#12--We Are The Zombies, Of the World!

Life is strange.

I say this because its true.

And because you can experience any range of events in one given day.

If your day is dull, maybe you haven't experienced it enough.

Sometimes i think about the cars on the highway. We get so mad at each other for cutting in line, not using blinkers (its the law!), and for driving slower than the speed limit... but to what point and purpose? Why do we get so angry with each other?

Society today leads me to think that we are ALL brainwashed. We are ALREADY zombies of our own nature. We go through the motions of our day, acting but not experiencing. If you wake up with a kink in your neck and a headache, it constitutes the entire day as rotten and not worth anything. Driving on the highway we see *cars* not the people in them. If we do look at the people in other cars, its generally with a scowl on our faces or even a finger in the air. Its a different kind of society on the road, based on size and the power of your engine.

Every person in every car has a life. A mother, a boyfriend. A wife, three daughters and a sick uncle. You can be guaranteed to see upwards of several hundred different vehicles in one day, all with at least one person occupying that vehicle. You may never see that person again. If their day is already shitty, then why would you want to reinforce that negative feeling?

I heard somewhere that for every happiness there is an unhappiness. For every happy person, someone else is depressed. I have no way to prove this for certain (though it would be an interesting social experiment) but the more I look for it the more I see it. I suppose most theories are that way, whether they be social, conspiracy or otherwise.

Today I experienced doldrums, excitement, happiness, stress, worry, zombie-ism, relief, excitement, relaxation, stress, laughter, relief, contentment, surprise, shock, tragedy, heartbreak, relief, worry, heartbreak, disappointment and am currently slipping into a stage of relaxation/pre-saturday stress.

That's a lot!

Think about all the emotions you go through in your day, step-by-step, and see where that leads you. At the end of the day, was it a good one? A nice little exercise to cheer up those skeptics out there: At the end of the day, right before you fall asleep, list FIVE things from your day that were GOOD things. Don't list it if its bad/made you uncomfortable/caused stress or worry. List only things that were good about the day. Struggling? Keep it up. Every day.

We have so many reasons to be blessed with the things that we have and so many of us take these things for granted on a daily basis. Those of us with cars drive them everywhere, polluting things. Those without cars ride bicycles or carpool with a friend. Women who are capable of childbirth have too many babies that they never wanted in the first place and so literally throw them away. Those of us who desperately hope and pray for children are barren and must turn to adoption.

I cannot express how ungrateful some people can truly be. At the same precise moment when one is fully ungrateful for something, they are generally making decisions that will change their lives forever. For the worse? Perhaps. Depends on the decision. But really, the important thing here is, when we are taking advantage of the ones we love or the things we have created, we almost never have their best interests at heart, and so make the "wrong" decision.

***

Pain is undeserved. Agreed. But without pain is to be without progress. That is not to say that one cannot make progress except through pain. There are other ways of achieving one's goals. There is trial and error and trial again.

If you think you're pretty low on the totem pole, and you think you can't make it, and you say to yourself "I can't," then you won't. You never will.

You have to keep your chin up, suck in your breath, and put one foot in front of the other.