If you haven't seen this video yet, watch it now. Like, right now. I'll still be here when you get back.
Done? Okay, good. Yesterday's post was pretty heavy and I feel like I need to balance it out by at least starting this one with something light. Don't get me wrong, I'm not done processing through the fallout, but I'm at least in a bit better mood than I have been for a few days, and I'm ready to get on to something less serious and dense.
I saw this video last night after I got done 'blogging and it gave me a lot to think about in light of recent events. For one thing, it basically sums up the entirety of Wednesday night for me in a few short minutes. I'm not sure which kid I looked like most at which moments, but between driving to three different grocery stores and pacing their beer aisles for 20 to 30 minutes a piece, all while actively talking to myself, I'm sure the expression on my face was more than slightly similar to several of them.
Even though it's a couple years old, I'd never seen it before. A webcomic I frequent talked about it in a recent podcast, referencing behavior in their own kids and saying they have no concept for the future. That idea is funny to me, like every little kid is sort of like that guy from "Memento," constantly stuck in the present with no ability to connect their current situation to any sort of meaningful experience. I thought about kids as caricatures of the adults who created them, or maybe even self-parodies of the adults they would become.
It's cute and funny to watch little kids struggle through the inner-turmoil of delayed gratification, but it's something else entirely to think of those same children, years down the road, seated in front of a beer or a cigarette or a crazy ex-girlfriend who cheated on them. There's something innately hilarious about the idea that a child would suffer such anguish for something as trivial and cheap as a marshmallow, but how many times have I allowed myself to run the gamut of depression over a job I hated or a girl I didn't really love or some possession that I didn't have the money for. I think the truth is less that children can't comprehend the future and more that adults just develop a taste for something other than sweets.
I guess that's the thing that makes me sickest about lapsing. In total, I went off the radar for less than 36 hours and I was only out maybe $40 by the end of it. Admittedly, I don't exactly have $40 laying around to waste right now, but this is coming from a person who spent $200 a bar tab for three people in less than four hours. In short, I've done a lot worse. The thing I'm really kicking myself for, though, is not just how easy it is for me to buy in to the lie that I'll be happy if I get whatever it is I think I want, but how often that temptation shows up in my life and how often I fall for it. I don't stop to think that what I want may not be good for me. I don't consider how often and easily "things" will break and how nobody ever cares about your job as much as you do and that people will always let you down in some way or another. It's like the adult inside me dies for a minute and all that's left is a kid and his marshmallow.
I dunno... it's a cute video and I like it, but it made me think a lot. Just thought I'd share it with you guys. G'night, all. Here's hoping for a better tomorrow for all of us.
- P -
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