song of the week: u2, bad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgBtoiNxPyE
on another day, in another universe, doing the right thing gets the right girl. i believe in it.
on another note, i never liked photos. i feel that photographs are weak, and life is real. i don't want to look at life through somebody else's eyes and see something wonderful. i think that means that i haven't been paying enough attention to something that's going on all the time, and without having to pay a cent to look at. even against some quite extraordinary photo, i feel that there is enough beauty and originality in the everyday object and scene that warrants my attention, my full and absolute attention. one could even say that there is something of a universal grace or beauty in the simple things in life. and as to the feelings that photographs can evoke, i think such a case cannot seriously be argued when life is put on the other side of the balance. one must be quite blind to not notice how life cries out, and how it cries out everywhere.
but i think there's one thing that photographs get right, well, at least, old kept family photos, and that is that they capture people at their best. look at them and you'll see images of happiness, warmth, sincerity, closeness. and you end up believing that those people in those photos are happy, and are in the present day, grown up and conceivably happier. and i don't think there's anything wrong with that.
except that life isn't a photo, and doesn't care about what a photo wants it to look like. you know that. i know that. life is gritty, is harsh, is terrible. life is full, is pandora's box full. hope is the great cosmic irony at the bottom of the barrel. whatever.
here i am trying to do the right thing all the time. i mean it, for better or worse, i treat everyone as i think i ought to treat them at my best, no holds barred. i don't listen to rubbish from nobody, i don't take crap from nobody, and i don't overlook the things i shouldn't overlook. you know that, i know that. but me being this mean tough guy who isn't blind to faults and suchlike, who thinks everything should be a certain way, for better or worse, i can live every single day without too many goddamn regrets. do i do right by every person i know? you goddamn right i do. but it gets a little bit harder when looking at these old things, these old things. did i do right by the memories of these people at their best, the memories of the people who loved me, however they lived, and acted, and reacted to life? there's no easy answer here.
i think that's the funny thing about trying to do the right thing. the right thing, what is it, exactly, but no, more, i dunno, more intuitively, more instinctively, less intellectually, what is the right thing? if living right everyday is hard on people, maybe living without giving a shit makes it easier to face the past, the beautiful, revered, unprofaned past. maybe living without caring, without caring like i fucking do, and in so doing, being easier on people, lightens the heart a little, and reconciles a man to the happy images of his past. or maybe it makes him sad to think of the happiness that could have been.
but i guess this is the legacy of a sad family. photos are the useless remnants life reminds us to store. i think happy families have their happy photos, and sad families have whatever they asked for.
