Dark and Metric

kay-love:

gtotheovanni:

These two guys from our town died on a ski trip in British Columbia. A third is in critical condition. They went to the public school. Today, we had a moment of silence for them, the flags were at half mast, and on Facebook, roughly 20-40 of my friends have joined various groups mourning them.

Is there some polite way of expressing how I’m apathetic to the whole situation? I don’t really think so. I’ve heard that they were in a restricted zone, which just removed all my sympathy because it was a stupid idea anyway. The groups on Facebook have pictures of them in girl wigs, lending this impression that they’re the party-going, who-gives-a-shit-I’m-a-teenager type. I never knew them, their families or really any mutual friends, but because I happen to live 10km away from them, I should feel bad.

I have a rough enough time feeling depressed about losses in my own family, but the school seems to think I should care about these two guys I don’t know. If I mourned every person I didn’t know, I’d be a really sad person.

And I already am a really sad person.

I don’t say anything, because being hostile about it is unnecessary and kind of rude given the scenario. It’s just something I don’t understand.

Why doesn’t death make me as depressed as everyone else?

If this were to happen to someone you knew, then you would be upset if someone commented something like this. We’re giving support for the family and friends of the families. I can’t even think of how hard it is to be strong during this, when the groups on facebook were posted, we were showing awareness and that we were supporting them. If you have ever lost a family member or a friend then you would know the pain and sorrow people go through when they lose someone close. Even if you don’t know the person you should still show respect. I find your blog very heartless and you posting something such as this is disrespectful.

First, see this. Second, yes, I see where you’re coming from. The post, however, is more about how I don’t get why it doesn’t really effect me and the confusion about that lack of feeling than it is “lol these guys died”.

They got front page in the newspaper. They have tributes in the front signs of their school and even a restaurant in town. They’ve never met me, and very likely never will meet me, so why is it so important to gain my sympathy?

edit: I’d also like to add that with the passing of my grandmother in 2005, there were no prayers at school, condolences given by friends, or appearances at the visitation. It was strictly family. I found it a lot easier that way - it was so much less awkward to not have to say to people, “yeah, it’s unfortunate”, over and over.

It’s different from person to person.

I was about to write about how I have the harshest prerequisites for trust ever, but I’m sure there’s someone out there more anal about it. But I want to write about it anyway so oh well!

So! Kids, want to gain my trust? It’s a matter of some few easy steps:

1. I have to respect you. It’s actually incredibly hard - and the fact that I just said that should scare most people off, or make them think I’m some asshole with a superiority complex. Blame the people I’m around everyday. Basically, if you’re relatively intelligent, or especially if I think you’re more intelligent, respect is kind of easy to gain. If you’re easy to get along with, then that works too. Unfortunately, most people don’t meet either of these.
2. You need to prove yourself in your actions. I will never confide full trust into two-faced people. I see you chatting happily with someone, and then later you tell me how much you hate them. Why should I trust you? How do I know you won’t do the same thing to me? I can’t. It’s easier to just be hesitant with what I say.
3. Ideally, confide in me. Trust is a two-way street for me. If you can’t trust, you can’t be trusted, as Ben Folds once said.

That’s about it. If you’re some stalker who likes to read this website for shits and giggles, you just got some more insight into my myriad of complexes.

People have called me retarded, strange, an asshole, hell, every insult under the sun. I can’t remember a single time I was called a liar. Honesty is the key to progress (at least, in my mind), so I make a big deal out of it.

But I also think too much about a lot of things, so yeah.

I never understood where this notion of ‘bad singers’ came from. In the other hemisphere of our world, everybody sings casually, whereas here, it’s more of a right reserved for a privileged elite. Why are we so hushed up?

I don’t think anyone can really be a bad singer any more than anyone can be a bad talker. Sure, there’s high talkers, low talkers, fast talkers, slow talkers, but nobody is bad at talking. You can be bad at talking in front of a crowd, but not bad at talking in general. In the same way, singing can have characteristics that are more pleasant but it’s all still possible.

After all, it’s just slow talking.

I think most people base it off a) vocal range and b) the ability to detect the pitch of a known song and replicate it. If you’re tone deaf, people will obviously think you can’t sing, although you could easily make your own melodies. If your voice has two pitches, people will think there’s no point in bothering.

Yet any layer of singing adds a new texture to the polyphony, no matter how many notes you can produce.

Maybe we’re all just afraid of being made fun of. Everyone does it in private, right?

These two guys from our town died on a ski trip in British Columbia. A third is in critical condition. They went to the public school. Today, we had a moment of silence for them, the flags were at half mast, and on Facebook, roughly 20-40 of my friends have joined various groups mourning them.

Is there some polite way of expressing how I’m apathetic to the whole situation? I don’t really think so. I’ve heard that they were in a restricted zone, which just removed all my sympathy because it was a stupid idea anyway. The groups on Facebook have pictures of them in girl wigs, lending this impression that they’re the party-going, who-gives-a-shit-I’m-a-teenager type. I never knew them, their families or really any mutual friends, but because I happen to live 10km away from them, I should feel bad.

I have a rough enough time feeling depressed about losses in my own family, but the school seems to think I should care about these two guys I don’t know. If I mourned every person I didn’t know, I’d be a really sad person.

And I already am a really sad person.

I don’t say anything, because being hostile about it is unnecessary and kind of rude given the scenario. It’s just something I don’t understand.

Why doesn’t death make me as depressed as everyone else?

Also, Salinger died.

But he wrote in his will to release a ton of his short stories after his death…so at least I’ll have something to read soon?