The Build Up

Independence Day

 There are several things I need to say.

 One of them is that just once I wish I was sure when a fireworks show was actually over. Not, 'okay, was that the finale?' but 'wow, the finale was great.'

 First off, I am not a huge fan of fireworks anyway. Literally burning money. Second off, the fact that we do it to celebrate America's independence from England is also a little ridiculous. It is basically simulating the "bombs bursting in air," right? That's the idea, isn't it? Well, that is is little fucked up to me. How many people died from those bombs? Or the bombs that have gone off or are going off or will go off in order for America to ensure the freedom that Independence Day commemorates?

 To be clear, this post is not meant to be anti-American. America is great, for the most part. Most of the things that piss me off on a daily basis are those first world problems that always end up as internet memes. What I am angry about now is not America, or being American, or freedom, or any of that. What I am mad about now is the entire process. Yes, I think we should celebrate our country's history. Yes, I think we deserve to celebrate. But we need to know what it is we are celebrating. We need to know why. Maybe a Bud Light and an artillery shell is all we are celebrating. Maybe that is America. 

But if that's the case, don't bring freedom or liberty or any intangibles into the equation. If we are going to talk intangibles, then all the 4th of July should be is an entire day of silence. A day to reflect on what we were and what we are now. Not a day off work to dehydrate ourselves and blow shit up. Let's be real about this.

 Anyway, I've gotten off track. I should have mapped this out better.

 Fireworks. I hate them. There is no finality. Certainly not the finality I am interested in. Like the closing of one chapter of my life and the beginning of another one.

 I'm moving. It's not much of a move, but it is a necessary one. One that should have happened a while ago, but one that I put off. Because I was comfortable. Because I was afraid of not being comfortable. 

For the next two years, maybe more, I have committed my life to the study of International Politics. It is definitely not the dramatic decision I dreamed up when I realized that this chapter was in need of an ending. But, I have found through my studies in literature that the large, grandiose endings in works of literature are often overdone, bordering on stupid.

 So, for now, I will subtly transition to the chapter of my life I will call, for lack of a better title, "The Build Up"