Everyone wants to be unique.

Everyone wants to fit in.

When we look around today at people in general, we usually see groups of people who look exactly the same. All white teenage girls look like Britney Spears. All white teenage boys look like they belong in the 70's. The other day, I went to a restaurant and saw a group of four gentlemen in their early 30's to mid 40's. They were all wearing khaki shorts, thin, tucked-in golfing shirts and visors. At first I thought they must be on some team or something. Then I realized that they were just a couple of guys hanging out. I guess they had been golfing or something, but why does the occasion have to dictate the dress? Even the color of their shirts was the same ho-hum, sandy brownish boredom. Hell, white people say all black people look alike and black people say all white people look alike even.

It's obvious that MTV, TV in general and, even more widespread, society in general has programmed us into thinking that we all have to act a certain way, dress a certain way, look a certain way, speak a certain way and, most importantly, spend our hard earned coin in a certain way. In Pavlov's experiments, his dogs were trained to bark every time a bell rang. Now, we're trained to rush to the stores and buy a cd every time MTV says there's a new #1.

Hilfigger.

Polo.

Lexus.

Britney Spears.

Coke.

These are all examples of society telling us what to like and what we should buy. If these things make you happy, then fine. If you really feel like spending money on them, fine. But, do they really make you happy?

So, we're all alike...right?

Then again, you have the "outcast" part of society. The rebelious group that wants to be different from everyone else. But, in trying to be different, aren't they being the same?

No matter who you are and what your situation is, there is someone out there with the exact same problems as you. There are billions of people in the world. By laws of probability, I am right. You don't even have to use the entire world's population. Use your country's, your state's even. Hell, I wager that you can find someone in your own town that is going through or has been through the exact same things that you are.

It doesn't matter how unique we are, there are certain threads that bind together certain groups of people. In fact, all of us are bound together by some of these threads. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is be yourself, but never be alone...because no matter how you may try to get away from it, you never are. There's always someone that you'll have something in common with.

I just got through burning a cd. It is a nice little mix of anime theme songs, a few alternative songs and even some pop. Why do you care? Well, you probably don't. But, the message I'm trying to deliver can be summed up by reading the first sentence over again. By burning my own cd, I was able to put together about 19 tracks of music that I like. I didn't pay over a hundred dollars (no joke) buying all the cd's necessary to compose the one that I just burned. We've all done this before, no big deal.

But I think we just need to live our lives with the simple philosophy of burning our own cd's. No, not the part with the RIAA breathing down your neck because their rich artists aren't getting even richer. That's not what life is about. So what is life about? Do things you like - things that make you happy. Be nice. Play fair with others. Just relax and be mellow about situations that appear beyond your control, because worrying and/or bitching about them won't make things any better. And most importantly, don't be an asshole...unless you have a website.


"Being an individual too often means being alone, and the human creature was never meant to be alone." - Albert Einstein

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