Does making an impact on society require insanity and desperation
Honestly if you look at every major person who caused a change in the world almost all have twisted souls. For example Elvis, Michelangelo, and even a little Michael Jackson. "Ben the two of us need look no far." That screams I'm a little kid and my life is beginning to scar me permanently. We were talking about this last night and then one of the peeps in the group thought he had the conversation beat and stated, "Albert Einstein." Low and behold Einstein had a coke habit and spent a vast time as a patent clerk watching other people become famous. And it lies here in desperation that Einstein came up with some of his best work (thanks good will hunting). All this was spiraling through my head this morning as I was in traffic. I looked ahead to see a car with a bumper sticker that read, "A grunt can do anything." It had a marine insignia right next to it. At first I was like okay a military guy, repressed childhood caused by ultraconservative slayings on the naive mind. But then I saw his car. He was driving a PT cruiser. He might as well have been riding his rollerblades in spandex with a fanny pack. I don't know what made me so angry about this but PT cruisers remind me of the big rollerskate at roller rinks that kids get pushed around in on their birthday. I don't know maybe they're big rollerblades now. Breaking the layer of skin navigating the blood stream and finding purpose this train of thought ends up to the usual question. Why do people go into the army? My thoughts are they go because they have been programmed from an early age and now they are like many darth vaders. The good man that was your father was seduced and betrayed by the dark side of the force. All there is left is a machine. Moving further do social workers go into social work to help themselves or help others? This question is more of a chicken and an egg question. Did they go into social work as an escape from their own problems or to use their problems/self treatment to help others in the world to keep on getting up every day. Social workers deserve the respect of the everyone and I believe in a thousand years the history books will read these people as the saving grace for perpetuation of society. Soldiers should be considered the same way but I believe the history books may write this one differently due to Micheal Moore and his less than pleasant description of the true rulers of the free world: Stupid White Men. I wonder if Michael Moore had a repressed childhood. In college I went and saw him spoke at follenger for the above mentioned book. It was pretty hilarious as Moore started making rhetorical questions about who are ruining society and right then and there Grendel stands up and states "STUPID WHITE MEN!" Grendel was in full posse wearing a big 70's jacket with ravers Ari and Uzi at his side wearing giant pants and tankinis and I thought to myself, "Are you really imparting wisdom to this room or just trying to hear your own voice." Maybe he should be a social worker. In any case at the end I got my book signed(cut in front of a line around the block but thats a story for another time). As I got it signed I asked Michael what I should go into in college. His response: "How the hell should I know, I'm a college dropout."
13 Comments:
every one of my friends who went into the military did it for one of two reasons:
1. Nothing better going on in life.
2. Education (money for college in one case and West Point in other cases).
I've never met a person who went into the military out of pure passion for national defense or bloodlust.
I think social workers, like guidance counselors, end up hating the people they initially want to help. It comes with the territory.
Jeff! basically I'm on a comment-posting rant (go check Will's right now if you already haven't) BUT I feel compelled to write since this is the first time I've ever read a post of yours and completely understood every Jeff tangent. And granted, I am severely in need of sleep, so essentially I am in this hyper-manic state that I initially thought could only be brought on by absinthe (but I stopped drinking it in Prague and I'm still have these occasional moments when everything either a)completely makes sense and I can't help but notice the interconnectedness of everything and assume that that can't be just coincidence or b)nothing makes sense and everything seems pretty fucked up and senseless and there is no continuity in life). Okay, so I technically just got back from Eurotrip 05 but Jeff, we NEED to talk soon bc I don't know how long I will totally identify with the unbelievably wonderful (but sometimes confusing) twists and turns your brain takes you on. Bc sometimes nobody's on my fucking train when it pulls out of the station (side note: completely recognize the fact that I just left Will and Erich, and felt that I needed to squelch the possibly lewd sexual innuendos that would have been brought up if I said that aloud--because I forgot how fucking dirty you bloggers are, but I love it anyway), but I totally assume people know what the hell I'm talking about. That was possibly my biggest realization of the last six weeks, among others equally as weighty. YIKES! I gotta stop typing and go to sleep...N...O...W!
by the way, it's me Sarah "anonymous non-blogger"
ps Tommy: interesting comments. Thanks for organizing in simple numerical format too, because I am just that slow right now. You should have been at Talahi 05 jerkface but thesis revision is a completely necessary (and thus believable) excuse. hope it goes better this time around.
oh, and my short answer to your question heading is: a little bit of both in tempered amounts. Van Gogh, for example (I know, eye rolls, everyone knows he was mentally ill and a crucial artist)had extreme bouts of depression/mania/psychotic episodes in which he was hospitalized for months or years at a time, depending on the intensity of the episode, which alternated with these short(er), creative bursts of intensity, spirit and genius. It was during these periods of extreme productivity that he created the paintings with which he essentially revered for today. (not that his early work isn't legit either, but think of the prints of his you see in artbooks: starry night, the bedroom, sunflowers. Also, going back to what I said about short bursts of intensity--I liken the kind of "impact" that you reference in your title to a candle that is occasionally snuffed out and then re-lit (when the smartie/contributer deals with mental illness): these periods of insanity, if you will, are necessary for these types of people (Virginia Woolf was another who alternated between major depression/psychoses and periods of extreme creative inspiration/genuis & a high level of output, a pendulum that lasted nearly her whole life until she ended it in the 40s). What I've recently realized is that these periods of dormancy are necessary (and, I would argue, could even come to be expected, since both Virginia and Van Gogh almost KNEW that they had to get out as much soul as possible while they were well, bc they knew that their "illness" was essentially always lurking in their mind and they'd have to return to that mental state of anguish) for these creative types (and I'm using creative generally, bc I can't debate science v. art right now). This is all finally making sense for me because if you saw me last summer, or heard what I was doing (i.e. being horribly depressed and not a whole lot else), you know that I was essentially closed up. Never picked up a pen, except to write a grocery list (and even that was hard), couldn't speak to very many people even my own family without thinking the same words over and over. And me, I love words and to have zero new thoughts, and zero new words popping in my brain was absolute torture. Flashforward to now, where I can't fucking shut up for ten minutes, even when my voice betrays me and I haven't slept in two days, or I can't stop writing. Because I am aware of the irony that I began this second comment with "my short answer" and here we are fifteen (?) minutes later and it was like I couldn't help myself, I just kept typing. For a second, I thought, is anyone still actually reading this? But then I thought, the bored people at work are! So thanks I guess, if you're still reading, but Jeff, seriously, catch me now, bc I thought this mania would end once I got home from Eurotrip, but it's not! I have no idea when I might calm down! It's kind of fun in a weird way, which I guess could qualify me as psychotic. I'm going to end with a question right back atcha, since I remembered that the two people I referenced in my comment both committed suicide, which begs the question: if you ARE this type of person, how long can you alternate between these creative/dormant periods before you just want to put yourself out of your misery, to essentially "turn off" your brain forever because your lows are so fucking painful and miserable and unbearable? Are these creative types pre-destined for suicide?
the end, really.
sincerely,
sarah
Pysch! not the end! no, I just forgot two things I meant to insert in this last longer rant: Van Gogh's favorite color was yellow, and his color palate at times literally does seem to be light exploding. Number two, I will give the person who answers this trivia question correctly something (I haven't decided yet, but it won't be that cool, but probably not a mix tape, okay? Wait, I wouldn't even know how to make a mix CD! anyway) which ties this all back together: who coined the phrase "burning the candle at both ends"? That was a rough paraphrase but that's the version we would recognize now. I'll give you ONE hint: she was a poet. And that was a huge hint since there aren't that many fucking famous women poets.
Alright, the prize is one of those shitty things you win in a crane game at the oasis or Kenny's Tavern that you gamble 50 cents on. Maura just won one so maybe I'll ask her if I can have it. I think it's a monkey? But it's yellow...whoa! I didn't even plan that one, I swear. It's the "religion" of six degrees to Kevin Bacon, and I for one would attend services.
SES: Edna St. Vincent Millay
yeah, i knew it and i didn't even have to google it. okay that's a lie.
the guy who wrote a confederacy of dunces killed himself before he was published. learnt that one from sideways.
plus a thousand, tommy. I'd send you the yellow monkey, but I have a feeling it will be burned anyway in some monstrous garbage can fire. I'm impressed, moreso by your honesty that you googled it, since I would believe you knew that
from Sarah (who has vowed not to do crazy comment posting for the next few days!)
PS jack black is going to be in the film adaptation of "confederacy of dunces" i think, but you might want to google that too if you have time
I just started a confederacy of dunces this week
spooky
I was at that talk and I remember a dude shouting "stupid white men!" Some native american dude (red injun) had made a comment earlier and I thought it was he who said stupid white men but now I hear it grendel. learn something new every day. NA dantoerh thing. Everyone always said that Aberlt Einstein got D's and he was a clerk who did phyisics on the side, and thats toatally bullshit. Sure he may haver had a job and fuclked up a class here and there buit he was in grad school or whatever they called it back then. and in other news, I don't think one kid from my grade went into the military. 450 kids graduated, weiad huh
Erich's right, Einstein was just a normal grad student who had a job while waiting for funding. And he was a genius, though.
Did you know that the week he visited U of I to give a physics colloquium, he went out to Kam's and hooked up with a sleezy DZ? Swear to god. That's how he contracted syphillis and came up with a mathematical proof for the cure called the "Genital Theory of Relativity."
Physics humor. Just shoot me.
what is that, prospector humor?
click on my name to visit my webpage.
sarah, your posts were unreal, such good writing, I have to say please please start a blog, at least to get your ideas and writings out to read.
-dan(jeff's brother)
dan, thanks! I'm going to visit your blog now and comment there too; I just can't believe this "does making an impact on society require insanity or desperation" is still 'chugging away'...I guess it is the JEFF train
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