July 15, 2002

And Yet Still More Random Thoughts

When a 4 year old complains about life, what he means is that his mom won't let him eat Pop-Tarts for supper and that Charlie Brown never gets to kick the football. When a 14 year old complains, he means that cheerleaders don't throw themselves at him and Janet Jackson doesn't answer his emails. When a 24 year old complains, he means that he can't afford a Lamborghini and wasn't made CEO of a Fortune 500 company immediately after his graduation from community college. When a 34 year old complains, he means that his wife doesn't look like Alyssa Milano, and three year olds aren't always perfectly clean and happy and obedient. When a 44 year old complains, he just means that he's not 24. I think after that, life just really does suck. When someone over 50 complains about life, I think

When someone older complains to someone younger, the younger one always thinks "It won't be like that for me!" They don't know how to avoid it, or have a plan or anything, they just honestly believe that some kind of way they're going to not have the same problems that every other human in history has had at certain times of life. Or maybe they just think that they're going to age and yet remain exactly the same as they are now.

Usually, when a younger person complains to an older person, the older person thinks "What do you have to complain about?" or "Just wait til you get to be my age!"

These are, of course, worst cases. I'm assuming that everyone complains all the time, no one is ever even marginally happy, and there is no compassion in the world. And that may be all cynical and bitter, but I think it's more nearly true than the opposite extreme.

I think life really is unfair, and it may be that an idiot would disagree with me, and it's also true that almost everyone is an idiot, but I've never heard a convincing argument to the contrary. Even the Bible says that the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong (it's in Ecclesiastes). Life sucks, man. It sucks that people die and go hungry, and that not everyone can be a billionaire, and that there's only one Alyssa Milano.

You know what really sucks is that in every country in the entire world, there's no private company putting people in space. Why is it that the U.S. and Russian governments are putting people in space? Why is there no company building planes to go to the moon? And why are there no cities up there?

I wonder if there really are people on the moon, and we just don't know it. Or maybe there's tiny green monkeys that live underground. Or maybe there's Nazis who built a secret rocket and went up there to escape....well, no, there wouldn't be anyone to hate up there. Unless they just hated the underground green moon monkeys. Or maybe there's rednecks up there. Well, no, because up there they'd have to always wear shoes.

It's also really unfair that when one person yawns, everyone around him yawns. I don't know why it works that way, but it just seems like it gives yawners a great deal of power. I know there are a lot of songs from the 70s that make me yawn, and for just that reason, that the people singing them sound like they are actually yawning the lyrics. But it's weird because we don't cough or sneeze or anything else like that just because we see someone else doing it.

All this kind of reminds me of this movie I saw called Angus. It's about a fat kid who's in love with a cheerleader. She's played by the girl from the first Jurassic Park movie, but this movie doesn't have dinosaurs in it. Well, it does have George C. Scott, but he doesn't try to eat anyone. Anyway, the cheerleader girl is dating the guy with the big eyebrows from Dawson's Creek. Big eyebrow dude hates Angus, just 'cause. In the end they get in a fight in front of the whole school, and Angus makes this speech about being who you are and everyone getting along and planting trees and singing "Kumbaya". It was actually quite moving. I cried at the end. Well, I didn't actually cry, but I did get kind of sniffly. Except I did kind of have a cold. But it was still good. Or anyway the cheerleader girl was kind of cute. Except there was this weird thing she did when she scrunched up here eyes. Anyway she's no Alyssa Milano. The point is, it was all about how life is unfair and there are always going to be jerks with big eyebrows from Dawson's Creek who don't help the situation.

You may have noticed that I've mentioned Alyssa Milano three times already today (four if you count just now). It's not because I've just discovered her; it's because as I write this, I'm watching the WB channel and they keep playing those commercials where all the young good-looking people on the WB stand around and look all pretty while they play Michelle Branch songs in the background and a really lame cover of "My Generation". They're like those music videos or beer commercials where everyone gets along and has a good time and its a big party and hey, there's Alyssa Milano. None of this has anything to do with what I've been talking about, but I really love those commercials. And Alyssa Milano.