thursday bleeds out into friday casting the whole weekend into doubt

Man, it was cool when the guy gave me the free 16oz mocha at 4pm but now it's 6am. I have been fantastically productive this evening. Including an eight page letter to my dad that I finished about an hour ago. I am now working on sociology. I am tired but I sure feel like a real college student for some reason. I have class in four hours. No more caffeine in the afternoon. I'm such a lightweight. Also, I may have eaten a few too many Oreo cookies last night and have remained in a state of lowgrade nausea ever since.

My dad taught me how to eat Oreos, like any good Dad of the pre-transfat age would. This is the method, it's... um... a little dark, but it's really not - I mean they're just cookies right? You drown the Oreo and then eat it whole. You take it in two fingers and hold it under the milk until the little bubbles stop, then you lift it up, toss it in and feel that soggy cookie melt into delicious as you much away on your mouthful of cookie. Haven't touched an Oreo in six months. Probably wont' again. Uggh. Feels so bad-good in my tum-tum.

Sociology is sick. Similar feeling. So bad-good in my brain. It's not all-right, but it makes some interesting points about socialization and freedom, I mean... who are you... really?

And then I think about my friends who are parents, and my parents. I think about the late nights and the early mornings, the working and everything else they do, and I wonder if that lifestyle has anything to do with the status quo, with the autopilot culture that has subsumed the American (by which I mean the United States) ideal of "freedom." I have the freedom to drink a sixteen ounce mocha at four pm, but there are consequences to my actions. It's practically scientific - for every action an equal and opposite reaction.

I thinka about all the sacrifices and struggles that parents must go through, and how so many of these contrived problems pale in comparison to anything that can be experienced with a child, the good and the bad, the enlightening and the frightening. But I know how well I think when I'm in zombie mode, like I'll be today. And I know that most of the parents I know are running on so few hours of sleep so often. And I wonder, how many of the foolish trends catch on because of factors like this.

Because what sociology shows is that patterns exist in our 'ness. From cultures to sub-cultures, people in similar situations make similar decisions - not everybody, but enough to form patterns. Patterns form trends. Trends come and go, and change is gradual, slow. and absolutely inevitable. And I wonder if being in this sleep deprived, protective, educating state that is parenting, if it leads people to become more conservative, accentuates latent and manifest conservative principles, or just makes people cranky and impersonal.

But perhaps that's the magic of staying busy. Could the trouble be that there's just too many people for us to all stay busy? Or is it better to be able to make that detachment between work and home, keep that home space sacred and separate? We are what we cultivate I suppose. The projects we work on, children can be this as much as careers or cars or vijiagames or girlfriends or religion or education or really, just about anything else - but how many projects can someone work on and give just due to? At what point does overload set in and somebody is useless to all of the above, or simply spread too thin to be effective in any one?

And perhaps, another seed of conservatism is planted by necessity - if one is not allowed, or does not take the time to educate and meditate, ponder, pray and examine in detail themselves from top to bottom and outside in - how many values can be taken for granted and accepted at face value? Values that might be harmful, or better amended to include new information - traditions, superstitions, sanctioned violence, flat earth mentalities being passed on from person to person without a second or third thought to the drawbacks or the benefits of amending the method.

In essence, I appear to be hypothesizing that, at least in the USA, early parenting forces the continuation of cultural norms, but allows a great amount of freedom to the individual (to spread the dominant culture to their children and participate in the system of norms to provide for their family) and the argument appears circular. Though, one can sacrifice some of the family project to excel at the system, the career project, the motivated-self-starter/aspiring entrepreneur project, thus creating more opportunity for the offspring to succeed by establishing wealth and, or a family name.

The beauty of the system is that it is open. Participation is mandatory, but if you're willing to go all in there's a good chance for boom or bust, and if caution leds to opportunity, or you're just lucky enough it could all come together in your favor. The system is organic. The system can be controlled to a certain extent, but it is ultimately unpredictable. The system is slowly becoming what the participants desire it to be, but it's no democracy. Elites do dominate the system qualitatively, while the majorities are maintained, though they dominate quantitatively, through this open system.

The trouble with the system is that it is harmful. It is oppressive to those who fall beneath it's tread. It keeps us occupied but it also generates the show around us, it's akin to working in a bar or a restaurant or a retail shop - where it's so easy to wind up throwing so much of your money right back into the business. It does this at the cost of those lower down the food chain. Meanwhile, there's no need for a food chain between humans.

We have the ability to change this, to respect each other and live our lives side by side - it just involves taking note of our cultures, seeing the differences in our societies and subcultures and questioning everything - but we're too busy with our individual selfish pursuits to be reminded of what's really important - our connection to the Divine Other, the Perfection that is all we are not, and greater than all we are; our connection to our flesh and blood, kindred spirits and like minds (family, friends and community); our shared reality, the planet and our humanity - that we are human, alike for all our differences.