UtenaSama's High Curried Trip: April 29, 2000
Isn't the whole meaning of Buddhism supposed to be the absolute of nothing? Causing a great tolerance for everything within this vast universe of ours?
"Small problem, big picture," I was always told. Yet people seem to bicker about the smallest things lately, making the problems a universe all their own.
Online, people have this ability to become whatever they want to become. Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, ...oh my! People that are meek are brazen. People that are unattractive are desirable. And even females can become males, or vice versa.
It is sort of disturbing, really. Not ever knowing who you are truly dealing with. How these same people, who in real life (or IRL for those who can only read in online *OL* acronyms now) could never stand up and yell out to the world about how pissed-off/depressed / mentally disturbed they are, all of the sudden feel they have become cyber Hemmingways.
Dominators of a podium, a virtual soapbox, that is not even real.
These people who cower in school hallways, afraid they might be seen, or who never raise their hands in class for fear of having to speak openly. Small, fragile, and usually not the winners of any popularity contest, they become kings and queens to a world full of fools blinded by text, amused my graphics, and desperate for attention, friendship, love, adoration...
...list goes on.
These are the people who banter about how deep their beliefs run about this or that, yet act like a Hebrew hiding in Berlin in the 1930s when their PC's and iMacs aren't juicing them up to the alter reality. And seriously, ...I cannot stand them! Mainly children run this gambit, and they, so filled with that feeling of immortality and raging hormones, give backlashes to their peers online in the most vicious and cruel ways imaginable. As if they knew the man or woman they were verbaling beating personally!
"Screen Name One did this and Screen Name Two is their accomplice, and I want all the other Screen Names in Screen Name Ville to rise up and email to their Screen Name faces about just how much you 'personally' hate them (or should hate them because I said so) to insure that my Screen Name and your Screen Name will always be held in a much higher regard than theirs!"
Sort of like high school, compliments of people like Bill Gates and Steve Case.
Well, guess what? I am not a Screen Name. Sure, I have one, but that is protocol. The Gestapos of the online server industry want us to be labeled, but trick us into thinking we have freedom by allowing us to create our own labels. Our own fucking license plates, personalized and stamped by the prisoners themselves. Do we actually think that a mix of letters and numbers cleverly jumbled together makes us an individual to the hive, when it only makes us a bigger slave to legions and legions of electronic faces in a none too real sea? Some drowning, and some swimming to shore to get the fuck out.
And like the prison we have become, we have leaders. Thugs. People who gather up posses and gangs to protect themselves so they can get away with fucking the weaker inmates in the ass while the others look out for their back! HAH!
THIS ISN'T REAL! And I am tired of people acting as such.
I told a friend of mine recently that my always amusing and never quite controlled cervical cancer had come back, and that my grandmother had died. She died a most terrible and tragic death. Very ugly. And although I play it to be lesser than what it is, I can no longer deny just how much it really hurts me.
And this said "friend" said something to the effect that isn't the purpose of me, "UtenaSama," who happens to run this outrageously over-hyped mailing list,
... isn't that what my mailing list is for??? To make myself feel better????
How the HELL is something online, something not even CLOSE to our God/Allah/Buddha/El given reality supposed to ease my pain even slightly? What fucked up perspective on life do you actually have to take on to think that even the slightest bit of catharsis could come from me selling my personal hell to others in a cheaply packaged e-mail, filled with banners, typeface and some meaningless attachment????
Get a fucking clue! Sure, I type this now, and will have it posted on some web page, which floats out in cyber space, waiting to be seen and judged by millions of passers by ... but this doesn't stop the pain I feel every second, of every day that I wake up knowing exactly how completely helpless I am to do anything but wait and hope that my life is prolonged a little more by the good graces of some large, scary HMO and their army of white-clad Dr. Kevorkians! Fuck no!
I do not choose to live out my fantasies of acceptance out online. I want to rebel against the raging tide of the Amazon.com culturettes! Hell, I have not even sent out a damned mailing list issue in a long time. You would THINK that would stunt my popularity somewhat, but let's face it. Some people are sheep and always will be, which is why bands like the Backstreet Boys can rise to an undeserved fame, because the mass media tells us that they are the elite.
People see my name and some think I have some kind of mystic power that can control the fate and/or destinies of the less famous masses. Well, in theory, ...I probably can.
How sad is that? How much conceit does that admission hold?
Says a whole hell of a lot for what goes on in our little online existence.
But don't get me wrong. There are many who are the exception to this rule. Who refuse to become a part of the technological revolution's Generation Y upheaval, and instead, decide to come online to quietly amuse themselves and go on about their lives.
These are the unsung heroes of our time, folks, and should be rewarded with big ass medallions made from old 1980s boomboxes and Speak N Spells, showing their disdain for what the new millennium has created for us. Not necessarily snubbing our great and vast Silicon Valley all together (hell, even I love my Playstation), but for seeing that values of the simpler times still apply to an overly fucked up modern world.
*ramble, ramble, ramble*
Dear Buddha, what the hell did I just say? And did anyone understand one small piece of that fragmented rant? Gah!
Last thought, dedicated to my Goddess Of Creation, Sallie (who I love for allowing me to call her by her real name, heh):
I know how much time and effort you put into this page, and soon, so will everyone. I am sorry it was my friends who signed that guestbook. Making it look as if the site had become property of the great and holy UtenaSama. But, you know I have always been your most loyal fan. And I try my best to credit you when I can.
Another thing, ...you are right to wonder about that cult called 'anime'. I showed your Zettai to many who I knew felt the same way as you did so you knew you were not alone. The people who coexist in that room have a serious problem, and I know I make trips there daily to see the who's who in online freakdom, but I am not one who appreciates their fucked up sense of what should be humorous. It's simply stupid. Especially when they feel the need to greet each other with a hearty, role played "raping."
Utena! Brett! Lil! Kas! Hime! Lady! Screen Name! :::rapes everyone:::
Heh, that is just fucking disturbing man.
Much kudos to people like Ocelot who can avoid that room and all of it's zany brand of unfunniness. Also, to people like Ran who just simply tipped his hat and walked the fuck out the AOL door altogether.
Accepting a newer, more reserved life on CompuServe.
Yeah, it's owned by AOL, but it's not AOL.
Oh, and to a certain someone *ahem*.... stop the flaming. Your need to flame a person every other week because you feel they have stolen something or have personally wronged you is insane. If you were truly Buddhist, you would respect the fact these people are lucky to even be ALIVE and hopefully well, and let them do what they must.
The world will not stop for you if they steal an icon, layout, idea, or a screen name.
Okay, I am tired, and had to speak.
To think, I could have done that damned essay for Philosophy in the time it took me to write this. GAH!
"You don't own your furniture, my friend, ...your furniture owns you." - Fight Club
Gotta love that film.
Or not.
-UtenaSama
