A Short Tale of Welfare Dependency and Transcendentalism

                So…Transcendentalism is the topic, I suppose?

                I guess I know a bit on the topic.  I mean, I was in APUSH.  I did take the role of Ralph Waldo Emerson in a roleplay.  What else is there to learn?

                Well, Transcendentalism confuddles me, because some things I agree with, and some things I don’t. 

                What do I agree with?  Individualism.  That’s the big one.  I believe that anyone can be anything if they’re willing to get up and work for it.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “A Psalm of Life”, in which he practically orders everyone to get up and live.  I guess I could go Shawshank Redemption on this, with Red’s quote “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”  Now, living off of welfare your entire life and doing nothing about it (which is more common than you think) is just a waste of life.  You could’ve been something if you’d have tried.  You could at least have not been a drain on taxpayer money.

                But then, I disagree with the Transcendentalist belief that people are inherently good.  I believe they’re inherently selfish.  That shows with the welfare example.  Those people don’t care about anyone but themselves.  They want to live off of other people’s hard-earned money, which isn’t really living at all, it’s being a parasite.

                Don’t be a parasite.  "Get busy living or get busy dying."

Kilroy Was Here

     This post is not for English class, really, I honestly just had inspiration and I had to post it.
     Kilroy, technically, is up for interpretation.  I've given one side of Kilroy.
     Now let's get down to business.
     Kilroy Was Here is much more than a drawing, a phrase, a vandalization of a table, or anything else.
     Kilroy Was Here is a lot of things.
     I can state the obvious, like I did in my post for English entitled "Who Is Kilroy?" He's a representation of the United States.  He is an assurance that everything is going to be okay, because there are people here to help.  There are people with guns on a more noble mission than the government behind them could ever dream.  Their mission is to fight for those who can't fight for themselves, for those who can't stand up to the power against them alone.  They're on a mission with a goal: Get in, save the world, and get out.  Then, once the men with guns leave, the people with everything else enter.  They bring mosquito nets, vaccines, engineers, and everything else a village or town or city or metropolis in distress could ever need to rebuild.  And on the side of a truck filled with Red Cross boxes on its way to Kenya is a little doodle that says "Kilroy Was Here."
     I believe in plenty of things.  I believe that anyone can be anything they ever want to be, as long as they're willing to put in the work.  The government can't do it for you, the rich can't do it for you, your friends can't do it for you, it's gotta be done by you.  You can't expect to get rich by living off food stamps.  You can't expect to be happy, either.  You claim you're being deprived of your Pursuit of Happiness, when the only depriving you of it is you.  You hold yourself back by relying on the help of others to get by.
     I believe in America.  Our government may suck, but the ideal behind it is great.  Our people may complain, but their freedoms are vital.  Our economy may be hurt, but the idea behind it is noble.  It is only the people who screw it up, and it is only the people who can fix it.  That, however, is a purely political issue that Kilroy is not intended for.
     I believe in God.  I believe that it is good to believe in something.  If you believe in nothing, what is there on your side?  Can your friends fight for you?  Can your pets fight for you?  Can your computer fight for you?  Can that theory of evolution fight for you?  In the end, only you can be trusted to be there for yourself-unless you believe in God.  God will always be on your side.  Whether He's real or not, He's something that you can put in that ring with you, and as long as you believe He's there, it might as well be so.  It's like when Harry Potter made Ron believe he'd put liquid luck in his drink.
     I believe that feminism is useless.  Females have the same rights as males, as do blacks and whites, rich and poor, etc.  Females have just yet to realize the full extent of their rights.  The blacks received the vote in 1865.  That means it was 143 years before they even put a half-black man in the White House.  Women didn't get to vote until 1919.  If the trend serves, they ought to have a woman up there by the 2064 election.  No offense, really, it was a wonderful cause when it had a purpose, it just doesn't have one anymore.
     I believe there's a reason for everything, I believe that second place was invented by the loser because he felt bad that he wasn't first, I believe that....
     You get the point.  I believe in a lot.
     I also believe that I am a small piece of the world.  I'm small and insignificant to everything else.  Just think, there are over 7 billion of us.  An adult is about 6 feet tall.  We live on Earth.  Earth is 138531360 feet around the Equator.   1321 Earths could fit in Jupiter.   More than 900 Jupiters can fit in the sun.  Over 1708 suns could fit in the largest star known to man.  If you don't feel small by now, your ego is way too big.
     I don't believe that my smallness means I can't judge the world.  I use it to my advantage.  I used to be super right-wing Republican.  I thought about life for a while, and became more than a Republican.  I am an American, a Libertarian, a critic of the government, a critic of society, a joker, a loser, a winner, and so on, and whatever else, and a Spongebob, and a fart in the wind, and a rock in a river, and a mountain towering over the lowest valley, and a rabbit's hole in the biggest city, but most of all...
     I am Kilroy.
     I am the summary of all of my beliefs, I am the living body that is me, I am the spiritual being of my soul, and the material being of my mind, and all of this is what makes me who I am, who I'm going to be, and everything I ever was. 
     Kilroy is a thought, Kilroy is the creation of ink or graphite or paint upon a surface, Kilroy is an ideal, and Kilroy is a sketch, and all of this makes him a symbol for whatever you want it to be. 
     Don't those sound incredibly similar?
     Kilroy, for me, is a representation of everything I believe in, conveniently placed in the context of history to coincide with something I strongly support.
     Wherever I go, Kilroy goes also.  Kilroy is a piece of me, always and everlasting.
     KILROY WAS HERE

Who is Kilroy?

                I get asked that question a lot, but we’ll get to the answer later.  I was just about going to bed when I realized I hadn’t made my post, so this may be a bit lackluster, but I’ll do my best.  Look at that, I’m already a quarter of the way done!

                The United States is founded on the idea that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Well that’s all you need in life. 

                Life: The right to live.  You forfeit that right when you threaten another’s life, and in that case they have the right to take yours in defense of their own (hope I didn’t use too many pronouns).

                Liberty: The right to be free.  The government can’t tell you what to eat, can’t put soldiers in your house, and can’t force you to do anything COUGH COUGH OBAMACARE!!!

                Pursuit of Happiness: The right to pursue happiness.  Now, really that’s a rewording of property, but it’s the same idea.  You can work (key word there) to be happy, as long as you’re not infringing upon anyone else’s Life, Liberty, or Pursuit of Happiness.  Therefore you can’t kill someone to be happy, or make them a slave to be happy, or so on.  That does not mean you have the right to tell the government you want money to live.  That does not give you the right to take money from those who have it.  It is merely the right to PURSUE happiness; no one has to give it to you.  The only one limiting how far you can go is yourself.  If you want to be rich then you’ve got to work for it.  WORK FOR IT!  My own father grew up in the projects of Everett, Washington (if you don’t know what the projects are, it’s basically where the dirt-poor people live).  He worked hard in school, took out some massive student loans, and became a teacher and a coach, raised a family, is quite successful in theater, and is now dipping his toes in politics after running for mayor (and getting third, behind the two favorites and ahead of the rest of the crowd), and currently running for city council.  You can’t tell me that you’re too damn poor to pursue happiness.

                Long ago the United States, as a whole, fought for these rights and gained independence.  We sat on our happiness for a long time while Europe looked to us and saw something special.  Slowly, their governments and policies came to resemble ours.  Then, after World War II when we could no longer stand silent, we looked to the world and pursued Life, Liberty, and Happiness for everyone else.  We’ve sent aid to countries where people don’t know if the gang in the village over is going to let them live until tomorrow.  We’ve eliminated oppressive Soviet governments throughout Eastern Europe.  We help those who need help, because all people are born with certain unalienable rights, and “among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

                So who is Kilroy?  Kilroy’s more than a sketch that popped up in the early 1900s among American troops.  Kilroy is an ideal.  Kilroy is a representation of the arm of the United States, reaching out to those in need.  Kilroy is the Pursuit of Happiness for all people.

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill

Jeez, what am I supposed to write about this week?  There’s nothing I can really work with.  The only thing we really covered was the importance of a name, soooo…here goes I guess.

I guess I can reiterate the point I’ve used FIFTY FREAKING TIMES for different things this week in class, which is that integrity is more important than looking good in the eyes of those who cannot see.

Wait-What do I mean by “in the eyes of those who cannot see?”

I mean absolutely nothing.  I thought it would be a good thing to add to a thesis I wrote.  It made it seem deeper than it was.  I could really have put “in the eyes of other people,” but what good would that do me? 

I feel like this post is going nowhere in a hurry.  So I guess I should try to create a meaning for those who can’t see. 

Hmmmmmm.

Ah-here is a good way to explain it: money.  Much of society determines who they hang out with based on money.  If they ain’t rich, they ain’t my friend.  It doesn’t matter how the person got rich, what the person does for a living, or whether the person is a good friend to have, it’s all about the money.  They cannot see.  In The Crucible, the citizens of Salem cannot see.  John Proctor has been accused as a witch, and therefore he must be a bad man.  They think they can make him better by confessing.

There’s just one problem-he has already confessed.

He has confessed to adultery.  He told the truth and through that is shown to be a better man than any Salemite could ever dream of being.  If he would confess to witchcraft he would be throwing away his integrity all over again.

It doesn’t matter though, because he has his integrity again, and although some cannot see it, those who can see him-those who matter-know he is honest, and that is all that matters.

You probably don't get the title, I know.

This is the last verse to the song:

When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
They've come to take me home."

And here's a link to the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OO2PuGz-H8

The Amazingly True Tale of Johnny the Witch

                Johnny jumped off a bench becomes Johnny jumped off a balcony, which becomes Johnny jumped off of the roof, which becomes Johnny flew off of the roof, which becomes Johnny is a witch.

                Wonderful.

                Could this perhaps be the reason for mass hysteria?  People do want to believe in crazy things.  Take a look at magazines.  Brad Pitt and Channing Tatum walking down a street would become, “Are these Hollywood superstars secretly GAY?”

                No, I’m quite certain they’re not, and I’m also quite certain I did a bad job of creating the headline for a magazine article, but I’m not planning on making a career out of that.  Staying on topic, however, according to the magazines, that’s “what the people want,” and to some extent it is.  We’re more likely to watch a movie about Abraham Lincoln depicting him as some Civil War era superhero than we are to just watch a documentary about him.  That’s the flat out truth, unless of course you’re interested in documentaries (which I, planning to major in history, don’t find weird at all).  But we can’t deny that if someone tells us something crazy we’re going to want to believe it simply because crazy is awesome.  We have a need for crazy.  The people at the Salem Witch Trials wanted to believe in witches because, well, what about their life was crazy?  Nothing!  They were random Puritans in a random place doing whatever the heck they needed to do to get by.  Somebody got a little itchy and made some crazy.  The same goes for the George Zimmerman case.  Some kid gets shot and nobody knows the real story, so you get people who want some crazy and decide Zimmerman’s a cold-blooded murderer and start rioting in the streets.  Well at least we didn’t hang anyone this time.

                So that’s about it I guess.  Crazy.