Friday Night Lights

Its been a long time since my last blog. I don't know if that means that I have dealt with the final issues surrounding his death. The 1st is the second anniversary. I don't know how I feel about it, and I guess I don't really want to talk about it now, tonight is one of the good nights, none of the hopeless sadness that has been dogging me in the recent evenings. Probably because of the 8 hours of sleep that I got last night. I like sleep, but for the past month, I haven't wanted to go to bed. I usually have good dreams so its not like I was afraid to go to sleep, so I wonder if its because I have no reason to wake up on the morning. Now that sounds depressing. I don't feel that bad most of the time, only at night and only sometimes when I am really lonely and alone.

So now I am half watching Law and Order, its really lame, even if you have no legal training, this episode is about murder, but not really. They turned the whole trial into a battle over reality TV, which doesn't sense. The situation is murder, but, as is typical in L&O, they have turned it into a jury nullification issue, the defendant's attorney is arguing that if you like reality TV, you should let the producer who might or might not have staged the scene innocent. But of course, she will be found guilty, they are all found guilty, but there is always a twist in the last dialogue where it is shown that thought McCoy won the battle, he might have lost the war. Is this show really an intelligent commentary or an an accurate depiction of our cultural debates or dilemmas?

It appears that everyone is into blogging these days. I have jumped on a very large bandwagon. What is it that drives us to share our intimate feels and emotions with any potential stranger? Some, like me, do it anonymously, others don't care who recognizes their work. Why do we want to share with everyone information that before the blog we would not share with our closest friends. I think for some, it represents a desire to validate those emotions that are being expressed. If I put out my feelings, someone might read them, recognize them self, or just be impressed by my turn or phrase or insight, and tell others. Soon everyone will be reading my blog. My blog (not me, since I have hidden my identity) will become famous, and my thoughts and opinions, which usually just rattle in my own head, will be validated and carry weight. When it comes down to it, I guess we all just want to feel important. We feel that the only reason we are not now recognized as special is because we do not yet have any exposure or any way to be exposed. The blog is the answer to this. The chance to be recognized for whatever it is people think that they should be recognized for.

It might just be that I am the only one who blogs for the aforementioned reasons and want to make my actions seem less particular by extending my reasoning to others. I am not narcissistic if other do the same thing. Maybe people are just exhibitionists. I don't think I am, and exhibitionist, that is, but maybe people just think that what they do and think are interesting and see no why that opinion wouldn't be shared by a wider audience. I heard about this web site where all people do is list their possessions. Maybe we feel that what happens to us (events, feelings, possessions) doesn't have meaning unless we share it with others. Which in a certain way is a very primitive concept, needing someone to share your life with, a way to verify that you indeed do exist. In the movie, "Shall We Dance," the American remake of the Japanese film, which was otherwise forgettable, the Susan Sarandon character said something like the reason we love, or the reason we marry is so that there is someone to bear witness to our lives (here is the actual quote: "We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'.") Of course, I saw the movie on the day after I found out that he was dead, so I was in a very interesting mood. I remember most of the movie (or as much as I would if I had seen the movie in a normal frame of mind), and watched it in a relatively detached frame of mind. I remember hearing that line. I knew that I could cry, but I wasn't alone, and for some reason hearing the news that the man I loved died the day before was not enough to prevent my embarrassment or allow me to relax enough to cry in front of the two people I actually trusted enough to tell.