I am not there.

I live in suburban Philadelphia, in a small town called Ambler. I’m not joking about the part where I say it is small. It has a street called “Main Street” and that is literally where everything happens. It is a good town, a lot of nice people, trees and clean crisp air. This suburban setting has its flipside(s); I have absolutely nothing to do outside of work, most people I know live 3 hours away in New York City, and I don’t want to be out and about on the streets of downtown Philly after 10pm. I don’t have a car nor the means to get one (at the moment, atleast 2 months before I even get close) I can’t make new friends! I am really not that old but an interesting mix of apathy and awkwardness stops me from doing it. College kids are stupid and older “kids” are, uhh, old. Seinfeld said it best, by the time you are an adult you have chosen your friends and you are stuck with them for life. SO, my TV is my roommate, my iPad and iPhone are my best friends, and my computer is my girlfriend. “Why don’t you read dude?!” the wise ones would say. I do.

I have been reading a lot off late and have built up a belief system purely based on my interpretations of what I read. I like to talk; rather, I love to talk about things i have read and get feedback, what most people call "an intelligent debate". Intelligent. But the more discerning members of my audience would have realized by now, there is no one to listen. So I made the poor decision to find people to “talk” to, online. Although I’m sure there are several people who share the same fascination with being informed as I do, the more I read – the more I feel others are not. I find myself getting increasingly aggravated by ideas that disagree with mine. Any argument opposing my “world view” only serves to reinforce my existing convictions, when I myself advocate free thought. Why do I have to take sides? Why have I become this self appointed crusader, fighting for the cause of rationality and logic the way I see it? Do I really have to argue and “win” to feel more comfortable about my own beliefs? Even if I do "win"; I have not, in any manner, reduced entropy in this society. I like to think so, but I have not.

So what do I do?! I seem to have found a way to be even more condescending by implying I am beyond mere right and wrong. I know what to do! I am going to be a -thought hedonist-. I just made that up, like I am going to with everything starting now. I am just going to go with whatever I feel is most suitable given my state of mind at the time. Ask me the same question a while later, I just might say something else. “WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?!” one might ask. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I simply am not there.