Needless to say, in all the hum and buzz of the world wooshing past our heads, it is easy to begin to feel lost, and hopeless... depressed even. So we all have our little ways to get by mostly unscathed and mostly still sane, the kind of condition which you can sell on ebay as "like new" but you secretly know there's something terribly wrong with it. It's like a potato chip shaped like Jesus and it's "like new" because there are two little kinks in it that actually makes it shaped like Satan. Whether we play moody piano songs in the hailing rain or blast the heads off toon-ified characters on a computer monitor, we all have these little things to do. A lucky few of us find ourselves retreating into the realm of words, trying to find those few words to motivate us or we simply type furiously away at a computer. But for us these words hold a captivating power, they get us through the next speedbump in life (which is, as Rascal Flatts points out, a highway. Speedbumps don't belong on highways, yes. It's not a perfect analogy, I know). So this article is for you: Mr. and Ms. Readers of the world, and poets and writers scribbling through life.

Unfortunately... none such wise and motivating words can be summoned onto this white canvas of a monitor.

Here's the deal with life: with enough senseless whining and enough (hard?) work we're able to leave wherever we're stuck in, those little fishbowls of schools, colleges, towns, cities. And ultimately we get swept up out of our comfortable little fishbowl and flushed down a toilet, and then we venture through the sewage some, and eventually find ourselves in some body of water that should theoretically connect into the ocean that is the rest of the world.

And there is absolutely nothing motivational in being compared to a dead fish. But that's what life is. It's messy, it's hard, it's like sewage. But unlike fish, we don't just get washed up by the current of the water, helplessly limp, silently acquiescing to the state of things. No. We can rant and ramble and shout and yell through the whole thing.

Ranting does the soul good. Whether it be into an audience or simply at the stars staring down from the sky. Rant. At the very least, you can begin to solve the little things in life by rambling on and on. Epiphanies strike in the middle of those intensely passionate, fervent and almost violent vociferations. You can't expect to just find a solution by waiting for change to happen. You have to be predatory and hunt for it. Mouth off at somebody. Write a virulent letter. And don't feel guilty, it's just meditation. Meditation is the intensely introspective analysis of something important. Raving is simply the mad verbalization of these meditations - turning the intensely introspective into the exceptionally expressive. It is equally illuminating, but far more cathartic and therapeutic.

Some final thoughts, dear ranters:
Just keep walking. Life may suck... and then you eventually do die. But it is much better to go through this ordeal walking, dignified, with whatever remaining sense of self-importance we may have, than to crawl through life on our knees. Because maybe, if we walk with good enough posture, we can be reincarnated as a domestic cat or dog. And we all know that domestic cats and dogs are living the good life. So indeed. Just Keep Walking. Wander and wonder through life. And hope that a friend is nearby to pull you away from oncoming traffic. And if you do get hit by a car, you'll still be "acceptable condition."