When Egos Attack!

These days, a lot of people are having or have kids. Inevitably the conversation turns to child rearing and just how the hell you raise a kid today without having them become a cam slut or the next Columbine kid.

Through all the anxiety one thing seems to come up time and time again, self esteem. If you raise your kid with a goal of giving them a defined sense of self worth then really, the rest should take care of itself. Sage Wisdom? Hardly. it's over simplification to the point of cliché.

However, as I ride jarringly down the tracks in the green machine they call GO I find myself reflecting as I often do on my own hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future.

Add to this the recent addition of facebook into my life and things start to get complicated. Each day I find myself with 2 new elements to my reality. Finding out:

1. What my peers have been up to for the last X years since I saw them last. Now, don't get me wrong, I am largely very happy to hear from everyone but, it really is a scorekeeping moment no matter how much you claim 'not to care'. Here is a group of people who, on paper, all had the same skills, abilities and opportunities as me. A decade or so we were set out on the world and now we find ourselves at a way point of measurement. The good news is catching up with old friends on facebook is basically the plutonic version of lavalife, best case scenarios and over exaggeration, so where one grain of salt is usually prescribed, use two.

2. Finding out what my newly reconnected network is up to daily and often hourly. Funny how you can go from not having spoken to someone since before there was reality tv to now being apprised of their every mood change? I guess this acts like an I.V. drip versus pushing the full needle every 10 years.

Now with the world's most verbose precursor in place, I digress.

Self esteem, we're supposed to have lots of it and if we do this is what's supposed to bring us happiness and good decision making skills. But I got to thinking tonight, what if having a lot of self esteem gives you a false sense of importance in the world?

I see my lost friends and their comfortable lives and their charming new families and I ask, so is that it? Are they happy? Are they at the finish line and now it's about the generation behind them?

At this point if you're one of those people you're thinking, screw you Oliveira! Who do you think you are?

EXACTLY! This is my point, who DO I think I am? In my heart I truly do think I am somehow destined to do something important or be someone great. While not looking down on the lives of others, I know I would never find mediocrity acceptable for me.

And so I wonder has an over inflated sense of self importance fueled by years of building good self esteem actually cursed me to live a life unfulfilled or is it this constant state of dissatisfaction that pushes great people?

As a tangential point, all of this may be moot because greatness, like a nickname, is probably not something you declare upon yourself?

Yours truly,
Alex 'the iceman', 'ace' Oliveira

Things that drive me nuts

While watching TV today, a wedding story, or something else suitably obnoxious, I was met with the perfect storm of things I find annoying:

1. Pets being treated as family. This is a topic that has got me in hot water in the past and I stand by what I've said. They are not people, they are not your 'babies', they are not your children and you are broken in the brain if you think so.

2. Writing your own wedding vows. People, you need to have one of those 'real' moments with themselves are realise YOU ARE A SHITTY CHEESY WRITER. On this, what is supposed to be the best day of your life, in front of all your friends and family, PLEASE do not pick THIS day to show everyone just how mediocre both our education system and your sense of poetic narrative is. STOP IT. There are of course exceptions but by and large I'm not willing to sit through 20 bad ones to get to hear one good one. The big reason I hate it is because I think they are often nowhere near as serious as the old ones and thus a big of a disgrace to what it is you are doing. E.g. :

"Before these witnesses I vow to love you and care for you as long as we both shall live.I take you, with all your faults and strengths,as I offer myself to you with all my faults and strengths.I will help you when you need help, and turn to you when I need help.I choose you as the person with whom I will spend my life"

IS NOT THE SAME AS:

"I promise to have good times and try to make you laugh at my jokes. I promise to try to not to leave the seat up and call when I'm going to be late. ~insert cute awkward laugh that is actually quite annoying"

RUBBBBBBISH, I think most people write their own vows cause they are afraid of the seriousness of the real ones so you end up making some shitty joke of the whole thing to elevate your nerves. Get over it and yourself, if you can't say something real, maybe rethink the whole life long commitment thing.

As a matter of fact I AM in a bad mood day.