Everyone is Everything

Have you noticed a sharp increase in the number of people who are releasing their own recorded music? Who are starting their own photography businesses? Who are writing their own nutrition advice blogs? Everyone's a musician.

Everyone's a photographer.

Everyone's a nutritionist.

Indeed, everyone is everything.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the end of the world is upon us. It feels like it's only a matter of time now before we can't turn the volume on our stereos up anymore. There won't be any more room left in the glass and it will overflow.

Could it be our individual-centric society? And before you write this off as left-over Christian propaganda, it is a well-known sociological phenomenon, ushered in by self-help and psycho-therapy. Psychologists are the new priests as religion is slowly becoming stale and defunct. Everything is on you now. You have to make your life better. As the old saying goes "If you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself". And so, if we're suddenly alone in a sea of people, we'd better become everything, right? And if we're going to become everything, we need all the "me" time we can get. If the streets of our cities are cracked and in disrepair, it's certainly not our fault. It has to be Joe Government's fault. Why should we have to tell them our streets are messed up? Why should we rally for the community? Why hasn't our neighbor done something? Why hasn't the city come and fixed this so we can get back to curling our hair? Life can be so taxing!

Maybe we're raising a generation of people that cannot be denied their "due payment". I remember back in my younger years, we had an athletic event of sorts at my preschool. If you lost, which I often did, you didn't get anything. If you won, you got a prize. I lost, yes. The winners rubbed it in everyone's face, yes. My feelings were hurt, yes. Par for the course, is what I say. It seems like children these days cannot lose, but I feel like we can only shelter them for so long. I've seen churches with youth programs where there are no longer winning prizes, but prizes for everyone because they were breathing! God forbid we hurt anyone's feelings. Of course everyone deserves a candy bar! My mother's elementary school seems to be following the same vein as I'm sure many places are. This isn't just happening in the community either, but within families as well. Did your mother ever walk you from the car door to your teacher's room everyday? Did she maybe hang around for a little while just to make sure things were ok? Did she take you to the doctor for a common cold so they could drug you up? Wouldn't want you to feel a thing. Ever. Well, I happen to know from experience that life isn't going to be as nice to them as we are. Whether anyone wants to believe it or not, there are some things you cannot change. One is positive and negative. Win and loss. On and off.

I feel like we're in some kind of 70s movie about a future dystopia. Does anyone else feel like this? I can't be alone. Where everyone wears white onesies. Nobody touches anyone else because no one wants germs or cooties. Everyone is on like 50 medications so they stay in a nice calm state. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming innocence, nor am I against some aspects of socialism and equality, but this is getting ridiculous, people. Ridiculous.

Alright. I'm done.

Pablo and the Blizzard of 2011

The past 24 hours have been awfully interesting and at this point I simply MUST blog.

Yes, friends, I have survived mother nature's snowy slamfest over the past day. Yesterday morning I must admit I was a non-believer but she soon convinced me that her threats were anything but hollow. Soon the blizzard would cover just about everything and I would wake up this morning to snow on snow on snow. Early this morning, cabin fever got the best of me and I walked to my favorite Sycamore hang out, the public library. Unfortunately it was closed but no matter! I took my usual spot in the vestibule, figuring that if anyone questioned my presence I'd say I was just taking shelter from the bitter cold for a bit. After I'd finished my internetting (throw that one in, Webster), I walked back home and made my self a wicked egg + ham scramble with cheese. Not the mark of a true dietitian, but to quote Sun Tzu, the military strategist, "Know thine enemy". Next, a friend sent out a text saying she would be at a restaurant about a mile away if anyone wanted to brave the elements and join her. I'm always up for an adventure, so I set out on foot. A mile wasn't that far and I'd done it before. I was about halfway there when she texted to say the restaurant was closed and she'd actually settled in at Starbucks which was 1.5 more miles down the road. "This is going to be interesting", I thought. So, to draw more external wisdom, I'll quote Forrest Gump, "I figured, I've come this far... Might as well just keep on running". So I kept on walking, the wind biting my face and the sun reflecting off the blinding snow. I had just hit the one mile marker when a Honda Accord stopped in the middle of an intersection about 200 feet in front of me. The driver was waving frantically at what I soon figured out to be me. I waved back and he backed up and signalled for me to open the door. "You want a ride?" "Yes, yes I do". I didn't even look at the guy's face until I got in the car, which probably wasn't smart, but it turned out ok. His name was Pablo and he was an international student at NIU from Chile. We had almost arrived at Starbucks when I said "Listen, man, I really appreciate this" and he replied "This is what the Christian life is about. Helping other people". Intriguing, I thought. I'll be honest, I didn't expect this guy to be Christian, much less announce it. Suddenly I felt like I was part of a book you'd find in the "Inspirational" section at Barnes & Noble. So anyways, we exchanged names and I got out and joined my friend inside Starbucks, where I find myself now.

Yes, an interesting day it's been. I hope everyone else is having a lovely hump day/groundhog day/snow day. It seems it's a good day for humanity.