Let’s talk about living life.  And how we do this using tools from our past.  We can’t help it—it is how we are built.  It does something for us as humans that is really impactful:  it sets a precedence.  We then end up living and dying by our precedence.  An example would be matters close to our heart:  love.  Let’s say we have been disappointed by love.  Let’s say we have felt the spark, and the light, and the energy.  And this gets our hopes up.  We build futures based on these dreams.  We IMAGINE what life would be life using the foundation provided by these dreams.  And then it falls.  Crumbles.  So what happens is a couple of things, sometimes deep in our chest, subconscious and secretly:  1.  We question ourselves and our decisions 2.  We set up ourselves for the future to not be disappointed.

I think one of the worst things we can do as people is play small.  This is what happens when we shy away from what is great.  The (excuse me but FUCKING) issue is that past precedence has taught us to not be disappointed.  So even though we are made for great things, and even though every day is a new day with new hope and new potential (read: new humans in our space that can be something different than what we’ve known before) we carve out a space that is just big enough to suffocate and not be disappointed.  Ironically the tragedy of life lives in this space.  We are operating based on what we “know”.  In this state we end up (even if we don’t mean it) playing small.

Every human suffers.  It is called being human and living life on Earth (um, the Greatest School Ever as some have said?).  Each person has their own shadow issues and their own pain to deal with some on varying levels (the drama of life plays out here).  But the illusion of life makes it appear that others don’t have this suffering (newsflash: they do.  I don’t care how ‘successful’ they are or how God Damn good looking and rich they may seem).  The illusion of life teaches us that others are happier and smarter and more successful and we are not there with them on their level and we are thus separated and less so than they are and blah blah blah bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.  So we think, even on some level, that the answers are somewhere outside of ourselves and we resent those that seemingly have everything together even though nobody has this—ha HA!  Here is the Mask of Life.  Written out, officially, on my blog. 

Let’s look at nostalgia as an aspect of life.  Some people have this more than others.  But social media and the rapid integration of images and “sharing” means that nostalgia is ever more ready available than it ever has been because thanks to all this sharing nostalgia has become in itself its own entity and so much bigger than (ironically) the times themselves.  Example:  the 1980s.  A bunch of fuckers just trying to survive.  The depression of the 70s was done, technology was a fad (what child besides me had a Teddy Rupskin?) and yuppies were growing in the renewal of the economy.  But now we have 80s parties, and we dress in neon with crimped hair, and we play the music of Rick Astley and Belinda Carlisle and the entire thing has taken on a life force of its own so much more complicated and quaint than what it really was when you were living it.  Because we just didn’t “know” back then.  We just weren’t informed in the information age like now when everything moves so fast and neatly and in its little boxes of ‘category’.  Just like assuming that everybody else is more informed and ‘happier’ and more ‘with it’ than you are we look back on eras like the 1980s with adoration and admiration even though those people were no different than you or I today, just trying to move through and make sense of things, and ironically probably probably playing small like we do today based on past pain, and probably playing small like we still do today because we are shell shocked and disappointed.  The comfort of the modern times now means we can hide more easily.  I am doing this too even though I carry great amibition (shhhh—don’t tell anybody).

So to summarize:  we have 2 things:  the PAST, which is very quaint and very easy to replicate at a party and in photos and ‘memories’ in a reaching for something we just can’t quite grasp but that we respect in and of itself for what it gave in its time and the PRESENT which is very glamorous and exciting and also (fucking ‘a’) boring and likely uncertain but yet (we think) certain for those who are ‘winning’ vs those of us not ‘winning’ (please remember: this is an illusion) and in the weaving of this is funnily enough just barely enough experience that provides shittily enough for us to play small and not be disappointed in the new things that come along that in reality could be bigger than life itself (the potential doesn’t end) but that past precedence has caused us to believe is maybe not quite so…so we fill our lives….with handy things that convenience us…maybe more food or other people who are readily available and we don’t really see it for what it is because we are playing small…and the real things get wasted….and we never know….in the smaller existence we have carved out for ourselves inadvertently based on what we think we ‘know’.  God Damn It.  Are you picking up what I’m putting down?  Different costumes and masks but essentially the same thing.  Even when we try and make it seem something else.  Guess what I have tonight?  An 80s party.  I am going to dress the part.  And I will (probably) get drunk and laugh and act the part of myself now AND the 80s human I am replicating in my attire and fun will happen and every word of this blog will be swept away in the light-hearted interaction of such but secretly, just secretly (for those of you that don’t get drunk or don’t take life in such a jovial, quaint, retro fashion) you will know what I mention which is that no matter how you frame it, it will never be different though we will always think it is…