Brainless Musings
There’s no doubt about it: I have gotten exceedingly dumber this summer. I can almost feel my brain cells dying. The fact that I just spent 30 seconds thinking about what would be the proper word to use for brain cells since they obviously don’t just leave my brain and shrivel merely confirms this sad truth. Granted, I wasn’t very intelligent in the first place, but even so, having to spend over a minute grasping the right word for “intellectual property rights” is a sign that I have a problem. Yesterday, I sat in on a class at my workplace, and realized I had forgotten all my US history when the teacher asked if 1969 was a happy time for the US (I was about to say yes when some kid started talking about the Vietnam War. Needless to say, I was quite wrong). I didn’t even know about the solar eclipse in Asia today until my mother notified me through her Chinese news (speaking of which, why does she always get these things quicker than I do? She even knew about Dumbledore dying before my brother had finished Harry Potter 6 – and that’s saying something). That’s when it kind of hit me: I don’t really bother to read the news anymore. Is it because I’ve decided this is supposed to be the chillest summer of my life? I didn’t exactly tell myself to check out intellectually, but I guess that’s what’s happened. Instead of actually knowing what’s going on in the world (my biggest criticism of today’s tween generation), I’ve squandered my time and life on Facebook and really bad movies, the kind that the Google people know are so bad that they don’t even bother taking them off Youtube (case in point: Ella Enchanted).
I suspect that once school starts again I will be all over current events, but this just goes to show that perhaps I don’t take a true interest in these things. That’d I’d rather live in my own bubble of entertainment than actually care about recent political conflicts in other countries. Naturally, I don’t want to admit this too lightly since it would be affirming that I am, simply put, a hypocrite. But I guess that’s what I am. And what horrifies me is how easy it has been to become one of the empty-headed, unaware potato couch morons that I love to scoff at – the stereotypical, overweight American. The Ms. South Carolina that says Americans can’t locate North America on a world map because they don’t have one. The reality show contestant who doesn’t know how many quarters are in an hour. I’ve laughed because I didn’t think it would ever be me. But maybe it already is.
