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AFTER THE PARTY
If you want to be an individual, be exhausted. Being absolutely worn out can really render you completely immune to the opinions and judgements of other people. It can be very useful. Maybe it's because when you're tired your brain is working less hard to determine whether or not your current actions are conforming to what the group you are in expects you to do. Perhaps that's the draw of alcohal and other mind-reducing drugs. By handicapping your brain processes you shed your social calculations. I suppose that is what they mean when they say alcohal makes you lose your "inhibitions".
I am completely and utterly tired of being expected to have an actual future, and me and Francis and Jack and some other of our friends ARE going to be traveling bums after we graduate because that is what living is for. I refuse to acknowledge the importance or (even more so) "necessity" of college and higher education. As far as I am concerned destitution is preferrable to selling your soul so you can jump through hoops and subsequently end up as a paper-pushing greedy SOB who's entire life has become about self-advancement. All true philosophers lived in nearly abject poverty, so if I want to be a legitimate one, that is obviously the course I need to take.
To be a travelling bum is to be one of the last prophet's. Muhammed had his go, and now our era has to come up with a prophet because we have been lacking one for quite a long time. As long as we are travelling bums we might as well be travelling bum-prophets, exposing materialistic lifestyles for the utter trash and tripe that they are by our very nature. Spitting in the face of consumerism and a society of objectification and of distancing the suffering from the product produced from it. And furthermore, we shall right wrongs and steal from the rich to give to ourselves (the poor, obviously). We will do this by comitting such righteous acts as siphoning gas from Hummers to fill our own gas tank so suck it you gas-guzzling hogwallopers.
But in all seriousness, by distancing ourselves from the common misconceptions of "happiness" and "success" we will inevitably come across things that are far more worthwhile in life. The simple joys that people overlook. There are many things that we take for granted that are honest and simple pleasures in life. Like Freud said, we are anal-retentive, and can't enjoy taking shits anymore. Likewise, many people overlook the satisfaction of a well earned (stolen from snobs/dumpsterdived) meal, or just travelling and meeting people. Not for the sake of networking or making contacts to get you a better position at work or so you can kiss up to them so you'll promote you, but just getting to know people.
My dad knows a LOT of really interesting and funny people and it's because he traveled a lot when he was young when he was a musician and met some really cool people along the way, and THAT is what is really nifty in life is when you have a really wide variety of interesting friends, so that when you get older instead of having a nervous breakdown because all your friends were made for self interested purposes, and no one actually likes you for who you are, you have a bunch of cool friends all over the country and some great stories to tell.
I recently decided that old age and being middle-aged will not be so bad for this reason. Remembering good times from your younger years doesn't seem so bad. Sit around with old friends and tell stories and have a good laugh about it all once it's done. Life is about many parts of an action. There's the anticipation (or build up) which is good, because it's the unknown. It's the road of endless possibilities stretched out before you like an ocean. Then there's the actual acting out of the action, and that's good because it's the fruition of your possibilities and it's the enjoyment you have of the moment and whatnot. The third part is the remembering. Most people do this incorrectly and only make themselves depressed, but when done with the right attitude, the remembering can be as enjoyable as the ancticipation OR the action.
In this way, you can enjoy things a number of times throughout your life, and as you grow older you gain new perspectives on what has passed, making it an ever changing story as the lens you view it through becomes more precise and more useful in gleaning the gold nuggets of life from even the simplest events, and being able to recall the youthful passionate kind of attraction that we suffer from without yearning for that kind of attraction once again. And also remembering the older, more mature kind of attraction that had more to do with just learning to live with someone else, and putting up with their quirks and pecadillo's, and being able to remember the good times you had in that kind of relationship without focusing in and being bitter about some of the hard moments and monotonous stretches where it seemed like no end was in sight.
With the proper perspective all true pleasures can be recalled without yearning for them to happen again and again until they lose their potency, but rather with a fondness that doesnt leave you hungry for more and more until you start filling your belly with things that are not joy, simply so that it can be filled. This is why we must become travelling bums. Peace out.
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