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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To be irritated by this Facebook post?

251 replies

MattDillonsPants · 24/02/2016 06:50

I think it's an actual poem but not certain....either way it's frigging stupid. We all, as adults have to take responsibility for ourselves. This post seems to suggest that being an eternal backpacker is a good idea!

I don't think so and I suspect it was written by someone in their late 20s who still has the energy to "bathe in bio-luminescence and lie in a dirt road staring at the moon"

FFS. Hmm

I will never be a well behaved woman.

I would rather pass my days lying in the middle of dirt roads, staring at the full moon with a bottle of summer red in my palms.

I would rather have kids when it suits me, not when society expects or throws shoulds.

I would rather live in a hammock on a beach for six months, and write like my soul means it.

I would rather be horribly broke at times, than married to a job because a mortgage payment has my ass on a hook.

I would rather own moments, than investments.

I would rather eat alone, than sit with women who bore me at 'Wives’ Night.”

I would rather swim naked with bioluminescence, have it fall like fireflies from my hair, my breasts, my back.

I would rather do handstands naked in the moonlight when no one’s watching than pick bridesmaid dresses.

I would rather drink seven year old rum from a sandy bottle, smell of smoke and ash than sit in church.

I would rather learn from life than rack up debt, in a desk.

I would rather drink the ocean, again and again—celebrate being madly alive.

I would rather my love be defined by love itself, and nothing more or less.

I don’t need a ring on my finger to prove that I am in love.

I would rather take the chicken bus, than spend useless money in safe gated communities. Sit beside a goat, listen to raggaeton and eat green mango with sugar in a plastic bag sold from the woman who harasses the bus each time it stops.

I do not need a degree to prove that I am intelligent.

I do not need to own a piece of earth with some wood on top of it—to feel successful. No one truly owns the land, anyway—we just think we do.

My savings account has diddly to do with my richness.
I would rather sprawl my single ass out like a lioness each morning and enjoy each corner of my empty bed.

I will take a job I love and freedom over a pension, any day.

I will not work and work and work to live when my body is old and I am tired.

Stocks are for people who get boners from money.

Not everyone should have kids, and my eggs aren’t expiring.

I will not drink the societal Kool-Aid on a bus, nor will I drink it on a train.
Not on a plane, with a goat, in the rain, in the dark, in a tree, with a fox, in a box!

I will not jump through societies’ hoops and red tape, the treasure hunt in the rat race we chase.

If we must have milestones—mine will be measured by how much joy I have collected at the end of each day and how often in this life I have truly, deeply, opened.

Seek, see, love, do.

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 24/02/2016 07:21

You can't have a bottle in your 'palms'; you need fingers to grip.

Of course you can . You can just hold it between two palms, no fingers required. It's not terribly practical but it is perfectly possible.

DustyBustle · 24/02/2016 07:21

Doesn't it go on rather, after the 3rd or 4th line, yeah we get it already - enough Hmm

MattDillonsPants · 24/02/2016 07:22

Soup can't miss the point....the writer whacks us around the head with it over and over and over and over and over....again.

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VinceNoirLovesHowardMoon · 24/02/2016 07:23

I've seen worse. It's a bit silly and hyperbolic but the general message is nice.

MattDillonsPants · 24/02/2016 07:23

www.instagram.com/jannerobinson/

that's the author apparently.

She gives her job as "I take slabs of my heart and share them with the world for a living."

And she's got over 20 thousand followers so she must be doing something right eh? Grin

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wigglesrock · 24/02/2016 07:25

Oh its just wanky but I like a bit of self satisfied smugness - makes me giggle.

lighteningirl · 24/02/2016 07:25

There's another one that irritates me implying everyone should go travelling to make memories because ya know memories are what life is all about. No living is what life is all about I have had a fabulous full exciting life I have loads more to do and you know what I did it and will do it by living my life to the full having gorgeous children a great career, in fact two great careers, amazing friendships a lovely home I've created from nothing, not poncing around wasting my life and annoying the locals.

SoupDragon · 24/02/2016 07:26

Soup can't miss the point

You clearly have given. The point being that poetry is rarely meant to be taken literally.

It's just a sodding poem about living for joy not real life expectations, not an instruction book for life.

MaryRobinson · 24/02/2016 07:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Nogoodblood · 24/02/2016 07:29

My life has always differed from that of my contemporaries and my peers, not in such romantic ways as the ones outlined in the poem unfortunately! - and although it isn't something I reflect on now, there have been times in the past where that difference has made me unhappy.

It's possible to read the poem (although it isn't really one!) as metaphorical rather than literal. I have never, literally, eaten mango from some woman somewhere or whatever it was!

But there is some comfort in eventually accepting that while YOU aren't really that different from anybody else, your life is.

I still am friends with some of my school and university friends, who have without exception followed The Plan of adventure filled twenties and house buying and baby filled thirties.

But these days I also am friends with actors who are seven years feast and seven years famine, with bookshops owners who randomly go to India for a month just because, with artists and musicians - and yes, it's comforting not to have people who conform around you.

Really, I think we'd all be a lot happier if we did what made us happy! Personally for me, I like my job and I like working, I love being a homeowner. I believe firmly there is a lot of pleasure and happiness in just living a very ordinary life.

firesidechat · 24/02/2016 07:29

It's all a bit "free spirit" isn't it. No to mention an incredibly bad poem. Makes me cringe in embarrassment for whoever wrote it and anyone sharing it. Not you obviously op.

SlinkyVagabond · 24/02/2016 07:30

And I bet if you asked those whose only choice is to ride the chicken bus everyday, they might jump at the life that the "poet" eschews.
It's all very Common People.

Nogoodblood · 24/02/2016 07:30

Very true indeed Slinky.

Fratelli · 24/02/2016 07:32

It actually makes me feel a bit sick! It's just awful!

It's basically putting others down who have chosen to do any of the things she doesn't want to do. I also think she's never been truly "broke".

Fair enough if you want to lay in dirt etc, totally fine, no need to be a smug wanker about it though!

Jw35 · 24/02/2016 07:32

I love the idea of being a true free spirit. I don't understand not wanting kids though, I didn't have my kids to conform to society? It's all a bit weird!

Mumberjack · 24/02/2016 07:32

I think it's unlikely that the people who post this sort of shite on Facebook will ever take the 'chicken bus'.

TwatMagnet · 24/02/2016 07:33

This -

What an annoying puke fest

Until I got to this -

"I take slabs of my heart and share them with the world for a living." - at which point it became a projectile vomit-fest! Grin

MattDillonsPants · 24/02/2016 07:33

Slinky that's it...that's what's annoyed me I suppose. She's advising not working your fingers to the bone because when she's old and her body's tired she doesn't want to be slaving away still....but not everyone GETS that choice do they?

She obviously makes a living out of social media because she's good looking and skilled in that way.

What about the people who aren't? The disabled? The people who've not had much education? It's just too smug and I'd hardly call it a poem anyway.

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TheDowagerCuntess · 24/02/2016 07:35

I would've been all over that in my 20s.

God, it really is insufferable, isn't it? Very easy to embrace the moment with all the insight and wisdom of youth, when you don't have any responsibilities.

I can imagine exactly the sort of women who'd write that. And exactly what they'd be wearing, i.e. yoga clothes. Grin

MattDillonsPants · 24/02/2016 07:37

Follow the link Dowager Grin

God I love Mumsnet. Only on here to I get to address someone as Dowager.

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liz70 · 24/02/2016 07:40

I'm more irritated by what a terrible example of poetry this is. I've been reading a treasury of first poems with DD3 of an evening - the work in there far surpasses this.

CocktailQueen · 24/02/2016 07:43

Terrible writing!!

And how is she going to afford all the traveling without a job?

Has her boyfriend just dumped her? She's protesting a bit too much about not wanting to get married. And she sounds about 18.

Surely doing whatever you want to do is fine - whether it's travelling or working - but you have to respect other people's choices, not criticise them. Life in a way you can afford.

MattDillonsPants · 24/02/2016 07:46

Cocktail well she's one of that rare breed that makes money from Instagram. Which obviously qualifies her to write bad poetry about how others who don't live like that have drunk the koolaid and are chickens on a bus or...something.

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BitOutOfPractice · 24/02/2016 07:47

Ugh. All the pseudo psychological bullshit gets in my last word.

Felyne · 24/02/2016 07:49

Smacks of privilege, the ability to be able to choose that type of life being blissfully ignorant of the circumstances that dictate the way most of us live our lives.

Tell the 'woman who harasses the bus' selling mango to stop spending her life chasing the next payout - I'm assuming this woman does this so she can feed her kids (silly mango woman, probably only had kids because society expected her to...)

Keep 'drinking the ocean', love, let's see how that works out for you.