"Time destroys everything."
Friday night. Karaoke night. Thanksgiving break. You're 21 years old. Members of your graduating high school class and their respective parents populate the bar. Vibrancy dictates the general ambiance of the bar; a sort of happy-go-lucky atmosphere of a promising tomorrow that will surely come. Two more semesters until everyone attains that coveted degree, and mom and pop couldn't be prouder. The opening sounds of Queen's "We are the Champions" ignites a frenzied chorus of Dionysian revelers truly living for the moment.
Return a few years later. The same populace appears in a slightly modified form. People have put on some weight. They look a little less thrilled with the prospect of a potentially disappointing tomorrow, but assuage these fears with gallons of Bud Light and 40-proof "shots." Everyone is putting off that degree for a while and focusing on themselves, but they couldn't be happier with their new fiance and can't wait to see what life has in store for them. The opening sounds of "We are the Champions" lightens the mood and banishes the slightly foreboding prospect of this being all there is to life.
Skip a few years. The same populace is cauterizing the evident existential wounds inflicted by an inescapable life in rural Midwest Illinois with unhealthy amounts of Bud Light and fruity "liquors." That degree never happened, but I'm not too unhappy working at dad's company! My fiance and I never quite worked out, but joint custody isn't the worst thing in the world, right? The parents of said peers have inexplicably swapped spouses around in some bizarre social manifestation of Red Rover. The patrons silently bemoan the opening notes of "We are the Champions": A ritual that has become as stale as it is existentially crushing.
We are the champions, my friend. Of what, exactly? Couldn't tell you. read more