I have a very good reason for not updating.
You see, last week was a bit of a breaking point for me. While I have always been, you know, very vocal about my opinions, and never one to shy away from conflict– especially about my opinions– but lately, more and more, I've just felt hopeless.
I'm bitching about the weather. And the people around me hear me, and go, "Yeah, I hate the fucking weather too," and that's that. Fine. We all hate the weather. But it still gets cold. It still rains.
The level of fucked up in the world is beyond my comprehension now. But it's no longer acceptable to me to complain about it. The time for complaint is gone, very gone.
So I decided last week to form a non-profit organization.
I haven't completely sketched out all parts of the organization's mission, nor have I completely finished the choice of words I want to use to give me the broadest option of issues to handle while still making it clear what I am creating, but I'm well on my way. The paperwork is being completed. The forms are being filed. I go in two weeks to a seminar on fundraising.
This is no joke. I'm serious about it.
I can't find adequate words for the anger I feel lately. I read speeches given by older people about how they don't see my generation doing anything and it disgusts them, and I can't help but agree. It disgusts me too. It digusts me that we've got the strength and the drive to accomplish things, to be the student protesters of the Vietnam era, to DO SOMETHING, and all that energy goes to what? Circuit parties? Substance abuse issues? Firebombing colleges in the name of paranoid animal groups?
I can't take it anymore. I have to do something or my head will very well explode.
So I set this up. And it is very much a big deal. This is easily the biggest project I've ever undertaken, but somebody has to do it. It's no longer sufficient for me to think, "Gee this situation sucks, I wish someone could be voted into office to help change it." That person isn't coming, so it's time to do it ourselves.
I mentioned this to my boss. And after explaining to him why I was going after PETA and what I was planning to do (to get the "wha wha.. what? you don't like puppies?" expression of pain off of his face) he asked me to draw up a report with information about them. Which he intended to give to several of his friends who are apparently "significant" contributors to PETA who would most certainly not be contributing after they heard what their donation money would be used for.
He then got on the phone with one of these friends, someone of whom I shant name but very high public profile, and got his assurance that there would be no more donation. He got in touch with ten people that day, they all promised to cancel checks and drop donations. One of them generally donates two thousand dollars a year.
So yeah, I was enthusiastic. But I tried to convince him to convince them to let me write PETA a letter on their behalf but from me, explaining why there would be no money. With my name on it.
I want them to know my name.
Cos come a few months from now, I'll be something more than who I am at the typing of this entry. I won't be Josh.
I'll be the president of a non-profit organization.
22 December 2004 at 10:45 pm | 1 Comment »
bitching, hear ye!, introspection, proselytizing, the daily things
