Thursday, May 15, 2008

life in the northeast

in this country, in the northeast more specifically and new york in particular, we live with so much hate, anger and hostility. it's in the fucking air. what are so many people so angry about, all the time, ready and willing to direct it at just about anyone? i'm not sure. why are they, we, so hostile toward one another? i do not know that either. it's like hostility for its own sake. just to be assholes to other people. why?

it sucks. this is where i was born, it's where i grew up, it's where i live now. but it's not who i am. i've been fighting it my whole life. school taught me to be a nihilistic asshole, and i've been working to extract that from me ever since. it's a hard struggle, especially when seemingly everything around you is encouraging you to be pointlessly shitty to anyone around at any time. this poisons our lives at home, it poisons our lives in our heads.

i know that there are other ways to live. i've seen some. i do not hold out much hope for things to change here. new york, as far as i can tell, is the epicenter of useless hostility in this country. it casts its pall over hundreds of miles. it's all so intense and compressed here. it doesn't have to be. we make it that way. we let it be that way. being nasty to other people for no good reason might make you think that you feel better, but it just keeps you down. nothing is gained. fight it.

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