according to emode's personality test, i'm a movie star. since three of the other options were Poet, Critic, and Observer, i was thrown for a loop. but after checking them out, i realized they didn't really fit me either. they all involve being shy which i don't think of myself as (very much? anymore?) so i'm in limbo. fine. emode pisses me off anyway: it's gotten too goddamn chirpy for its own good.

i've been at work twenty minutes and i'm already searching for things to do. last nite at becca's during our conversation about idealism and the future and our perceptions of the Real World we will one day most likely have to inhabit, i told her she'd never make it in my office. we're too inefficient, too chill. people do get things done but it's not on the same kind of schedule that she operates on.
the discussion started b/c ari said that even if he lived 115 years, he couldn't do everything he wants to do in life. 115 isn't enuf, just like 4 years of college isn't enuf, and don't get him started on monogamy. ... becca and i exchanged dubious glances. it seemed he was channeling the 60's idealistic, hedonistic free spirits. get with the times, man: it's about apathy and irony now. isn't it?
at the very least, you have to be realistic. at 115, you probably won't want to go on forever. your bones will hurt, you'll have no teeth, you'll have to wear diapers and feel your body whimper for death like an abadoned dog for its master. you'll be a tax on resources. and even if there are infinite numbers of things to do, places to go, people to see in this life, not all are enjoyable or even edifying. and many will make you wish to die a whole lot sooner.
i don't mean for this to be so gloomy. but the research i've done this summer has shown me that the world is not a friendly place (not that i didn't know that before; i'm just more aquainted w/ the details now.) we should try to have a great time while we're here and even better, try to leave a positive mark on our surroundings, sure. make lots of friends, fall in love, be ambitious, be optomistic even.
don't romanticize it, tho. it seems like the only thing our country truly has faith in is money and that, probably, in large part b/c they don't realize that it's only their faith that keeps the system running. maybe it's a good thing: most wars have been caused by people who feel passionately enuf to kill and die for a cause. (what cause? protestantism? capitalism? ridiculous in retrospect.)

maybe the only people who should be allowed to live to 115 are the ones who can guarantee they will leave this earth better than they found it in some small way. hedonism and/or fear of deat doesn't cut it w/ me. the question is, if you decide to keep living, what are you going to give humanity in return?