jaded

i remember when i was 18 and i used to work at the retail store caldor (which is now out of business) and at the time i was a wide eyed, ready to fuck shit up, feeling good about life, existence, and all it had to offer me, motherfucker.

one time while working at caldor i got into a convo with 2 of my superiors. it was some semi-philosophical stuff, and i was waxing poetic about how awesome and great things are and i was really super positive and upbeat about everything. my two superiors agreed that i was still young and that i would get older and i'd become jaded.

i said, 'no way.'

now i'm 31.

and fuck if that moment doesn't haunt me a lot. it's a stupid moment in life that the other 2 probably don't remember at all. i don't even remember the specifics of the convo.. i just clearly remember that i wasn't jaded and i wouldn't become jaded.

i've wasted a lot of time. a lot of it has been fun stuff like drinking in bars, drinking at friends' houses, drinking outside, going to concerts and drinking at those... and i've always been able to concentrate on having a good fucking time with life. cuz fuck it, it's short and you might as well go out and enjoy it.

but damn, wait... am i escaping from something here? what is it about life that makes me wanna escape into fun time world all the time? i'm not mad at myself because i thought i've been doing the right thing.... just going out there and having as much fun as possible... but i've always done it around other aspects of my life....

mainly work.

my job's not a bad one. but if you asked me as a kid what i wanted to be when i grow up, i wouldn't have said this.

and i don't even remember what kid josh wanted to be when he grew up.

one time in high school i said poet... i was going through an edgar allen poe phase (not a phase, cuz poe still rules, but i was just really, really, really into poe at the time). and i was told that poets don't make money. damn, shot down.

one time i said i wanted to major in philosophy in college. i was told that degree's useless. boom, shot down again. no surprise i ended up going to county college for liberal arts and dropped out mid 2nd semester. no direction, no passion, and i was too busy having fun elsewhere.

i always thought this job/profession shit would just sorta work itself out and i'd just naturally find my place in the world. but i don't think i have.

and seriously, i'm not bitching about my current job, it's a nice job and i don't mind it all that much...

but i wish i was doing something that put a smile on my face... a 24/7 smile ... (ok, maybe 24/7 smile is overdoing it but i think you get what i'm trying to say here)... and i don't have that.

i wanna wake up and look forward to the day... the whole day... the whooooole DAMN day! work and all the things around it. i wanna feel good about shit.

i just don't know how to do that. i'm lost. and it's this lost feeling that's lead me to think that maybe i am becoming a jaded 31 yr old. i want to reverse this instantly.

i'm so frustrated by these thoughts. i gotta be honest with myself... i'm trying the stand up thing.. but i don't know if that's where it's at. i quit comedy all the time. seriously... i'll just wake up and be like, 'fuck that, i'm not doing this ever again...' cuz i just don't feel like it. then the day after that i'll be like, 'fuck it, let's give it another go.' and you can call that whatever you want... but if i've gotten involved in something that i don't feel like doing at all times, should i really be pursuing it?

a lot of times i think i should be writing more... i should just be a writer. but my vocabulary is not so grand. my understanding of grammar rules isn't all that grand either... and that's one of those things i don't care a whole lot about... all i care about is if i get the message across. do you understand what i'm trying to say? yes? good! then fuck the rules, i've done my part cuz writing is just a form of communication.

and then there was a part of me when i was younger that wanted to be the next howard stern. ok, so there'll never be a next howard stern, that's just ridiculous.. but i'd like a radio show where i talk about stuff with people and interview people and whatnot. i guess in the modern age, i could just podcast.

and then there's the part of me that wants to save the world, the part of me that wants to somehow be involved in positive changes in the world around me, somehow deliver a message of hope to the world.

like:

hey world, josh here. get along out there. it's a good starting point to make everything around us better. and it's not hard to do. you'd be surprised how much awesomer life could be. so stop all forms of douchiness, cuz that shit's contagious, like whoa, wildfire contagious. and before you know it, the douche takes hold of all things around us and causes us all to wake up and expect to be douched upon. that in turn makes us jaded.

i don't wanna be jaded no more.

sincerely,

rev. josh wells of the anti-douche campaign