my Reel*Life - What's your story?

I wish the answer was simple. But so much is tied up in the construct of success that any answer is partial.

Simply put, alienation is one of the foundational fears for human beings.
Always has been. In many times and many cultures being "cut off" from
one's people was a fate worse than death.

There are many reasons why people don't succeed, lack of talent, lack of drive, unfortunate circumstances. But these are not causes, but symptoms of a deeper and more insidious cause.

Let me tell you a dirty little secret. We defeat ourselves endlessly because we secretly don't want to succeed. We sabotage our efforts, mitigate our abilities, all to avoid the dreaded weight of success.

That's the secret of our failure. It's not really failure, it's exactly what we want. We want to avoid success.

"Really?" I hear you ask.

This quarter marks the close of my first year in grad school. All I need to do is survive finals week... I will try to stay in touch and post a little over the next few days, but contact may be few and far between. See you on the other side.

A good friend of mine is turning 29 today. And as I'm approaching the abyss that is 30 myself, I can't help but wonder if our culture has forgotten to prepare us for milestones. There are milestones, but they involve rights not rites. At 16 you get your license. At 17 you can rent rated-R movies and M for mature video games. At 18 you can buy cigarettes, gamble, and enter some strip clubs, be drafted. At 21 you can buy alcohol. Age = rights in American not rites; this feels backwards to me.

These are the films that we love to have and hate to love. They are our gulity pleasures that we know deserve a hearty two thumbs down but we watch them over and over again any way. Here's my list. What's yours?

5. Terminator

4. A Christmas Story

3. Swiss Family Robinson

2. Star Wars Episode 4

1. The Fifth Element

Overstimulated by branding, ubiquitous corporate logos, and uber punny slogans? Me too. Some days anyway. Tonight I stumbled on the delocater. Give it a shot if you'd like to get to know your locals a little more. I typed in my zip code and found my favorite local alternatives, and a couple I hadn't found.

I'm not sure that any of us know what the American Dream is any more. Forty acres and a mule? Manifest destiny? The right to shop at Wal Mart and watch cable television? The dream I hear of most often is to work doing something you don't hate, have enough money to afford your own breed of comforts, and enough money in your IRA, and in low risk stocks so you can travel when you retire. But it appears that for some folks this middle class utopia is slipping away.

Had a long conversation about art last night with my wife, window, popup and our friend who for the moment I'll call ekriega. We had a difficult time settling on a topic, ranging from "can we make value judgments on art?" to
"does art only mean something in context, or does it touch on something larger than what it springs from." Finally we got on the topic of whether it means something to talk about transcendency and how art affects that conversation.