The Downer

This Post is Going to Suck

I called this post “The Downer” because that is exactly what it is, a downer, or at least compared to what we usually put on here. I am not even going to try and hide it. Consider this another one of my post about stuff that no one wants to hear or read.

Not once but twice today did this scenario happen to me:
Other Person: “Hey Tison, did you hear the news of the day?”
Me: “Umm, I do not think so. Did something happen?”
OP: “No. But that Packers and Cowboys are playing tonight!”
Me: “Oh, yeah, I knew about that. I thought something bad had happened somewhere.”
OP: “I don’t know, maybe. But tonight’s game is going to be a real good one.”
Me: “Yeah, it is, two good NFC teams blah blah blah.”

Now here is the place my mind went to after having this inane conversation twice with two people at school, both of whom I know on a strictly “I know you, you know me; we can say hi” level. Maybe it is just me or maybe it is a lot of people, but when someone runs up to me now wildly gestating for me to join them in conversation and then begins a conversation with a question concerning current events; I jump right to some awful massacre of Americans or other peoples by Americans or some other peoples.

Maybe this is not the way to go, but considering what is happening right now, football is not on the top of my mind all the time. I love football, as much if not more than most people. I love the strategy, nuance, and power of the game. I love the way it can bring people together or make them hate each other all because they know a certain fight song or are wearing a certain color. (It also makes me think about gangs and genocide, but not while I am sharing in the revelry of a great football game.)

Football is and should be a distraction from the realty. We should all have our own distractions from the things around us. But that is all they should be. They should not take the place of reality.

I am not saying that the people I spoke with intended for football or anything else to displace reality. I am saying that my mind’s run to bad news kind of jolted me awake this morning. I guess I never go there regularly and with my professor’s questions this morning regarding where is our generation’s protestors, activist, and demonstrators my mind was in current events/general world problems thinking overdrive. That question also sent me and the rest of the class into a glass-eyed staring contest. But my actual guess was right here on the Internets, YouTube, and other less personal forums.

I am beginning to feel that my generation does not stand up and talk about the things that matter the most in this world anymore. Look at our parents. For the most part, a lot of them were in school during the Vietnam War. Whether they were for or against that war, they were hanging out with people who felt the same way and were voicing that opinion. Not to say all of them protested or thought about it that much at all, but many did, and we see that generation carrying out the most vocal hostilities in this country towards our current administration’s policies.

I think we should be having fun and talking football, basketball, or cheer-poodlenastics, whatever you like. But we should also be taking the time to consider the reality around us and the reality of other people. How we do that is something that no one person can answer.

Also I am not say that no one thinks about this stuff, but you just do not hear about it as much or at all, at least I don’t. Oh, and discussions about anything important always lead to some rip roaring verbal nuclear war over which national party is better and more understanding of the American people. Which we all want to avoid at all costs because those do suck, like the parties themselves. We all know that neither party is any good, look at our current slate of candidates. But, alas, that is for another “Downer.” After reading this, rest assured there were be more “comedy.” The main format won’t change at all. But maybe, in the end, it will be us, the American youth, who do change, for the better.

Yea that’s right. I just blew you mind with some awesome Walt Disney or Walter Cronkite sign-off shit. Enjoy; those who actually read this post.