As I watch For The Love of Ray Jay I can't help but ponder human nature

I can still remember being 10 years old and watching Road Rules in my parents room, my hand gripping the remote, ready to change the channel incase my brother walked in, because my brother found reality television disgusting, something not to be watched and to be quite honest I love reality television. 

Even now, in my quest to become a lady, reality television is one of those things that I really can't give up (along with poop jokes). 

I think the reason that I am so infatuated with reality television is because I feel as though it is a spectrum, a gauge, of human emotion.  I imagine that if I had a camera following me around all the time I would lose alot of my inhibitions, say alot more, and I would probably be manipulated to say alot more too. I would probably say alot of things that I would regret and normally wouldn't agree, but I spend alot of time repressing and I think that side of humans is SO INTRESTING. Things that we would normally keep to ourselves, things that we think and know we shouldn't, those are the most interesting things.

The editing powers that comes with every reality show is also very fascinating and powerful to me. Obviously watching me make myself cereal every morning isn't great, and reality sows are such hilights of each persons life. Every show is a statement of either extreme human disgust/sadness or human insight and joy. 

I enjoy that. I enjoy that everything has meaning and themes and nothing just exists, because its not even possible for something meaningless to exist. Which, provides me with a sense of optimism. Everything I do has a meaningful effect. Everything I do means something. 

I also like one other thing about reality television which is that it provides me with endless examples of the eternal struggle of man kind. Or two struggles. One being the constant need for conflict within human life and the second being the fact that we are animals.

All the time in reality shows they focus on a conflict and show interviews with the two main people in the conflict and then we understand that the conflict could've been avoided with communication, and thats always case and its heavily ironic and it makes me wonder about how many ironic moments like that exist inside my own life and I am kind of glad to know those moments occur everytime there is a conflict. They also show how conflict is created, and how for most people, conflict is required. How people create their own problems (like how women are raised to be ladies, and their husbands often view them as asexual virgin mary look alikes, and how that leads to the creation of mistresses and sexual tentsion and adultry)

And. We are animals, and I forget that alot. Occasionally I think about microserfs, the part where it says 

Q. If you could be any animal what animal would you be?

A. You already are an animal

That always sticks with me. I am an animal, so are you. When I think about fasting, I feel like the antianimal. 

When I see 26 girls dressed in little to no clothes fighting over one boy I remember that we are animals. Reality shows show that to me. 

And from her head sprung a counciousness, fully figured and 8 arms wide

Recently I have been dwelling on the responsibility of the writer within the writing, as well as the obligation of a conciousness in society. 

I think I was prompted by these thoughts this morning when Bethe approached me and explained to me how she couldn't sleep last night and how she now has a concious and its the greatest thing in the world and she is so happy and I'm so happy for her, but I remember Ms. Bethe days before she grew this miraculous thing and she seemed full functional, but I also understand her happiness because I feel like everytime we as people are able to empathize with someone else we are showing a degree of humanity and becoming more interconnected with those around us, but how important is that really?

I feel like answering the question of how much humanity is enough humanity is a tricky one because along with not being humane enough we have being too humane which brings me to my lovely father.

This morning while in the car with my dad he began to talk about the presence of criminal rights in the united states. In his mind, the oppurtunity for a criminal to walk due to technical difficulties or some fault in the system is absurd.

Both extremems of humanity remind me of Albert Camus's The Stranger. In the novella, Mersault cares about the sea and having sex. He lacks a conciousness, and doesn't even really mourn his mother, who dies at the beginning of the book. Eventually (and you might not want to continue if you've never read and are all about the suprise of the novel) he goes to the beach and kills a man.

When he is put on trial the murder of the arab is largely ignored. Instead, the focus on Mersault cold nature, how he smoked during his mother's funeral, how he had sex only two days after, how he never cried. Here, Mersault is sentanced to death for his lack of humanity. Simulataneously though we are given the expectation that he will be given an appeal and walk because in the end his crime was not that bad and he still deserved to live.

The juxtopostion of the humane and inhumane in that novella always starteles me, and I definetly appreciate it, but its not the point of why I'm writing.

Sarah once told us never to read American psycho until we had a few sexual relationships because it was a novel written to hurt people and that writing contains the power to do alot of things. I believe this to. I think novels are like cigarettes, small, subtle, and ready to trap you. Some traps are good traps, but not all of them are. And I think something people commonly forget and need to remember is the that everytime you commit yourself to a book or to writing a story, poem, play you are allowing yourself to be trapped. Not everytime, but a lot of times, and its something I feel I need to be aware of, however I never do anything to prevent it .

Obviously responsibility is required with power or influence, but what about on a more personal day to day level?

Once I was playing risk with becca's brother and my family and he said "so you guys actually keep your truces?" I realize that theres no contract signed and even if there is it can be broken. its just a game. But to maintain trust is responsibility, and without that even basic relationships can't exist.

I feel like every human action is motivated by a risk. Like if I say hi to this person I am hoping they will respond, but if they don't I risk my social dignity. At the same time refusing to acknowlege/hold responsibility is the perfect no risk way to live, but inerently I regard it with great sadness which is maybe because alot of people believe that without great sadness there is no great beauty and I am beginning to think I disagree.

I am actually unsure where I am going with this, where this was supposed to go but recentally I have begun to wonder about weather I actually hold a duty the outside world for my actions, and if I do, how far that duty extends into my own nature.

Primarily with the situation I was thinking about tonight:

Person a and Person b are good friends and then stop talking. if Person c regards themself as friends of both a and b and c decides to bring b to a function that a will certainly be at, does person c have an obligation to inform both parties?

something to think about.