Spitting Blood

Edit ~ I was sleep-deprived and slightly inebriated when this came spewing out, speaking volumes to the danger of that combination. I think I was wrong, but I'm leaving this post up for posterity, or something like that.

My family was watching the old TV show "The Fugitive" together, on the computer I'm currently staring at. My dad got it on DVD. When we'd finished the episode we were watching, my sister happily announced that she was done with musical theater.

Surely, she meant that she was finished with some specific musical-related obligation. She didn't mean she was giving up on her dream of many years, a dream spoken of in the music I constantly heard her listening to and singing around the house. At this point, you've probably realized that, in fact, she meant just that.

I don't remember much of what happened next. There was something about it being cutthroat, bringing out a side of her that she didn't like, stress and general misery, the line "I just don't want it badly enough to put myself through that," and my lip being vigorously bitten. No, I seem to recall mentioning, it wasn't that I disagreed with her decision.

The next thing I knew, I was crying outside. I heard my name called, and fled to the side of the garage. Thinking my sister was coming for me, I snuck around the back, and peeked back at the house, to see that she in fact wasn't. I shot hoops, and thought about the fact that I had never dreamed of being a basketball star, or ever had any interest in playing the game other than for fun.

I have also never dreamed about doing steroids, stabbing my friends in the back, making myself miserable, taking ADD meds before a test, becoming a consultant for the state-side lobbying group of an authoritarian state, sucking up, dying of heat exhaustion, using secret video footage to decipher the opposing team's hand signals, or becoming an inspirational speaker. I have daydreamed about punching one in the neck.

My sister's announcement was happy. It signified the end of a period in her life in which she was subjected to the savageries of a dog-eat-dog line of work. (This is where I bit my lip.) It was a decision she'd already made, with the melodrama behind her, or at least behind her relieved face. And I wasn't lying when I said I didn't disagree with her decision.

I have this unfortunate tendency to imagine things as they couldn't be - to imagine a world where we didn't commodify people, or at least one where my sister didn't think she was too fat to deserve happiness. ("Doesn't she know better?" Of course she fucking knows better, and it doesn't help.) I also have this unfortunate tendency to, after writing "cynical" things like that, imagine assholes telling me "That's an ignorant, self-defeating conceit."

The conceit is the inspirational poster placed to improve productivity. The conceit is in human interest news; in the miraculous recovery of the Major League Baseball player addicted to drugs. While a stadium worships him for his strength, millions die alone with bitter final thoughts and no happy ending. Other millions wish to death that they could be that MLB player, and would do anything to be there. These wishes are something we're proud of; the burning desire something we glorify. I'd say we've forgotten what "would do anything" really means, but I don't think that we've forgotten.

No, I'm not an expert on musical theater. Yes, I'm a child of privilege. No, it isn't the end of the world for my sister, who isn't even in college yet. Yes, I understand that I don't know everything, and that I'm inexperienced. And finally, no, I don't pretend that I'm innocent of all the things I criticize our values for. I'm a human being, too; specifically an American human being.

There's something strange about the words "cynical" and "optimistic." They sometimes seem to imply that the people they describe don't believe in objective truth, which is somehow magically in the middle; cynics and optimists are deluding themselves. That makes no sense to me. It makes no sense to me when a "cynic" or "optimist" uses such a word self-referentially, as though they themselves are saying "I warp the truth in a particular direction." Don't they believe what they believe?

I'm not looking at the glass and saying "It's half empty." I'm looking at a glass that doesn't have enough fucking water for all the people who need it - perhaps because "that's the way it is," or perhaps because someone took more than their fair share. Either way, I think I'm allowed to be upset by this - especially after being lied to about it.

I don't claim to know everything, and I guess there's some hope in that I could have things wrong. Maybe it's just as simple as me being really angry.