Six Flags: "Great" Adventure

Hm, well, I haven't posted anything of any real quality in the past, oh, two weeks. This post isn't going to be any different. I just figured I should admit that I haven't posted anything worthy of the title "post" in a while.

And now on to the point of this post. I had "Physics Day" today. I had a blast. No doubt about that. I got out of school for a day, got to ride some major fun rollercoasters, and got to hang out with my friends. Now, with all those perks, what could I possibly come up with to bitch about? Because, well, you knew this was going to turn into some form of a bitch. Because, well, it always does, doesn't it? :)

My main problem with amusement parks, other than the outrageously priced food ($4 for a hot dog and $3 for a 12 oz. bottle of water? Come on!), is the simple idea of it. The "amusement" equation of the amusement park. Why, in our society, do we have to escape from our everyday lives to find something interesting. Life itself is interesting.

Let's take an example: the rollercoaster. Though there are some people out there that don't ride roller coasters because of, well, I don't know why. Anyway, there are people that don't ride roller coasters. Those of us that do, however, do so as to get a thrill from the "danger" of the ride. Yeah, danger. Those things probably kill less things in a year than a baby kitten. Yet we pretend that our lives are threatened, our adrenal glands pump out tons of adrenaline, and we pretend, just for that 20 second ride, that we're living life to its fullest. Yeah, right.

Is the "high" of a coaster anything close to the true high of discovering something undiscovered? Curing a disease? Solving a global problem? I realize that I'm pulling the old, "Well, no matter how much I suffer, there's always someone else suffering more" switcheroo, but I just get these thoughts in my head sometimes. You know, that I shouldn't be wasting me time getting artificial highs from theme parks when I could go out and get real highs doing important, meaningful, useful things. Same idea I have when I watch TV: why live vicariously through someone else's drama when I should be living my own?

All this said, I realize that TV and amusement parks serve as an important release mechanism for modern society. Without that violent video game, how many kids would go out and actually commit real, not virtual, violence? Because the violence is there. It's imprinted into our genetic circuitry. Not saying that makes it okay. Just a fact.

And now that I've rambled enough to get myself completely off course, I'm going to come to a close. My point is simple, and I'll repeat it one more time: is it a problem that society has reached a point that we have to search for artificial amusement in our lives?

Once again, I did have a great time, no matter what it may sound like. I just loooove to overanalyze life when I'm by myself. What else could I do with my time?

Oh yeah, live. :)

Namaste.