An Arbitrary Life

We live arbitrary lives.

What does it really mean when someone says "live a meaningful life"? Any meaning that my life has is the meaning that I attach to it. Maybe to someone else, who doesn't value the same things that I do, I am living a meaningless life. Maybe that person thinks that my journeys in Spain are worthless, that Spain is just primitive country of backward people who are permanently scarred from enduring 40 years of everyone's favorite Fascist. And queue, Fransisco Franco.

My name, Jacqueline Gracia, is something that my mother decided to call me. Thank goodness she was kind and gave me something nice to go by, but the name has just as much connection to my "essence" as would the words (disregard the assigned meanings and connotations) "airhead," "pendejo," or "muffin." Of course I'm not saying that I'm feeble-minded, a ball-puller, or a delicate and delicious pastry (well okay, maybe a little bit of the last one), but I'm just saying that the words we use to reference aspects of our lives really have no connection to the "truth" they convey; that is, if a unified truth exists at all. Thus, my sarcastic quotations around the word truth.

Just as arbitrary as names are the dates of the year. Why should a particular day hold significance? In a practical sense, dates exist to track seasons, make plans, and for the narcissist in me, record my own personal time on Earth. I do have a mind for dates; they stay in my head and I remember them well. Perhaps, my ability to remember dates and times are factors of my United States upbringing, where time and dates dictate national culture. Thus, the dates I choose to remember are highly subjective; I remember them because the society in which I live values them.

In a broader sense of representation, I love when people parade around saying they've been "changed," "enlightened," "affected," and queue every other bombastic word invented solely for the purpose of bragging. And when I say love, I mean laugh. How can we even attempt to measure an abstract concept like change by concrete methods? Sure, maybe you can detect a change, but strutting around, repeating the word ad nauseum so that others believe you is only another method of representation. You are shaping your self-construct so that it's construed to others the way that you want it to be displayed. There is nothing wrong with that at all, but don't pretend like "change" just happens and that it's something you can't manipulate or control at all.

I heard someone saying the other day that they've already been "changed" by being in España. Ew. That is just puke fried on stick and presented on a nice platter to be served for dinner. You don't need to tell me that you've been changed if you really have been. If the change is there, it will be evident, and you telling me only gives me another reason to call you a PHONY.

So yes, this concludes yet another post about representation. It's always a favorite topic of mine to discuss because it pops up everywhere.


P.S. I found an apartment in Gracia. I'm planning to make a special post about it later with pictures after I move in and am settled.