So this is my first venture into the world of blogging. At one point, I was set completely against the idea, but then I thought, hey, why not, I have a big mouth, why not share it with the Internet.
But why is it called a "blog?" Why not a "rant?" Or "prose?"
Who decides these things? Where are these people from?
And what exactly am I going to talk about on here? I feel a little like a person shouting into a canyon- the place is so big, who is out there that will hear me?
It also feels a little like talking to myself. The only person who is guaranteed to read any of this is me.
I recently moved to college. I spent most of my conscious life yearning to go to college and live on my own, and now that I'm here, I'm a little disappointed. The people here are mostly morons. I have met a few cool people, but I've also run into far too many simple-minded sheep.
I mean, what is this obsession with partying all of the time? What is so alluring about being drunk and consuming cheap, poorly-made beer?
And all of these kids who like to try mushrooms, and LSD, and all kinds of other psychotropic drugs. I feel I can safely say I am crazy enough without drugs.
And Portland was a poor choice to try and get away from crazy people. They are everywhere.
They're on the transit lines. They're at the coffee shops. They're in the grocery stores.
I used to think I had mental problems. And then I moved to Portland.
An example:
The bus to take me home from a friend's house was late, and it was around midnight. Midnight in Portland on a Saturday is a strange time to be stranded by a late bus, by the way.
A gargantuan woman stood on the street corner two blocks from the bus stop, and when I walked past her, she began to yell.
"This is my damn corner, you ho!" she shouted. "Go find your own place!"
This tirade continued long after I had continued down the street.
As I stood waiting for the bus, a homeless man walked over and stood by me. He introduced himself and asked what my name was.
Meg is a fairly common name, and is in fact not even my legal name, and so I gave it to him.
He asked if I wanted him to wait with me until the bus arrived. I told him no thank you, as politely as possible.
He asked if I had a bike. I said I do, indeed, have a bike. He asked if he could go bike riding with me some time.
The bus showed up, thank the higher powers that may be, and I escaped.
Portland is an unusual place. Even if it does have a large populace of homeless people, most seem relatively benign. As a city, it has the attitude much more of a small town than a real metropolis, compared to other cities I have encountered over the years.
But I still cannot help but feel surrounded by insanity.
If insanity intrigues you, I suggest taking Anthropology. I have begun to realize humankind is progressing through time by becoming crazier and crazier. We do things that do not make logical sense, for whatever pretense we give- happiness, religious conviction, et cetera. Somehow, part of our population manages to make discoveries of all kinds. However, these kinds of things tend to disagree with previous information, and because of this, the majority or some large minority (ah, an oxymoron) refuses to accept it. Take, for example, the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun. This flies in the face of previous knowledge stating the Earth is the center of the universe. The majority imprisoned the man who discovered said information.
We are an oxymoron in general. Humans tend to be a highly adaptive species that resists change at all costs.
One more quick rant about the insanity of humankind, and then I'll sign off.
This recent stroke of craziness would be the whole "save the Earth" campaign.
Since when has Earth ever needed saving?
Let us put this in realistic terms. Earth itself is a large spinning ball of rock and metal, revolving around the sun. It has been here before our cellular ancestors rose from the primordial muck, and it will be here long after we've all managed to kill each other.
This "environmental" campaign is not some noble movement to save a planet that is indifferent towards every species. It's a campaign to save our own sad asses.
And do not get me wrong- I am all for making sure we can still survive for another few generations. Death by hole in the ozone layer sounds awful to me.
My problem with this is the fact that people work on their own egocentric missions in the name of some other thing. Another great example of this is the calendar.
Who says it is 2009? Who wrote this? Why is this true?
If we were truthfully accurate and timed time from the beginning of the planet, the number would be quite a bit bigger. But we won't do that, because we've decided the only years that count are the ones where we've been in on the action.
And back to saving the planet. What an unusual behavior we have developed, this need for ulterior motives to do something beneficial. Why is it so bad to say, "We want to cut emissions so we don't all choke on the smog and die?"
Humans are crazy. We do things that will make future generations scratch their heads. And we are all fine with it. We look back at the Holocaust, and Rome, and the Aztecs, and we think we've "learned from our mistakes."
And then we have no qualms with killing thousands of people in the Middle East because they aren't like us. We're fine with imposing our own governing rules on people who have thousands of years of culture and history built up behind them. We're fine with condemning people for killing, and punishing them by executing them.
So I say to you, reader of this rant, hello. My name is Meg. And I think everyone is crazy.
