This blog isn't about ninja. I wish it was. I'm sorry. I'll do better next time- for sure.

Generally I've done the minimum and then the math to make myself not feel bad about the minimum when considered on a yearly scale and been done with it. This year I kicked it up a few notches and I'm not going to put a dollar amount there but let's just say I'm not buying an XBOX 360 tomorrow- the temptation has been removed.This segways into a morning meeting we had on Saturday where the people in charge of apparently Best Buy's humanistic department told us about the two families we "adopted" this year and how anyone who wants to come when we give them their gifts and food and such can. It seemed I was the only one who was a little irritated with this and, looking around the room, I think that was the case.
     Donating money to a good cause is a good thing, don't get me wrong. Donations that will go to help people is great. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I got a good several years of getting to know families and people (and I wish I could say only a few families and people but that just wasn't the case) in situations that really need support like this- kids who had to go through more suffering and display more courage and strength than anyone I've ever known and definitely more than I think I ever could, whose parents literally could not get them things like christmas presents, new clothes, stability... Things like that plastic box outside of the drive-thru window save lives and I am not, in any way, knocking helping people out.
     So why am I a bit apalled by Best Buy "adopting" families and helping them out? A few reasons, actually. Best Buy contributes a lot of money to good causes, and the fact that this benefits their PR I can accept and not mock because the end result is still people getting helped. I think these things need a system, however. We drop coins in donation bins and [hopefully] non-profit organizations collect, account for, and evenly distribute this money. There is a middle man there to weed out the judgment process at best, and to remove our awareness of selection and judgment at worst. By giving individual stores individual families we are invading their lives. They may appreciate the help but we are in essence making them dependent on us and displaying pity. So my original concern wasn't actually for the fact that we get names and faces and homes now, it's that us, the employees, are given the encouragement to come along to see people we never knew existed as we give them these donations. It was said that we should see the looks on their faces and how happy they are when we come. This may sound normal but to me this just sounds ridiculous. These people and their economic plight shouldn't be paraded around. We didn't buy them. Who the hell are we to invite ourselves into their home for this? We have the line of thought of You needed help and we came and gave it to you and now you must love us and respect us and look up to us. The original intent may be clear and good but it doesn't change the fact that it has the underlying I'm helping you so I can feel like a better person.
     And maybe- maybe this is impossible to not have. It's just part of who we are collectively. It's the act of physically going to see these beneficiaries, and especially with employees who never knew anything like this was occuring that bugs me. It's validation of superiority. We go because we want to see them unable to help themselves and us having to step in and do it for them. We want to see their gratitude.
     But can I judge it? It's more than I do- more than I could do. And granted a lot of this is spawned from the book I just finished reading. Two guys go on a week-long trip around the world basically handing out money to random people on the side of the road. But they get hit up by beggars and scammers constantly and they pretty much refuse to give to people who ask for it. The question is thrown up of why do we look down on those who ask for money? If they have to ask they obviously have the need. Why do we selectively tell the guy asking for change that we have nothing but then drop cash into guitar cases or hats? Isn't it wrong to give rules and guidelines for suffering? We try to take the stance of You won't help yourself so I won't help you but really- isn't asking random strangers for money still an attempt to help themselves? It's an act of desperation but it's still an act. It's not pacifism.

Secondly, and this has not necessarily lead into this point but rather lead somewhere into the near vicinity: I think I'm going to die of old age but instead of at the proper time the occurance is steadily advancing. Seriously I feel tired 24-7, I'm much more somber than I used to be, I've taken a liking to canes and checkered shirts... It's strange.
     But, actually, I do mean to say that more and more over the past several weeks or so my head and mood seems to not be up and down but more back and forth. There are a few points of confusion in my current mortal plot and it seems kind of wrong that questions posited my way that should reel in simple yes or no answers are getting more I'm not sure's than acceptable. But regardless there are a few bigger-picture issues and problems and possiblities that I should have a bit more conviction towards but can't seem to muster. I don't know if it's something to actually concern myself with or not but two words that spring to mind a lot lately are "disinterested" and "disinteresting" and if that's the case to anyone who knows me you should let me know, preferably in a dramatic ball room with a glass of wine to the face or a glove to the cheek, setting looks of bemusement and shock on our lower-upper class social acolytes and essentially stopping the brass band mid-song, save for that one last top-hat or gong twang that hangs in the air until you hear dropped drum sticks and an embarrassed hand silences it.
     Needless to say if I seem a bit out-of-it or touchy don't take it to heart or vow revenge, and further yet if you think of it I could use a bit more clarity and resolution in conversation because I think I'm at a point right now where a bus could be about to gun me down and I would be too introspectively distracted to notice until a minute or so after being flattened when I would probably surface from my head to see what's keeping my feet. Turns out it was a fucking bus- and why didn't it stop? Buses should stop in these situations! Wait- it looks like it did stop, a couple blocks down. Well that's good to know, I was worr- what the fuck? It's just letting people on! Jesus Christ this is Ridiculous! I'm stuck to the fucking pavement!

Thirdly: I like my phone. A lot. It's a pain in the ass to use and there are basic features it doesn't have and should, but the fact stands that I bought a phone without realizing it was going to be referred to as the "Multimedia Phone" and discovered post-haste upon receiving it that it plays MP3's (knew that) and Video Files (didn't know that!). Also as a Best Buy employee I can get a ridiculously cheap 512MB memory card to supplement the still-good 64MB card it came with and, with tweaking the video size and audio quality, fit more crap onto a cell phone than should be possible and is not even remotely necessary. Anyone I have in my current phone- and that's a lot of people- should expect at some point in the coming weeks I'll insist on snapping a picture to compliment your personalized ring tone and entry in my voice index. Awesome.

And, yes. These are just going to keep getting longer. Sorry, there's nothing I can do about it. It's been prophecized. It's already done.