Thursday, October 30, 2008

[Chapter 1] Life.

I’m fucked in the head.

There’s no denying it. I’m the case study a psychologist will dream about his entire career, only to read about in trade journals. There are even times when I question my own mental stability and actually concede to the notion that I very well might be schizophrenic. It’s a difficult pill to swallow when my ulterior state of mind is the one telling me that I might want to consider seeking professional care.

Allow me to put into context the progression of my self-degradation.

It starts with anger issues and the inability to cope with the most innocuous of offenses.

A simple “fuck you” directed toward a teenybopper as she veers three feet into your lane while chatting it up with her BFF Chrissy about how big of a slut LC is for sleeping with Brody during last night’s episode of The Hills, even though they are totally just friends.

The infirmity progresses when you realize the innate desire to quite literally cut each person you see on TV who disagrees with your moral fiber in the slightest degree. Perhaps it’s the latest Abercrombie and Fitch commercial which exposes each airbrushed abdominal muscle with the utmost of glistening glory. Or perchance it’s the desire to know what Victoria’s secret really is and how said secret is keeping her hips so narrow and her breasts so disproportionately large.

Through a culmination of intolerable malfeasances, your mind slowly begins seeing the world through a crimson veil. Bitterness and cynicism start to set in with a harsher reality than the moment you came to find that Santa Clause was merely a timeless illusion that slowly transformed into the greatest marketing scheme of all time.

Notions begin to perambulate through your subconscious that one of the religious sect might consider to be the work of the devil. You find it impossible to hold a normal conversation with your mentors, superiors, or even friends without the propensity to tear into them with each of your extremities just to see what degree of complacency each blow to their head holds.

I told you I was fucked.

.:.

Every child holds a certain magnificent sentiment for television and radio as they grow up. A charismatic aura that the production behind everything we see and hear is miraculously and superlatively created only for our own enjoyment. Even as adults, our idea of perfection behind-the-scenes of our favorite entertainment medium remains tenacious. Our beloved personalities are immortalized.

Perhaps my immersion into the field of radio and traditional media can be blamed for the contempt that consumes every fiber of my essence. Perhaps knowing that every word each egotistical, self-consumed radio jock and news anchor mutters is contributing to the self-righteous politically-driven advertising machine.

While every jock claims to be altruistic, between each commercial break and behind every back, crude humor, promiscuity, and an avaricious desire for money consumes their innermost selves. Less thought is given to the wellbeing of their listener base than is to which pair of socks they wear each morning.

These role models we live vicariously through greet you with open arms and will feed you every indication that they are interested in hearing about the time you were listening to their show while getting ready for work and fell in the shower because you were laughing just oh so hard. The moment you walk away, hang up the phone, or simply let your guard down, every detail about your encounter is being critiqued and ridiculed.

“Did you see how big her ass was?”

“I never thought he would fucking shut up!”

“I would love to bend that over.”

Our perception of those who we idolize is plagued with falsifiable hopes that lead us to believe there is an ounce of pure-hearted entertainment left in this world. We are sadly mistaken.

The question is not whether my accusations are equitable or whether they are unjust, as I have experienced first-hand the tasteless behavior of even the most notable of media personalities; the question is would we, would I, be happier if that glint of innocence still twinkled in my eye as if I were a child once more? Would every preceding word, every preceding post, and every life chapter to come be nullified by the ignorance due in part to the masked personas of our media showmen?

Maybe I’m the only remaining sane member of this species, or maybe I’m just the one who is perfectly insane.

The ice I tread is growing thinner as the proclivity toward madness continues to grow.

This is my life.

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Trey -AKA- The Mad Wordsmith

Sunday, October 26, 2008

[FOOTNOTE] In Response to: bordarx454

On October 23, 2008 at 5:04 PM, OpenID user bordarx454 was quoted in response to my blog post ‘Hate Me. Or, Well, At Least Don’t Like Me’ stating:
“First off, my apology's if this is not grammatically correct, Your so called kind witted words are kind of ignorant, You are starting to see outside the box, but not to its entirety. The intellect thing to do is not think,nor care about the ignorance of others. I am another Extremely intellect person not in college, working, paying all my own stuff.... Living " LIFE" independently. Ignorance is everywhere. It's a part of life. You have to get over it. . . Wait until you experience a harsh moment of enlightenment... ( if your ever lucky enough to) You will then see things in an even broader spectrum, far more depressing I assure you. P.s I feel bad for you . . . .”
Oh where shall I start?

To my friend bordarx454, I would like to thank you for the words of endearment; I really would. Reading your comment was, well, it was really really exciting! It was precisely the anecdote that I needed to put my first post, ‘Hate Me. Or, Well, At Least Don’t Like Me’, into perfect context. So for that, I thank you intently.

Let’s go ahead and get the trivial issue at hand out of the way and go from there. Shall we?

Clearly, as you so made apparent, I can (and will) write circles around you all day long. That doesn’t bode well for you argument of intelligence. Ironically, your inability to choose the correct words plays perfectly into my assertion from atop of this oddly tall pedestal. Intellect, as it be, is the capacity for one’s acquisition of knowledge; whereas you so exemplified, intellect is not your most suitable distinction.

But allow me to be fair. Be it a gift or merely a talent I’ve grown into over the years, the ability to read and empathize with others has become one of my choice assets.

In all honesty, the perspective that I am given solely from your retribution is the sense that you’ve suffered from others’ wrongdoings in the past.

You claim ignorance on my behalf and yet you fail to realize that as an aspiring author I am inclined to exaggerate my words and provide the most interesting read for my audience. Now, one who may consider him or herself a native to the English language may have been able to interpret the subtitle to my blog, which can be found just under the undeniably large ‘OBJECTIVITY IS DEAD.’ at the top of this page. Please take a moment and review said text.

Allow me the opportunity of making a few reasonably fair assumptions. I’d like to believe that your lack of English literacy is due to the fact that English is not your native language.

To be very clear and to set the precedent for future postings, as a human being I am a very open-minded individual. I am not a prejudiced person, nor am I a racist. However, my point of view coincides with the US judicial system. You are innocent, until you are proven guilty. If you provoke me, I will retaliate. It is simply my nature.

I’d imagine that you are in your mid to late twenties, having come to America within the past decade or so; perhaps to study or even solely to pursue the American dream.

I’ll gladly be the first to admit, even as we approach the year 2009, it is not an easy task for any member of the minority class to find fair treatment, let alone respect, in the workplace, school, or in society as a whole. Equal rights may be written onto the parchment of our laws and bylaws, but they are most certainly not written onto the stone that this nation was founded. I’d be in great disbelief if you were to claim being fully liberated from these hardships.

It seems as if you are making the accusation that I live and die on the shoulders of the cruelty and reproaches of my peers. This is simply not the case. If I were to bluntly state that the text within my prior posting could be taken at face value, one would easily deduce that my surroundings are the cause for my bitterness and boredom. Having awoken to a new mindset, I was exonerated of the tyranny presented forth by society’s unwillingness to forgive each minute imperfection and realized that it is possible to live above the unbefitting standards which society has so begrudgingly bestowed upon us.

Does this mean that since having been given this divine revelation I have been relieved of the weight of unhappiness and sorrow?

Absolutely not.

You feel bad for me? Well that’s awfully nice of you! But guess what. I feel bad for myself. After all, isn’t that the mentality of a ‘self-loathing narcissist’?

Now before you go on living your life, such as we all will, let me leave you with a small task. Just a quick, little ‘eye opener’ to help you truly get acquainted with our culture.

I want you to go out into the world and ask 10, 15, or even 20 people, hell it doesn’t really matter how many; ask them if they are truly happy and satisfied with their lives, or if they’d rather have just that little bit more. Find out if being content with their lives as each day ventures from the future, into the present, and then vanishes into the past is the self-actualization that they are truly seeking.

Their answers might surprise you.

Contrary to what you may have learned in Mrs. Leebrick’s third grade English studies class, being content is not the ‘American dream’.

If one were to awaken each morning, gaze into the mirror, and not want to be any better than whom they see staring back, then their desire for self-fulfillment has faded.

Please don’t misunderstand me and assume the above means happiness is always one step in front of your next. Each of us has a happy medium that we confide in when our morale is low; whether it be our family, friends, or even our Pomeranian, Nickel. However, at some point in our lives that medium becomes insufficient and we begin to desire more. At that moment in time we do what our race, the human race, does best. We strive to make ourselves better.

Self-actualization is a point few reach in their lifetime, but as long as we continue to reach for perfection, there will always be a reason to want more.

Oh, and bordarx454. Don’t question whether or not I have ‘experienced a harsh moment of enlightenment’. You don’t have a fucking inkling of what my life is like. That made it personal.

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Trey -AKA- The Mad Wordsmith

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Hate Me. Or, Well, At Least Don’t Like Me.

Fuck.

I don’t advocate censorship. A lot of the time I don’t even advocate ethical behavior. But as so stated above, ethics in my opinion shares a neighboring grave with objectivity.

My name is Trey. I don’t like a lot of things. In fact I guess you could say I hate a lot of things. Original, oh but don’t I know it. I have a bitterly bleak outlook not of my own life, no no but of the lives around me. That pains me. I blame each of you for my high blood pressure at the ripe old age of 23.

Everything you do, every opinion you assert, and every unintelligent argument that you broach makes my head writhe. It’s like arthritis of the mind; it can’t be escaped. Don’t take it personally. I use ‘you’ loosely as the subject. Hell, I’m sure there are one or two of you out there reading my pilot into the blogging realm that will agree with everything that I have to say.

Don’t bother asking if I feel bad for you as well. I do.

So what the fuck is my problem? I get that a lot; honestly, I really do. I’ve been around; figuratively, not sexually of course. Ahem. Could it be the fact that I’m stuck in a town that supposedly promotes ‘higher education’? Just because you’re in college really doesn’t suggest intelligence is one of your most notable assets. Oh shit, harsh reality check, dude.

That’s most certainly one of my problems. I have an opinion, about everything really. I’m one of those fellas that thinks for himself. Scary isn’t it? I’m a self-loathing narcissist. Oxymoronic as it may seem, quite possible it is. Some may call it depression, some may even call it bi-polar disorder, I simply call it having a mind of my own.

Ultimately I’ll come to conclude that everything is the fault of traditional media, but for now let’s narrow the field a bit. You’ll hear enough about television, print, radio, and how I disdain all of the above in future episodes I promise you.

Before you go calling me a hypocrite, let me absolve the sins of my earlier days. Once upon a not so distant past I too used to enjoy going out to the bars on a weekly basis and getting as fucked up crunk shitty as the next meathead. God forbid me to entertain the idea that I could actually enjoy hearing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” sung by each incompetent, inebriated fratbag in the bar time and time again.

So what happened one may ask? What benevolent force dawned upon me this revelation that there is so much more to life than being a part of the social norm? Why deviate from those of which I call my friends to explore this sobered sense of self?

I got sick. I’ll spare you the details. How sick is a matter of irrelevance which was deeply skewed by my impaired state of mind. Maybe I’m among the minority, but when all you know in your day is laying helplessly in front of the TV watching every possible recording on your DVR your mind begins to wander. It wonders if you will ever see another healthy day or if your death will be quick and painless. It wonders if Death himself will linger above you for weeks on end as your body and mind breakdown into incoherent dust before sifting away in the proverbial wind. Finally, it wonders if giving up actually is the best option.

At this point a person of the socially acceptable mindset would begin to appreciate all he or she has to be thankful for in this life, and as the symptoms begin to fade away so does the bitterness of having befallen victim to this affliction.

I didn’t.

Quite the contrary in fact. I began to concentrate and focus upon each individual iniquity that this life has shoved in my undeserving face. From petty bar fights to one night stands gone horribly wrong. It’s all meaningless and yet each instance thrives inside of me, growing as I helplessly take the backseat to the demon within.

A lot of things make me mad. There are few anymore that make me happy.

I’m not going to be the next culprit in a campus shooting. The fact of the matter is I stand firm in my belief that NRA stands for the National Redneck Association. My words are simply my outlet to express my anger and disdain for the world around me. I’m mad, and some may call me a wordsmith. Put the two together and I have discovered an identity that I didn’t realize I was entirely capable of.

This is merely a prelude.

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Trey -AKA- The Mad Wordsmith