Cruise Control

_{[1]<- What's this?}

_{Watching: Why Are Gas Prices So High}

Let me first start off by apologizing for being so rude. We have been meeting like this almost everyday for the past two weeks and I don't believe that I've told you a thing about myself. So allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Tigga76 [Ziggs Profile]. I'm a poet, writer, artist, graphic designer, public speaker, father, son, brother, man. I am in a supportive relationship and have custody of my eight year old daughter who I take care of everyday. I work for a teen theater drug prevention program [SETT] and I design web sites and fliers on the side [Sublime Designs]. I also teach a fitness class [Step FX] and I plan on going back to school to receive my personal trainer degree. Sounds like a lot huh? Well sometimes it is but then other times it pays off. So with all this stuff going on it made me wonder what is my motivation? What pushes me to do so much expecting so little in return? What drives anyone to want to be successful? Money, fame, recognition, acceptance? Let's talk about that shall we?

F U E L
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What pushes me to do so much expecting so little in return? What drives anyone to want to be successful? Money, fame, recognition, acceptance?
"

Like I mentioned above, I work for a teen theater drug prevention group [SETT] (which happens to be the easiest way to break it down because it gets a bit complicated) that is my main 9 to 5 hustle. I normally get there at 8am (before anyone else shows up at our regular 9am time) and take care of all of my personal responsibilities (checking my email, calling the bank, paying my bills online, etc, etc) before I have to tackle the challenging tasks of the regular work day (writing grants, revising newsletters, making phone calls, etc, etc). I like having a head start. I like being able to get things out of the way before anyone else arrives. It makes me feel like I'm in the lead. If the work day were a race then I'm already a quarter mile closer to the finish line then all the rest. Is it considered cheating? I don't think so. I think its called drive.

So yesterday, after doing my "first one there" routine, we eventually went out to fill up for gas (Oh. I forgot to tell you that I also drive a 15 passenger van to transport the teens home every evening) I noticed something that wasn't peculiar but it was interesting. The program normally covers the cost of the gas during the week and with sort of arrangement you rarely stop to think how much the gas actually costs. So with that sudden realization I looked up at the gas station marquee and read $3.19. Three nineteen!? I think I did several double and triple takes looking up at the sign trying to figure out was I delusional or is this really happening. For those of you in places where it is much higher, I apologize for being such a baby about this it just shocked me. But the real shocker wasn't the price that people were willing to pay for gas but how many people were actually filling up at the same time I was. I would assume that none of them would top my $90.73 grand total for my 15 passenger behemoth but I know whatever they spent was a pretty penny compared to four years ago [USA Today]. (Now just hang in there I'm getting to the point soon. If you like you can repeatedly squeal, "Are we there yet," until the end of this post. I don't have to worry about you because you're more than likely going to annoy someone other than me anyway).

F U E L
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It looks like human fuel is a lot cheaper than gas because it can be made out of anything. In school we have grades and report cards and I would assume then that making the honor roll would be the equivalent of NoS. In adult life we have paychecks. In relationships we have love. In parenting we have, "Well adjusted, productive children". At our jobs we have promotions. And so on and so on.
"

I began to think. Gas is fuel. It is an essential component to a cars' system of gears and motor to produce mobility and kinetic force thus propelling a vehicle forward (or backwards). Without it you go nowhere. So even if the price of gas went all the way up to (god forbid) $20 a gallon, those motivated enough to be mobile would line up at the gas station pumps ready to burn. YEP, all three of us. So there has to be a connection. How does gas at a service station (which ironically don't serve anymore) relate to this human term known as "drive"?

Let's look at the similarities. A car needs fuel, and in this case its called gas. Humans need fuel. But what is human fuel called. Motivation? Inspiration? Dedication? Constipation? What makes us go? (pardon the pun?). Growing up I was motivated to things "fueled" by the simple fact that I had never done it before. As a teen I would reach for accomplishments "fueled" with the idea that people thought I couldn't or wouldn't do it. As an adult I live each day "fueled" with the thought that I want my family to live a comfortable life. It looks like human fuel is a lot cheaper than gas because it can be made out of anything. In school we have grades and report cards and I would assume then that making the honor roll would be the equivalent of NoS (Nitros Oxide) [example]. In adult life we have paychecks. In relationships we have love [see, "Waiting to Exhale"]. In parenting we have, "Well adjusted, productive children". At our jobs we have promotions. And so on and so on. So if human fuel is so easy to attain then why are there some people who go places and others that sit still? Why is the four lane highway of success so barren and wide? Where are all the other vehicles? Did the price for human fuel suddenly top $3.19? Am I the only one driving here? People tell me I should only worry about myself but I want to bring some friends along (I think I have enough room. I do drive a 15 passenger.) Maybe I'll look deeper into this another time, but seriously think about it. What is your fuel? What drives you? Where are you going? And will you make it without running out of gas?

Well....We're here now (at the end). I hope you enjoyed the trip. Have a nice day, and you can stop saying ,"Are we there yet," now. Until next time. Get out and don't slam my door. See you later.

*Screeching off----------
*Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, vrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, _{vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmm}

Read the follow up question to this post on Yahoo! Answers

Make Believe

I M A G I N A R Y
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Now I don't debate the fact that there are real people behind each cartoon avatar that appears on his friends list. Nor do I doubt that these animated representative are sponsored on the other end of the high speed cable by true emotion, invested by real human beings (or very intelligent cats).
"

Well so far so good readers. You probably thought that this little experiment would have crashed and burned by now but it still treks on. Even though gas is $2.99 a gallon I still have enough momentum to coast this bad boy to the finish line, SO THERE.

Now with that out of the way every one all together now, "WHO CARES!"

Right? I mean this is the freakin' internet for god sakes. Its not real. Its an imaginary world of make believe. Sure it has its lists of benefits but in the end what is it all worth really?

Can you imagine future civilizations discovering humanities lost ruins? Can you picture our shiny pc cases littering the ancient earth landscape? This entire internet universe would be completely invisible to them. All they would see is that we kept these mystical plastic boxes in our dwelling spaces for worship, storage, and possibly to ward off evil spirits. You remember how long it took for us to decipher the Rosetta Stone. So how much longer would it take to unlock the complexities of a Gateway Convertible CX210X?

There is a recurring debate I have with a friend of mine over how serious he takes the internet. He logs on daily to one of those popular internet social networking sites (need I say the name) and he visits with "friends", reviews their comments and replies to their utter, tacky, glittery non sense, as though they were real words. Now I don't debate the fact that there are real people behind each cartoon avatar that appears on his friends list. Nor do I doubt that these animated representative are sponsored on the other end of the high speed cable by true emotion, invested by real human beings (or very intelligent cats). I do argue, however, the level of emotion he should invest in responding to these imaginary people in this imaginary universe. It usually goes like this:

Someone send him a message with a few questionable items of inquiry and he responds with honest frustration as though they were standing right before him in the same room. He pounds on the keys and shakes his head with a dull angry grimace as though the idiot on the other end will digitally receive his expression. He smashes down the "CAPS LOCK" key and peppers the screen with as many exclamations as can fit in the response box hoping that they get the point.

I M A G I N A R Y
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I know most people would want to live near MySpace, or Google. I would probably live down the street from Blospot just around the corner from E-Bay.
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All this wasted energy, I argue, shot into an endless void of ones and zeros! The person on the other end (or cat) can just as easily hit delete and never see that he replied or they can open it, read it and completely misinterpret his reply as some creative form of "asci text art" artistically devised for their enjoyment.

The internet is not real. Nothing here truly exist. It is only the representation of all thing real. It is a virtual catalog of reality itself. That's was what it was built for [link]. It was devised to hold all of our "Back up information" but for some reason we are trying are hardest to traverse fully into the digital realm.

What if we could really live in cyber space? Not like how the matrix did it but what if we could somehow digitize our physical form and build a quaint little house somewhere along the edge of the internet super highway. I can imagine how much more junk mail I would have to sort through. I can picture how many unwanted guest I would need to dodge. I can see some benefits though. Travel would be faster. Everyone could look however they wanted to look without surgical procedures and scaring. And.... That's about it. I know most people would want to live near MySpace, or Google. I would probably live down the street from Blospot just around the corner from E-Bay. We would all get along swell until the lag hits us. Did you forget about that? Or instead of burglars breaking into you house and stealing your T.V. we would have to worry about a skilled hacker stealing our house and spamming us with porn and Viagra pop ups (get it?). This is not the world I wanna live in.

So I tell my friend, almost everyday it seems. "The internet is not real, the internet is not real, the internet is not real." The good news is that at the end of the day we can shut down our browsers. We can log out of our operating system. And finally we can press off.

Read the follow up question to this post on Yahoo! Answers