James Dean I

The book got me thinking... I haven't read all of it yet but I'm in a thought-provoking mood right now. It seems the best thing one can do is to take one's self out of society. To unlearn everything you have ever been taught if you have been raised in society (which I have) and to start again. But once you take yourself out of society (which is what has been happening naturally for a long time with me), how do you then function in the society-driven world? How do you make money if you are not already established, and why should you have to wait until you are established to do it? How do you communicate when you don't want to and don't agree with the standard 'rules' of communication etiquette? Do you really have to smile if you don't want to? Do you have to laugh at a joke if you don't find it funny? No. But then people think you are rude and they won't want to talk to you again because they have not taken themselves out of society either and are still judging every minute of every day by standards that have been passed on to them, so what is the answer? How do you do it?

This relates to me and my career. I'm not the most sociable person. I love people, but only certain ones, not a lot. It takes a lot to break into my shell, more the older I get. And this whole online social scene I have now become a part of as a means of promoting my 'voice'. How is my voice supposed to be heard when every second things like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are flooded with 2,000 messages of people saying things like 'they just saw someone on a train' or 'they just ate a muffin' or 'they are hungover' and the most trivial pieces of information nobody really cares about. Guess what? No one cares. But then the same can be said to me. Shut up no one cares. Why am I more important? I'm not really. The whole thing relates back to an idea I read about before, about how everybody in life wants to think they are important. They have to believe their life is important, and that it has worth, and that people are listening. But if your life isn't important to someone else, why say something? How do you get your life to be important to someone else? And how do you stand out? Why would someone want to read what I have to say, and why are you even reading this? This is something I can't get my head around. I believe what I have to say is important and that people should hear it, but then again, isn't that the case with everyone? What sets YOU apart from ME?

This also relates to something else I was reading about a while ago. Equality will never exist. This is an ideal people strive for which can never happen. The reason? Humans are not born equal, and no 2 humans are the same. Some people are better runners, better singers, have bigger arms, have the ability to think more, the ability to feel emotions stronger, deal with 'numbers' and math better, better talkers, better listeners, better leaders. People are not equal, but everyone is striving to be heard. Is it true to say that some people deserve to be heard more than others? Why? And why should someone listen? I haven't figured it out yet.

Another thing it reminds me of is a quote from the start of Gia:

"Sex was really easy. There was sex everywhere. It didn't really mean too much. Love, love was the hard thing to find. Even if you were looking for it, which not too many people were. And even if you found it, which not too many people did, even if it was right there in front of you. No; how could you see it with all the sex in the way?"