Things I've Learned

The end is near. As I sit here on this Friday night at around 7:30, I begin to deal with the stunning fact that I have three days and four more nights before I am no longer considered a teenager. This frightens me to no end, for the simple fact that until now I have used my youth and status as a teenage boy as my excuse for basically everything. Why I was so irresponsible, so lazy, so naive, so laid back, so unambitious, and so afraid of committing to absolutely anything, namely girls (which has thankfully changed recently).

Now, I'm all out of excuses, and I have no juvenile title anymore. I will soon be stuck in a terrible age range, which would be the space between 19 (when you can drink in Canada), and 21 (when you can drink in my homeland). I won't say that 20 is the most insignificant birthday of one's youth, but it is of no real benefit to anyone.

So, I'm going through a quarter life crisis, a little bit early, but it makes sense to me. 20's a quarter of the way to 80, and I'll consider myself inordinately lucky if I live even that long, especially if I continue forth with my current lifestyle.

I could bore you with all kinds of things dealing with my age and how depressing it is, and how long of a year it will be while I wait to become a true adult and reap the benefits of non-closet binge drinking, but I don't want to dwell on things like that. Instead, I'm going to mimick a segment of Esquire magazine called "Things I've Learned." It's in the publication monthly, and they have an older famous man list some things that he has learned through his life. Here are some of the things that I have learned.

-There are people out there who spitefully make fun of people that have never wronged them in any way because they are mentally slow, physically disabled, fat, fashionably inept, or poor. When you ask these people why they do this, they will say something like "Because it's funny," and they will maintain that. They probably even tell themselves that. I have learned that these people truly suffer from a low self-esteem, and do these things to make themselves feel better. They jeer their victims about things they are unable to control, only because they themselves are not clever enough to joke with someone on a level playing field.

-People are evil (see above)

-Drew Barrymore will never make a good movie, Nickelback will never make a good album, Dane Cook will never be funny again, and Andy Dick will just flat out never be funny.

-Osama Bin Laden was the most evasive hide & seek player to ever step foot in Al Qaeda Elementary School.

-Radical Islam is so totally stupid, and it could not be more obvious. There is no god that would shoot you up to heaven and give you 50 virgins to hump because you blew yourself up in a shopping mall full of people you have never met in your entire fucking life. Maybe if you'd have killed Hitler during World War II, you would get some ass once you ascend, but not innocent people who are simply different than you religiously speaking.

-Much to my chagrin, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Witches (except Ann Coulter, Nancy Pelosi, and a few that should probably go unnamed), Wizards, and the Loch Ness Monster do not exist. Oprah, however, does.

-Some people hate their peers for no particular reason without ever meeting them or even conversing with them. It's one thing for someone to hate you for who you are, as long as they do indeed know who you are, and if that is the case you're obviously not going to cater your personality to their standards.

-You can't allow yourself to be bothered with people that fit into the above category.

-Most negative reputations are not entirely true, and are pioneered by people that are either angry at you for something you've done to them or someone close to them, or are just flat out jealous of you. Take my good friend Mark Ferguson for example. If I believed everything I heard, I'd think the kid was not really a kind-hearted, respectful, and downright hilarious individual. He has always told me that "Jealousy makes a hater hate," and I've learned how true that is.

-"Ignorance is bliss" is a very relative cliche. It applies if a particularly unsavory character has just masterbated in your bathroom five minutes before you enter to take a shit; it does not apply if your girlfriend is taking it in the ass from your best friend while you are on a business trip in Tokyo.

-You can be as independent as you want, but family is still unfathomably important.

-Rural and suburban White men should not attempt to dance like the characters in Stomp the Yard, or You Got Served. There's a reason that we are not named Omarrion.

-The written word is going out of style. Nobody reads newspapers or buys books anymore. In a nutshell, all of my aspirations for a career are utterly fucked.

-Alcoholism isn't a disease that is passed from generation. It is a mindset.

-Drinking is not as bad as some people make it out to be.

-Many areas of many religions make very little or no sense to me, but I am not as enlightened as some people.

-There are some arguments that can never be won.

-George W Bush blew a chance to be one of the most respected and revered Presidents of all time.

-Brett Favre is one of the most respected and revered quarterbacks of all time.

-Kordell Stewart threw a hail mary once when he was in college playing for Colorado, a college football program that would have their reputation tarnished forever for allegedly sexually assaulting a female kicker (a marketing scheme gone wrong, I'd say).

-The Democratic party sucks. The Republican party sucks. Political parties are very biased and unnecessary.

-Every pacifist that plays music and writes things like "this guitar will bring peace," and "whatever it takes" on their axes is extremely arrogant. Protest songs are all good and well, but nobody that's in charge gives a fuck about them, if they even listen to them at all. Neil Young is awesome, I love his music and his ideas, but he has not had a significant effect on anything. This is a sad thing, because it shows that the youth is not as ready to rally behind ringleaders like this and to stand up for what they believe in as they were in the sixties and seventies. My generation is extremely apathetic.

-Laughter is an absolute necessity for anyone and everyone if they want to establish any semblance of happiness. The world would, I sincerely believe, be an empty place not worth inhabiting if it was not for jokes and laughter. Though I may not be adept at telling them, I am not inept when it comes to enjoying them.

-The envelope must be pushed in order to convince people to listen to you. There's an edge that you must teeter on to make any kind of difference in the world.

-There are no worse character traits than cockyness or self-righteousness. Well, I guess urge to murder or sodomize children outdo that, but in the realm of normality the first two are the worst.

-I will always be an extremely light sleeper.

-Peter Pan had it all figured out.

-There are a great deal of people out there who boast that they take no shit from anyone, and then clam up when their mother yells at them because they left their skateboard outside and their chihuahua attempted to eat and digest their "Hillary in '08" political button.

-My parents really did usually know best.

-Coaches that want to be your friend are great, and coaches that try to run your life are terrible human beings whose wives run their household so they must rebuild their masculation at racquetball practice.

-Spanish is a really fucking confusing language, and anyone that is bilingual should get some kind of medal.

-You won't appreciate any kind of happiness until you've known some sadness.

-If something's bothering you or weighing you down, it's not always something you have to pour your heart out to everyone about.

-Communism looks great on paper, but would never work out in reality because it always converts into a dictatorship.

-I'm scared that when Hunter S. Thompson said that "I have a theory that the truth is rarely told during the 9 to 5 hours," he was absolutely correct.

-There are a lot of racists in the world.

-People should not bitch about Hurricane Katrina. Where one lives is a free choice, and if you opt to live in a PORT CITY that is BELOW SEA LEVEL, you are actually asking for it. If you're supposed to evacuate, go, and if you don't, don't blame it on the people that are supposed to help you. Your life and your possessions are no one's responsibilities other than your own, unless the government owns your housing, and then you have no reason to complain about anything because you'd have been homeless to begin with.

-Every dream you have will not come true. That's why they're dreams. They're an escape from the monotony of real life. I used to dream that I would play in the NBA as a basketball player, but the reality of it is that I'm white, slow, and flat-out not that good. Then, I would dream that I would write a movie script in high school that would propel me into Hollywood where I would have Johnny Depp and Jessica Alba play in my movie, and we would have a three-some. When someone tells you to believe in your dreams, take it with a grain of salt, unless your dreams are totally realistic, which makes them not dreams at all. Right?

-Going against everything I have ever said or stood for, girls are not that bad. Having a girlfriend is not that bad. It's actually enjoyable.

-Karma is real.

-It is O.K. to cry.

-Fate does not exist. Fate is the way that you choose to live your life.

-Everyone makes mistakes, it's how you make up for them that matters.

-Part of me will be a teenager forever.

-All of me will never take this life seriously, and I will take myself even less seriously. "Don't take life too seriously, you'll never make it out anyway" explains it all.

-It's time to actually do something with myself. Just what, I can not tell you. I'm going to start with this bottle of rum next to me, and we will go from there.

Mahalo.