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www.kevacho.com
©2002-2024
Kevin Michael Vance
Writer - Portland, Oregon
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August 31, 2009
Twisted life...
I work at a Liberal grocery store. My day is spent either throwing frozen items onto a shelf, and or, grocery items: simple job, mind numbing at times, but nonetheless, honest and decent work. I have a friend who works in the meat department. His day is spent cleaving flesh off bone from nearly every mammalian and fowl species known to man. When we're not working our day is spent watching the plethora of increasingly idiotic waves of human beings ebb and flood, quite mindlessly, throughout the store.
Just the other day, as I was throwing milk onto the shelf I glanced up to see a rail-thin, "hipster-doofus", slink his way towards the bathroom: t-shirt three times too small, ratty, bleach-white jeans three times too tight, shoe-string head band, limp wrists. Almost at the very same time, I peered to my left, only to see some overweight female strut her way to the yogurts: one hundred pounds obese (at the least), hair cut like a fifteen year old boys, arms held away from her sides as if she were a gunslinger, or actually had "lat" muscles. Her attitude and her aggression so overplayed and trite she may as well be auditioning for the next "Twilight" movie.
And that's when it struck me. Men do not know how to be men. And women, certainly do not know how to be women. Everyone is on their own personal stage, playing some ill conceived, imaginary part, they themselves created; not knowing who they are, and too frightened to admit that they are, indeed, afraid to truly find out. Men are sissy's, with no real heart, or drive, or aggression, acting the pensive artist, and denying their true nature; afraid to play, afraid to be boys, afraid to be men. Women don't know what they want, but they know they want it all, and yet, are not willing to put in the time and the immense effort it would take to achieve this. They think that to appear feminine and womanly is weak (something that could not be more farther than the truth). Why look at our culture, thirty-something women and men constantly refer to each other as boys and girls, giving no real credence or value to being a man or a woman, a state in which we should all, man and woman alike, strive to be.
But what do I know? I am forty and still unsuccessful in my literary endeavors. I have humbly, and luckily, been an inspiration to others. However, I am sure there are those out there who would glance my way and think, what a goof. Therein lies the rub -- the key to maturity is knowing when you do NOT have to be mature. So play, all of you. Do not wear the uniforms of society or the trappings of its fleeting cultures. Be yourself. Revel in that. Embrace every part of yourself, even those parts that inspire fear or disgust or self-loathing. We are, none of us, perfect. And the only real failure in life is not trying.
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