The Reality Behind Altruism

I realize my last post was not nearly as satirical as it should've been. Perhaps I'm taking myself too seriously. Oh well. Hopefully I will redeem myself.

You disgust me. You really really do. So I wake up this morning with Strep Throat, and turn the dial to 98.5 to listen to my favorite radio show, Rob, Arney and Dawn in the morning. I hear something faint about Haiti, but I'm too busy trying to get the razorblades out of my throat to really listen. Turns out, some sort of tragic earthquake occured in Haiti. And I'm not gonna lie, I only know it was an earthquake because I took a quick peek at Wikipedia before typing this up. All I really knew, before deciding the universe needed another dose of pessimism, was that a tragedy had occured in Haiti.
What disgusts me is the pretentiousness of you people. Everyone suddenly gives a fuck about Haiti because it's getting some international news coverage. I log in to my Facebook account to find over 9000 invites for groups to help 'save Haiti'. There are several things wrong with this. I will attempt to list them, calmly.

1. There is always some sort of tragedy going on, and the fact that your head can be turned so quickly and so exclusively towards Haiti only proves that you are slaves to the media.

2. You probably know just as much information as I do, or possibly less (and I know next to nothing).

3. You think that a Facebook group will save Haiti.

4. See #3

5. You probably don't know where Haiti is.

6. In a month you will have forgotten all about this.

7. You somehow think sympathy for a suffering person makes you comparable to Jesus Christ.

My heart goes at to all those who are suffering in Haiti, it really does. But please, universe, lets not get all up our own ass with preachy altruism. Altruism as we would like to define it, does not exist anywhere, save in the hearts of a few saints (i.e. Mother Teresa). The majority of people use altruism as a mask for some sort of self therapy. A pat on the back, if you will. HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ME, I'M HELPING! Celebrities do this shamelessly, average people do it more discreetly, but few ever do it genuinly. Do me a favor, if you actually care about the human race, care about it all the time, not just during major natural disasters.

Choices

Today I was browsing Myspace, and happened to look at the status feed where I saw some of my old music buddies, who I now hate, with brand new profiles that look super professional. You see, I used to be in a Hip-Hop group with three other guys. Let me be more specific, a Christian Hip-Hop group. You can see why me becoming an Atheist was a problem. Anyways, after I left the group, I asked for the money that I had lent the group in order to record. They turned me down profusely, and showed themselves to have very low character in my opinion.
Anyways, seeing their new profiles caused a quick relapse of nostalgia within my bones, and even a quick stab of jealousy. While I'm here in my budget home studio trying to get my voice right and attempting to learn how to mix and produce, my old group takes a visit to Los Angeles, wins a local radio contest, and gets their profiles done professionally. I know all of this is really a matter of money, but it makes me angry.
Here I am, an honest College student trying to find himself in life, struggling between Agnosticism and Atheism, fighting self apathy towards a shitty world, attempting to better myself through higher education, working my ass off at a fast food job, and simply not doing what I want to do as well as I know I can do it; which is music of course.
Every time I start a song, or an album, or purchase a beat, I end up throwing it out. If you are a musician yourself you know what I'm talking about. That dire need inside of you to express yourself through an instrument or vocals or poetry. And many of you probably experience what I'm experiencing as well (assuming the two of you that read this write music or lyrics); within an identity crisis it is hard to create music. Currently I am unsure about my self-image so I have no idea how I want my music to sound, or an album cover to look. I have no idea what the subject matter of the album should be. Should I be intelligent? Should I be dark? Should I create a party album? Should I be extremely lyrical at all costs? How can I combine these styles? Which ones should I combine? Of course, all of this becomes overwhelming and exasperating, which is why at times I feel like giving up. And yet, I know I won't.
I say all that to say this. I go through an extremely soul-purging process to create my music. I put blood, sweat, tears, my heart, mind, everything I have into my music. My old group couldn't give a shit about any of these oh-so-important-factors. They make music to sell it, and that's it! These clowns create the poppiest most radio-sounding unoriginal garbage the can, solely for profit! When I initially joined the group, we didn't care about money, it was all for Jesus. Nowadays, it's rare that they even reference their Lord and Savior on a track! And if you had the oppurtunity to hear them talk, you would know what lies behind their motives. "We're gonna be rich, you just watch, just watch, we're gonna be millionares, we're gonna drive around in Benz's, you just wait and see, we're gonna share the stage with Kanye West, you wait, you wait."
To be honest, I was still a Christian when I left the group. I ended up leaving for several reasons. The first was their creative motivation; it was money. Second, was their dwindling respect for their original purpose, and the facade they continued to carry. Third, was their disrespect for me in several situations. I was tired of being the "fourth man" of the group. I was always the least important, always looked down upon.
And so you can see how it angers me, six months after leaving such a corrupt group, to see them having success, and to imagine that I could've been apart of it. Scratch that, I don't want to. As a matter of fact, even if they do become millionares I don't think I would have changed my mind. My integrity is worth more than a million dollars. You simply can't put a price on doing the right thing.

Fuck You

I'm sorry if blogs are supposed to be all happy and lovey-dovey, but mine won't be. You see, I'm not really doing this blog for anyone but myself. Writing is how I vent my frustration, and I haven't had a sufficient outlet since I graduated high school and can no longer be on the Matador Capers, which was my Alma Mater's rag. I say 'was' because they obliterated it this year and probably next. You bastards. I digress, if you are reading this please stop. It will undoubtedly put you in a bad mood. On second thought, I don't care, have a shitty day, but don't say I didn't warn you.

My blog's colors are the hardest to read out of the two that I looked at before I carried on. I hope it was the hardest to read out of all of the choices, but alas, I was too lazy to look through all 8 of the choices. If you can't tell by now, it's not subliminal, fuck off. No, seriously.

Optimism really pisses me off, because if you are happy with the world, your face is obviously at least 8 inches up your rectum. Jesus Christ. I walk around all the damn time and see happy people. Sure, the majority are unhappy on the inside, but look around universe! I go to the mall and every last mother fucker is smiling, save the dude who just got dumped as Ms. Fields.

A month ago I got some insight into the mind of one of these optimists. I was browsing Facebook, looking at my buddies status updates when a particular one caught my eye. It was some inspirational little saying, I forgot what it said, but I commented on it, poking fun at it. Now, if you know me as a Facebook friend, I tend to do this a lot with whatever you post. Instead he replied back to me with some taunting little statement that my retort 'didn't make sense'. Of course, this user didn't know that I had no life and was willing to antagonize him until he admitted my joke was funny or at least made sense. I continued to egg him on while realizing that he was extremely defensive about this little saying.

A third party got involved, apparently one of his old high school teachers, with some harsh words towards me, poorly written. I replied of course, by telling her to learn how to fucking speak english and to get a life and stop being such a busybody. Long story short, a shitstorm of comments ensued, causing the original poster to walk away very butthurt.

It bothered me for days. Why would someone get so upset over a little joke about their Facebook status? Then it hit me. I wasn't insulting his Facebook status, I was attacking his way of life. Those who cling to fabricated happiness to cover up some sort of abyss inside of them need these inspirational statements to survive. They cannot depend on intelligence, realism, or education. What they need is a bumper sticker. And I would like to say that's fine, but it's not.

People need to wake the fuck up and realize that life sucks. The sooner they come to this realization, the sooner they can start living in reality. And the purpose of this blog is to do just that. Let's awaken out of our little dream world of chocolate bunny rabbits and clouds made out of marshmallows. Look at the world for what it is, every man for himself in a race to make money and pop out a next generation. Can't say I didn't warn you.

Have a nice day,

Bryce Avalos