Driving the half-abandoned and therefore eternal stripmall streets of Orlando, I still believe that if the fountain of youth exists, a 20-something idiot will stumble upon it here. Ponce de Leon’s only mistake was that he came to early; he could not possibly recognize the fountain’s source before he saw a Wal-Mart open 24 hours a day, filling acres of empty air with the godless fluorescent white. That’s not to say a Steak-n-Shake is the fountain of youth, but that it would be impossible to locate such a spring in the dark, mortal swamps that covered Florida before the chains. Every time a shop closes in one of these disposable strips of concrete, we admit that the infinite is here and did a much better job with the space prior to our occupation.

I have the feeling that, if only I could stay awake, one of these nights of driving, browsing, and grazing will end up never ending. We now have an unlimited amount of destinations we can find at any time, day or night, where other people are waiting for us. I can drive from one encounter to another, balancing anonymity and friendliness in just the right amounts to keep the illusion up. God can’t keep managing to slip things like death and the sun into the ranks of the constantly retailing and retailed armies. One of these times he’ll be overwhelmed, and all seventy of us or so in Wal-Mart on a Tuesday the week after Christmas will find ourselves separated from divinity, left to our humanity forever.

This song, a sleepy Smashing Pumpkins cover, doesn’t tell my story, but the story of my opposites. Watching a large, half-interested band of 20-somethings play it tells us more about the importance of death than any lecture from God or his emissaries could. We keep this art alive because otherwise truth would become so muddled and manipulated as to be useless. Don’t be afraid to go straight to the source. Take a favorite album, take a new book, take the bible, and go someplace quiet, as far away from a Wal-Mart as you can go. You might even need to get away from those sources, thinned by your thinking. In the case of the bible, you may want to just shut your eyes and dream. In the case of your favorite album, listen to a cover song instead.

The only emotion I can say I feel on a regular basis is panic, and the relief from panic. There is too much going on in my life, my head, and in my heart. No other feelings have the ability to catch up. I want to take days off from work not to relax but so I can get everything else done so I have time to relax afterwards. To closely approximate this feeling, spend an hour on the internet without any discernible purpose.

Too much analysis starts at this input-driven ADD. But I think the madness stems from what these glowing distractions supposedly are distracting us from. Our society values nothing but achievement and believes we should sacrifice everything for the longest resume. Even people who take on an alternative lifestyle are only admired for the alternative entryway that it will give them to success and fortune. Whether you are an investment banker or an organic radish farmer you are valued only by the ability of your ideas to generate money as an investment. Kudos to those who give away their art and their work for free, they are heroes, however briefly they survive.

American Optimism is the new name for my overall world view. It represents a hope for peace and knowledge that does not ignore the selfish needs each of us is undeniably born with. Often, those who believe the world can be totally rid of hunger, war, and repression are labeled dreamers. However, the idea that a home, be it a house or a country, can be perfectly insulated and protected from the “real” world seems to me to be just as delusional. World Peace and The War on Terror occupy the same null space of hopeless hopes. In the argument over gun rights, typically one believes that either banning guns or making them readily available will result in far safer world, with little credit given to the argument that neither creates an ideal safety. The same for nation-building; those who say the government has no place in our lives in America think that it will somehow be able to successfully re-engineer a country like Iraq.

Positive change only comes from a personal politics of kindness, curiosity, and charity. Even those most dangerous to our society can be neutralized if we listen to and help them in a timely way. Helping people is not only a way to make a difference, it is the only way to change the world. Without an evolution of the individual, all else is a hopeless fantasy.

It only took me five extra days to find the best video of 2010:

There are people in the world who don’t have electricity, running water, or access to basic health care. You are watching a video of cats playing in a band, most likely on your work computer. Perspective is good.

If you believe destiny brings people together, you have to admit that it can also keep them apart. You could be about to bump into your future wife on the street, spilling her coffee and giving her your number to pay for the dry-cleaning, when an extremely ornery emu that escaped from a private zoo runs into her instead, severely injuring her knee and leaving her scared of anyone about five feet tall with a skinny knee. So maybe in a long distance relationship, one weekend canceled because of an errant blizzard grounding a plane is the weekend that would have sealed the deal. Instead, doubts grow. And I don’t even think this song is about love, it’s about friendship. It’s about how lucky and unlucky we are to know the various people we know, and how if we lose a friend, we lose something irreplaceable.

So, I’ll risk embarrassment and failure to get back a friend. Or I will play them a concert in the back stairs.

Wikipedia page of the day: Nothing

This blog is named after the chorus from the Talking Heads song above. In the song, David Byrne is frustrated by his inability to change a mind. It’s unclear whether the mind in question is severely warped, or completely typical of society at large. In the same way, it’s unclear whether this blog is aimed at changing my own mind, or yours. Perhaps it’s a battle and we’ll see who wins. If nothing changes, I think that may be the worst sign. Good music, good writing, good art, by definition it must change us. It may be the only way we do change.

Wikipedia page of the day: Frost