Vegans, Monkeys and Journals

Long before I started this blog I had a thought that I should jot down my thoughts somewhere. Not that my thoughts are all that worthwhile to anyone else, but only that they might somehow be worthwhile to me, and I should preserve them just in case. So the following did occur to me way back when (when dinosaurs ruled, although in actuality it was only like four years ago).

"I’ve kept a journal before, but it’s been only for very specific points of time. But it’s all the rage to do this now, although it’s now referred to as “journaling” as the ever-present corruption of the English language continues. I heard this last night: a woman on one of the reality shows asked another woman if she “journaled”.

That would be like asking Stephen King if he “booked”, which might be an appropriate question for someone from the Sacramento Kings (or perhaps even a shady character from Vegas), but hardly for an author who writes books.

Soon we will be changing all the nouns into verbs: it’s so much more convenient and so clearly focuses the conversation on what’s really important (which is to say, the speaker). It wouldn’t at all surprise me to hear someone say “Well, I ate, I drank, I TV and now I bed. See I tomorrow.”

It’s all one more symptom of the “me” generation, a moniker applied to my own generation but one that seems just as relevant to the current crop as ever before. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Apple’s latest group of products are all prefaced by “i”. Only people so impressed with themselves would find nothing out of the ordinary owning an iBook or iPod, or play their iTunes on their iStereo while taking pictures on their iCamera.

Let’s face it – if it didn’t smack of Tarzan it could have just as easily been the MePod. At least using “me” is more honest: “Me want best car. Me want good tennis shoes. Me want be like Mike.”

The self-absorbed woman on that reality show would find nothing amiss in all this. Somewhere around the age of three most kids learn the world doesn’t revolve around them, much to their dismay. But this lady either never realized that or came to another, more important epiphany that contradicted this.

She was also self-righteous, and a vegan to boot. I have nothing against vegans, although her group had an odd sort of ethic when it came to animals (they would kill spiders but not snakes; if starving she would eat alligator or dog, but not a chicken, cow or lion since they were vegetarians themselves. Yep, that ole’ lion was sitting there eating his greens dreaming of some mashed potatoes). They were, when it came right down to it, animal bigots.

Did you ever wonder why there are gorillas? I mean, at some point in evolution all the monkeys decided to become humans, but what the heck went on with the group that evolved into the great apes? My hunch is they were monkeys that were convinced to become vegans.

I can just hear it now: “Hey, you guys have got to stop eating eggs and killing termites. Have you considered that life is sacred? Just look at all the great green stuff we have all around us. Sure, it will take us 15 or 16 hours a day of eating to match what we can do with protein, but what else is there to do on this planet but lie around, eat, sleep and make more monkeys? Yes, I know you’ve heard the talk about that stuff that burns your hands but if you ask me, that’s just playing with fire. It’ll never amount to anything. And if we get real hungry, we’ll eat a dog”

Me go now.