I Don't Care, I Love It!

"Hey hey hey just think while you've been getting down and out about all the liars and the dirty dirty cheats of the world you could have been getting down to this sick beat." Taylor Swift from her song "Shake it Off."

Well, I am a fella who no longer has hella good hair but I DO have somethin' in my brain so when the fakers fake fake fake and the haters hate hate hate, I'm not just gonna shake shake shake. But thanks for the advice anyway, girl younger than the underwear I have on right now.

"You're on a different road, I'm in the Milky Way. You want me down on earth, but I am up in space. You're so damn hard to please, we gotta kill this switch. You're from the 70's, but I'm a 90's bitch." "I crashed my car into a bridge. I watched, I let it burn. I crashed my car into a bridge. I don't care. I love it." Icona Pop's song "I Love It."

"You're like a drug that's killing me. I'd cut you out entirely. But I get so high when I'm inside you." Maroon 5 from the number one song on Billboard as I type, "Animals."


"Staying in my play pretend Where the fun ain't got no end Ooh Can't go home alone again Need someone to numb the pain You're gone and I gotta stay High all the time To keep you off my mind." Tove Lo's song "Habits (Stay High)"

Anybody else see a theme here or am I out on that all too familiar limb of the tree all by myself again?

I have been on a bit of an ethical, philosophical, spiritual mission since I got out of the mindless euphoria of youth to try to find some joy in the suffering of life. That's been my goal for quite some time now. Not going well, but thanks for asking. But am I seeing here what could be my problem? Am I too busy trying to find GENUINE joy in the pain that is life? And "Life IS pain, highness! Anyone who tells you different is selling something." Westley/The Dread Pirate Roberts. Such a quotable movie!!!

The first noble truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering. You're gonna get lemons. But maybe I've been struggling so much because I am trying to make lemonade out of lemons instead of saying, "Screw it, I'll just go dancing, crash my car and watch it burn like a pyro, have some hate sex or alter my mind synthetically to get to a play pretend place where I'll forget about those uncooperative lemons." Don't fix the problem, settle, shake it off, get stoned or just repeat I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it until you love it.

Does this sound like unhealthy autohypnosis or phony escapism to anyone else out there or am I from the 70's and damn hard to please? I guess I DO want people more down to earth instead of walking around with their heads in the clouds, (or the Milky Way). How else are we going to make the world a better place? Or at least keep the world from being run by liars and dirty, dirty cheats?

But then again, maybe the younger generation is finding in their crappy music, a way to empty their heads of all thoughts so that what is important becomes clear. Having hella good hair, a smile on your beautiful face, youthful body and the ability to move that body to a throbbing techno beat. I admit that is an insanely envious and dismissive statement, but seriously, are they so different from Mevlevi twirlers who "sama" dance to experience the ecstasy of total surrender? Are the flashing strobes in the club welcome luminosity to Daoists in deep meditation? Is the sweat from dancing caused just from exercise or is it the result of what the Hindus call "siddhi" which is a(n) hallucinatory state marked by excessive body heat? Are these young whippersnappers practicing Tantric "hot" yoga at the clubs characterized by the intense heat of the kundalini ascending the spine? Is Friday or Saturday night raving essentially the same as the Namibian San tribe trance dancing with the goal of heat ascending the spine culminating in an out of body experience? Are they so different from natives smoking herb in sweatlodges to gain communication with the spirits? Or the Cora, Huichol, and Tarahumara Indians dancind their peyote dance all night long so that they can have visions of the future?

I'm a believer in trying to DO positive things, not just, as they say, "act as if." If I don't like my situation, I do something about changing it. I don't settle for artificially self-programming my brain to accept things the way they are. Especially when I know they are absolutely wrong. The Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha started his life as a rich boy with no idea of the suffering of the world. All the people around him acted as though it didn't exist. He then left his cozy home and was exposed to the real world. He didicated his life to finding enlightenment. That is, a way to take joy in th suffering of life. I just find it hard to believe that his "enlightenment" was to go back to the happy pretenses of his younger days. Could it be that easy?

It's not supposed to be if we believe the Bible verse, "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be who find it." This verse was practically the sole inspiration for one of the very few epic poems, The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser in which the Redcrosse Knight struggles literally with what we all struggle with figuratively. He fights many battles for Una, or truth and fends off the evil womanly wiles of Duessa and the two-faced, wicked harlot almost defeats him. To me that would seem to be the opposite of what these young, hedonistic songsters are advocating.

But is the truth overrated? Wouldn't it have been infinitely easier for me to just do what I was supposed to do, get married, work a job I don't like, crank out two point five kids, smile at people I want to punch in the face then go drink scotch till it feels better... I don't know if that WOULD have been easier, would it? A lot of people I know did pretty much that and when I ask them "How are you?" do they not say they are fine? I've been called selfish many times for not having a wife and kids. Am I? Oh geez, major crisis!

But, I DON'T CARE, I LOVE IT! This is the way life is supposed to be. Difficult. Otherwise you're doing something wrong I reckon. And I'm not going to go out and crash my car, get laid, spike up and shoot some forget into my veins, I'm just going to figure it out, fix it up and keep plugging all the leaks until I die. Youngsters sage advice notwithstanding, I think it might be too late for this dog to learn the trick of just acting like my troubles are not there.