so it goes.

I log in to check my email and here is the exact list of top new stories I see:

World shares head for worst month ever

Obama, McCain hit economy in the push to Tuesday

Texas floats plan to house Ike victims aboard ship

Suicide bomber kills nine in NW Pakistan

Sophisticated attack leaves 77 dead in India

Blue Angels remove 2 from duty, only 5 jets to fly

Man sets self aflame at Seattle college and dies

Beaten down, American consumers burrow deeper

So now I am left wondering if there is any good left in our world at all.

My mom told me last night that sometimes bad things happen to good people. And she is right. A half-brother cannot financially support his family and avoids his father out of humiliation. A mentor's nephew attempts to hang himself. A roommate's dog is put to sleep. A best friend's father is diagnosed with a form of cancer that could not have been prevented. A mistake completely fucks up the next two years of your life, drains your bank account and drains your soul. An oldest friend and a younger sister question love when in reality, they deserve it more than anybody in the world that I can possibly think of. A country is terrified and confused and faced with a decision that will change the way we are living no matter the outcome. 

Sometimes it seems like everyone is hurting, everyone is wanting something that they don't think they have. 

I have heard one thousand times that everything happens for a reason. But if there is a reason for all of this, I am either truly naive, or incapable of understanding. It's so hard to have hope when everything around you keeps on falling the fuck down. But in reality, what else can you do? If you can't fix something physically, then you sure as hell better fix it mentally, or a new headline prevails: We really are going nowhere.

Here is some pathetic consolation that honestly should kick you in the ass every now and then. No matter how bad you think you have it - no matter who the hell is kicking you when you're already down - somebody in this world has it worse than you. This can either cause you to feel petty and selfish, or it can give you a dose of realism that is desperately needed in society today.

You will get a job. You will survive the next two years of probation and figure out a way to pay your fines. You will find happiness. You will find love. You will graduate on time. You will reconcile with your loved ones. You will grow up. You will smile again. And without a doubt, you will complain and cry and hurt so much that you can hardly breathe, but in the end, what the fuck else can you do?

October will end and November will begin, and life will continue whether you want it to or not. So in the words of my mother, the saint: have faith in whatever it is that you need to have faith in while understanding that others around you are doing exactly the same. We are united, even through fear, even through sadness, even through humiliation, and thus, we are selfish to think that we are ever truly alone.

 

xoxo

So we watched the debate finally and there were points where I could hardly breathe. That's when I realized that I haven't really cared about anything lately as much as I care about the election. I think I need to be in love. Or get an animal. 

You can tell me that "he" is, in the end, the man like all the rest before. But here's the thing: I can't vote for you. I can take the little bit of freedom that I have and use it how I see fit, with the understanding that maybe my hope does sometimes overshadow my "intelligence." But that's life, man. I can cross my fingers and hope that is enough. 

Just don't say sorry, I'm not totally ignorant. 

***

So I've jumped on the LA bandwagon and been feeling totally shitty and just completely sorry for myself, which is lame because we've been rewatching season 2 of Twin Peaks and it's been blowing my mind for roughly 2 hours a night this past week. It's just that there's so much negative shit going around right now like a virus, and you can tell, even walking around downtown, that people are totally bumming the fuck out. Living in this perpetual state of numbed caution is pretty damn terrifying. 

I was talking to my dad the other night which is a semi-rare but fantastic occurrence, and (as with all recent conversations with pretty much anybody tend to do lately), talk turned to the goddamned economy. How he is afraid for friends and family and how the end to whatever we're living through probably won't come for a lot longer than it will take me to graduate college. F.u.c.k.

But at some point you've just got to accept where you stand in the world and the roles that you are playing in your everyday life, and understand that a lot of our fate truly is out of your hands. That which is not out of your hands (yet) is that which you still have the ability to change. And this is something that we do not have to be afraid of. So go ahead and trust your own personal choice of god, trust Obama, trust yourself; trust Secret Agent Dale Cooper and the genius of David Lynch. Trust a friend that will listen to the Silversun Pickups and smoke with you in a parking lot at three in the morning. Trust the ocean currents, or the fact that the stars are going to come out every night without fail because that is simply what they do. 

Now is the time when people are going to need to start seeing their lives for what they are and not what they are not, whether that is completely shitty or completely beautiful. Because in the end, isn't the only real difference between what you've got and what you need that the things you need can't really leave you? 

I guess you just have to keep telling yourself that no matter what we are losing, there are constants that will remain if you allow them to. My brother's short stories, Weezer's Blue Album, snow in October, Oki Dog, polaroids of my parents' first Christmas together a million years ago, smoggy skylines, Montana highways. People have waded through knee-deep shit before. People will drown in it before anything gets better. And thus, focusing on the things in your life that you have and the things you can still control has never been more difficult, but never been more important. 

My opinion, for what it's worth. Which is probably just about nothing if you ask wallstreet. 

Today is a good day to flex the muscles of the weary,
A miracle's a miracle even when it's ordinary.
We will walk on the water even though it seems scary,
If someone will show us the way.

He said, "Do unto yourself as you do unto your neighbor -
It's not an eye for an eye, It's a favor for a favor.
And it's okay if this world has a billion saviors,
'Cause there's so many things to be saved."

-Cloud Cult

just a thought

if you aren't voting then you don't have the right to complain. so shut the eff up about moving to canada and pick up a ballot. 

dear everybody,

Have an opinion, please.

And then take that opinion and do something proactive with it. 

Not only is this your responsibility, but this is your right.

Love,

Hannah



It's clear, and I get it. Our economy is in the shitter and it's going to take a long time to get back out. But it's also going to take more than signatures and 700 billion dollars - it's going to take a group of people banding together in order to spark change.

So this is how I see it. It is entirely clear that the state of America today is somewhat undesirable. Yet somewhere inside of me, I still have the urge to defend my country because honestly, I have enough hope that through all of this complete and utter shit, we will be okay. To me, it seems that America can best be represented by its citizen body rather than its government and the decisions that Washington has made. Because hey, these are the citizens who have changed together and attempted to change one another, who have fought for freedoms and equality and the understanding that each one of us deserves. These are citizens who do care about the economy and who have supported the evolution of civil rights and donated time and money to aiding the less fortunate.

America consists of a mass of people in which the majority is good. Yes, I genuinely believe that. And because of these people, I also believe that no matter the negative views on the country, we, the people, make up America. Because of the enormous strides our country has taken throughout history to become what we are today, we exist in a country where liberty has been fought for and earned and is now our birthright. So long as the citizens can influence the government to use this in a proactive way, right or left or red or blue or green or whatever, I think we will be all right. It will take a while to get back on our feet and stand tall, of course, but doesn’t every great change need a beginning and a middle to see an end?

So yeah, America will continue to make mistakes. That is my prediction. That is the nature of politics, of the economy, and of the social class. Yet I also predict that through these mistakes, no matter how fucking gigantic they may seem, will come vast changes and better times. We're gonna be okay, someday, all the while remembering that sometimes it takes huge losses to receive huge gains. Violence, suffering, and severe economic failure have been an enormously influential part of our past, and there is no doubt in my mind that our future will see its fair share of the aforementioned. But what we cannot do is focus solely on the negative when there are so many great and vast accomplishments that we have seen as well. Let us not reside in a country based upon the foundations of fear; let us reside, instead, in a country based upon the ethics of a great and influential hope. 

From an unstoppable 23 year old boy in Hawaii with huge things ahead of him to a man - a team - standing before our country and simply asking people to give a fuck - change is everywhere, so long as you take what has been given to you and use it however you see fit. Based on fact, based on opinion, and based upon hope. So you may not like either candidate. I've heard a million times in the past couple months, "It's like voting for the lesser of two evils." But that is absolutely no reason not to voice the opinions you hold on the viewpoints that either man will fight for in order to make your country better.

Guys, you live in a country where people have literally fought for the right that we all (aside from convicts and those 17 and under) hold today. As I look across the globe, it seems selfish not to realize that I am incredibly lucky and blessed to be an American voter, and I will exercise my freedoms in order to make a better tomorrow because not only is it my Constitutional right as a citizen, but it is my obligation. 

It seems to me that what so often goes overlooked in the midst of overwhelming pessimism is America’s great and powerful ability to embrace the fact that the world changes. And the fact that each change that our country has seen to this day has initially required a mass of people to voice the need for transformation and to stand up against judgment and fear for what is right. Each has required people to listen and understand. And each has required a general governmental consent. In all of these cases, those needs have by and large been fulfilled. Because in America, when the people speak loud enough, the government is forced to listen. More often that is credited, positive reactions are the result.

I do not think there will ever be a time when our country can honestly say that as a nation, we have come as far as we need to go. Each individual, group, political party, and the president, along with many more still, will continue to fight for acknowledgement, power, and success. Because people still care. Countless minds will be opened from generation to generation only because so many people want to attempt to make America better. To create a much needed change. To start a revolution through the opening of ears, eyes, and hearts. And with each day, no matter how little it may seem, a bit of progress is being made somewhere, somehow.

Yeah, you can call me a bit naïve as I have chosen to focus on the positive in hopes that tomorrow will be better than today. But as a very great man, who is standing before us where he is today solely because his country embraced an immense change, once said, “There has never been anything false about hope.”

That's it, that's all.

Oh and thanks, God, for Jonah Hill.