Insomniactive Productions, 1630 Cullom Street #2, Birmingham, AL, 35205
I'm a big fan of change, myself. Not the kind you get from McDonald's, although having coins to pump into a Coke machine or the occasional parking meter doesn't hurt. I'm a fool for the ever-shifting face and skin of the world around me. New surroundings, new interiors, new attitudes, and new challenges: these are the things that make me happy.
There are two kinds of people in this world: people that like change, people that resist it, and people that can't count. Some people want things to remain the way they are, comfortable and stagnant: I call these people Republicans. There are others who get bored with the same old thing, day in and day out, and need a constant shift in their world. That would be me, for one.
It's been an issue all my life, and I don't know how much of it to attribute to boredom, and how much of it is the result of something deeper, a serious crack in the foundation of my mental or emotional stability. But we'll let that topic slide by - discuss amongst yourselves, if necessary. When I was younger, I used to rearrange my bedroom furniture all the time. Now I drive my wife crazy by switching rooms in the apartment. I dye my hair or shave it completely off every few months. And if anyone out there wants to start up a pet-trading ring, contact me.
I enjoy change on all levels, whether it be the radical differences brought on by a new job or a new relationship or the slow, evolutionary-like crawl that you can only really see in hindsight. I can definitely see why some people don't - there are a lot of adjustments that you have to make personally when things around you are sent into upheaval. Change means a change, as it were, and that can be too much work for some people. There's also the risk that the change is for the worse - you might get hired into a new job that pays better, but perhaps more idiots surround you than before, or the new girlfriend might be a homicidal maniac. The changes you make in yourself in order to adapt could be for the worse, as well.
Change is natural, though. Try to imagine a world without it - you can't. For one thing, we'd all still be single celled organisms, floating in the oceans, missing out on sex because we'd be too busy splitting down the middle every so often. Stop change later, and men still wear knickers and powdered wigs, while women suffocate in corsets (when they're not barefoot, pregnant, and cooking my dinner, that is). Stop in the thirties, and the Nazis are in power, black and white is the best your films will ever get, and thongs never see the light of day (as it were). Halt progress in the early 90s, and you're stuck with Kurt Cobain, Norm MacDonald doing the news on Saturday Night Live, and a world where Star Wars is still a wonderful memory.
Hmmm….
The worst change to deal with is the change from being to not, from moving forward to lying completely still. Things change, and things end; and really, ending is just a really extreme form of change (look, kids - you, too, can learn to talk in circles!). One of the most entertaining things in the world to me is people that bitch and moan about how bad Product X has gotten - call it Metallica, or the X-Files, or Star Wars - but then whine louder when they find out that Product X is coming to a close. The X-Files was great fun for many years, but then it started to suck - I'm talking like Marilyn Chambers on a good day. So we dredged through the last season, and when the last episode had aired, all I could do was breathe a great sigh of relief, for my Sunday Night Trials and Tribulations were over. Only, come to find out that people - the same people that had decried the series as crap, the same people that chanted for Chris Carter's head on a spike - were sad that it was over.
What?! "Oh, no, Mr. Television Writer! Please don't take my big pile of crap from me!!! It smells worse and worse every week, and I can hardly remember when it used to be steak, but pleasepleaseplease don't take it from me!!!"
And then it hit me. I'm not entirely sure that I can hold the logic to a flame as dim as The X-Files or the tragedy that George Lucas built, but I can see it, at least. These people are hopeful, optimistic souls who understand that change can go both ways. Although there is a general tendency towards entropy in our universe, sometimes things get better instead of worse; sometimes, you even get a roller-coaster ride fluctuating between the two.
A long time ago, Amazing Spider-Man was a great book, one of my favorites. This is back in the days of Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie, the stories were big and fast and fun. Then came the Clone Saga, and a lot of other crap. I had forgotten what the steak tasted like; I only knew that there was a bad stench filling the room, and so I removed the source. In fact, a lot of people did; numbers on the title fell dramatically, and the character became the butt of a bunch of industry jokes. But they didn't kill off the character, or cancel the book, or close the door on the title. Instead, after a restart and a few more problems along the way, they brought on a science fiction writer named J. Michael Straczynski, and the book has once again risen to the top of the sales charts.
Change can be good. Change can be bad. I still say that X-Files had to end, even if it was only putting it down for it's own good.
Things end every day. It may be your favorite discussion forum, your favorite TV series, comic books, relationships, lives - they all end. Nothing is forever, except maybe the stench of collard greens. But there's no such thing as a vacuum in nature; one thing ends and another begins. Things die to give way for future life. You say goodbye, I say hello.
Keep the changes coming, world. I'd hate to think I had nothing to look forward to but the same old same old.
Kenn McCracken is changing everything! Except his socks, because they are soft and fluffy.