i'm-really-bad-at-thinking-of-titles

OK, I finally know what my goddam problem is with everything.

I've just finished reading 'The Catcher in the Rye'. Now, with most books, when you reach the end, well you know you've reached the end. You sort of see fireworks and neon signs saying, 'THE END' loud and clear, with a glowing red sunset in the background.

But when I finished this book, I had this really empty feeling in me. Like I had missed out on the point of the book. That I had not really got a word of what the writer was trying to tell me.
And then today I suddenly got into one of my 'moods', and sort of understood something. I understood the difference between characters in a play and people.

The difference is that we don't have goddam ideals!!

We're so caught up in our stupid, petty lives. We're so intent on getting enmeshed in those short term things, the things that directly affect us like getting a good job, a car, a house, in getting 'settled' that we lose the larger picture entirely! We let go off our ideals! We let go of who we can be, and take the more comfortable road. We kid ourselves by saying, "hey, this is the REAL world." Or, "Let's be practical."

We become trapped in this web of fear. We force on ourselves a list of rules and regulations, telling ourselves that the end justifies the means, until we become too goddam 'man of the world' to really go back to being that kid who used to watch disney movies, dreaming about becoming someone strong and true and basically someone who understood that life isn't a full time pain in the neck, but a soaring gift, snatched from eternity.

And that's exactly what the catcher in the rye told me. He wanted to prevent those little kids from falling off the edge into the world of adults with jobs and important things. He was shielding their dreams. He was preventing them from losing faith in their ideals by coming in contact with the world.

Once you lose yourself in the flow, there is no coming back.

OK. The reason I'm writing this, is not to say, "hey! Look at me! I'm an idealist" or "hey you goddam practical, real people, you suck!" That would be wrong, because firstly, people in glass houses are pretty vulnerable. Secondly, I guess that you can't survive on dreams. Dreams ain't manna from the sky. All i'm saying is, that if you have to make an important decision, please don't do it because hey! everybody else thinks its cool. Make it because you want to make it, alright?