“Everyone’s Everything” Trailer Review

The trailer for the Terrence Malick directed documentary about Lil’ Peep’s life, meaninglessly titled “Everybody’s Everything,” came out a few hours ago.

Despite this blog’s title, I really don’t like being merciless. Sure, I’m a critic with opinions, but I hide behind a blog and a nom de plume because being merciless makes me very uncomfortable, especially when it comes to the dead.

That being said, it’s not like the following opinion would have ever reached Lil’ Peep, and if it did, he never would have listened, or heeded its warning. He would have listened to the clout-feeding idiots that he surrounded himself with.

I have some very strong feelings about the subject of Lil’ Peep for three reasons:

1) He died of an overdose
2) I was a fan of his music when he died
3) He reminds me of myself when I was younger

Basically...

Lil’ Peep convinced himself of his “depression” to sell his image and appeal to naive fans. He did not suffer from depression, but rather, pride. “Depression” was used as a shield to hide self-destructive and hedonistic tendencies from otherwise concerned figures in his life (his mother). The claim of “depression” gave him a “reason” to abuse drugs. The actual reason: he was addicted to pleasure and fame. He was possessed by demons.

Certain types of young people suffer from the contradiction of self-conscious pride—a big reason why this music scene is popular with introspective reject types. Fans were the fuel for this self destructive fire of his SnapChat life, where his unfortunate death was viewed publicly.

Lil’ Peep made catchy music with meaningless lyrics about sadness, living to drug and alcohol induced excess like the rock star he was becoming. The trailer shows Lil’ Peep, behind the scenes, in his own words: “I’m not a trained musician, I’m just good at speaking into a microphone.”

Agreed. He had a “good” voice, but no musical talent.

His career—unlike his face tattoos—were temporary, regardless of how successful he was in the moment.

“These songs are his true feelings,” says his manager. (Idiotic and contradictory lyrics written by a stoned 19 year old.)

It all makes sense to me now that it is way, way, way too late. Being a Lil’ Peep fan was like watching pornography: receiving enjoyment from a damaged person’s self destruction. This new documentary will show the real Lil’ Peep: some stupid kid with an untrained voice and face tattoos.

My fear is that this documentary will exalt Lil’ Peep as a tortured hero, like Kurt Cobain. He is not. His story is tragic for many different reasons, and it should be told as a warning against excessive drug use, fame and pride.

I hope, for Lil’ Peep’s soul, that God is merciful because Lil’ Peep lived and died like a jackass. His “depression” is not a good excuse in my merciless opinion. He really could have benefitted from having a father, just sayin’

If I see the doc, I’ll write a review.

Addiction-Possession Thoughts

An addict is possessed, and God can only save them through the will that he gave to them, once upon a time. The same will that the addict has slowly abandoned to his addiction.

Our physical bodies and our God given nature drives us in the direction of temptation. Our lives are a test that addicts are failing.

Let me explain:

God created Adam and Eve. By giving them a will, God gave them the choice to sin, or not to sin. Adam and Eve disappointed God by sinning, disobeying him by eating the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This was called the fall.

After the fall, man lived naturally, as a sinner. God created us, and loves us in spite our sins. He wants us to do what is good for us, but he cannot do it for us. He gave us a will to do it ourselves.

Then, a woman named Mary lived perfectly. God chose her to carry his son, Christ Jesus. Christ was born, lived innocently and perfectly, taught God’s word, and was crucified for it. He suffered and died for the sins of man. (This basically means that man murdered the son of God because man is a sinner; man cannot be perfectly forgiving like God. Man sins. God does not. That is what separates us from God.)

We can embrace God and live like Mary and in Christ Jesus (Adam and Eve Version 2.0) and all the saints, or we can live in sin. God knows us and knows how difficult it is for us not to sin, but he is merciful. He doesn’t want us to sin, but he forgives us when we do (as long as we ask for it).

Because we are sinners by our nature, our physical bodies and physical minds are susceptible to the temptation of sin and pleasure. This earthly temptation is not without some deserved enjoyment, however. God knows that life is tough, especially after the fall. Earthly temptation is God’s test for our nature, just like it was for Adam and Eve, except that now, we have Christ Jesus to follow.

Like with Adam and Eve, temptation has a voice.

It can sound like our voice in our heads, but this is a demonic voice.

As children, we are innocent. Innocent souls are easier for demonic voices to prey upon, and our parents protect us if they are not preyed on—or fooled—by demonic voices themselves. Innocent souls do not yet suffer the consequences of frequent use of temptation. Their young bodies only know the pleasure of enjoyment.

Pleasure and enjoyment are not inherently sinful. For example, sex is an act of love and procreation, and extremely pleasurable. However, God has laws for sex's sacredness and our will and thirst for pleasure exclusively can help us to violate and ignore these laws. Though sex is beautiful, wonderful and meaningful, it can still be done in sin. It can be corrupted.

Temptation can corrupt anything. Thus is life before, and after, the fall.

This demonic voice begins covertly, as a subtle suggestion. One more drink couldn’t hurt, it says. One more really can’t hurt, the budding addict agrees, thinking he is agreeing with himself. He is pushing the limits his body has set for himself, and giving in to the temptation. More temporary pleasure.

The next time, the addict’s body has a higher tolerance. The demon suggests more alcohol, to feel the same pleasure they felt the first time.

The demon is a reverse salesman. He wants the addict to seek him his soul. The more an addict drinks, the more their body craves, the more of their soul they sell to the demon.

Necessities of life (sex and food) can be pleasurable, and demons latch onto thee necessities and invade the minds of men—naturally susceptible to sin—and tempt them into indulgence.

Selling a soul isn’t like selling a car. It takes 'demonyears' to successfully “buy” a soul from an unsuspecting addict. In the meantime, the addict is giving the demon years of their temporary life on Earth to feed the addiction that the demon has tempted him with.

When an addict tries to stop their addiction, they malfunction. They are trapped by the demonic voices in their head. The voices that incessantly suggest partaking in the temptation. That is the only way to quell the voices. The body doesn’t help either; the body knows the pleasure of the temptation, and influences the mind. A demon trained addict will resort to the temptation of substance abuse during any times of weakness. Their soul has been sold for the temporary pleasure of the substance.

An addict becomes fully possessed when think they cannot live without their addiction. Their mind—when it is not afflicted with the temptation—becomes a swirl of voices incessantly suggesting pain relief by substance consumption. They become a slave to the substance in their temporary life on Earth. The demons have made another sale to the devil in the afterlife.

Man can seek forgiveness from God, and remember to use his will to avoid temptation, even in moments of weakness. He can take inspiration from the saints and live virtuously. The addiction has sapped the strength of his will, but his will has the potential to be as strong as God’s if he accepts it...

Demons exist everywhere, but God is inherent in our conscience. Our conscience is our first tool for resisting demonic possession.

Rooftop Reading Review

Bud tweeted the address and start time of the reading. I happened to see it and decided to attend because it was a 20 minute walk from my apartment.

I knew from the previous reading I attended on this rooftop—16 months prior—to arrive an hour late. When I arrived, the rooftop resembled a party without any music or dancing: clustered groups were presumably talking about mutual people they each knew.

Within 10 minutes of staring off the roof down at the neighborhood where I made my life’s biggest mistakes the reading began. Bud introduced himself and thanked everyone for coming. One by one people started to sit on the rooftop. When I was the last one standing in the back, I also decided to sit.

There would be six readers tonight, each an alumni of the 6 week writing workshop Bud ran in his Jersey City apartment. I had no expectations because I didn’t recognize any of the readers. The last time I attended this Rooftop Reading it was with the intention of meeting Sam Pink, and buying his new book.

Since then, Bud Smith has risen to de facto boss of this new lit genre, taking the reigns of significance from the published sell-out and originator of defunct “Alt Lit,” Tao Lin.

Bud Smith is self taught, and worked (works?) heavy construction, so he isn’t some soft, introspective liberal arts educated patsy. (Maybe his writing is.) He has a respectable ratio of followers on twitter and writes a long weekly essay (about his life) for Hobart Pulp, a website I don’t read. I liked his “novel” Work. I would consider reading it again, its short enough.

He is older than this new crowd of Tao Lin and Megan Boyle wannabes, and is like a supportive father figure of whatever is left of this “movement." He knows he has clout, and says nice, vague and necessary things about all of the readers, like “She is honestly one of my favorite writers. She hosts one of the best reading groups, definitely check it out.” (I will, if they ever respond to my email.) Meaningless, but well meaning. I can't blame him, what else is there to say?

The first reader read stories about food and what she thinks about it. It was funny-ish, and I chuckled a little, but it was nothing I hadn’t heard from other writers, or myself.

The second reader, Shy Watson, a poet, wasn’t accustomed to reading longer fiction. Her piece was “20 pages, double spaced.” She self-consciously asked the audience to tell her if they wanted her to stop before the story ended.

“No, it’s good!” Someone shouted.

“Keep reading!” Shouted someone else.

“It’s awesome, I love it!” Said Bud.

Her story was about going to visit her ex-boyfriend in Philadelphia over the summer while he was working the Liberty Bell and in a band. It was cute in a forgettable way. It reminded me of the things I used to do and think way back when I also thought they were cool.

She stopped reading abruptly, shortly after she took us out of her self conscious story with her live self consciousness. Everyone clapped, and Bud thanked her for reading.

Some guy read next, and there were some planes going overhead so I couldn’t hear all of the story, but I also didn’t feel like I was missing anything. He went on vacation somewhere with his girlfriend maybe, and there was a boat called Petty Cash. It was also cute, in a quirky hipster way.

They decided to take a break, and I decided to leave. Nothing personal. I got what I wanted: my competitive spirit back.

My problem with the reading was not just that all of the stories sounded the same. They were the same. If I choose to read a memoir, it is to learn life lessons from someone who very different from anyone I know, and has accomplished much more. For example, disagree with the politics of George H.W. Bush, but that man lived an amazing life of accomplishment and his memoirs would be worth reading.

I am no longer interested in hearing the word ‘semester’ in fiction. I am no longer interested in hearing people talk about parties, or shows. I am no longer interested in cute quirk from cute quirks.

I looked at my stories (not my diary) from the fresh perspective of time, and decided to seek an audience. My stories were not a rehash of my dull lived experiences, made quirky and cute for a quirky and cute audience of hipsters. I don’t know what my stories were, but I proudly admitted that they weren’t about me. (Though they were for me.)

There was a rollerblading rapper on the sidewalk in front of the Popeyes. I’d seen him on my way to the reading, and ignored him. On my way back he got my attention with a hook about spaghetti. He hadn’t stopped rapping in the hour I was at the reading. Talk about endurance.

@paperboytheprince elicited legitimate laughter, so I tipped him $5 because he was worth it.

The Utopia Question

Sometimes, when talking about politics, a novice will ask me what laws I would enact to create my Utopia.

This is a novice's question because the premise begins as an impossibility; it is a bludgeon for pinpointing disagreement, and anyone seriously considering the topic of Utopia after living in nature for five minutes should understand it's pointlessness.

A human cannot 'design' a Utopia because a human is flawed and can never create a 'perfect society.' To create a utopia a designer must be perfect and intelligent: God. (Utopia already exists by the way, and it is called Heaven. Because of nature, it can never exist in this reality.)

Truthfully, my answer is a cop out:

In my perfect world the law wouldn't matter because people would behave in respect to the Natural Law; thus, man made laws would be unnecessary to create or enforce.

Ok, let's say that people are going to behave like regular people in this Utopia. Sometimes they will break the law. What laws would you enact to create this Utopia?

1.This is not Utopia
2.Natural Law

It wasn't my law, and will never be a law of my creation because I didn't design creation. It is God's law. I can't ever create laws that are more perfect than God's, who designed our very bodies to follow His law.

By nature man violates God's Natural Law with sin, and therefore, man can never create a utopia. Asking the utopia question is a flaw in itself.

Any law I would create under the inspiration of Natural Law would be tyrannical to somebody's free will somewhere, and therefore my Utopia would become tyrannical--and not utopia--because it wouldn't be "perfect" for everybody. Utopia is supposed to be perfect for everyone. It cannot exist so long as sin exists. It isn't worth talking about politically because politics is about governing what does exist in reality.

We couldn't learn to love each other's differences in a Utopia anyway. That is the exact purpose for the type of non-utopian existence God gave us.

some thoughts on Personality, Behavior, Emotions

Psychology is not a discipline that necessarily needs to be studied in the classroom; it can be understood given enough retrospective interaction with many different kinds of people. Without getting too personal, what follows is my attempt at understanding the impact of emotions on personality types.

Only behavior changes, not personality. An introverted child that is very shy can learn to overcome their shyness by adulthood, and introduce themselves to strangers. Though it still might make them uncomfortable, this is natural maturation: practicing good social behavior, despite lingering feelings of slight unease.

A combination of time, experience and effective parenting can change behavior, even if the personality trait (shyness) remains the same.

Habitual behavior is a little harder to change, and requires the ability of the individual to first acknowledge their bad habit, and then train themselves out of it. Other people can help, but the onus is on the person with the bad habit.

With work, patience and time, a bad habit can change, but a personality will always remain the same. The same temptations will always trigger that personality. With habitual training each unique personality has individual tools to resist those bad habits.

Emotionally inspired actions are controllable, even when we feel like they control us. Emotional distress fades as emotions fade and fluctuate—-with time. Negative emotions eventually fade allowing people to stabilize their moods and function again.

A person can still be reminded of emotional distress, and that can cause emotions to rise unpredictably. How and what causes these emotions to rise within us is due to personality.

People with personality disorders might need the help of prescriptions that can help to emotionally stabilize them. Medication mutes the voices of paranoia, suicide, depression...thoughts that average people might only ever experience emotionally, ie not seriously ie in passing due to extremely emotional events, not everyday experiences.

Otherwise sane people can become overwhelmed by their emotions and commit rash, illogical, sometimes violent acts called 'Crimes of Passion.’

Example:

I normally wouldn't murder another man unless I was physically attacked or defending someone I love. But—if I discovered my girlfriend cheating on me, I could understand the wellspring of emotions that could cause me to murder the man she cheated on me with, in addition to breaking up with her. My emotions would have clouded my better judgement, and I would have committed a horrific crime that would destroy families and lives. I would know that I was committing a horrific crime while I was doing it, but I could not ‘control’ my passion. Thankfully, I do not suffer from personality disorder; I suffer from heartbreak and betrayal. In the moment, heartbreak and betrayal can inspire overwhelming emotions, influencing behavior that an average person understands to be hurtful and wrong. Yet even they feel powerless to stop it in moments of emotional crisis.

Only time can differentiate between disturbed personality behavior and disturbed emotional behavior. One is incessant, the other is temporary, even if it lasts for weeks.

Psychiatrists step in to diagnose (and medicate) those people with personality disorders who suffer from more than temporary emotional distress. It is only not bullshit when psychiatrists are helping people to better understand and cope with the symptoms of their disorder.

However! This doesn't give mentally unstable people an excuse to behave like an asshole and hide behind their pathology...Unless they have low functioning autism and don’t recognize social norms.

A personality disorder is pathological, and it might change with work over time, and medication, though there is always the chance that a person’s “demons” will resurface as what triggers their negative emotions are what makes them unstable. But behavior can change. A person might see how their behavior disturbs others, and make the effort to change for themselves and their loved ones in spite of their triggers. This takes time and patience on behalf of the person and their loved ones, and is a lifelong effort, like dealing with addiction.

Even balanced people are susceptible to the push and pull of emotions. Emotions can make them feel weak, and in their weakness they can resort to substance abuse to quickly ease the pain and fill the void. Likewise, people with personality disorders can also turn to substance abuse to silence the voices in their heads.

People with disordered personalities don’t have to have disordered behavior, and people with ordered, yet still flawed, personalities don’t have to have ordered behavior. In any case, it is vastly important to love and appreciate the people that are there to support you through emotionally trying times.

Old Blog Thoughts

I once had a blog that I started for the same reasons as this one: to help me better remember the key points of topics I had a casual interest in, and to express my opinions of those topics.

That initial purpose faded as the drama of my life became a more interesting topic. As much as I tried, I could not be as interested by news about people I didn't know in places I never went than by what affected me personally. Personal disturbances linger and demand reflection. News stories inspire flashes of outrage. I believe that the more news a person consumes the more outrage metastasizes in  a combination of activism, or hatred.

But I digress. Girlfriends and jobs can cause stress. I needed a place to process that stress, and my old blog became a diary that was updated frequently with these processes.

The old blog was public until it was only diary and had to be hidden to protect myself and the people I wrote about. The posts were too personal for 'public' consumption.

I aired out my deepest, most personal thoughts on that blog during periods of emotional upheaval, then slowly stopped updating it a few months ago to give myself space from the thoughts of my life. I tried silent reflection.

Having had some time away from my past to focus on the present has made my old blog useful in deciphering my thoughts of the events of my immediate past. At first I was reluctant to be blunt. It was not supposed to be a diary. The bluntness was useful. I can now see some wrongness in those posts that I couldn't see while I was writing them because: Time + Honesty = Clarity

Using recent insights, I noticed some negative thought patterns in the old entries. To begin writing an entry I needed to be dissatisfied with myself for not writing first. Almost every entry would start with self dissatisfaction and self disappointment. Then I would use that new motivation to write about the topic that I liked/disliked, usually further developing an argument following a contentious disagreement with someone. (Sound familiar?) I would end by making empty promises to change my habits, not make the desired changes, and start the next entry with the same narcissistic disappointment.

I complained about myself and was disappointed in myself in some new way in every entry because I wanted to improve myself. Hahahaha! By those same standards I would be SO disappointed in my present day-to-day! I have less possessions today than I did last year! And waste my time 10x more!! Even after everything, I didn't know how to appreciate what I did have. I needed to be humbled more.

Reading through these old memories reminded me of my forgotten thought processes and forgotten obsessions. You know, the ones that are so frequent for a short period of time that they run in the background. These processes change little by little until they are gone, replaced by new thought patterns that seem innate. Time, honest documentation and reading theology helped give me the resources to read between the lines of my diaries.

Asking myself the right questions was one of the answers:

Have I stopped caring about myself or have I stopped nitpicking myself? Why did God allow me to suffer? I will always have problems, how does my thinking help me solve these problems?

Obviously I can't read my future diary...only living in the present having learned from the past can give me the clues to the future, as only good actions in the present can create my future.

Therefore, I have to focus and work on the things that make my life instead of destroying what I built and starting over. Patience is a virtue and pride is a creep.

Deciphering my life's history from my present point of view inflicts good pain, thoughtful pain, hopeful pain. That's a good reason to write a diary, and a good reason to take a break.

Unsolicited Advice: Should I give an ultimatum?

DEAR AMY,

I have been seeing my boyfriend for nine months. We are middle-aged, and are talking about building a life together.

When we met, he told me that he has remained good friends with all of his ex-girlfriends.
He dated his most recent ex for a year (they broke up a year before we met), but they were close friends for a decade before that.

She is probably his closest friend. The problem is that she refuses to meet me, or to include me in any social activities they engage in. She has since admitted to my boyfriend that she wants him back. He has made it clear to her that that wouldn’t happen, but he doesn’t want to lose her friendship.

He keeps asking me to be patient with the situation, and that it will hopefully resolve itself, but from my perspective, the resentment (definitely on my side, and probably on hers, too) is just growing by the day.

He has been open and honest with me about everything regarding her, and I trust him, but the situation feels unbearable to me at this stage. He refuses to let the friendship go. Is it time for me to make an ultimatum, or am I overreacting? 

Frustrated Current GF

He doesn’t want to “lose her friendship” because he likes the attention. He likes feeling desired by multiple women. There is no other reason to stay friends with an ex-girlfriend that still loves you while denying her that love in return. He does it for his ego.

She shouldn’t be his closest friend because you are his closest friend. She is jealous of your relationship with him because she wants a relationship with him. He knows he cannot have two relationships simultaneously, but he can have one-and-a-half.

You feel resentment because this ex-girlfriend is threatening your relationship. If he really cares for you and loves you, there is nothing more important than you. Certainly not extraneous friendships with ex-girlfriends. He is doing her no favors by remaining friends with her either. She will never move on.

You are not overreacting. It feels unbearable to you for a good reason. Tell him how this unnecessary friendship is making you feel. He might be empathetic and mature, and won’t need an ultimatum.

DEAR AMY:

Six weeks ago we invited our adult married son and his wife to a special ticketed event. I asked my son three different times before I made the purchase: “Are you sure you can and will go?” He and his wife both said, “Yes, we will go. We said we would go, and we will go.”

So I bought the expensive tickets (great seats) four nonrefundable tickets in all for $340.
Then I get a phone call from my son, who told me that they were not going. He told me it’s “not their thing” and that the event interfered with their three-day weekend (we had also discussed that before we purchased the tickets).

He told us to invite someone else.

I told them it was not my job to try to resell these tickets or invite another couple. I told him I expected them to pay us $160.

I mailed their two tickets to them and sent them a bill for $160.
Why should we get stiffed?

          My son said he would be mailing the tickets back to us.

I said, “OK, we can’t make you do the right thing.” 

Were we out of line?

           Upset Parent

No. Your son is a flaky asshole. It doesn’t matter if in retrospect it is “not their thing.” (How petty!) They said they would attend. Then you bought tickets for them. Reselling the tickets they bought with your money is their responsibility.

You can’t make him do the right thing, but it’s a shame that he doesn’t know what the right thing is.

Chicken Conspiracy

A friend asked me if I’d heard about ‘The Sandwich’ yet.

How ominous! How portentous! How intriguing! Was ‘The Sandwich’ an end times prophecy? Or the source of Bio Terror? Or both?!

“What sandwich?” I asked, incredulous.

“The chicken sandwich!” She was trolling me now.

“What chicken sandwich?”

“The Popeyes chicken sandwich!! Have you really not heard anything about it?!”

No. I hadn’t heard a thing about it, other than it’s apparent existence by some popular YouTube food reviewers, whose suggested videos I ignored. ‘The Sandwich’ was just a sandwich to me—certainly not newsworthy. As a devoted Popeyes fanatic, it was certainly not worthy of the press release I received in my email.

Chicken sandwiches will never be the fun project that is eating chicken off the bone. They are delicious, project free food, and therefore not interesting. I prefer to fight for my morsels, and bones put up the best fight. Then you can dominate the bines by eating them.

That aside, my friend does not care about Popeyes the way she thinks that I care about it—I would never visit Popeyes for ‘The Sandwich’; I visit Popeyes for the value. (And The Chicken. With The Bones.) She cares for drama more than she cares for Popeyes. And oh was there drama: ‘The Sandwich’ was sold out everywhere.

As a lover of food gimmicks, hype alone should not be enough of a reason for any sandwich to become memetic. Take Starbuck’s Unicorn Frappuccino. It too was sold out everywhere, for a very good reason: it was awful. People (like me) wanted to experience why, before it was permanently discontinued, earning itself legendary status.

There was no gimmick associated with The Sandwich, and therefore no good reason for it to be sold out everywhere. In my expert opinion there can be no gimmick for a mere chicken sandwich; the few items that make it uniquely delicious (jalapeños, bacon, mayo etc) are canon. An attempt must be made to make it disgusting. Like a cinnamon sugar flavored filet.

As a fan, I never had a desire for a Popeyes sandwich, and therefore never noticed one missing from the Popeyes menu. Was The Sandwich a precedent for Popeyes, an establishment respected for its bone chicken? Was that the real reason for all the non-fan hype? It was too far a stretch. I eyed it suspiciously.

Chicken sandwiches, even from Popeyes, are not special. They can be found anywhere. Though a maker of great chicken, Popeyes does not have the same reputation that Chick-fil-A enjoys. Despite a portion of the public disagreeing with their religious viewpoint of homosexuality, the same public cannot resist purchasing their chicken sandwich. Chick-fil-A’s reputation for Chicken Sandwiches is almost as immaculate as Mary.

Mary is not hype, like the Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich (or all chicken sandwiches). She is real.

On my evening run I passed a Popeyes with a very long line. In the window was a clever ad featuring an empty Popeyes basket with breadcrumbs with the clever quip (Be Right Back!) clearly paying homage to the faux popularity of The Sandwich. I love Popeyes but this ad was too smarmy for me.

The missing sandwich was no longer a controversy, but a conspiracy: There never was a Popeyes Chicken Sandwich.

Without a helpful controversy to spark similar Chick-fil-A sandwich profits, Popeyes could not reasonably compete for a slice of the Chicken Sandwich market. Instead they expertly manufactured a conspiracy.

Bone-in chicken is a fan favorite, not an everyone favorite. Popeyes made its version of an everyone favorite—The Sandwich—with a marketing twist. How do you make everyone crave something? Make it unavailable. As such, the Popeyes chicken sandwich became internet newsworthy for being “sold out” everywhere.

The Sandwich that never existed was created and sent to social media trendsetters to stir the hype pot. They all lied about how they “went to the store to buy the sandwich.” Popeyes probably sold a few sandwiches to a few normal customers for show, but they did not “sell out.”

The problem was never that they sold out of the sandwich. That was the Popeyes solution to the age old sales question: how do we appeal to the normal person enough to get them in the door? Once they are in the door ready to purchase normal sandwich food Popeyes conveniently doesn’t have any more of the product the new customer wants, forcing them to order from the classic menu. Only hardcore customers will leave empty handed.

The new marketing game is trying to entice casual customers to try a “new” (old) product. Toppings are no longer creative, they are meaningless.

There never was a chicken sandwich. There will be now. In the minds and hearts of the people who never got to try one, it has become a temporary legend...a memetic legend...only in the age of the Internet such legends not only exist, sadly, they are common...

living the dream

I asked a colleague one Monday morning how she was doing.

“Living the dream,” she replied sarcastically.

I stared at her, flabbergasted, the epiphany dawning in my head as the sun rose on the horizon: I too was “living the dream.” I looked around the set, appalled at the misery of the entire crew “living the dream.”

Those of us fortunate enough to “live the dream” learn that it is mundane life.

Precious, mundane life.

As individuals we choose how we wish to live. Sometimes we make good choices, sometimes we make bad choices. Good choices are purposeful. Bad choices are purely pleasurable.

When accumulated over time the good choices lead us towards a goal. When the goal is reached and the achievement finally unlocked, there is a short period of celebrating the achievement before mandatory living of the achievement.

Doctors, soldiers, scientists, presidents—and to a lesser extent, lawyers—must endure the pain of hardship before the fruits of their hardships can be reaped for the new pain. Success is pain. Living is pain.

Satisfaction is attained once the resulting goal has been obtained, but this satisfaction is not unending pleasure. (You need to make bad choices over and over for 'corporeal unending pleasure.’) That was never the purpose of achievement. (What was the purpose? Desire? Slight interest? Whimsy?) In reality, the dream comes with more responsibility, new hardships, more stress. The immediate ‘pleasure’ of achievement is looking back fondly on the hardships, and looking forward to possible new achievements with everything learned from those hardships. Thus is life.

Before we all have to die, we all have to live.

Sadly, even retirement—life after the dream is over—isn’t unending pleasure. It is a time for boredom and relaxation and some trepidation in the face of the mystery of death. Even living the truth of "the dream" has its perks. It is not death.

Heaven is for death. And relaxation. Yet we can be afraid of the mystery of its unknown.

"I don't care"

Saying ‘I don’t care’ is the biggest insult. Even bigger than calling someone a moron, which is very hurtful.

First of all, you’d never call an actual imbecile an imbecile. Imbeciles already know that they are imbeciles. Reminding them of the circumstances of their birth makes you an imbecile. (And an asshole.) The purpose of calling someone who isn’t an imbecile an imbecile is to humiliate them to the point where they reconsider their actions that you considered imbecilic. It is a terrible way to motivate someone, though it works in some circumstances.

But saying ‘I don’t care’ to someone is far worse.

It means three things:

• I don’t understand
• I don’t want to understand
• You don’t matter to me

At least saying in saying ‘I don’t know’ a person can admit to not having thought about the topic, and not having thought about it, they have no educated opinion of it and have nothing further to say. It also serves as a conversational signal that the subject is becoming stale and could be changed.

Many, many times in our life do we have conversations with people about topics we don’t understand, and as the conversation continues, we realize we cannot understand. Not far from this boundary do we find ourselves flirting with the new understanding that we ’don’t care.’

This is how I feel when I speak with my Ph.D candidate brother about the work he does in his lab.

I listen, and I try to follow along, but I am not equipped with facts or interest to do so for very long. I care about him, but I do not care about the subject matter. Therefore, if I uttered the selfish phrase ‘I don’t care’ it would be like saying ‘I don’t care about you.’

That would be more rude than calling him dumb. Other lab mates might be smarter than him, which might make him self-conscious, but that doesn’t make him dumb.

He engages with me about topics he doesn’t know or care about, and because he is very smart, he usually knows a little something about it. (Usually more. His brain is a sponge. Mine is a bucket with a hole in it.)

Intelligence is no reason to be tactless: he would never say ‘I don’t care’ because he is not a rude asshole. With lesser intelligence and equal tact he might admit that he just doesn’t know. An acceptable, polite alternative.

A friend of mine has been saying ‘I don’t care’ as an unfunny joke for years. Muttering this demonic incantation, even in jest, he has produced a staid life of nihilism. Out of shape, filthy, lonely, and having committed to not caring about anything but himself, he is also unattractive.

Saying ‘I don’t care’ is unattractive because being rude is unattractive. We don’t have to care about everything, but we also don’t have to say it.