I went to a theatre last night that was doing a prebut of their upcoming season. This consisted of showing scenes from plays they were doing, and the audience got to vote on one of the shows they would end up producing. They also used it to try to sell season tickets, and they had guest speakers from different arts entities speak between the scenes. All this would have been fine if they didn't keep using the same phrase which I believe has already been overused. It's these troubled times...

"In these troubled times, we need to come together as an arts community..."

"Now more than ever in these trouble times, we need to show our support for..."

"If we don't do something in these troubled times, these things will disappear..."

Jeeeeeeezus H. C., people! Enough of this 'troubled times' talk. I'm part of the theatre and arts community out of default because I'm a weirdo artist guy. I don't do it to hold hands and unite as hippy-dippy-doers. Recently, I directed a play that was lightly attended. I didn't bemoan the troubled times, or the fact that the theatre raised ticket prices from $12 to $15 when my show went up, or anything other than I assumed that not many people wanted to see it. Troubled times? What about the shows that didn't sell well during the heyday of super happy fun times?

Let's be honest about these troubled times. It's troubled times for the rich and middle class. White collar jobs are being lost by the thousands. The world still has plenty of cab drivers, waitresses and beauty salon technicians. We are still working and busting our booties to make the rent, pay the bills and feed the family. The poor are still poor. Troubled times or not. They just have more company now.

Let's be even more honest here. These are not troubled times. If all the out-of-work folks can't get jobs before their unemployment runs out, that will be troubled times. When crime starts spiking because people can't pay the rent, those will be troubled times. Right now, people are feeling bad because the stock market is in the pooper and their 401k's are worth about half as much as they used to be. Remember the riots of the mid-90s? Times were a little more troubling back then.

More than that, I'm just tired of the phrase, much like I wasn't a fan of living in historic times. It's as if we don't label the times while we live in them, then they won't be important.

I still have faith that we will rebound before things get awful. All these 'it's going to get worse before it gets better' predictions feel like a bunch of preparing for the worst rather than anything substantial. Remember when they said that about the Iraq War? Well, it didn't really get worse, and it didn't really get better. It's been a pretty stagnant war for a long time now. They just wanted to prepare us for all the negative things that can happen in a war. Can we please go now?

And another thing, how can people look into the future and say 'Oh, it will be better in 2010 than 2009,' or 'Things won't fully recover until 2013?' A lot of things can and will happen in the next four years, both positive and negative, that could blow any theory these people have out of the water. Stop predicting the future and reminding us how it used to be, and start living in the present. That's when life is really going on.

I admit I have a habit of going against the grain with my thinking. If people say 'We need to unite,' I think I'm on my own. When people say 'These are troubled times,' I think things aren't that bad. Maybe it's because I don't like groupthink. Maybe it's because I assume the more something is repeated that there's some brainwashing going on. FYI, I have read 1984 cover to cover at least three times, and it still presents a viable case of how we are as a western society.

So can we please stop saying 'In these troubled times,' for a while. If these are the troubled times, what do we call it when it gets worse? The Awful Times? The Fantastic Depression? Come on, people! We don't have to unite. We don't have to try and save every entity that can't take care of itself. We just have to keep living and doing things in a good way. Even if we're broke. Even if the times are...tough...or difficult...or anything but freakin' troubled.

Chris Jungle believes in using a thesaurus.