"I can finally shave this thing off my face!"

This is by far one of the funniest, truest, most brilliant commercials I've seen in a long time. Ladies and gentlemen, Mickey D's took us out back and smacked us around a little bit. Apparently it was time for a wake-up call. It's amazing how life lessons come from the most random sources, huh? It's kind of nice to be reminded to step back and laugh at yourself now and again. 

(Disclaimer: I probably shouldn't be gushing over a McCafe commercial for many reasons, foremost being the fact that I work for Starbucks, which McD's is trying to sock in the stomach, and frankly I'm sure the drinks aren't anywhere near the standard we set. However, in this penny-pinching economic climate, there are probably plenty of folks willing to sacrifice quality for a cheap caffeine fix. And I like having a job, so I'm not going to recommend that you run to the Golden Arches for your "cappuccino." And there are plenty of other reasons. For a pretty thorough list, check out Supersize Me. Ick. But this is all beside the point, which is that I underestimated the Big Bad Corporation's ability to have some decent insight into society and, quite frankly, humanity in general.)

This commercial couldn't have come at a more perfect crossroad in me and Jamie's life together. As many of you in the blogosphere know, it's been really difficult for us to make a decision about the next step in our lives. Quarter-life crisis, you know? The problem isn't that our options are limited.... it's that they're limitless. We're young, we've graduated, we don't have kids, we don't have "real" jobs or "real" plans or "real" responsibilities. We could move anywhere, do anything. We're used to living on a very modest income (and by modest I mean meager), so it's not like we'd have trouble getting similar jobs wherever we go. Trouble is, we're probably two of the most indecisive people on the planet. Too many options is not a good thing for us. I mean, I got a degree in English and I'm going to pursue photography, which is TOTALLY UNRELATED. Not that I regret a single second of college. I loved it and wouldn't have changed a thing. Not to mention the fact that a college degree is quickly becoming the equivalent of a high school diploma in the working world. So I'm glad to have it. But still, you gotta admit, it's kind of funny. I would probably be very reluctant to go back and tell all my English professors that I'm not going to grad school despite all their urging and encouraging. But I've gotta do what I've gotta do. And then Jamie.... well, he changes his mind as frequently as he changes his socks. One week, he wants to be an astronomer; the next, a Greek scholar; the next, an astronaut; the next, a political cartoonist, and so on and so forth. (Don't worry, he's not entirely serious.) Which I think is kind of awesome. Everyone around us says "pick a career, pick a career, you're running out of time" and we say "ummm, last time we checked we're in our EARLY TWENTIES." Seriously. What is the hurry? I mean, yeah, if we want to have kids someday we've gotta put food in their bellies and clothes on their backs, and a secure job might be a nice perk in life.... but that's not happening anytime soon. Sorry Mom!

But now you can alert the media: We have actually made a plan. More or less. Everyone happy now? We've picked a place to live, but I'm forbidden to say anything else about it until we know everything is going to work out for sure. Mainly because we get laughed at every time we change our minds. And that gets kind of old. 

Okay, that was probably way too much background info for what I meant to talk about. See, one of our problems when we began to research possible cities to move to was the Yippie Factor. It seems that out west yippies run rampant. What is a yippie, you ask? It is a "yuppie-hippie," which is basically someone who is all socially progressive and whatnot, but not so much Woodstock '69 style. They won't burn their bras or lay down in front of buses to prove a point, because that is SO not cool, but they'll talk about "causes" and "awareness" and such. 

I've never found a more perfect summation of the yippie than this post that I read in one of the forums at www.city-data.com (which, if you're in the business of picking a totally random place to move, sight unseen, is a very helpful resource. It's better than closing your eyes and sticking your finger somewhere on the map as a way to make a decision, which is something we came pretty close to resorting to). This particular topic was about Missoula, Montana, one of the places we looked into (and bear in mind, it was difficult for me to post this as is, with all the spelling and grammar mistakes, but I wouldn't want to be proving this guy right, now would I):

"I'm not sure I ever said I didn't want anyone moving here - I think it was more like - spread out a little - missoula isn't the only place you need to come to in order to get high, stare at the mountains, open a yoga studio, build another subdivision, get a degree, grow a poney tail, have a pot festival, protest the war, relive the 60s, go mountain bike riding, become a fishing guide, eat tofu, encourage a bully football team that picks on defensless losers, become self-absorbed, wear berkinstocks, eat over priced natural food, read the local liberal independent rag news paper, pamper yourself with thoughts of being multicutural tolerant, and ride you 4 thousand dollar foo-foo bike down the middle of the main street in order to prover you are willing to act, and die like and idiot if necessary like to save the planet, gosh did I leave anyone out ?
Missoula it's a lovely place if you like that sort of thing, or just like to laugh at it, I'm in the later camp."

Haaahahhahahahahhaha, I almost peed myself when I first read this, because unfortunately IT IS SO TRUE. And even more unfortunately, it seemed to be true of nearly every semi-major city we looked into west of the Mississippi. As you know, in the beginning of this process, we were pretty sure we'd end up in California. Then reality set in when we started browsing apartment prices out there. I don't think we're willing to go into debt to pay at least twice as much as we do now in rent alone. So we thought, hey, there's plenty of other cool cities we could move to out that way. (Jamie really wants to live under the "big open western sky," so we ruled out Chicago, Boston, and New York early on.) We thought the Pacific Northwest seemed like an especially awesome place to live. Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Missoula... they all seemed ideal. That is, until we did our research and discovered that aaaaack we might shoot ourselves if we have to be surrounded by pretentious, elitist, "more-progressive-than-thou" yippies for the next few years. You know, the kind who frown upon non-organic food, cheap wine, pop culture, conservatism, racism/bigotry/war/guns, throwing plastic bottles in the trash, and movies (pardon me- films) that aren't playing at the local artsy theater, etc. etc. etc. Now, in and of itself, it isn't necessarily wrong to feel this way about these things. I mean, I consider myself to be pretty artsy. I voted for Obama (and don't regret it). I admit I enjoy sushi and good books as much as the next yipster. But for Pete's sake, when it becomes this showy game of who can be the MOST tolerant and the MOST progressive and the MOST hip and trendy and the MOST talented at finding completely obscure music, books, movies, artists, etc...... argggghh, it drives me insane! I find it very ironic that for as much as the yippies bash Republicans, southerners, and Christians for being backwards, intolerant, ignorant, close-minded, redneck dummies.... well, apparently many of them have not stopped to listen to themselves lately. The way they spew their liberal agenda all over everyone as if anyone who ISN'T liberal will obviously be weeded out by Darwin's "survival of the fittest" within the next few generations. They are JUST as close-minded, if not more so, than the beer-drinking, gun-toting, self-proclaimed rednecks who live in the trailer park not far from where I'm sitting right now. They just think that because they read important books and watch the right news stations and read the right newspapers and magazines and idolize the right politicians and listen to the right music that their own bigotry is totally justified. It's so asinine. I don't know how I could have been stupid enough to buy into it myself. 

And all this nonsense has become almost essential to modern, "progressive" Christianity, which tells us to "accept" everyone and just not talk about uncomfortable things because above all, we must live in peace.... we must "coexist," as that bumper sticker I can't stand says. Well, news flash: we have to let go of this notion that God is all peace, love, and Birkenstocks. God is no yippie. He is just, and, no matter what we think, justice means there are a lot of people who are gonna end up in hell for eternity. If Jesus is not central to a person's or a religion's or a community's or a church's belief system, then they are going to hell. Yes, God is love, and we are to love everyone, regardless of race, religion, sex, age, whatever... but that doesn't mean we should just sit back and let them go on their merry way just to "keep the peace." If we truly loved them, we would share the gospel with them, with much love and grace and mercy, but also with honesty and truth and Scripture. We can't dumb it down and make it fit all of our "progressive" whims. We are in the business of helping each other on the journey to TRUE peace, which can only exist in a perfect world, as heaven will be. We aren't helping each other by allowing each other to wallow in ignorance and stubbornness and self-absorption so as not to "offend" anyone. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm ready to live away from Bible-belt Tennessee for awhile, just to see and experience new places and things and people. But I don't want to leave one close-minded, judgmental, self-important region for just another with a different face. I mean, I guess there's no getting away from it. There will always be these people, no matter where we end up. I've discovered that in many cases, this behavior stems from a fear of being "found out," a fear of just being genuine and vulnerable and real. Our insecurities cause us to create these outer shells to protect our sense of identity, to give us a sense of self. But I disgust myself when I go along with it and participate in it, and surround myself with people who are entrenched in it. 

I say it's time to "shave these things off our faces," take off our black turtlenecks and fake glasses, and trade "films" for football. Maybe literally speaking, mostly figuratively speaking. It's time to be real. It's time to stop being ashamed of our weaknesses and secret likes and dislikes and our true feelings and opinions. It's a very, very, very hard battle to fight. In fact, I admit that I'm very hesitant to make friends for this very reason. It's such a struggle to not get wrapped up in one-up-manship and pretentiousness. It takes a looooong time to peel back the layers and get to the core of who we really are. Funny thing is, when all the layers are removed, we're really just the same. Why is it so hard for us to believe this and live as if it were true?

I want to end with a really amazing quote from Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What that my friend Amanda posted on facebook today (it's been awhile since I read the book, so I was thankful for the refresher!):

"I get this feeling sometimes that after the world ends, when God destroys all our buildings and our flags, we will wish we had seen everybody as equal, that we had eaten dinner with prostitutes, held them in our arms, opened up spare rooms for them and loved them and learned from them. I was just another stupid child in the flow, you know; I didn't know any of these things. I didn't know that it didn't matter what a person looked like, how much money they made or whether or not they were cool. I didn't know that cool was just a myth and that one person was just as beautiful and meaningful as another. Not all of us are smart as aliens, you know. Not all of us run around naked like Adam and Eve. You can hardly fault me for this stuff, can you? Like I said, it felt important to climb the social ladder, it felt important to defend our identities, it felt as though we were saving our own lives."