General Thoughts #2

I'm not going to lie. This post will seem incredibly similar in structure to yesterday's (the term 'structure', of course, used loosely) in that it has no particular direction. Although I realise I could have just called yesterday's 'Lack of sleep & Guardians of the Galaxy', so in the end it did have something of a direction. It all works out in the end, eh? None of that today though, oh no. Today, we're going free form. If any fellow English Literature students are reading, think of this as the 'stream of consciousness' you learn about in modernism. Yeah that's right, I'm like James Joyce (I'm not).

I went to Asda today. Yeah, I knew it was Black Friday, but sometimes a man just needs kitchen towels and detergent gosh darn it. You think you know what you're going to get in a Black Friday Asda.

Exhibit A

To be honest it wasn't that bad, although in hindsight, I was there when most folks are probably at work. However, bulk buying headphones and chargers because they're on offer is just dumb. There's no other way to describe it. Sure, Black Friday is nice when you're picking up Christmas presents or looking for a certain item that otherwise would be like a months rent to you, but it causes more problems than it solves. For one thing, unless you are just looking for one or two things, you're going to spend more than you save, guaranteed. Sure, you got a TV, tablet, headphones and trainers for a percentage of the prices, but you still spent upwards of £500 on stuff which if you really thought about it (i.e. if it wasn't covered in SALE stickers and tags) would be a waste of money.

People have died during every recent Black Friday sale, as far as I know. Think about that concept. People have been killed while SHOPPING. Of all the places with inherent danger, where you could understand on a base level the possibility of someone dying, the shopping scenario shouldn't even be a consideration. Looking on a wider scale, I'm constantly battling the slightly worrying feeling that we have begun to abandon the element of humanity that lets us consider us other humans human. Yes, we see the same species, just as one monkey or ape sees another and comprehends their relation, but we seem to be losing or ignoring one of the characteristics that separates us from those more primitive animals; the ability to look at another human, acknowledge their humanity and understand and consider that they may have needs that in some situations, override our own.

I could say more, but that's probably enough to be getting on with. What I will say is that if you work in retail today, tomorrow or any day like these, find comfort in the knowledge that you are standing on the right side of a one-day splitting of humanity. On the one side, those who have lost sight of what matter, whose crippling addiction to the idea of 'having more stuff' has won over spending a nice weekend in peace. And on the other, you; you beautiful people, who deal with sea's of metaphorical human shit everyday without taking the entirely reasonable course of action of cutting through the swathes with a machete. You're great, you are.

Of course, if you do start to get down, remember this, Happy Gandalf believes in you:

Something I forgot to mention in my assessment of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' yesterday, was that it was possibly the first time I have loved every single song that appeared in a movie. Even Tarantino didn't get full marks in that department. I don't know what it is about songs of that era that I prefer, but I'll say this; if I had been born 20 years earlier, I'd be 20 years older now.

I have a question; I'll label it rhetorical if only to save embarrassment when no one answers it: should I be worried that I am completely unable to settle on any one particular career path. Everyone of my age and ilk that I speak to seems to have at least an inkling of a concept of a smidgen of an idea about where they'd like to be in five years. At this point, in five years my only hope is I'm not quite dead yet. Aspirations!

I'm worried I might be a hipster. I was first alerted to this in my final year of sixth form, when a friend and myself were accused of this identity. Honestly, I've always been bad at knowing what the new set of people is and how to identify them, as well as knowing what I'm supposed to be. Apparently hipsters wear old clothes (vintage), grow beards and crazy hair, ride bikes and hate anything mainstream. I tend to like old clothes (vintage), if I could grow a beard I would and my hair is crazy simply by design, unfortunately. I don't ride bikes too often anymore, but I don't tend to be into anything mainstream. So maybe I am a hipster. An accidental hipster. That's a book or a film or an album somewhere, surely.

I've never understood the opposition to 'the mainstream'. I'm certainly never going to fit in to the mainstream in the sense of what is considered by the majority to be 'good' or 'cool', but this sudden idea that something is rubbish the moment everyone likes it is just moronic. I could go deeper, and maybe one day I will, but for now I'll simply say this; if something has garnered enough attention and interest that it has grown widely popular, it is simply childish to suggest that it does not have some merit in its relative field. For example, I don't like Coldplay; I find their music formulaic and ultimately boring. But to suggest that they aren't worthy of their place because I personally don't like them doesn't make sense. Conversely, I also dislike Justin Bieber, Yes he has legions of fans, but if you were to group all the people who knew of him, and then separate them into simple sectors of 'like' and 'dislike', I can almost guarantee that the dislike group would be larger. I think that proves my point, I can't quite remember.

Finally, and as always, a very good day to you, Sir's and Madam's, until we meet again.