[208] What It Means To Be An Adult

Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 1:46am |

What it means to be an adult

I'm pissed off for my guy Hatsam right now on the off chance he doesn't share enough anger for the both of us. He's currently, as I type this, getting his ass chewed out about school, money, grades, etc. and his parents are explaining to him that he doesn't understand what it means to be an adult. I hate self-righteous speeches and pillars because they are so unbelievably hypocritical I don't know how people manage to sit through them if not for being in complete denial about or deaf to what they are hearing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the majority of adults in my life, and that I've witnessed, who are at the reigns of control are irrational, petty, power hungry, horrendous money managers, high-strung, depressed, and unbearably immature. What does it mean to be an adult? I'll tell you. Being an adult means you find a job, any job, that makes you live paycheck to paycheck and support your meager existence. You're an adult when you've incurred thousands of dollars worth of debt. You're an adult when you have no choice but to adopt a stressful and time consuming lifestyle because you've either been bent over by your environment or bent yourself over from a slew of ridiculous decisions and irrational judgments. If your family or general experience with the world is even remotely like mine, how on Earth can you take seriously one of these ridiculous fucks giving you a lecture on what it means to be an adult?

Even though I will always feel like a "kid" and probably behave more or less like I'm hopelessly immature, I can feel endlessly confident in my "adult" status purely because I'm not a ridiculous fuck of an example that the adults I've known have set. I keep my emotions in check, I don't spend exorbitant amounts of money on things I don't need, and perhaps most importantly (and this could be a philosophical point), I make decisions that I think are going to increase my happiness with life. EVERYONE, every fucking person I know has some shitty situation, is more or less depressed on varying levels of denial about it. I think it is the height of responsibility and self-respect by doing everything in my power to avoid falling into that kind of adulthood. Remember people, I don't give our species any credit behind kinda-smart-ape assholes, so if you can manage to be happy when all you're used to is catching and flinging shit, you've accomplished something.

What kills me the most is why things will never get better. Take the situation downstairs. Has Hatsam probably fucked up here or there with what he should or shouldn't have said? I don't know and don't really care. He's proven to be a reasonable person the majority of my experience with him and I would leave whatever responsibility for his choices or words on him. What I do know is that his parents are projecting their own unhappiness, their bullshit lives, their bad relationship with him and turning it into a drawn out unnecessary torrent of a lecture that could be solved in five minutes with just the facts and an understanding and respect for the kind of person he is. Because they allowed for a world of confusion and anger about money, he gets shit for it. Because they don't understand, care to develop a real relationship with, or care to explore a world of possibility instead of restriction, they make it his problem as well.

The reality is that no matter how "adult" or "childish" we feel, all of our experiences are generally same; we go through the same emotions, we run into money issues, we make bad decisions and guess what? Who gives a fuck! Get over it, fix it, shit happens. This is the den of assholes we were born into to, manage yourself and cut a path. Don't make your problems someone else's because they'll assure you've they've already got it and more. How much regret do you need in your life to conduct yourself in such a manner? How badly do you hate what you do, hate the people around you, hate yourself to want to kill the only relationships most people (ha, as if that should count anymore) would regard as the only ones you need to keep in tact at all cost? Your wishes, dreams, and "good will" towards someone doesn't speak even remotely towards the reality, and when you don't wake up to that fact, stop pretending it's a surprise when shit goes wrong. When they turn out exactly as you knew they would from month one, but couldn't stomach it.

The 16-23 old group of people is a general group of fuck ups for their own reasons, but they overwhelmingly didn't grow up surrounded by 16-23 year olds. This is the reality I wish people would wake up to. We are influence and are influenced by "the collective" or "the family" every day, and there is either a reason or an irrational asshole that put that influence into gear in the first place. You take it for granted that they are just acting in your best interest. After all, they go out of their way to remind you of that fact every bleeding second of the day right? You make yourself believe that no matter how much someone pisses you off, they are still your mom, dad, or relative and somehow that gives them power to bring you down with them. You're expected to learn that life is too short from people who don't even know how to live their own. Survival is not living.

Something I really wish anyone who reads this will take away from it is that it doesn't matter your background, your indoctrination, or the type and manner of lectures and lies you've had to sit through. There is still hope that you can take personal responsibility. You can, at any time, wake up to reality. You can wake up to your potential and the nature of things. If your parents are irrational, you are not bound by their irrationality. If your family is unhappy, you are not destined to be unhappy. If you understand for a second that your reality can drastically change in any moment and that feeling excites, scares, and makes you appreciative of your current situation, you are infinitely more informed and open to reality than any "wise old aunt" who tells you the next 50 years of your life are going to be filled with bad decisions and monotonous life draining work. You have to fight, every second of every day.

Top of Form

Updated about 2 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

Javon Renne Washington-Brown likes this.

Julie Otis

Just like all of your other notes, very well said. You can put into words what alot of people think. I personally think highly of that "talent".

December 31, 2009 at 9:51am ·

Javon Renne Washington-Brown

its a never ending circle. you may disagree but until we have our own children we may never know the method behind their literal madness. Unlike my family, i treat my mother like a child and feel like i am raising her she is 61 years of age and i have to give her financial advise/help. Her 33 yr old husband is in the navy and does nothing more than... See More play on the computer, eat, sleep, shit. Although he is in the navy he is a CS. CS stands for CULINARY SPECIALIST. A MOTHER FREAKIN CULINARY SPECIALIST- this means he did so bad on all the military testing required to enter the military that he is only qualified to work with food. Hes been in for 13 years and has yet to advance any further than E5 (this by military means is just straight laughable). My point being-if my "parents" were competent i wouldnt have to basically lecture them on how to run a house hold-So full circle meaning- if sam was in his parents position or you were sams parents how would you handle it. By no means am i defending his bitchy rents-ive heard it before. im just raising the following question: are we all victims of circumstance? would he do better without his parents barking down his throat everyday or would i be less of a bitch if i was actually raised by my parents instead of raising them. BTW just wanted to complain about this cmas break. Thanks for your time. lol.

December 31, 2009 at 2:15pm ·

Nick P.

Hatsam and I discussed how I would handle it actually lol. I would have said no to letting him go out of state for school if we couldn't afford it. Assuming we thought we could or would handle the loans, I'd be handling it the exact way that he and his mom espouse now. He'd get a job, start paying the loans back, drop out of school until he found a reason or will to go back. As long as he made rent and was happy doing his own thing then more power to him.

December 31, 2009 at 5:11pm ·

Javon Renne Washington-Brown

respec

Bottom of Form

[206] Harsh Your Mello

Friday, November 20, 2009 at 1:49pm

I'm going to write instead of studying for my test in an hour.

I come across as hard. My cock is always throbbing and knocking people over. Well, that aside, when people don't know me it's easy to write off my general behavior as simply being "a dick," cold, or disrespectful. I would argue that the general group of people who are quick to assert these, are the least capable in grasping anything about my personality, let alone what makes those redeeming or untrue. I'll pose a scenario. Your group gets together to study for a Spanish oral exam at the library. You find a spot and proceed to helplessly flail through the pages of your Spanish book. After 20 minutes of this you proclaim you're too tired, can just do it on Sunday, and have all this other crap you have to do for other classes anyway. In those moments, I decide to be a "dick" and report something my psych teacher just went over about how we are adept at making excuses and concessions for our behavior, and I find it quaint that this is explicitly of the nature of the caricaturization the teacher was making in class. The question; is it disrespectful to allude to a class experience I had that mirrored the situation and relatively indirectly signaled that I was displeased, or was it disrespectful to waste my time and pretend like you can hold to a schedule and care to get something done?

Let's a take a moment to explore why I would ever even choose to "be a dick" when I see something I don't agree with. Habits are hard to break, and I don't pretend like that isn't the case. If you have some personality quirk, like making excuses and feeling comfortable doing so, I'm going to attack it because nothing positive comes from getting good at a behavior like that. (This could be elaborated upon much more in depth and intelligently so don't hold me as too retarded for not expounding in my time now.) If that behavior and disposition bleeds over into my time and my experience, I'm even more pressed to voice something. Here's the kicker, I find this as being one of the most respectful things I can express towards a person. Rarely, quite rarely, is it my goal to just make someone feel bad, and I stress frequently that when that is my goal, you will know it. When you take my, habit, of pointing out negative personality traits, or weird views and bad ideas you may hold, it is your responsibility to handle it. I am willing to bet everything I have that you can't offer a kind of retort that would render my strategy hopelessly flawed or grounded in bad philosophy.

What I find is the biggest let down, is again, and yes I'm going to sound arrogant, pompous, etc., when I can't really care when I just report what happens. When my "hope" for someone turns into my playing with them because I saw something, let it slide, and thought they had another dimension that would be the prevailing promising personality. The people I like, and get along with, and I'll take for granted it's even remotely reciprocated, all have ways of thinking and behaving that, whether I like or not, still manage to reach a common ground with where my head is at. These people talk, they aren't quick to merely get angry and throw a fit, and most importantly, they have more thoughts about themselves than they do me. And this is how we relate. I don't get angry at someone who has the balls to bring up what they think about me or their thoughts on a situation. I do get angry when feelings and misconstrued mental minefields are created ready to go off with the slightest provocation. I won't tippy toe around you, and if you find this disrespectful, annoying, or me being a dick, you don't matter.

Top of Form

Written about 3 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

Diana Woody

Ditch the place and come to the east coast.

November 20, 2009 at 2:02pm ·

Julie Otis

Well said.

November 20, 2009 at 2:18pm ·

Byron R. Turner II

It never ceases to amaze me how parallel our lifes seem to be.

Bottom of Form

[205] IN div idual it Y 2

Monday, November 2, 2009 at 7:16am |

Thank you Carmen for prompting me to explore our discussion further :).

There probably isn't a best way to start this so I'll just jump off of something I remembering saying and the initial reaction I got. "Everybody is stupid, and that makes us the same." It was a little more drawn out that that, but it gets the gist and still holds the glaring flaw I'm going to explore. I can only guess that it was me ignoring or failing to work in properly the amount of things surrounding that statement that bolstered a negative reaction.

I'll begin by breaking down and rewording the statement. By "everybody" I generally mean (and usually say) "the majority of people." "Stupid" is the too easy way of putting in the words ignorant, lazy, afraid, confused, etc. When it comes to making us the same, I believe that we are in fact the same to certain extents of personality and environment and in the context of various common life scenarios. Further, those that do all they can to not be the same, still manage to find some flow created and worked within by many before them anyway. This I do not believe is necessarily a bad thing at all times. So, a more coherent way for me to word my statement would be, "The majority of people, in many similar situations, behave in predictable, usually unwarranted or unnecessary but still understandable ways, and insofar as we can continue to discern the recurring problems and repercussions of said actions, we are the same." I think it's important to explore just when and where being the same is expected and okay, and when it becomes the bane of our existence.

Starting simply an obviously, we are natural hypocrites. It is almost too easy to become enamored with some quote or ideal and hold it up to be the highest standard, and even pressure ourselves to follow it for a struggling week, but usually we just manage to excuse away any and all behavior that runs off the track or standard we'd like to believe we're holding ourselves to. On this point, I believe to avoid this you merely have to assert a hypercritical and scientific mindset and evolve the mental paradigm you use to understand and feel comfortable with the world. For me, and easy example to use would be how my views have evolved with alcohol. I didn't like the reasons for doing so I saw in people who drank, what I'd tasted previously was horrible, don't forget the cost, there being no sober person in the room if the cops showed up, etc. So, I can point to the instance I decided to drink and either call it hypocritical or I can apply all the thoughts I had about it to form a cogent reason and test that can help to better enforce my biased naive view or serve to shift how I understand the subject. Personal reasons for doing so don't need to be gone into here, but a simple way to confirm one testable idea my dad has told me most of my life, as with most things, in moderation.

Continuing on, we are more the "victims" of circumstance than we'd like to admit or realize. Technically, we always have a choice, but when that choice is compelled to one way over another for good reason, you're simply flowing down a river that makes the most sense, not utilizing every opportunity to adopt a new behavior expressed in the overall nature of "yourself." I'd be willing to bet that the reason most people have the lives they do is merely their birth date or the people who they knew. Another way to say that, it isn't through endless self reflection and direct effort that people carve out their individual lives, it's through both direct and passive pressures and opportunities they subject themselves to. Does the Asian kid really want to be a doctor when he graduates med school, or did his parents constant insistence that it was important to him and there would be negative consequences if he didn't influence anything? Do the poor kids who enter gang life contemplate effective business plans and rise and fall with new ideas, or do they merely understand that drugs and violence equals money? To me, every terrible "leader" or "manager" or "authority" does not get away with being called a "victim" of circumstance, but certainly got where they are through connections and the setting those around them sought to create.

This transitions well into the question of who those setting creator people are and how and why they operate. I'll go with a thought experiment. Imagine 5% of the world can be considered what I dignify as a thinking then doing individual. They are hesitant to accept norms, impossibly skeptical (at least as perceived by those around them), and habitually digesting and working with information that will help to make them better understand themselves and how to influence their world. Now, of that 5% you will still find tendencies for converging actions, but the well of reasons, naive or informed, never runs dry. I think I have run into, I'm not comfortable with the word many, but enough thinkers to maintain ever fleeting, but still present hope there could be some revolution where they rise up and take over leadership roles. One thing that punctuates many of their personalities is the same kind of practical hopelessness I have. They are disenfranchised and demoralized because they seemingly understand too much, or at least enough to reasonably assume they don't know how to change or fix it. This results in a good portion of that 5% "conforming" in their own way to social norms, if only to save their sanity. Another portion of that percentage manages to only fuck up the world around them, essentially corrupting themselves after realizing the power of understanding their world. And finally, there's the handful of those that can find it in them to enjoy struggling in a sort of constant limbo because they are always creating a new opportunity, philosophy, or perspective no matter how foggy or despotic they denote their world to be. Of course, it would be reasonable to assume that of this group of thinkers, they can waver or show tendencies to behave in any and all of these ways at some instance.

Ultimately, the current prevailing reason "people are stupid and the same" is the pervasive tendency to be lazy and fearful in and of thought. I think the problem goes even further, and I'd be comfortable saying people practice ways to not think and deny and convince themselves they aren't thinking when they start. These are the literal hypocrites, drones, and pawns of the people who do think. They martyr themselves in spite of themselves. I don't have to really elaborate on a convincing leader and the host of things he can get his subjects to engage in. From the playground to the battleground, it's obvious. Anyway, it's through some sick surrogate relationship that the people who don't think try to live vicariously through the ones that do. A recurring world of ridiculousness can follow from a handful of thinkers who go rogue when the people treat themselves as cattle. Even the bulls who perceive some sort of leadership or power are still livestock to the farmer. I'll even apply this metaphor to school. Teachers are bulls. You get relative independence and leeway as a teacher compared to most jobs, and you may even like what you do, but the reason I see you standing there is because whoever sits on the board of directors for IU is in the business of putting bulls in front of sheep.

So then, what truly makes us an individual? The givens like genetic makeup, sorry twins, and histories, by virtue of them being inevitable as history, mean nothing unless there was a rational actor in your memories. You are an individual when you choose to be. Emulating ideas you believe in not because "they are good" but because you actually believe them. Behaving in a way that manifests happiness without desperation, excuses, or insecurity. It's not being "just funny," "just an asshole," or "just smart." It's in weaving a web of consciousness that prompts you to behave in appropriate and effective ways that have been learned, reasoned through, then adopted, not conditioned. The most important thing about me is that when I refer to my personality, I truly do claim it as mine. I don't make excuses for it if there is a good reason to change, and I believe it is possible if not necessary to have a personality that can be exceedingly profane and angry, but laid back and polite as well. We are the same in that we have the capacity to be any and all types of personalities, feel all the same emotions, and engage in the same behaviors, but it is in how and when we choose to engage in them that makes us different. The real problem is waking people up to how little they are in fact choosing when they will always feel like an individual regardless.

Top of Form

Written about 4 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

Carmen Dobbs and Helen Morris like this.

Helen Morris

((I will reply to this.....after I fully wake up, lol.)

November 2, 2009 at 8:26am ·

Helen Morris

The question of individuality strikes deep with me. Over the course of my life I have struggled to be different from "the crowd" or to find my own individuality. When I was little, I found that acting extravagantly weird, dressing wierd and laughing at myself was a pretty good way to get around being made fun of. Because if I want to be made fun of, I win!

However it doesn't really matter what I do or how I present myself as to how individual or different I am. Because when you come down to it, I am human, I fall under a number of normal "groups", I am female, I am a teenager, I take classes, I hang out with friends, I drive a car, I eat breakfast. Basically, I participate in society in a normal way. I am emotional and allow myself to be controlled by my emotions to the point that I am very much the same as any other human.

How do I differentiate myself from other humans then? What specifically makes me Helen and not Carmen? And why is it that I look at some people and they seem so indivual and like their own person, whereas other people seem like clones of the person next to them? I think this comes down to awareness and choice. ... See More

Firstly, I find that my choicess make me different. I will never be so far beyond the human condition that I am truly different. But I don't want to be. I wouldn't choose to be. I allow myself to indulge in normal things. I get excited about stupid things, I have crushes, I sink into the everyday dramas of my friends, I have friends. But notice that I said I "allow" myself to indulge in these things. I belive that I have made conscious choices for all of the above. And I could have made choices for the opposite. But I do what makes me happy, and I like those things...so wahlah!

There are bigger choices in my life that make my life very different from the person next to me. Where I go to college, how much I care about it when I get there. My career, the way I treat people around me. And everyone makes these choices. (notice, (everyone)...i.e...choices are normal, we are all the same in that everyone makes them), BUT what I notice really makes the difference between the individual and the zombie-clone is awareness.

How many times have you seen some random girl caked in makeup, wearing the exact style of that day, drunk off her ass, clinging on to some guy? And how many times have you seen the same stupid girls the next day whining about how soandso guy from soandso party isn't actually in love with her. (I don't know about you, but I ran out of fingers.)

I know many of the above girl and I have noticed what many of the above girl has in common with many of the above girl is that she is not aware of herself. She sees herself as "many of the above girl". Actually, she does not see herself at all. she is not aware that she is making choices. she is not aware that her choices are the same (or different) from the next "many of the above girl".

This is how I see myself as an indivual. Yes, I might wear the exact same thing, go to the same party, get drunk as hell, and whine about it the next day. BUT I know I'm doing it! I am completely aware that I choose to put myself in that position, I choose to stay up all night, I choose to have one hell of a sunday, I choose to go to my job with a massive headache. I choose to write this really long comment instead of studing for the test I'm taking in an hour. What I do, have done and will do, may be exactly the same, or completely different from the person next to me, or from anyone else in the world. But I know that I am an individual because I am aware of the choices I make, big or small, from one day to the next. I am aware that billions of other people may make the exact same decision. But I made it knowing that I could not make it, or make a different one. And that it is all up to me. :)

I guess I could make the simple example of food. all humans eat. If a human does not eat, it dies. (not human now, just a corpse). I choose to eat. I know that this makes me human and normal and a slave to the human condition. But I damn well wanna be! I could choose not to eat...But then I'd have this whole new problem of being a corpse and trying to be different from other corpses sounds a lot harder.

haha, I think I'm done now.

November 2, 2009 at 10:51am ·

Nick P.

You say it more simply than I managed when you said awareness as a component for individuality, but I completely agree. I don't think it's a coincidence that I like you as a person because I know you know what you're doing and why. I'm interested in the part where you say you allow yourself to be controlled by your emotions, given that the rest of your response seems to speak against that sort of tendency. Is it perhaps that you feel things with super intensity, or do they really control you?

November 2, 2009 at 1:16pm ·

Helen Morris

I tend to feel things pretty intensely. I think I mentioned at some point that I have a kind of bi-polar tendency, that is. One day (Or a couple days) I will be incredibly high. Like super happy, loving everything, like everything is perfect in the world. And then the next day (or few days), I'll be depressed.

I have kind of experimented with myself, and found that I can maintain a much more even emotional level..I can stop myself from getting so high and then the lows don't really happen. But I don't want to! I'll take the lows, thankyouverymuch!

Same sort of thing with other kinds of emotions. I'm really good at controlling myself....but sometimes I'm just like HELL WITH IT!

November 2, 2009 at 2:32pm ·

Nick P.

kk coolio, as long as you can handle the lows then ya, enjoy the hell out of the highs.

November 2, 2009 at 2:39pm ·

Carmen Dobbs

"Anyway, it's through some sick surrogate relationship that the people who don't think try to live vicariously through the ones that do."
I really really like this. : )
And honestly Nick, your new and improved statement really does make sense. I agree with it (mark the calender). I also think that everything that has been mentioned, to me, is a complete given. Meaning, I'm like both of you; knowing that I could go through my life without truly understanding or caring about what I'm doing and/or the consequences of any and all actions makes me want to vomit. That's why I make conscious decisions.
Sure, I like to have fun and get caught up in... life, but I could never begin to imagine how shitty my life would be without being aware of who I am and what I'm really doing.
... See More
To express my opinion more would be to reword what you both have already stated multiple times.

November 2, 2009 at 6:16pm ·

Drake Volz

the moral of this story.

"You Are What You Eat"

which makes everyone food, and cannibalism okay.... See More
YA YA YA

Bottom of Form

[203] Dealing With Problems

 Monday, October 19, 2009 at 1:48am

I don't believe when I say something "hurtful" I am speaking "evil." I should preface that with, I don't believe people get hurt to any extent than they allow themselves to hurt themselves. You can only claim things to have "hurt" me when you said them to me as either a kid or when they imposed some edict or restriction that served to physically stop me from doing something. I worked extremely hard, as it's more a general learned disposition now, to be at peace at it is the reason I'm almost insufferably laid back when people think I should be reacting to something with the same frenzied fervor they are.

I don't believe in love, nor sin. To clarify, love is a dramatized word that can allude to much more applicable and understandable words and scenarios. I do believe in, at least conceptually, desperation, deep feeling, increased heart beats, obsessive thoughts, wanting to nurture offspring, unhealthy attachment, finding someone's disposition agreeable, settling for what you can get, etc ad infinitum of what people simply call "love." With sin, it's easy to believe that if I don't believe in magic, I don't believe in it's power to condemn me.

When I truly "hurt someone," or again, provoke or incite them to hurt themselves on the basis of my words, it's overwhelmingly because I've said something true. Moreover, when I say something that demoralizing or demeaning, it's because people understand I'm so bleedingly honest, they can trust I actually do loathe them to that extent. This is something I take pride in, honesty, and making people cry and hate me for it. When other people attempt to "put me down" I literally, and I stress literally, forget them as people, let alone what they've said. Them being so far removed from reality it's genuinely hard for people to think of the "right" kind of thing to throw me off, and provided they were able to, my natural response would render it pointless anyway.

Any and all animosity I have toward you is because I've judged your utility and your rationality to be severely at odds with what I find acceptable to continue my normal chill and happy life. When someone causes me nothing but stress, impedes or discourages rational discourse through denial or pity pleas, and most importantly has some sort of overwhelming propensity to deny who they are and own up to all the terrible things it allows them to play out as in life, I have two choices. I can keep engaging you, spit on my own reasoning, or I can cut you off and provide subtle hints through slander and frankly pointless rants "pleading" you to wake up to your self and the reality of the situation.

We don't have a broken relationship, we have an impossibly meager one. We've an "ever spiraling down until I have no further reason to talk to you" relationship. If that bothers you, blame yourself, fix something, and start over. Given that it doesn't bother me, the onus is on you to get what you want. You're consumed by your propensity to make people bend to your will. Well, if you truly want to have any semblance of productive or "healthy" relationship with me, you'll own up to that fact, compel yourself to grow up and be reasonable, and that's what will tell me who you are becoming or want to be, because those are the only people I want to be around. Until then, bible verses are empty, pity pleas are empty, and tears and "life is short" cliches will always get you nowhere. You want something out of me, learn how to deal with yourself.

[204] Dig Dig Dig

Monday, October 19, 2009 at 2:52am 

I think it's easy for people to feel lost and desperate but maintain a very well rehearsed and believable outward disposition that persuades you to think everything is normal. Our lives are bullshit. I think this is the basic premise that most operate under, and is the pervading idea behind why and how desperate feelings would manifest. Things that, in theory, should be easy take months or years. People we trust betray us. Dreams become subject to life, and even entire lives with many sprinklings of happiness get overturned as we get older or learn. None of this is any reason to be happy unless you compel yourself to seek out, define, and pursue the implicit opportunity and potential. The problem there is the those that do hit an amazing amount of stumbling blocks which serve to disenfranchise and demoralize, those that see it and don't are already waving their white flags, and there are always those that never actually see the problem.

I belong to the first category. I see things in steps, never any task particularly hard, but I'm always amazed at the number of things that "pop up" as little stumbling blocks. I suppose you can say I have some sort of "tough will" to power through things, or a general calm enough disposition to handle and sort it all out, but I'm ever perplexed as to why that many problems should arise in the first place. Keep in mind too, as any goal is just a series of small steps in one direction, all these roadblocks are just a bunch of little bumps all with the same nature. I want to fix the house, I get a company and people who lie to me and don't call back. I want to throw a party, I don't take into account before hand if the plastic shot cups someone bought are double or single shot. I want to play drums, two cymbals are lost. Drop Sam off at work, key was buried under clothes for ten minutes, game traffic, catching every red light, and forgetting you've got almost no gas left. Each problem ever so small, all have a grip on even the most trivial tasks.

Those are everyday things though. I tend to go grander scale. Imagine wanting to start a business. Try to plug and play with different personalities and ideas. Try to convey the flurry of potential and thoughts and have them translate in some sort of collective effort where everyone feels like they've contributed and are getting something in return. Things don't just come out of left field when you attempt something bigger, they come from the stands, the parking lot, and the stadium across town. I'm thinking that the majority of the problems here come from those that are waving the white flags. They actively subject themselves to the will of the collective, whether they admit it or not, more often not as it causes quite the discomfort, and then become the stubborn "pawns" of those with agendas. Ultimately, they are still people though who are ravenous for even the facade of control when it comes to their lives, so they resist. They do mangled rehashings of things previously perfected, they inject "opinions" and "ideas" as they stumble to be original and insightful. Unable to cope with the responsibility of seeing the full breath of what it takes for a massive undertaking, they only serve themselves up as self-fulfilled reasons of perpetual meagerity (made that word up).

It should be easy enough to summarize the people that don't even see the problems. They hold their dreams or ideas, they wonder so hard "why?" and maintain an arsenal of cliches that serve to shield them from reality. They're like silent farts, nothing more natural and innocent, but still sneaky as fuck and deadly.

And now to get philosophizy (another new made up word). I think to get anywhere, as people, as a society, we need to reach our lowest point. If that entails a wave of self-loathing known as the "mentally dark ages" then so be it. The best, if not only way, to achieve the best is to realize the worst. It's making yourself appreciate a feeling and understanding you can't escape because you've lived it. Why does society destroy itself? It doesn't appreciate what it really means to live in a destroyed society. Why don't people actually achieve their biggest dreams or pursue sustainable and true happiness? They haven't ever done or said anything that made them feel or think in a way that would make them want to or believe it's even possible. They haven't lived it. People follow Jesus not because they believe in or understand forgiveness and peace, it's because they appreciate to the greatest extent scapegoating and regret.

I suppose my main problem is that I don't really know how to fix it. Well, my methods for fixing it would either take an exorbitant amount of time, or would require more power (read: control and influence) than I currently have. On top of that, it's practically impossible to gauge or predict how people will react, and given the current evidence, the potential result is not promising. All I can say is that I've somehow managed to be happy despite it all. Regardless of what people say or think about what I say and how I say it, I still really am happy and am pursuing things I think will keep and expand that happiness. Can you say the same? Well, I know you can say it, but is that your experience, your choice, and the basis from which the rest of your life follows? I honestly don't believe that for most people it is, and yet I guarantee on any given day they'd argue to the contrary, for obvious reasons no doubt, and who can blame them? Whether I'm allowed to or not, regardless if I'm ever taken seriously, I still do. Yet that seems to be the most damning/saving grace sentiment any and everyone can use, "despite the world." I think the immensity of the difference here can't be understated, I don't behave in spite of the world, I merely assert it.

[201] Single Most Hopeless Point

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 5:56am

I hate everybody. I damn them often. They are sheep who refuse to think, who deny what in fact they do think, and live in fear of people who shouldn't grace a gas station restroom let alone their thoughts or presence. The worst part of this is, to a greater extent than they realize, I can understand them. And because of this, you can only damn them so far. When you're in a situation, surrounded with friends perhaps, or at the very least people you can get along with relatively well, there are countless dynamics at play which may influence who you choose to be. For the longest time I didn't drink. This wasn't because of some personal bias I had against drinking (other than the taste of beer), or because I was somehow worried I would take it too far or get "addicted," it was because of everything associated with college guy and alcohol. A very simple example of me wanting and acting like someone different to assert how little I wanted to be associated with all the negative and ridiculous reasons people drink. Over time I got to know my friends better, it became legal (not to say the illegality was that big a deterrent), and I started to trust more that my friends weren't drinking out of desperation, boredom (usually), or to make themselves retarded. The problem remains, there are still a gross amount of people that do, and who do all sorts of other ridiculous behaviors for those pathetic reasons.

I've thought for a while that most things boil down to fear. I look at frat boys and think they've generally joined out of insecurity and fear of being ostracized. When you don't want to be alone, you go and join a pack of wolves...group of guys...and don your brother "status." I know of others who join for the practical networking reasons and ability to gain power, but that's hardly the reason I think is most prevalent. Then you look at the girls who are all enamored by these boys. They all wear the same cheap dress, talk with the same empty air, are usually balls ugly, and somehow find it funny or merely coincidental it wasn't them who was roofied at the last party. (You may also recognize them in their older form trolling the bars with a desperate twinkling plea in their eyes) Individuals aside, the whole crowd has the same fear in common. Fear of leaving what they know, fear of thinking about something that may change them, or fear of not being able to deal with whatever implications come after they admit what they see around them is wrong. I see people who are so much better than "friends" they would associate with and it's gut wrenching. I see people willing to work themselves into an early grave because their title in four to ten years is more important than any life lesson gleaming in the background. An inability to recognize, openly state the problem, then act accordingly about something or someone perpetuates these kinds of scenarios.

This doesn't mean it is wrong to work hard, and it doesn't mean that you can't accept flaws in people for what they are. What it does mean, is that you need to own up to all that you see and all that your friends either are or aren't. I remember the times when I started wishing I could loose all hope. I think to myself how lonely at the "top" it is. Surrounded sometimes by people who not only don't want to think, but are loud and proud about how eagerly they are to deny something or pretend. And I have to think to myself, what the hell can I seek to accomplish? What kind of example am I being if it's to people who literally can't understand how or why I think and do? It's as if I'm in another dimension, not just on a higher level. It's so tempting to just break down then. Just conform. If you hate all that you see, but living in opposition to that, you still hate all you see, why not make it bearable on yourself and just fit in? Don't make waves and fill in cliche moments.

The problem with that is that it isn't "all I see" it's just the overwhelming majority of what I see. There is so much potential in people who need to just be willing to wake up, and own up, to everything they think and see. If I'm able to talk about almost any topic in my "depressing" (more accurate: realistic and practical) manner, to strangers in the halls of Ballantine, and they can at least give a nod that they've at one point empathized with me, then there has to be some sort of hope. People HAVE to be thinking, and they have to be finding conclusions whether they are comfortable with the full implications of them or not. And that's what I always have to fall back on. I suffer people who don't think or can't entertain a real conversation with me, but at least I'm the one in control of the pain. By breaking, I'm giving everyone a stake to put in me whenever they so choose. I bleed for their pleasure, not my struggle.

As far as the implications are concerned, this is what's going to signify whether you're really thinking about something or not. If you're a christian who can agree with and state all the problems with "religion," all you've really done for me is show how you can jump on a bandwagon that attacks a mere word. You don't really appreciate what that title does to enable and empower, excuse or deny. You don't really acknowledge that it can imply all sorts of ridiculous and negative things about you that need not be even remotely true or accurate, but nonetheless you feel comfortable with the title and can confidently state your position about the negatives in religion. But that is the easy one. When it comes to other things, life decisions, habits, and friends, hardly the level of thinking necessary ever goes into really understanding what your relationship with someone says about you or them, and how that translates into the future. Sure, you want to be polite or civil with Empty Clone Girl, but what are either of you getting out of that interaction? Okay, you've dealt with demeaning comments and ridiculous assholes your entire life, why does it somehow mean you want to keep doing it for the rest of it? If you're going to sacrifice yourself, make it on your terms for people you deem worth it, not objectively empty shells of people.

This is why I wish people were impossibly concerned with themselves. It makes them more disposed to act and behave in ways that will bring about happiness, and stop excusing the pain. If you don't have interests, ideas, or an ability to open up to something, you shouldn't exist. Die. Leave the thinkers and doers alone and hasten your already apparent demise. You literally don't matter beyond a point of disrupting and demoralizing the world around you, and practice to keep it that way. By contrast, if you are a thinker, if you do really see people for what they are, but make a habit of excusing it or ignoring it because you can't shake your mental paradigm. Get over it. Help yourself to real people and genuine fun. What you know isn't what's always best, and if you have the opportunity to change and the atmosphere open to helping you, you'll regret the rest of your life by not doing so. I've said before that the reason there is so much bullshit propagated and problems with our condition is because we enable the know-nothings. You silence is the quickest way their naive and petty disposition comes around to fuck you in significantly crippling ways.

At present, if I've tagged you it's because I don't think of you like this, but we're all still subject to moments and people that resonate with these ideas. If I could have a conversation with one of you and strengthen our relationship every time I was in some superficial conversation or empty situation, I'd take it instantly, and I'll try to be the kind of person that appreciates the kind of friends you've been towards me and people I know you truly are.

Top of Form

Written about 5 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

David Jaffe

Very strong argument, being the cause of the stereotypical college student is fear. I'd turn fear into something more specific, being fear of acceptance. The typical college bimbo, the drunk frat guy, reinforcing the idea that every college student gets hammered every night. All they're trying to do is boost their college popularity. I still don't ... See Moreunderstand what makes you "cool" if you can take the most shots without puking, or "hot" if you have the typical Jersey Shore fake tan and bleached hair (fucking oompa-loompas), but in the college realm, I guess that's just something we can't alter. (Fine with me, less competition to do productive things.)

I find it funny that you consider saying shit how it is "depressing." Well, that being other people find it depressing. I do it all the time, and see where you're coming from. I suppose people are too used to hearing things sugar-coated.

September 22, 2009 at 8:32am ·

Lucas Peterson

People put up that wall, act like a fake person, try and cover up the real them, and try to fit in to a crowd because of (like you stated) fear. People find it easier to be someone they're not because in the case someone doesn't like that version of them it doesn't really matter because they can simply just alter the version they have created of ... See Morethemself or portrayed as the real them to somehow find a way to "fit in." i use the term "fit in" loosely because it is defined as however you see fit. i always attempt to live my life the way I want to and be the guy I want to. like most people i'm sure there have been times where i changed a portion of my self to feel a part of some crowd. it is hard for many people to be themself or define themself, they find it easier to let someone or something else do it for them. i feel that all persons should act as they want to and be who they want to and anyone that doesn't like the real you can fuck off. that is a little ambitious because the

September 22, 2009 at 9:50am ·

Lucas Peterson

world is too scared of rejection so they just revert back to the fake them to make themselves feel better.

September 22, 2009 at 9:50am ·

M Kent Woods

I agree with your argument that people are truly afraid to be themselves. But the optimist in me always argues that people that do this aren't completely hopeless. While it is the job of those in the know to educate them so they may see the light, it is no one's job to judge them. It can only be hoped that those who try to unsuccessfully remove the wool from the eyes of such misguided people may experience a sense of satisfaction, knowing you've done the best you could to help them.

September 22, 2009 at 1:36pm ·

M Kent Woods

Nick, I've always thought of you to be a humanist - one who is thoroughly insightful and intuitive in just about every aspect of the ever-complex human condition. People become humanists because they've been at to hell and can see the other side and know what it takes to help others cross over.
In a way, though you are not a religious person, you ... See Moremay be considered by some to be a spiritual guide, and people can look to you for advice that doesn't offer empty comfort or absolute transparency. With that said, I encourage you to continue to encourage the state of humanity. I say this because the intelligence and insight you have work to your advantage, people like you are empaths- those rare smooth diamonds amongst shards of glass that feels every shift humankind takes. It's truly a blessing. Own it and be the change you wish to see in the world AND IN YOURSELF, because you are one of the rare individuals that can handle it.

September 22, 2009 at 1:40pm ·

Julianne Elizabeth Stelzer

It's simply because not enough people have accepted the "fuck it" mindset. They don't understand that it really shouldn't matter what others think of you and so in essence, you're right, it is fear. But it's not necessarily the fear you think it is. It's not a fear of being unaccepted or socially rejected by one's peers. It's a fear of being ... See Morealone. Ask almost anyone and they will tell you that one of their biggest fears in life is being alone forever. The college population is filled with such stereotype, that they have trouble accepting that being outside this stereotype doesn't mean they won't be able to find anyone they can relate too. Therefore, they find no choice but to conform and surround themselves by other conformists just to ease their comfort and reminded themselves that they will not be alone because, oh dear, look at all the friendships they have paid for. Not only literally paid for (in terms of fraternities and sororities), but paid for in the sense of loosing

September 22, 2009 at 2:21pm ·

Julianne Elizabeth Stelzer

their personal identity. I believe on the inside of some of those frat rats, skanks, and drunken frat guys, there is some intelligence... or, there used to be. Granted, there are some people who aren't as intellectually drowned as I'm giving them credit for... but like you said, they don't contribute anything to society or themselves so let's just count them out of life.

September 22, 2009 at 2:23pm ·

Abigail Koo

nick, cut people some slack, will ya? leave them alone and you should just move up to michigan next door to me :) to my surprise, i even personally like some of those people you mentioned because in some ways they're being honest to what they know. so what can i do? hate them? nah, i'd rather pity them, and like them for their good intentions and maybe other likable traits, and hang out with you and mc.
by the way, it was great seeing you again!

September 22, 2009 at 4:40pm ·

Jacob Jerome George

I've been down this path since middle school, if you are interested I'll tell you how it went.

September 22, 2009 at 9:48pm ·

Nick P.

Oh Jake, do tell.

September 22, 2009 at 10:40pm ·

Nick P.

Tommy,

I don't think that people can use their unconscious mind as an excuse not to think. I don't actually find myself unintentionally doing things to fit in with people. I know all of the good and bad reasons, and what purpose they serve, for any social encounter I choose to enter. The main point there, regardless of who I associate with, I was ... See Morethe one making the decision, thinking about what I wanted, and proceeded as necessary. I'm well aware we are animals.

When it comes to how they treat others, I find it almost insulting for people to treat me as superficially as they "unconsciously choose" to behave. I care very little about how they talk or dress, but if they surround themselves with empty people, I see someone either mentally suffocating themselves, or who may want to be like them, which could only come about through bad reasons.

September 24, 2009 at 1:07pm ·

Nick P.

"As they see it" means nothing to me if it isn't reasoned. In fact, in my view, they don't really see anything to begin with, and they act thusly when spewing that shit they are full of.

September 24, 2009 at 3:43pm ·

Jacob Jerome George

There goes Nick being negative and shit...

September 24, 2009 at 4:09pm

Bottom of Form

[200] It's Kind Of Hard To Explain

 Friday, September 18, 2009 at 4:25am

Initial topic: Brainiac. There's a couple things I want to talk about if this seems without some overall point. First, I was told I was smart by my psychology counselor because of my demeanor about class and how I don't consider any of them particularly difficult. I felt compelled to tell her that I'm not that smart. Don't get me wrong, I am, but not in the way she was trying to attribute to me. I can't just read something, have it memorized, and ace the test the next day. I rush to read and put assignments together the night or hours before they're due. If I don't repeat something like math time and again, I'll forget I even took the subject in school. I'm not that kind of academically smart kid. If anything I think this is just a testament to how utterly dumb everyone else is. The amount of information I get on any given class day could be done no less than 5 times faster in a much more applicable and interesting way. The fact that I feel comfortable putting off studying for a test until the night before is because all I have to do is make ridiculous word associations for 30 some power point slides. Hardly that difficult if you can focus for all of an hour or so. If I go about "learning" this way in college and that makes me smart, what does that say about the people who "don't find it that easy," as the counselor put it....yaaaah.

New topic: trust. I already ranted about trust before and I just want to make sort of an aside here. If I've given you a reason to not trust me, I'd appreciate knowing what it was. I try to go out of my way to be trustworthy because I know what it's like to be fucked by someone who doesn't care if they defy your trust. Also, it's kind of an ego thing to think that I can keep secrets and be important to someone whilst the rest of the world is just that pathetic. When you don't trust me, and it's basically regardless of what's at stake, you're making a character judgment about me. If I've shown you something that would make you think I'd be tempted, or am incapable, or whatever else with regards to what you're trusting me with, then even I don't know what it is. So, pretty please, think about what else you're saying when you choose not to trust me.

New topic: Boys and girls. It will never cease to amaze me how eager we are to pussy foot around one another when feelings are involved. I probably shouldn't say much more from there ;). Well, aside from when I say "we" I mean, all you lil chillren who need to make up their minds and grow some cahones.

New topic: The future. Every time I try to explain what it is I want to do with my life, or what I'm currently doing to try and make that vague future come true, I'm met with pretty scant or, in my opinion, unfulfilling explanations for the people who've asked me. What it boils down to is this; I want to have fun, I want money for the purposes of freedom, not just because I get hard for green paper, and I want to be able to explore and work in areas that I have deemed interesting. In my naive little mind, I think that meeting a ton of people, learning about what they want to do, and then developing a plan for us both to get what we want is a good way to go about this. For whatever reason, I've decided that in order to avoid ever having a boss again, I need to learn as much as I can about the people around me, who they know, what they can provide and whatnot, and use that along with our friendship to create something we know we'll enjoy. Something even crazier tells me that almost regardless of what I do with my life I'll be able to make money. So, why am I in college? People are here, potential is here, I'm in a sea of people who just need to be prompted and lead. And if I get good at it now, then I'll still get to have fun doing it in the future.

FIN

Updated about 5 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

Brandon Berk

It's all about having fun. Have fun and nothing else matters. NOTE: NOT quoting metallica...

Bottom of Form

[199] Potential

Monday, September 14, 2009 at 12:59pm

I don't know where my head's at today. I'm trying to pull myself into too many directions and I think I'm going to fuck something up by expecting too much. At the same time, I need to keep the flow of positive energy, out of preference and utility more than straight necessity I should say. I find myself making the same sorts of speeches time and again. Things like, if you want to get drunk and high, things that cost money, why would you not focus on making money in order to stay drunk and high? Also, if you collaborate and think about what makes you happy and what you can provide, you can create your own job, future, and atmosphere that doesn't even remotely resemble school and typical work day. The more I talk to people I get more support for two very conflicting ideas. I try to find the individual in people and that nature that makes them significant and real, and it's easier to get a sense of that through talking with them. At the same time, I hear enough stories about the vast number of plain idiots in charge. One side motivates me to continue working and discovering these peoples' natures and utility, the other says how many retards are ready to fuck it all up. On top of that, there are people who aren't even retarded that position themselves to fuck things up, whether that was truly their intention or not, just by virtue of remaining unaware or unmotivated.

No one lives in a vacuum, and whether it pains me to think of it or not, I will have to rely on other people for some things. For whatever reason I somehow expect that other people want to be happy. At the very least the people around me, given that as far as appearances go, parties are fun as shit. I find it hard to believe that I could have such a good time around that many people faking or drowning in self-loathing. Or perhaps my reasoning is flawed. It may be purely in a party atmosphere that people are happy and on the ride home people ready their razor blades. Or, maybe it's in the combination of people, or in the lighting....Either way, I understand most of our species has subscribed to their death cult and do everything they can to deny they are living, but I will still run the risk that my friends give a shit about themselves, want to succeed, and want to be happy. We'll see how naive I prove to be in the coming months I suppose.

I brought the big white board upstairs and drew a little diagram of how much money can accumulate when 10-12 people saved certain amounts each day, week, month, and six months. This was in response to contemplating how much money is getting blown daily on weed and/or cigarettes. I hear tons of ideas of things people would like to do and I want to be in the business of helping. Our world takes money if you can't find an island, so make that the "priority" and give yourself the freedom to do you. I'm amazed at how many people don't really know what they want to do with their lives when I initially asked, but give them ten minutes and a list magically appears. To me this begs the question, if you know "subconsciously" why not bring it to the surface and work on it now? I've been sold for quite some time that college is a relative waste to me when it comes to money and time spent, and I'm hardly the only one who's come to this conclusion. If multi-billion dollar industries can be built around dolphin love and conspiracy theories, when are we going to wake up that it doesn't take much to prosper, and we might as well have a good time while we're trying.

[198] Right Wing Nazis

Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 11:01pm

Friends, brethren, lend me your ears...or um, eyes...for I sense a disparity in our species. There is a tendency for the same kinds of behaviors and views to be shared by different groups of people. Vague right? Well, money grubbing, culture warrior, religious nut, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, naughty word hating, anti-sex, drug criminalizing, gun toting, death penalty supporting asshole tends to conjure up a specific sort of stereotype. And given that I tend to side liberally, I'll refrain from tying together an equally damning but representative chain of overly liberal standpoints. What I want to know more about is, why. Why are there usual suspects and usual positions to people who all hold relatively the same views about the same subjects? I'm not talking about the people who call themselves religious and have leftist views, and I'm not talking about a staunch Democrat who voted for McCain. I want to know why red and blue even exist.

The obvious thing is the start from the religious standpoint. But a person had to come first before they were infected with that disease. What kind of person is it who would be so vehemently opposed to policies and actions that can be proven to work, or worse, actively destroy and disrupt what they were put in place to serve? This I feel is the heart of the "stupidity." I don't have to guess that reasonable people, whether they agree with my "philosophical" points or not, can hear me explain an issue and at the very least understand why I hold it. I don't just rant off a list of things I hate, say you should hate them too, and we go off happily into the night. Here watch, I'll even give you an example.

Take the death penalty. I'm against it. The system we have in place sends disproportionate levels of black people to sit on death row. We have prosecutors that withhold evidence for the sake of sending innocent men to death row, and we have confirmed that in fact innocent people have been put to their deaths. A frequented reason like "it deters future murders" has been shown to be so patently ridiculous, it's insulting to hear someone even bring it up. And finally, as a society, I think the messages we send are more powerful than people want to openly acknowledge. When you kill someone, it is about power. I don't want any "group of my peers" feeling or thinking for a second they have the authority or right to play with a life. That is supposed to be the reason we call the murderers the bad guys.

Now, this plays into the idea of justice. Would I want someone dead who killed my loved one? No doubt, but that loved one is gone. They reduced me to their depravity. I might beat them to within an inch of their life, but I'd rather them have to spend the rest of theirs in servitude and captivity, which incidentally our system can't do right either. Hell, and for shits and giggles maybe they can string them up for me to beat on down the line, despite how little this does stifle aggressive feelings. I can say confidently I don't have a short-sided view and know for a fact that other reasonable people can at the very least understand. What makes the right-wing Nazi's, so named, unable to do the same? How is one comfortable with halting their "reasoning" at " an eye for an eye?" Why are anti-abortionists never the ones who know more than how to print out big botched pictures? Why are anti-drug and sex people always the ones who should be working on getting fucked and high the most? Instead of learning, just complaining, and they drag our society down with them.

What cures self-loathing and deceit? I've come up with an overabundance of correct information. So much information that were you to try and ignore it you'd force your head to explode. There's support, but who want's to spend any time around the asshole trying to restrict their lives and control them though? It's no surprise that people who are introduced to all the "taboo" things early do tremendously well at acting maturely and handling them. Is it just too late to introduce these people into a mellowed out worldview? The problem gets worse though. You can't just show someone a door that admittedly has steps behind it and walk away. What cures laziness? You have to find it in yourself to know how to support what you say and make a reasoned statement. You have to be prepared to do more than defend your position on Fox news (you crazy random bitches......Ms. California, dining room table woman, "awakened the sleeping giant" woman, Michelle Bachmann.....none of whom deserve a place at the kid's table, let alone a national news syndicate.

Why is the government so fucked? You, idiot America. Your representatives have the same character flaws, same naive passions, same hatred for life and freedom that you do. Religious nut bags who bring their bigoted and petty grievances to places of power pretending it doesn't boil down to making money through exploitation and social engineering. You allow the media to play you. You refuse to find out for yourself. You refuse to stand up for the things you really do want, and would markedly improve human welfare, and you let them win. The only reason there are "two sides" in every debate is because we enable the know-nothings.

Top of Form

Updated about 6 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

Aaron Kunkle and Chris Hansel like this.

Bottom of Form

[197] Maneuverability

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 10:46pm

"You can't prove he didn't do it!"

This nugget of "reasoning" is so frequently used that despite what I'm sure I've said about it before, I'm going to engage in another diatribe about how ridiculous and pointless it is. The initial obvious thing to state is, you can say this about anything. You can't prove that an invisible Santa Claus army doesn't roam the skies Christmas Eve, delivering presents that manifest in your house, along with the magic dust making your parents believe they actually bought them. You can't prove we're not the product of an advanced alien simulation machine. You can't prove a strictly orange juice diet doesn't cause cancer in cats. None of those sentences amount to anything for the same reason, and it's not because they are hard to conceive. Usually when this is employed in the media it's met with the opposition just kind of staring at the person who said it. It's depicted as a "gotcha!" moment, when it should be ridiculed for how badly it makes the defendant look.

This is employed when they are on the defensive, when they have nothing left to say, and when they try to equate their exposed lack of a reasonable position with yours. It's like two monkeys who are in a fight, one slinging crap all over the other (the "good" arguments degrading and making the other monkey look and smell bad). The other monkey subsequently flings some the shit collecting on it's face back and proclaims, "HA! Now you look like me too!" Poor, poor monkey. But people are quick to fling shit as well. They comfortably do the same thing and everyone in the room stands in awed silence at the bastard's "ingenious maneuver." Why? People are dumber than monkeys. It's not even dignified enough to be labeled as an excuse. An excuse implies that there was even a reason, albeit usually a bad one, that they did something. No, this is employed purely out of desperation and panic. It's a shift of blame to the guiltless party.

At the very least it's annoying, and at it's most, it's a proclamation to the damming of reasoning and responsibility of those with the burden of proof. But let's switch gears a little. How and why would we get to the point of endorsing this behavior, and why are we so quick to ignore or not recognize when it's imposed? Who is teaching us to be this way?

Talk about bad parenting. This applies to more than one's inability to formulate an argument. I recently got done working for the band at my high school. Why do the instructors say "in a few years the band may be good enough to reach this or that level"? The theory I'd suggest is the area and upbringing of the kids. If you come from a household that didn't aspire to anything more than a middle class household in an increasingly degrading area, then you get to a sport that requires aggression, passion, and competence, the skills have to be beaten into you because they aren't already there. More than half of the band is in 8th grade or a freshman and they have half the amount of kids that were there when I was marching. I'm certainly not outright bashing the kids or anything so don't mistake my meaning, I'm just trying to wrap my head around how the instructors feel compelled to double speak, and the kids come across as lazy and unable, when clearly neither need nor should be the case.

And given that the kids aren't just lazy and unable, it's a sick irony to hear "if you guys just do this, we believe you'll get to semi-finals, finals, etc." They know your lying, you know your lying, but somehow both of you still believe it! Why? It's the practical reality of seeing and being there everyday fighting against the potential you know you can live up to, that's never been reinforced or manifested in clear and supportive ways. There are many individuals on the field who could march corps, and some kids who barely get their feet in time a quarter of the time. Everyone is reduced to the level of their weakest participant. All the effort is wasted if you can't persuade them they are doing it for themselves. Then in that instant you bring up how important the scores are. Conflicting?

So is there a way to tie together bad reasoning, bad marching, and bad parenting? It's all a lack of personal responsibility. As a parent, you let your flaws bleed over, literally, into your kids. As young adults you have little recourse or inclination to identify and fix those flaws because closed minds don't perceive any consequence. Then as a potential decision maker and example setter you're trust into a world of which the majority you don't agree with, and react in the same way an unmotivated, small-minded, and scared child would.

[196] Straight Religion

Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 4:59am

How often do you find the opportunity to challenge your various beliefs? I've been on a relative marathon of Penn and Teller's Bullshit. Things I thought would be great grounds for running a business on and for are proving to be good for the wrong reasons. Not least of which have been a green agenda and recycling. Basically, anything regarding the environment I have managed to make less convincing to myself. For example, it isn't a myth that there is global warming, but how exactly is the impact calculated? There's talk of the holes in the atmosphere, melting ice, etc. but what studies can you point to that show more than correlation? When you factor in that the extinction of species has been close to a hundred percent before carbon emissions, our atmosphere can handle the highest solar flares and radiation, and, though when you hear it used in a context of global warming deniers it sounds ridiculous, there are many natural process, like cows shitting, that amount to more atmospheric damage than all cars and buses combined. I'm going to explore more of what I'm taking away from this series.

A religion can be made out of anything. This is an idea I don't think I've appreciated enough. Every episode has the kind of "stupid" people who do "stupid" things and have "stupid" followers on it's surface. What I see is people who have found an ideology, and stuck with it for good personal reason. And when I say good personal reason, I mean of course within the context of their nominally functioning brain they've managed to recognize and prosper from a source that keeps them alive and presumably happy, not that they can apply reason and facts to support or even articulate why and what it is they're doing. Every industry one of these people is a part of, be it conspiracy theories, green shit, new age medicine and the like, is a multi-billion dollar a year business. These people are the proverbial catholic priest when it comes to the exploiter v the exploited.

So let me try not to get too far ahead of myself. I started with asking about an opportunity to have your beliefs challenged. Had I not watched this show, in about a week I would be home, doing more research and possibly engaging in purchases that helped to document and become apart of the "green" culture. I'd be using meetings to brainstorm about green events and agendas. Now, all of that is thrown into question. Do I think we should take care of the environment, yes, that's no question. Is the information available to us as reliable as previously conceived, are the people in charge of managing places like Bloomingfoods completely informed, and does the impact of generally accepted green practices do what they say they will? At this point, it doesn't seem likely. Considering the time spent already trying to set up meetings and build partnerships, and I don't know if I should feel slightly relieved we haven't gone gung-ho or pissed that it's so hard to find a straight forward and reliable venture. Where is a timeless, trustworthy, easily accessible and activist group that pushes good information all the time and can answer questions without trying to jerk you off?

Could I make money for myself and IU with green agenda things, almost certainly. Is it even remotely moral to have as many questions and doubts about that agenda given what I've learned in the past few days? Can I feel okay with wasting time and effort with the rest of my cohorts as we smile about our "accomplishments" and build lasting examples of how we think the world should run? My whole philosophy gets fucked with when I am running on shitty information. It seems like that's all people are in business for, to propagate their information with utter disregard for whether it is true or not. One of the foundations in the definition of a religion for me. So if I'm relatively keen on finding, picking apart, and bubbling with a resounding frustration and anger towards this practice, how and where can I find myself out of this mess? Why are the other people who at least look like they know and care hidden in ivory towers of academia or ten minute time slots in interviews. Where do the on-the-level mother fuckers congregate and how can they work?

I used to take great solace in TED talks as well. Now, I seem to be watching more talks from people who are simply "famous," in whatever non-specified field their uber-brain is working in, and less from people who can make the kinds of change I agree with. In a conference about technology, entertainment, and design, I don't care nor want to understand your choice to put Rick Warren, Billy Graham, or some mystic talking about how our souls are bound in our creativity and mind of the universe. That's called embarrassing, not entertaining. I wish that more people would find it insulting. We have a culture where people are seemingly so "offended" by stupid shit, but no one gets insulted enough to the point of lifting a finger. I think even the propensity to be offended is when your too heavily grounded in some idea that says otherwise. I say the word fuck loudly and proudly all the time at so many "inappropriate" places, and have yet to see someone burst into flames because of it. If anything, we should all be expressing a torrent of obscenities in the direction of things like incomprehensible and unnecessary taxes, creationists, wall street, Fox, our education system, birthers, and people like Sarah Palin (wait, she just needs a muzzle and pink shot).

We don't though. We are programmed to forget and trivialize those things that would be too taxing on our thoughts. Our throats are massaged until the whole load of bullshit from any ideologue is swallowed. We've given up before we've began, and I don't know the best way to react to that. How we've survived so long only able to discern the basic emotions in peoples' faces, all the while somehow missing all the stupid, is beyond me. Life shouldn't have to be about squeezing what fun, money, and prosperity you can get out of it and other people, it should be a free exchange and tolerance of valuable beings. Instead, we escape into these false worlds and extortionist behaviors, sometimes even without our own volition of what is really going on. And that's not an excuse, it's just a very depressing and demoralizing fact.

I have this perhaps naive idea that there was a time when there were people who stood out for reasons not so easily explained. A usual comment is something like, "he walks into a room and everyone notices" type of thing. Their being. Charisma, honesty, effort, intelligence where just understood in who they were and people knew it. Today, it seems like anybody with a guide book at a crappy store is taught how imitate that for the sake of something without any inherent value. The fact that people ever fall for it undermines that my example is even credible in the first place. I'd like to just think there are other reasons like a general tendency to make bad personal decisions and deafness are what truly plague these people. With so much bullshit, imitation, and distortion, what hope is there? At what point is the only logical thing to do join in the crowd? Well, never, I just figured I'd ask and have on record that despite how shitty I can and will feel about all this, I can't subject myself to the level of despicable fuck it takes to act and think like the people I endlessly ridicule. If I'm the last person that tries to be like the person in my example, so be it, though I'm still "hopeful" the situation isn't that dire.

There's just so much bad information, so many bad people, and so many ways to get lost and disenfranchised. It would take a Google-esc (by way of how big and everywhere it is), undertaking to push good information for good reasons. You'd have to infiltrate everywhere, everyone, and be willing to fight constantly against people who don't deserve their own lives, let alone to engage with yours. If I could even have a chance at being a mere foot soldier in that kind of army...though Supreme Commander wouldn't be bad either. Hmm, time will tell what actually happens.

Top of Form

Written about 7 months ago · Comment · LikeUnlike

Byron R. Turner II

I like your semi-call to action at the end. Well, I guess it's time to raise a army and head off to war, but if your the Supreme Commander then I want to be the Chancellor of War.

August 16, 2009 at 11:52am ·

Bottom of Form