My Heart Whispers, Kind Of

Sometimes I feel like am procrastinating much more than the average person. But then its really hard for me to get a good read on that because I do not really have the perspective on other people’s lives the way I do on my own, and I don’t want to presume. Were I forced to imagine, in a good moment, I would say that I am more active than every person I have ever met; not more physically active, nor more mentally active, nor awake more hours. Just much more active in that one good moment.

Today I ate hamsteak with my aunt and grandmother and then we all watched Michael Moore’s new documentary, Sicko. At the end of the film my grandmother sat forward on the couch and said that it looked to her like our health care was really, really bad. My aunt, Michael Moore and I agreed, I’m sure. I see other friends of mine taking jobs here and there and then traveling for weeks or months at a time, and here I am trying to pick up a ten dollar an hour shift at work so that my health care situation is in good shape, and I don’t even get sick.

There are two emotions at play in that last sentence: For one, I am jealous of the freedom that many young people my age exercise. I know that I have that freedom, that I am blessed with much more freedom than most, but I do not generally exercise the freedom. I am a person of routines who likes to step across the line into new territory occasionally but always feel spent and ready for home after a day or two out. That doesn’t mean that I don’t wish I was a totally different person. Its good to know myself in this way, but then theres the angst of my youth that yearns to get out and travel and see people I haven’t seen in years.

The other emotion I have about my own health care situation is that no matter how much I love my job and my routines, I have been doing the same thing for two and a half years. I am not saying that being employed by a different restaurant would be better, at all. I love the people I work with day in and day out, but I wish that I could make something that appealed to others as art. My sister’s Japanese friend told me that no one would ever respect me until I have a degree, but I don’t think thats true. I feel like sometime in my future, even while still employed by a restaurant, I am going to want to sit down and do art, and that people will respect me for that.

Thats what Michael Moore has done, and in such a way that no one can criticize Sicko as they did Fahrenheit 911. Here he is much more personal and sincere, all the while exposing many flaws in our American society… For that I applaud him, and I think my aunt and grandma do too. Now I will be escaping to fantasy with the second movie that I rented tonight, Mimi Wo Sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart,) written by the acclaimed Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki. Sayonara.