The New Opiate of the Masses

Lately I've noticed that the fever to raise all forms of awareness has spread like a wildfire through a pine forest. At first, these movements seemed fairly benign; being simple, honest attempts by a few individuals to help someone or something they knew or cared for. They were harmless and could easily be bought into or ignored. It made you feel good to contribute to them, but you felt a little guilty to walk by that family and their friends in front of your local 7-11 without donating, especially when all they were doing was raising awareness for cancer, asking you to buy a ribbon to help fund the medical bills for their dear afflicted family member.

And you know what? You probably should have been a little guilty (no value judgments here if you weren't), because these were people honestly vying to help someone they knew. These movements to raise awareness were designed to sincerely pull at your heart strings without being obnoxious about it. These people more than likely had a legitimate reason to stand there and plead for your help and open-mindedness and they probably had a real plan of action to put your aid to good use.

But oh, how things have changed! Take a look around you, these awareness movements are no longer simple, honest or easily avoidable. They're virulent, obnoxious, and they've become as prominent and intrusive as social media - being a direct consequence of its rapid development. If the movements, as I described them before, were like your local Mom and Pop stores, then awareness campaigns today have become Wall Mart: ridiculously large, grotesque, shady in its dealings, and cheap; as to appeal to people who cannot afford anything better.

The concept of raising awareness has expanded far beyond it's usefulness, growing from honest cries for legitimate aid to grandiose quests for the Holy Grail, entrenched firmly on inappropriate social, political and humanitarian soapboxes. Making matters worse is the fact that social media (facebook, twitter, the blogosphere, etc.) has brought these half-baked pseudo grass roots movements to the attention of young people who are susceptible to buying fully into these campaigns without bothering to understand their histories or implications any further than the topical (and often irresponsible) presentations offered to them in the form of easily chewable gummy tablets. You know, the ones in the shapes of Flinstone characters.

And when you think about it for a second, doesn't the idea of raising awareness itself seem a smidgen ridiculous? What is "raising awareness" supposed to accomplish anyway? You can tell me all you want about AIDS (or human trafficking, oppressive dictatorship regimes, or whatever else people are spreading the word about these days) in order to raise my awareness. Okay, I'm now aware that there is AIDS in the world! And I will wear this little plastic bracelet to let everybody know that I, too, am aware of AIDS (or whatever else)! Personally, I find the whole concept to be somewhat laughable.

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but what, really, did I do by raising awareness? I learned what I already know about some injustice in the world, and I have a fancy new bracelet to prove it. But what have I done? I haven't cured any disease, or toppled any dictator. I haven't stopped any serious oppressor of human rights, who thanks to you, I probably have the wrong picture about.

What I should have done instead is my homework. When something like KONY 2012 comes around, I don't take their world view as Truth and blindly follow their cause by spreading their grossly oversimplified and irrelevant message. Rather, I'll listen to what they have to say and then go educate myself on the matter. People who did would learn that Joseph Kony and his dismembered motley crew are about as powerful and relevant as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in the global community (and even in Iran) these days. The tendency to buy fully into these movements is becoming alarmingly common.

It may be a tired point, but look back to the Occupy Wall Street movement from a few months ago  (people are still out there protesting - le sigh), thousands upon thousands of people flocked to Zuccotti Park, most with literally no idea what they were protesting or even what they wanted Wall Street to be made aware of. Now, there were a few highly educated individuals and groups who had concrete ideas and arguments, and they honestly represented the all-encompassing injustices dealt to the so-called 99%. But one has to realize that most people stood for little more than venting middle and lower class frustrations.

The unfortunate reality of Kony 2012, Occupy Wall Street and the plethora of other awareness movements plaguing the nation is simply that people were made aware that there was injustice in the world, and the vast majority grabbed pitchforks and torches, and then stood around rabble-rousing. And that's it. They griped about problems and injustices, when they didn't understand what the problem inherently was. They clamored for crucifiction, when they couldn't identify the proper villain. They demanded absolute, no-compromise solutions without first having formed any suggestions of their own.

Such action tends to be more harmful than good. How can you ever hope to fix what you care not to understand? With all the technology we have today, it's almost sinful, to the point where it is irresponsible that people fail to educate themselves on what are truly important matters (like Occupy Wall Street, some people had legitimate issues with the "1%"). Honestly, it's like I said at the beginning; that it feels good to be a part of one of these movements. Whether it's buying a ribbon to help fund a struggling family's medical expenses in your neighborhood, or watching and sharing a video about a war criminal who has been on the United Nations radar for over 20 years, it feels good to be a part of something good.

Rather, it feels good to take part in something you think is doing something good. And lately, these movements are becoming so big in this globalized world, the feeling becomes inflated as the number of people involved rises. Consequently, taking part in raising awareness has become less about actually understanding and trying to solve contemporary issues as it is about the feeling you get from being a part of something big. Awareness has devolved into a drug -a drug which is shamelessly getting the world high. Awareness has become the new opiate of the masses.

The Measure of A Man

Everybody get ready, it's time to get philosophical.

One of the oldest arguments of rhetoric and prose struggles to find by which measure can we use to quantify or qualify the life of a human. Writers, poets, philosophers, scientists and other great minds have all tried to determine what it means to have had a successful life. Now I intend to touch upon this, but only on a topical level. What I really want to look at, is how we can measure a man.

There's a whole smorgasbord of ways to put numbers to how a man has lived his life. This includes the acquisition of wealth, the number of healthy heirs born, the count of great feats accomplished in a lifetime, the amount of women laid (I think most young men my age are still stuck on this one; putting rulers up against their manhood as if they were magical gauges of self-esteem), etc. And I think these are all well and good, even though some are clearly more valid than others. In some respect, they surely measure something, but I don't think they are the de facto measure of a man.

And before I go any further, I will apologize, because I'm going to quote Rocky (actually no, I don't apologize for that in the slightest. I love Rocky) - and this was from part of a quote that used to be on the wall of my wrestling locker room. The quote said:

"You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward."

Using this particular quote to explain an ancient philosophical quandary may seem silly or cliché, and it probably is. (Don't like it? Tough cookies.) But, what Rocky so elegantly describes in the last movie is resolve. And this, above all else, is how I compare myself to all other men.

Resolve is something internal, inherent, essential. It's something you possess from the womb - you just don't wake up halfway through your life and realize that you have resolve and that you want to do something with it. No, what you may think was a momentus and spontaneous divine gift, was actually  inside you all along. I honestly think Sylvester Stallone understands what this is all about, because as the quote explains, a man is only as good as he is on his darkest days.

A man can be measured by how he chooses to act on those days and times where life breaks down everything around him, and it seems as if his life is falling to pieces in front of his very eyes. It is the man who stands up and trudges though the muck and the mire, fighting for tomorrow, who I believe to be a strong man that has what it takes to find success in any form. Consequently, it is the man who crumbles and folds under the pressure that is weak, and is destined to spend his life leaning on the shoulder and charity of others.

If you look at Rocky as an example, this may become clear. Rocky was strong and athletic and he had love, money and family in his life (eventually), and to be fair he was a bit stupid, but none of that matters. What you always come back to realize is that Rocky is a great man because of his inner strength, his heart - his resolve. It's the fact that he never backs down from any situation life throws at him. He takes every blow and comes back hitting harder than before.

It's this strength of character which makes Rocky the hero. And all things considered, it's his resolve which we should all idealistically look up to. I truly draw inspiration from Rocky, because even though he was a simple brute, he was a great man. Plus, I would even go so far to say that his moral sturdiness and infallible inner resolve should be the standard by which we determine the measure of a man.

International Man of Mystery or Stock Guy?: A View Into a Workingman

It may sound cliché, but in my six years of being a stock guy in an appliance and electronics store has taught me more than a few valuable lessons about life. However, that's a topic I'm sure I'll cover another time.

What I really want to talk about though, is how being a stock guy - the lowest man on the totem pole (which really means that the crap which rolls downhill in my company falls together and eventually lands on me) - has transformed me quite profoundly and made me realize that I'm a man of many faces. Working in my store has taught me quite a bit about myself in ways which I never thought a simple, menial job could. And, I think my tale might be more applicable to you then you might believe.

At its most base, my job can be summed up in three words: I move things. That's it. I grab stock, throw it on a handtruck (or hoist it up to my shoulder if I'm feeling manly, which I usually am), bring it up to the front of the store, put it in the customer's car and, hopefully, get a tip for my troubles. It's not complicated. Sometimes I have to wrap things, sometimes I have to fix things,  sometimes I have to put TVs on the wall, etc. I think you get the picture (see what I did there????).

But thinking about it more abstractly, my job is so much more than that. Analyzed further, and I found that I'm more than a stock guy; I'm a therapist, a comedian, a bro, a man of many cultures, a psychoanalyst; in dealing with people, I have to become a chameleon. In other words, my job has brought on the realization that depending upon the customer depends what mask I put on.

It usually starts out that I play the role of the psychoanalyst, observing the customer to see which kind of person they are. What is their disposition? Their sense of humor? Are they in a good mood? If they're not, I become the therapist, and I'll talk with them, sympathizing to put them at ease or satisfy them. If they're happy or funny people with a good sense of humor, I'll become the comedian and bring out the laughs. For the ladies, I'll bring out the charm and instantly I'm a smooth talker. If the guy's a bro, my Brooklyn accent tends to come out, and I'll make things look difficult but casual because I don't want to appear weak, for I need to be an alpha male, like him.

Essentially, I do whatever I have to do to make the customer like me or at the very least be comfortable with me handling their stuff. The purpose, of course, is to try and make the customer want to tip me. I've learned that if they don't want to tip you, then they no longer feel obliged to, and usually don't. The world kinda sucks like that.

The point though, is that I've learned from working at my job, I have the ability to mold myself to appeal to anyone; that I sport different social masks. It is something I might never have learned otherwise about myself.

And now, like James Bond or any other man of mystery, I know can blend into any situation and be a social chameleon as need be. Thing is, I'm no spy. Im just an honest stock guy, a working man with many faces.

The American Struggle

Hello all, welcome to my first official blog post! Today, I think I'm going to talk about being fat. Well...I'm actually going to talk about how I'm fat. Which is quite fat, in fact.

For the longest time (do, do do doooo), I've always been a fairly hefty kid. I haven't really been skinny since I was about eight years old. That was except for a period in junior and high school when I wrestled, and altered between thin and fat amidst the on and off seasons. Point of this story though, is that every year after wrestling ended I would get large again. So it makes sense that when high school ended and I moved on to college, the pounds packed on, but they stayed on and accrued even more because I didn't have sports to lose the weight.

Fast forward to today; I'm a senior about to graduate college. I've had four years of nothing but extreme weight gain, and I'm larger and unhealthier than I've ever been in my life. I guess you can say I'm your average American.

I'm the epitome of how the rest of the world views America, the land of the fat, lazy, and over-convenienced. I get in my big American cruise liner of an automobile and make my way down to the local Taco Bell for a mid-afternoon feasting. 

But you know what? That's the old me. The old American. Right now I'm turning a new page in my book and starting a new life - a thinner, healthier life of action. I'm struggling to become the New American. I want to show the rest of the world that I can do something and be everything I am capable of, much in the same way the people of this country want to show the world what America can be.

I'm tapping into the roots of this traditionally hard-working nation to make myself a new man with a head full of new values. I want to be the man who gets things done, not the person I used to be who would wait for life to come to me.

So this is the beginning of my journey to health. I am committed, and I'm going to do everything I can to stay motivated. And that includes this blog post. It may seem ridiculous to tie my struggle to lose weight to the struggles of this country to lose our economic and political woes. But if you really think about it, what's the difference? This country has become as bloated and immobile as I have, so it makes sense that my struggle honestly is the American struggle.

So America, take it from me: it's time to cut the fat and get healthy. Let's show the world what we can do.