Nothing new, as usual

I'm pretty cynical about the whole thing. By the whole thing I guess I mean everything, the new Arcade Fire album, the last thing I wrote, your myspace profile, my sniffling nose, the idea of Christianity and the idea of life and friendship and working and all that stuff. But being cynical hasn't really gotten me anywhere at all. It has earned me a lot of awkward moments between people, I mean, who really likes that moment where someone says something sucks and the other thinks otherwise. Cynicism seems to sap us from being excited and sometimes being excited, even about the worst things is a great privilege.

The more and more cynical I get (I usually like to think the cleverer and cleverer I get) the less good the whole thing seems. By the whole thing I guess I mean everything, going out late at night, rain, sunny days, being able to work, hearing organs, my ipod; it is all so passe really. I think my spirit needs to be redeemed, so I can love again perhaps or just so I can enjoy the nothing that always happens a whole lot more than the everything. I just want to be simple and remember people and how special they are and love those in my life and those who pass me in the street or sit next to me on the train.

Being cynical will make you cool but it won't make you happy, it is almost like a ball and chain dragging you down and away from wondering. As you fall the list of things you can enjoy just decreases and decreases until nothing really means anything anymore except the most visceral of acts like sex and war and having a really high flying job and a huge television and all that really physical stuff. Stuff that is like an exclamation mark to everybody else; showing off and saying 'I get lots of sex' or 'I killed hundreds' or 'Have a look at the picture on this baby'. I think really that we want to impress people because we are lonely and we want them to say they love us and then know that we are good and worthwhile and important. And we do what the world says in advertisements because we all think that is what it takes for people to say that we are special and important, all the ads say that if we own this car we will have a feeling of power or a feeling of exclusivity. But companies discriminate; they want money and the poor don't have it and the poor suffer as being lesser humans and they probably feel like they can't be special or beautiful or important (but I don't know really because I am not poor).

Imagine if you were very rich and had a lot of friends and knew a lot of important people and then just chose to quit your very important job and go and wash homeless people in some warehouse in a forgotten part of town. Imagine how much of a demotion that would be, people would imagine you were crazy. You would probably lose of lot of your important friends and you might not be able to keep your large house, flashy car and Bang & Olufsen sound system. But I think that would change you inside, you would be telling these homeless people, these people worth nothing in dollar terms that they are more important than the men you danced with in the thousand floor buildings and more important than all those business deals and handshakes and contracts and clients and Italian furniture and feta cheese. I think these people, if they realised what you did for them would look at you with tears in their eyes and probably just hug you or collapse. I don't really know what they would do because I have never done it. But you might start loving things again like hearing a certain cracked voice sing a song or feeling the sun on your face or coming home to a bed that you have by grace. When we don't deserve anything everything is a gift and imagine if we lived Christmas everyday, that would be exciting.

I don't think this is a change or anything different for me. I still think I am being cynical of all the usual things like capitalism and materialism and the whole rat race. I am praying for something to change though; I am praying for the day when I can sit on a train of suits and shirts and somehow show them a love that they have not known. Not a denouncing, ugly, cynical young man who is disillusioned but a bright eyed, enthusiastic old man still closing his eyes and smiling into the blue skies and their ability to search out and illuminate the shadows.