will ever get to see or speak to you again.
The relentless guilt you will feel for missing out on this life. The happiness, the new life, the love, the long talks, the meaningfulness. The growing old with people you've always known. The weekend parties, the mornings after. The life you could have built with the person you loved most and everything that comes along with that responsibility.
The pain, the sorrow, the ecstasy, the joy, the calm, oh, the love. Whoa the love. The unconditional love.
What a flawless plan.
Leave one set of people and one country in which you are not happy with to go to another one only to find that people are the same no matter where you end up.
Except your new set of friends (if you can even call anyone you speak to anymore friends for fear of rejection) have no clue who you are or any of your past experiences in which some people know everything. These said people have always loved you and wanted you.
Leave your family, friends, and lover.
Leave your life.
When you do all of this, call me and let me know if it was worth it.
I promise I won't say I told you so when it doesn't end up being so.

"The older you get, the more you need the people you knew when were young."
-Baz Luhrmann.

I will love you, forever.