Or here, rather: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSXWWrIxSB4
I have been listening to this song non-stop for months now. Almost every day, I pick up my iPod and if it isn't the first thing I go to, it is in the mix I am listening to or eventually I start craving that strange whisper-singing that usually bothers the hell out of me. I assumed that it was a combination of the great beat, the catchy hook and the amazing memories that I associate with it, but after I listened to it for the who-the-hell-knows time on my way home today something else hit me.
I get it.
I understand what she was looking for. My parents aren't exactly 'loaded' but I have never had to worry about anything, so I've never really had something that was completely my own. It always seemed like I got by based on who my family was. Even if I fail miserably, my parents are able to pick up my pieces.
We in the upper-middle class wrongly, sickly even, romanticize the working class. There is nothing great about wondering where your next meal is coming from, but at the same time, how fucking great to know that you are surviving on your own merit. The strength of will that takes amazes me.
I think of so many of the people I knew back home and everything they do is based on networking. When I am at Waverly's, the posh golf course back home, all I see is falseness. You have a hard time finding who your friends are because everything is based on social-politics (and when it isn't, you are paranoid as hell and often end up pushing them away with your neurosis). You are always watched because heaven forbid you do something that would embarrass your family name. You have a box that you are supposed to stay in and you better have a smile on your face while they fold it in on you.
When I moved here, I moved away from all of that. I wanted what I saw the 'common people' with - a feeling of abandon, of liveness that only can come when you have nothing to loose.
I know I am just a tourist. I always will be. While I moved here to get away from the J-Crew crowd, I came here on a visa provided by a prestigious theatre school. Talk about pretension.
If things went completely wrong and the roaches were climbing the walls, I really could call my dad to stop it all. Well, maybe not all of it, but he would certainly pay for the exterminator.
I don't think they had it right. I don't think poor is cool. I think it must be hard, but rewarding and real.
How amazing to know that your daily actions actually count. I just spent eleven hours working on a presentation about clowns. I mean, I love what I do, but really? What good am I doing? Who the fuck cares?
Who am I kidding? I care. And worse is that I actually believe I can change things through theatre, for now starting with these clowns.
I am hopeless.
If you're hopeless never stop believing. I think that it's people that can see and understand both sides (maybe not agree with, but comprehend) that will be able to change things. I mean. Unless you understand the people you're trying to talk to, to convince, how can you convince them of anything, least of all your sincerity and your intent.
ReplyDeleteAs cliché and perhaps as slightly meaningless as this may be coming from me (I am a bit biased here.) It's people like you that dream and try and don't give up that dream that give us* hope. Those of us that dream and hope that is.
* and by us I mean the, eh, what am I? upper lower class.. isn't that an oxymoron or something?
I think there was more. But my brain is working overtime these days (only 2 days off since the term started... and not another for almost two weeks).
LUVS