Tunes in my head: Spare Change by Michael Hedges
Books of a word: Night Drive by Seamus Heaney
Atmosphere: Headache.
So I'm suddenly not allowed to feel anything, to allowed to express emotion, to convey sympathy or doubt or fascination or anything of the like to anybody anymore. Thanks.
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I was reading the Phish biography today. And, as Les Claypool put it, it turns out that the people who do everything to help others, to make them comfortable, "Mr Happy", end up losing their battles as a result of this manic determination to make the world a better place.
What's the fucking point, anyway? You try so hard to make everyone else smile, you make yourself look like an idiot, and then they never appreciate it anyway. They never even take the effort that you put into making them happy into account.
I kind of feel sorry for the Santa Claus's around in the shopping centres. The kids appreciate it, I suppose. But do the adults take into account the happiness that is brought? Probably not. They'll just go right on with their daily business of making the kids feel like they're unimportant and insignificant in the general scheme of life.
If someone ran around in a clown suit, a few people would smile, and most would laugh at them, ridicule. Surely this is a way of showing how unappreciative we are of people who go out of their ways to make us smile.
Do we ever take into consideration their feelings? Maybe they make us smile in an attempt to hide their own misery and pain. It's the whole notion of the clown once again. Behind the makeup that they present to the public, they are truly sad and miserable.
But will the people care? Of course not. The people will merely go about their business as usual when the person reveals their pain. Or even worse, they'll decide to add onto it, see that as noble. They'll see "oh, everyone's lumping their crap on this person who does everything to keep us happy, who will throw themselves off things and put their own feelings aside so that you can be satisfied with what you have.
Yes, they put aside what they feel forever in a futile attempt to make you feel content with yourself.
Do you ever take that into account? Do you ever take what they hide into consideration as you go about your daily life with your perfect girlfriend, perfect homelife, perfect job, perfect everything? Do you ever think of them when they turn up bleary eyed, having made you smile the day before? Do you ever think of them when they crack some dry joke, in a futile attempt to make their friends smile?
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2 comments:
we dressed in clown suits once. a couple people laughed. some woman yelled at her child for waving to us... thats a sorry state of affairs...
"end up losing their battles as a result of this manic determination to make the world a better place."
Of course. That's not selfish behaviour - and thus puts you at a disadvantage to the large majority who act only in their own best interests.
An experience of mine which perhaps conflicts with your view is, a few years back, I dressed up as Santa Claus on [some day near Christmas] and wandered the streets with a bunch of relatives handing out candy canes and shouting random Christmas things. I had good fun, there were plenty of other people around the place who seemed to enjoy it, etc.
re: the clown suit thing - I don't see a problem with this as long as the clown is happy to be in his clown suit and is having fun. Presumably he would be meeting his goal of entertaining others, even if it was only through the perceived ridiculousness of his costume.
In terms of garnering appreciation from others, you have your work cut out for you. Almost anything you can do for a person, they will persuade themselves that it was of minimal value ("oh, I could have done that myself" or some such business) and not worthy of any particular return on their part. And/or they will feel entitled to whatever it is you can offer them. I forget where I was going with this.
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