“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Vonnegut’s warning about adapting and conforming to roles and behaviors is as true today as it was 65 years ago.
It runs in the back of my mind all the time as I watch people sacrifice agency and personality.
If you dehumanize people, convinced you’re doing it for profit, eventually you are not separate from the organization that financially motivates you to do it.
If you spout ideology, whether for entertainment purposes or views, at some point you become your words.
The positive aspect of this is that of course you can become kinder by using habit to constantly reinforce the behavior you want from yourself.
The main focus that runs through my mind is that people are maintaining appearances and adopting personalities that serve them to make a living. Paradoxically, however, they often find themselves becoming what initially was a facade.
One of my favorite wood panels that I’ve made. I made it as a reminder of youth. And to never be the one on the sideline watching other people find a way to get the crayons and stick them out of their nostrils. I’ve not done well with this lately.
If you’ve not seen the McDonald’s CEO eating a Big Arch burger, you’re missing out. It comes across exactly like Zuckerberg’s reptilian testimony a few years ago.
As I see people mock the McDonald’s CEO, it fascinates me. A lot of people aren’t aware of the critical defect in most larger organizations: hierarchal insulation.
People do not want to share bad news or criticism. The people with authority seldom get exposed to those on the ground doing the work. It’s filtered by successive layers of containment, each motivated by their own objectives.
Additionally, if you’re not familiar with The Abilene Paradox, you should look it up. Summed up, it explains why a group of people can end up deciding to go eat somewhere that no one really wants to go to. It results in Jessica being as pissed as everyone else.
That’s how you end up with a strange marketing video with the CEO coming across as alien and off-putting. The majority of people watching the video immediately recognize that something’s off. There’s no question multiple people at McDonald’s wanted to speak up. But they don’t have an institutional means of being heard.
Who in the McDonald’s corporation would dare question all the departments and people involved in the result? Much less the CEO.
The insulating factor of organizations is everywhere once you recognize it. Products that defy customer wants. Logos that look like someone dropped pixie sticks on the floor. (Studiously NOT mentioning Springdale’s from a few years ago.)
Our laws, which often ignore what most people want because committees have to come to an agreement, and often only because someone needs to pee really badly – or realize that no one’s going to get what they want. That’s how we ended up with the platypus, by the way.
If you haven’t seen the Big Arch commercial, I highly recommend it. It is the embodiment of what happens when a vocal cross-section of other people aren’t involved.
“The people who know have no say. And the people who have the say quite often don’t know.” – X
I got reminded of my own words. Ones echoed by Obama years ago. Paraphrased, it’s “Let them speak and reveal their idiocy.”
The infamous monkey video Trump posted demonstrates his lack of character and qualification for the office he holds.
It also serves the dual advantage of revealing to us those who are hiding in plain sight, the ones who are studiously avoiding the revelation that they are admirers of Trump.
Each successive debacle cements the certainty that a lot of us weren’t wrong about him.
It’s outrageous, of course. But take a minute and think about the reaction Obama and his wife must had upon seeing it. Think about Obama’s smile and the way he shakes his head in the face of lesser intellect attempting to insult him.
When he’s gone, we will collectively sigh. But over time, we will forget that another person like him can come along. And many of the people around us will willingly abandon principle to cheer another buffoon into office. People like him don’t get power accidentally. They take the worst elements and amplify them.
Trump’s hateful words and antics fire up reactions. He’s a narcissist who feeds on the limelight and publicity. He is an energy vampire.
The kind of post he made about the Obamas is a self-accusation that he’s too stupid to understand.
My brother Mike sometimes lives in my head for reasons that would irritate the piss out of him. When I listen to AM talk radio, it is his voice I hear, superimposed on whichever oversimplifying demagogue is talking. I used to call him Mike O’Reilly. “I don’t know” was not a phrase you would ever hear from him. “Is there a better way” is a dangerous question for those who are possessed by certainty.
My brother was an authoritarian at heart. There’s no question of this. The tendency escalated as he grow older. Authoritarianism brings dominance and violence.
He loved begging the question. All of this swirls in my head because of what’s going on with all the dubious ICE activity.
“You can’t lawfully stop someone or detain them just because you want to.” My brother’s answer to that was that I was naive. That police everywhere can and do exactly that. Some do. Which of course, is true. He conveniently ignored the word “lawfully” in my observation, just as all the Trump-supporting constitutional simpletons are currently doing.
Almost all of ICE’s abuse would evaporate instantly if they followed the Constitution. But they don’t – and the more people argue that what they’re doing is legally justified is pushing us collectively down a dark road.
Anyone denying the political motivation of choosing Minnesota over Texas is breathing the fumes from their gas tank. I don’t mind a little idiocy because it keeps people like Tom Cotton entertained. The problem is that abuse has tendrils that reach unexpected places. That which we permit anywhere will eventually reach us.
Does anyone believe that if every person not lawfully here left the country today that the huge military apparatus ICE has become would disappear? That their budget would be given back and used appropriately? In the same way that police or prison budgets almost never decrease, ICE isn’t going anywhere because this administration is using it in a way that it wasn’t intended to be used.
If your argument is enforcement, we have the technology and the ability to “solve” that problem for 1/1000th the cost. Without the violence, mayhem, and turmoil. It is so obviously motivated by the desire to engender those consequences.
PS I am in awe of the mental gymnastics some people are employing to justify encroaching on our constitutional rights. Once abridged, they rarely return. You may support those who are currently encroaching them, but you’ll be wondering what happened once the dust settles. We will all be 3/5ths when it’s over.
Several of my social media friends have been posting 1984 quotes.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
I have two of Orwell’s most famous books in Spanish. I’ve been reading “1984,” constantly finding parallels. I included “Animal Farm” in the picture because it is a companion warning to what’s going on around us.
Listening to the loons of this administration attempting to reframe what they’re doing takes me back to my childhood. Surrounded by violence and racism. Even though my dad was violent, the family members who justified their horrendous worldviews loom larger as villains. I think of them as I listen and watch. They were scared of losing control of a world that wasn’t just theirs to begin with. They could not admit that they might have been the bad guys.
Yesterday morning, I got angry and couldn’t shake it. Rationalizing it, my attempts to set it aside failed. It was disrespect, coiled inside repetition.
When I finished work, I walked out into the cold breeze and stood in the middle of the trees, watching the crows berate each other.
Paradoxically, what gave me peace is that someone sent me a funny video. At its heart, it was a nihilistic reminder of the stupidity of how important everything seems. The cause of my anger hadn’t dissipated but I did succeed in punting it into the future.
I understand why they replaced some of the missing bike lane pylons. I’m not sure they understand the implications of putting a replacement in the first slot. It’s already been entertaining enough, watching drivers speed along distracted, only to be violently shalen as they run over the protruding rumble bumps. I watched a car turn right off of Gregg and gun it like they were transporting donation organs. The boom of them hitting the pylon was amazing. The car braked and zigzagged, its lights flashing back and forth across the road. It came to a stop. I watched, waiting for the driver to get out and look at the car. They didn’t. They sped up the hill.
I’m glad I stuck around. The fox came out of the creek and stood by the bridge, watching me. I took a really great picture of the ground because I still had the phone camera on long exposure. The fox yelped at me and I yelped back. I would have gotten a better picture when the fox stopped in front of me and watched me. But a car came over the hill at 70 mph. Its lights washed out my camera lens as I snapped a picture.
Earlier this morning, I witnessed the strangest non-chase chase as police cars pursued a white truck., only to get it stopped and then let it go. I had a lot of questions about that.
It’s almost 70° and the air feels weird because of the rain coming in. Perfect morning to take a walk in the dark in the forest. When the acorns fall, they sound like boulders in this unusual air .
I want to be the kind of person I’ve always been. On the other hand, it’s a good time of year to remind everyone to avoid letting your better nature get you into situations where you think you’re helping someone. Scammers and people with ill intentions have practiced on countless people. X .
I have immunity from boredom. It’s like time is compressed for me most of the time. Regardless of the environment, I have the literal world in this little rectangular box I’m typing into. Music, opinion, language(s), ideas. Not to mention an endless supply of things and objects that can be reformed or used to occupy my hands and brains. I also have the entire outside world. I’m lucky enough to have a car that I can get in and go when I want. And still have two healthy feet to propel me. I’ve yet to take a walk where something interesting was lacking.
One of our worst attributes is that we tend to focus on what we perceive to be missing. Instead of the wild luxury that was not available for most of human history. The tendency to seek what we think we’re missing is also a great source of pain in our personal lives.
For those who like to think about thinking, it’s either liberating or debilitating. It’s existential and separating.
But because the internet can be a cringefest or a personal revelation, I sometimes don’t say the things that many of us have in common but never talk about. At least not authentically. Vulnerability is the undershirt that we hide under a thick jacket. Even when someone dares to strip away the ego-driven layer, we universally agree to look away or let our awkwardness keep us from diving in.
Because I do so much, I have an astounding amount of content floating around the internet without any attribution to me. Sometimes, it comes back to me transformed. Which makes me feel seen and heard in ways that I’m not in my personal life. It’s a constant staccato of surprise for me because the people around me have their own idea of who I am, reinforced by the experiences they share with me, molded by whatever environment we’re in. Most of those environments are not authentic.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 