Thoughts of Grandeur

Thoughts of Grandeur

This blog is probably best read while listening to Charlotte Gainsbourg, IRM CD

Am I really satisfied? What do I want? Or maybe more truthfully...To what extent am I socially constructed?

As I sit here typing this blog post I am making macaroni and cheese for dinner, the meal of champions. There is nothing that levels the playing field like Mac and Cheese, and what does it have at all to do with being a champion? I imagine that no matter how rich or famous one becomes Mac and Cheese will always be a part of life. It has to be the great equalizer of western society, well at least North America. I have been pondering life again (which is really not beneficial for anyone) and it has led me once again to the realization that sparked the name of this blog. Smoke, Mirrors and Cigarettes, drew upon meaningless, vanity, and vapours in the wind. Ecclesiastes 1:2 "Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." To be honest as much as this causes me to despair and wallow, I find incredible solace in this monologue, it proves to me that the writers of the Bible were not modernists which is comforting as there is then room to simply be in a state of ambiguity. Everything is nothing and nothing is better off enjoyed than wasted so after I finish writing this I am going to go out enjoy the fresh air, and enjoy a cigarette which so perfectly pollutes it.

I began this most recent contemplation as I drove back from Whistler. After being re-immersed in outdoor culture, I found myself driving back to interview at a bike shop of all places. I found myself again thinking that working in a bike shop was not the ideal place to find oneself after spending way too much money to get a degree. I was going to interview for an entry-level position as a sales associate making chump change, and paying off the student debt will be a slow go if this is where I end up. I had a lot of time to think as I drove all the way to Abbotsford to grab respectable clothes and shower, then drive back to Langley to interview, which turned out to be a wapping 5 minute interview (totally worth the 4 hours in my car today). Is this really how life is going to turn out? Is this really what I have to look forward to in the next ____ years of my life?

On the return trip from the interview I could not help but think I wanted something more. But when I came to question of why I wanted more, I was dumbfounded. I had no good explanation of why I wanted more. I had just spent 5 days with awesome people in Whistler who were choosing to live there, make little money, just enough to live and do as they pleased with regards to biking and skiing. Why did I have this complex of grandeur? I found myself realizing I was terribly pretentious to think that my life should not turn out that way. Not that I am after some six figure job, but I might as well have been as I sat there having distain for a life of 9-14$ an hour. It is not like I have a family, or pay child support, I live reasonably cheaply so it could work.

After a while I came to a realization that my desire for grandeur was a socially constructed desire. The concept of being satisfied or what I want was all socially constructed. It must be, if at one moment in Whistler I can think to myself, this is all I want to do with my life, and then the moment I am on the highway and see a BMW and I think that what I want is a high paying job. Or when I am in school all I want is to be the best and to teach. The root of all of these I found out today is a socially constructed complex of being unique.

We watch movies of famous lives, we have contests to be the best, we read incredible biographies, and even the fiction of our lives tells us to be the best or to be unique. Slowly I am coming to the realization that for the majority of us, those are not the cards we have been dealt in this big confusing game of chance. The danger I see is that there is not any area of life that this prevalent social construct does not pervade as dominant, in our work, school, play, and even religion (which is most disconcerting to me). We all pursue after being the best and being unique, it is one big advertising campaign that worked better than all the rest (even better than De Beers convincing everyone that you need a diamond to be engaged, and that was a duzy of an ad campaign).

Well with those thoughts, a dinner of Mac and Cheese (the great equalizer) was in order (and for those who are wondering it was delicious). Now off to be meaningless with a Cigarette, and a book of Harry Potter (the ultimate propaganda fiction of being unique). But best to live enjoying the nothing. Until next time, Wallow well.