This week I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Mahatma Gandhi. The quote goes: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s so simple and rings so true to me that I would venture to go so far as to call the quote quite profound. And the quote motivated me to think about change this week; about the sorts of changes I’d like to see in my own life, and in the world. But with change, often comes a price. Only a few times in my life have I successfully made changes that were emulated by others around me. When this did happen, it proved to me that we really are each capable of promoting positive changes in the world around us. So great, I’ve made a few measly changes in my life, right? Well, yes, that’s true, but these particular changes have felt so good, that I really want to further “be the change that I want to see in the world,” only lately, I can’t figure out how to be a lot of the changes that I want to see.
I often overhear people using the phrase, “I would give up an arm and a leg for [some dream or goal]”, and this upsets me, because usually, the object of desire isn’t worth the life altering changes that would come with the loss of two major appendages. Think about it, what sort of idiot would give up an arm and a leg for something besides eternal happiness or world peace? I mean, other than those two items, I can’t really justify trading in my ability to run or my ability to juggle for anything else on Earth! (I can’t actually juggle yet, but boy would I give up an arm and a leg to learn how to do it!)
One of the many things in this world that I cannot stand is to be given bad directions. I most certainly inherited this from my father, who I can distinctly picture yelling at me as a kid when I got bad directions as to where to pick up a friend on our way to a Golden State Warriors basketball game. The bad directions made us late, as is usually the case, and I learned an important lesson: You are a moron if you cannot coherently explain to someone else exactly how to get to where you live. I think there is nothing more telling about a person’s incompetence than whether or not they can succinctly and correctly describe how to reach the place that they live. Even if you don’t drive, you should know a few basic crossroads and highway names so as to direct emergency aid to your house in a time of crisis. I vow to be the good directions that I want to receive from others.
I hate signing petitions and I hate people whose job it is to get me to sign petitions. These aggressive and pushy people will say whatever it takes to get you to stop, and sign some form. More often than not, here in Portland, if you ask them any question about the proposal for which you are supposed to sign, you can tell by their canned answer that they don’t even understand or care about the issue, they just have a job, which is to convince you to sign their form, so that at the end of the day, they will get their commission pay for having fulfilled their quota of signatures. I don’t really know how to ‘be the change’ that is necessary to get rid of petitioners, so I will be extra mean to them from now on, so that they are less likely to approach my demographic in the future.
I’m lazy. I don’t like choosing what to eat when I’m hungry; I just want to be fed, whenever I am hungry. I also don’t like picking out movies or television shows, and choosing how to be entertained, I just want to be entertained. What I really need is for someone else to monitor my hunger and attention span, and then feed me and entertain me when necessary. After thinking about this pathetic attitude of mine for a while, I realized that my dilemma is akin to that of a dog’s. And my job description is exactly what I imagine a dog would post on Craig’s List, if a dog could write and post it’s thoughts on the internet (and I bet a dog would give up a paw and a leg for this ability). Again, I don’t think the Mahatma’s advice can truly apply to my situation, but I’d love to change our social norms, and to be treated like a dog—especially with the added bonus of the fact that it is socially acceptable for a dog to chase squirrels and bark at anything!
In the world of music, there are two things that I would give most anything for. The first is to get a chance to see my all time favorite band, Nirvana, play live in a small club somewhere on the West Coast, in the early nineties. Now, I know that this is impossible, but I’m just being honest, and recognizing my dreams, plus, it’s my column, so stop reading if you can’t willfully suspend your disbelief, and pick up a new genre. The second change that I’d like to see is an international ban on the band “The Red Hot Chili Peppers” from ever recording and releasing another stupid song about California, or with the word California in it, ever again. RHCP: we get it, you’re from L.A., which is a city in California, and you see California as some huge, mega important metaphor for your lives. That’s great, but we picked up on that, four or five albums ago. So get over it.
In the world of sports, there are also only two changes that I would like to see. But I’d probably grovel and beg for these changes, if I could figure out just who is in charge in the world of sports. The first change would be for my beloved A’s to win the World Series twenty-one more times, so that they would have the all time record for World Series Pennants (which the Yankees currently hold), and the second would be to ensure that the detestable New York Yankees never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever win another World Series, ever, ever, ever again. I mean it, not one more damn time!
I’m a pretty picky guy (see STBY#24), but I think that as far as women go, I would give up a lot of things that are near and dear to me if it would be sufficient barter to find a wife who will support me, financially, for the rest of my days, in order for me to guiltlessly dedicate my life to doing things that I love, like writing fiction, playing music and sports, and watching sports. Oh yeah, and I’d also use that free time to dedicate a lot of my time to this magical, workaholic wife. Cause, uh, that’s what she wants to hear, right?
Politically speaking, I want to learn to be the change that it would take to ensure that I would never again have to pay any taxes, to any government. In addition to this change, I’d like to see a law prohibiting the use of air conditioning. I hate air conditioning for two reasons; the first is that it’s awful for the environment, accelerating the green house effect as it expels CFC’s into the atmosphere, and most people leave it on when it is completely unnecessary, because they either forget to turn it off, or because they are spoiled and can’t ‘take normal air anymore.’ (I’ve seriously heard people say this!) The second reason that I hate air conditioning is that the chemical Freon, which is used to create air conditioning, gives me headaches, and like most people, I don’t like headaches.
I’d like to see Steven Spielberg change his repetitive ways, and make a movie that doesn’t have a picture perfect, feel good happy ending (I can’t remember how Schindler’s List ends, but that’s the ONLY film of his that I can think of that doesn’t end with either a passionate reunion, a celebration, or a bunch of androids and Muppets holding hands and singing in perfect harmony). In real life, Mr. Spielberg, I have found that most adventures don’t culminate with happy endings; they simply ‘end’ with people in a state of uncertainty, with a wide-open future ahead of them. I therefore find your so-called ‘realism films’ to be a boring, hokey sham.
And in the world of television I would ask the FCC to lighten up, and let television honestly explore the real issues of the world that they censor on a regular basis. For example, I’d like to get a chance to see Janet Jackson’s other nipple, because I’m all about the full picture, and see an importance in parity. That brief, Super Bowl induced, asymmetric glimpse into her upper anatomy just wasn’t enough for me to learn anything from. The cameras were so quick to sensor the incident that I feel like a kid who was told that I was too young to see an R rated movie that my parents were watching.
I don’t know how to ‘be this change,’ but while I’m dedicating an entire column to my bitter, petty ramblings and rants, I’d like to ask this local dude, here in Portland, to make the following change: Dude, I know that you don’t read this column, and even if you did, you are probably far too oblivious to realize that this is about you, but Dude, you’ve been coming into my restaurant for eight months straight, chatting it up with me, acting like we’re great friends, and you request special orders and extra work to go into your orders, all of the time, and yet you have never tipped me, not once! So give ME some change!
Moving back to politics, this Democrat and Republican hating Libertarian Asshole would give up my freedom and democracy to see Every Senator and Representative who still supports the War in Iraq have to pull a typical ‘grunt’ tour of duty in Iraq, just to make sure they understand what it is that they are asking of so many brave Americans to do. But I’ve been unfair, I’ve been asking for so much change from others, without reflecting on what personal changes I should make to change the world around me. Well if it will help bring about many of these important changes, then I will continue to wake up every day, and do something that for some reason, I absolutely hate: Yes, if the changes I seek are brought to fruition, then I will continue to floss my teeth. Although I must admit that I would give up all of my teeth if it would be enough to never have to floss again. Irony.
But while flossing is annoying, it’s not as bad as a hangover. Saturday morning, I woke up with one of the nastiest hangovers I’ve had since my freshman year of college (which I like to refer to as ‘dealing with hangovers 101’). Hangovers are amazing, because they induce in me the most selfish and absurd state of mind that I can experience. For example, on Saturday, I woke up thinking only one thought: “Mike, forget about Janet Jackson’s other nipple; forget about your Oakland Athletics, and most of all, forget about world peace, I would give up my central nervous system to get rid of this hangover!