Keith Olberman said it best, George Carlin was a man who “made sense of this crap.” Day in and day out. He looked past the fake smiles and pathetic norms which people use to obtain an illusion of prosperity and tried to make sense out of it. I understand why some people only view him as a complaining, old man. You have to view a lot of what he says with an open mind, because it is hard to notice injustice, when you have been born around it. He, however, noticed it well and made his best to show people how to always question what they see and not just criticize without a purpose, but to do it constructively.

He did not consider himself a counter-culture hero, messiah, or prophet. To label him something of that sort would be pathetic, because he himself considered the act of idolization as one of the major diseases in modern society. Much like Bill Hicks, George Carlin was an ordinary man, just like me and you, who proved that there are a lot of things which we don’t know about ourselves. His comedy was even uplifting for me, because I could finally hear a voice of passion and logic in a sea of pretentiousness. It was impossible for him to change the obscurities of modern media, but at least he showed us how to notice them and not be oblivious. His legacy will live on.

I will end this post with a quote from his last interview, which I recommend reading:

“Abraham Maslow said the fully realized man does not identify with the local group. When I saw that, it rang another bell. I thought: bingo! I do not identify with the local group, I do not feel a part of it. I really have never felt like a participant, I’ve always felt like an observer. Always. I only identified this in retrospect, way after the fact, that I have been on the outside, and I don’t like being on the inside. I don’t like being in their world. I’ve never felt comfortable there; I don’t belong to that. So, when he says the “local group,” I take that as meaning a lot of things: the local social clubs or fraternal orders, or lodges or associations or clubs of any kind, things where you sacrifice your individual identity for the sake of a group, for the sake of the group mind. I’ve always felt different and outside. Now, I also extended that, once again in retrospect, as I examined my feelings.

I don’t really identify with America, I don’t really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don’t really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don’t. All the definitions are there, but I don’t really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices.”

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