An observation about life. Some of us did everything right, went to college, studied hard, and checked the boxes like an efficient grocery list. Others made decisions like they were at a craps table at 2:00 a.m., a cigarette dangling from their lips and their last $5 set on black.
Life has a sense of humor so it equalizes us. We’re all going to end with the same finality regardless of whether we wear a Rolex or a Mickey mouse watch. Both sets of people might be working at the same place. But they experience the same instability of the economy, or employer loyalty. It’s true that those who did everything right are earning more. But in general, they are exchanging bigger chunks of their life for that choice. Without a guarantee or assurance that their jobs might not disappear, or that a single tragedy could wipe them out. Just like those of us who chose to roll the dice.
Studies show that people earning more have the chance to be happier. They also show that they generally are not.
All of this is one thing older people don’t understand about the younger generation. Generally speaking, it’s why there is such a backlash about getting on the treadmill. Because some of those younger people see that the treadmill is a trick, one predicated on circumstances that no longer exist.
Most of us can feel the shift. Not just the fact that our social safety net is disappearing. All of us are subject to the same complicated factors of economy and society that are shifting underneath us.
Some of this is future shock, because we prepare ourselves for a future that might have shifted entirely.
Just remember that for each choice you make, you’re giving something up. More hours on the job means fewer hours with family or less personal time. Watching more sports means less time to read, listen to music, or to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee and smile at your grandchildren.
Collectively, a lot of choices are being made for us, ones which constantly shift our ability to react or cope. I’m assuming that most of the people who know me are experiencing the same uncertainty.
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PS The ball in the water is one that I retrieved by climbing through brush I should not have a few days ago. I was by the creek and saw it. There was a family frolicking on the water dam so I thought it would be fun to get the ball and throw it across to them without them knowing where it came from. By the time I emerged mostly unscathed to throw it, the family had moved on.
If you read all this expecting a nice bowtie conclusion, you’re in the wrong place. I also wouldn’t fault you if you read it and think I’m under the influence.
On average, if you’re sky diving, it takes about twelve seconds to reach 120 mph. Those twelve seconds are a piano riff of experience, one so fast that you only hear one thunderous notes as your fingers slide down the keys. Try to explain the indescribable sensation to someone who hasn’t experienced it. The same logic applies when you try to explain addiction, abuse, or a hundred other things to someone who has not personally experienced it.
Someone smart said that it’s the definition of a minute: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute.” If asked to describe both experiences, words come quickly to recount the hot stove, whereas the pretty girl scenario provokes a desire to be poetic.
Consider our biological imperative to procreate. In terms of evolution, it is our primary objective. It pervades us as individuals, and touches all aspects of society. Attractiveness is marketing. Most people are not aware of how much time and energy gets directed toward looking better. We clutch our pearls when people seem to be interested in sex, as if it’s not the elephant in the room. We’ve categorized it as one of the most important things in life, yet the one thing that we can’t talk openly about. This post will get fewer of views because I used the word ‘sex.’ Which is strange, because about 70% of the men who are on this app will pretend that the algorithm doesn’t feed them suggested content on the fringes of it, if not a spiral of partially clad women. The algorithm knows us even when we don’t acknowledge it.
Another friend posted about the ridiculousness of telemarketers. If everyone collectively refuses to participate, it goes away. And that’s true for everything. War? Prostitution? Banjo music? They exist because there’s a market.
Friday worship eats our modern life. Futurizing, anticipating, pocketing away the intervening moments just to be able to slide into perceived comfort that allegedly waits for us at the end of most of our workweeks. But Monday sits and waits for us. Take a vacation. You’ll think about it for weeks in advance. The blur of the glorious vacation flies past, leaving us to greet our mundane life when we return. Kodak moments give way to relentlessly washing dishes, paying bills, and surviving an endless series of orchestrated drama that most of us experience at work.
If you can’t embrace the “chop wood, carry water” part of life, the odds of you being happy fall like a vase placed on a table near a cat.
Did you know that the fastest camera in the world can take 156.3 trillion pictures per second? Despite its speed, it is still slower than reality. We look at clocks to see what time it is, as if it means anythimg other than it is our mechanical executioner, demarcating another flash of time that we didn’t dive into.
Think of the famous painting of the Mona Lisa. Millions of people have seen it. Yet few notice that the painting hasn’t had eyebrows in centuries. We focus on the enigmatic smile, yet rarely notice the glaring absence of eyebrows. We do the same for people. Everyone has something noteworthy, yet we constantly filter and categorize people in order to makes sense of the world. But it’s our world, one limited to us. It boggles the mind that we are entirely different people depending on who is interacting with us. Each of them has their own idea of who we are. Even though we claim to be driven by logic, all of us know the agony of realizing that we can never change someone’s first impression, much less having become a totally different person.
People feel lonely despite most of us having complex communication devices that can connect us to almost every person in the world, every idea once expressed, all at once. We hold these devices up in an attempt to capture a moment, even though there isn’t really such a thing as a singular moment. It doesn’t stop us from having thousands of pictures on our phone. Like bibliophiles with a thousand books they never removed from the shelf.
Scientists now know that time seems to fly as we age because we have fewer new experiences, less revelry in different food, and less inclination to switch the radio to another music station. We attempt to become stagnant, limiting ourselves to the comfort of what we know. “New music sucks,” some say. Some new music sucks – just like some of the music that grooved valleys into our emotional memories sucked. “People are all the same,” is another refrain. “I’ve seen it all. Why travel? Everything is the same no matter where you go.” No, it’s not. You’re the same wherever you go. Finding new things becomes too much trouble.
The reason I love stories of people who break things is that whether they are pushed into or choose it, they realize that the long list of things that supposedly define us are all easily discarded if circumstances demand it.
If you don’t think we complicate thingss, think of the Hawaiin language. It has only thirteen letters, yet can voice all the ideas and content that our more complicated language does.
PS The picture is of College Avenue. When I’m out walking in the dead of the night, I love to walk down the middle of the main roads and see how long I can walk without a vehicle passing through to interfere. I’m sorry Chad, that you’re on your way home at 2:00 a.m. after drinking nine craft beers and a cucumber-infused tequila.
(A man dressed in a black suit stands with his back turned toward the empty auditorium. As he turns to hold the stand mic with his right hand, a soft spotlight highlights his chin, tilted to the ground, obscured by his hat.
As the band hidden offstage begins to play, the man removes his hat and holds it over his heart.
He takes a deep breath as his voice reverberates throughout the auditorium. It’s obvious that his voice is powerful. For this song, however, he holds back, as if alllowing his voice to be free will bring him to his knees.
As he sings, he looks at the stage floor.)
Monday has its Tuesday
The night has the sun
Standing here alone
Feeling undone
Presence is a choice
Time is short for all
I’m losing myself
and becoming small
You shine your light to others
Without a second thought
When I’m here waiting
Slowly losing the plot
(Chorus)
I need your energy
both laughter and desire
smile when you see me
always wanting to know more
I’m losing myself
I feel like a chore
Monday has its Tuesday
The night has the sun
Standing here alone
Feeling undone
(As he sings the last two lines, he raises his head to finish)
I guess I’ll wait
Even though I’m gone
(He bends to place his hat on the floor, flooded by the spotlight. He sighs and shrugs, exiting stage left.)
On a recent friend’s post, people seemed to agree with “Social media destroys friendships.”
Do you mean to say, much like telephones did when they were introduced? Or computers?
Blaming technology is a vacuous accusation.
Social media is problematic because people do not use it in the same way that they hold conversations in their living rooms.
Much for the same reason, when people enter vehicles, it adds a layer of impersonal anonymity. That’s why people do and say things that they most likely wouldn’t do in person. It leads to road rage. Cursing. Aggressive behavior.
Social media gives people the power to reveal themselves. It does not create problems out of thin air. It strips back the ignorance we have about the things the people we know believe. It reveals resentment and anger hidden below the surface. It gives access to rudeness and poorly planned responses. That behavior is the responsibility of each person who engages in it. It does not fall on the outlet of expression we use as social media.
Social media is a virtual living room and the modern town square. Personally, I treat mine like my living room. If you go to my pages, you don’t see hostility. That’s because I don’t typically engage in it, and it’s not welcome in my virtual space.
If, however, I visit a page or website that’s not mine, I expect it to look and sound exactly like our society. If you are expecting kumbaya in content outside of your control, you should probably take a dosage of reality pills. People in groups are crass and argumentative. Logic is not the presiding factor. But people are also creative, compassionate, and informative. If you judge one portion of social media without consideration for the other, you’re missing the point.
If you gather a group of people, you’re going to hear a huge variety of opinions, interests, and hobbies. You’ll see people whispering to each other if they’re having conversations about other people. Uncle Larry is going to say something racist. Someone will likely show up drinking – and you know darn well they aren’t going to behave. Others will attempt to hog the conversation or say outrageous things for the reasons that people say and do those things. Social media works the same way.
Social media did not become massively popular by accident. It is the result of our individual choice and vote to use our precious time and energy engaging with it.
Social media does not destroy friendships. People do. One crass comment at a time.
People who focus exclusively on the negative aspects of social media ignore the power and beauty of collective expression. It’s easy to dial in to cynicism and hate. These aspects of social media are exactly what people exploit when they have agendas.
Each of us has tools to limit our exposure to things we don’t want to see. It works exactly like a TV guide. We can ignore platforms, programs, and the stations we choose. I don’t get angry because MTV has cooking shows. I scroll past it. I roll my eyes at what some people say, just as I expect them to roll their eyes or get pissy when they see mine.
If you’re looking at content from your friends, family, and acquaintances that makes you angry, it might be better to take a second look at who they are, how they behave, and what they believe. Act accordingly. They are revealing themselves. And while it might frustrate you, you at least have a means to see what occupies their thoughts and time.
Social media is what you make it. You can’t control collective communication. But you can control your exposure and how you choose to use it.
Social media per se is not the problem. It is us. All the defects and things about it that you do not enjoy are a reflection of our society.
Social media is exactly like alcoholism. Alcoholics falsely like to claim that their behavior is the result of drinking. It’s not. Alcohol removes their inhibitions and their control regarding what’s already in their heads. It is not a creator. It is a revelator.
It’s not that most people truly believe that news is fake or not.
It’s identity.
You can’t put all your eggs into a basket and have contradictory information presented to you.
It’s an assult on your sense of identity. That’s uncomfortable for people.
If you are demonstrably wrong, you have only two real options: acknowledge the information, accept it, and incorporate it into changes of belief and opinion. The other option, one we see all the time, is to become defensive and reject both the information and the need to adapt to it.
Information isn’t dangerous. Rejecting anyting that doesn’t conform to objective reality, however, creates a majojr problem for rationality and reason, both of which allegedly drive most of ur lives. This tendency to reject information has significantly warped our ability to live in society. Appeals to reason aren’t revered as they once were.
It can be religion, politics, science, or behavior.
Even though I’m not explaing myself thoroughly, something simliar came up earlier in the week. Someone was incredulous about weather prediction, doubting the way it is done, etc. They lacked a significant grasp of basic science. Among those things were not understanding the proximity of Doppler radar or how the curvature of the earth affects rapid detection of dangerous storms. While I didn’t have to spell it out, I watched in real-time as the person struggled to find a way to admit they didn’t understand what they were complaining about. From that inablity came further assertions that aren’t sustainable. There is no harm in admitting we don’t know. All of us are ignorant about different things. But all too often people double down. I respect people more if they say, “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand.”
Science is the best example to use that creates the least anger. Its very nature is to suggest an explanation and then test it. Conclusions must change with new evidence. It’s how we have medicine, technology, and industry. All progress depends on it.
If you ask science, “Is there a god?” it can say, “I don’t know.” The ability to say “I don’t know” is a hallmark of genius. It doesn’t say, “There is no god,” because negatives can’t be proven. It says, “Tell me more,” because information doesn’t threaten the scientific process. Uncertainty brings investigation and thought. Certainty brings rejection and stagnation.
Any system of thought or ideology that precludes questioning is, by its nature, close-minded. Any answer that is supposedly obvious would mean that most people would agree. Observation proves that to be false.
If you’re not a “tell me more” person, you’ve cut yourself off from knowledge and growth. Saying “tell me more” doesn’t weaken your theology or faith. It doesn’t have to dilute your politics. As I like to say, when we look at our past, we shake her head at some of the things we believed. It’s easy to admit you’re wrong with enough time. But somehow we all too often like to think we’re not wrong, even though our own lives prove we have been multiple times.
I think most of us prefer “tell me more” people.
I know that the bean soup people might read this and completely miss my point. Or focus on one small aspect of what I’ve written. If you don’t know what bean soup people are, that’s a discussion for another day.
If you’re interested in the wisdom of experience, I’ve got some words for you. I did the peculiar thing that I sometimes do and asked an older man to hit me with some important things he had learned.
“Who we are is who we are going to be,” the older man said, his face rigid with the wrinkles of certainty and experience.
“These lips are mine and are the same lips I used to excuse how I wasted my youth. Putting off things I should have done. Listening to what people say instead of watching what they do. ‘I’m gonna’ is for sure one of the dumbest things we say to convince ourselves that talking about it is the same as doing it. And when we hear other people say it, most of the time we know they’re not gonna. Stop drinking. Stop smoking. Not waste money. Get out and enjoy life where they can. How do I know? Because if they wanted to, they would be doing it now instead of talking about what they’re going to do. If we ain’t doing it today, we ain’t gonna. You gotta work with what you have and stop waiting for the perfect day. You might not get another sunrise. Nobody never got anything done by waiting for it. Don’t waste your time arguing with people or the world. Likely you can’t change them. Wanting things to be another way is like trying to get full by smelling what’s cooking on the stove. The fewer things you want or think you need will get you pretty far.”
“Anything else?” I wanted to give him the chance to add if he wanted to.
“Nah. If somebody can take two or three things out of all that and do them, they don’t need much else.”
I thanked him and told him I hoped he would have a good afternoon.
“I will. I’m going to sit down and do nothing. It’s amazing how far doing that can get you most of the time.”
Phil Robertson’s previous fame is an interesting example of someone being used as an anchor to glamorize controversial beliefs. I’m constantly confused by fame whitewashing behavior that violates the precepts of the religion being espoused. It is hypocrisy, one that money conveniently dispels.
Duck Dynasty was marketing genius when it started. The right people at the right time, to get viewers. I don’t fault anyone involved in the project for taking a simple idea and running with it. We tend to reward oversimplification.
Many people don’t know Phil fathered a daughter by having an affair. The family welcomed the newly-discovered daughter despite her origins. That’s a good thing. Regardless of how she came to be, she holds no accountability for the actions of her father. Or her mother. People are complex and where sexuality treads, you can be certain that misbehavior will happen. It always has. I love watching people moan about what others do in the bedroom. I’ve seen too many people do the same thing and then attempt to allege they’ve never behaved that way. It’s the same mindset that allows far too many people to disparage the younger generation, who aren’t straying far from the blueprint we created when we were younger.
In too many ways, my own dad echoed the pattern of Phil Robertson. He was a troublemaker fueled by alcoholism and anger. He too fathered a daughter that we didn’t know about for decades. Like Phil, my dad had affairs, especially when he was younger. I know that Phil had family members to love him. That part of his story makes me happy, happy, happy. He got to know the daughter from his wilder days. That’s the kind of acceptance that I always wish for for everyone involved.
My family comes from Southern roots just as Phil’s did. Both benefited from growing up in a society that legally denied equality to much of the population. It preached superiority and encouraged bigotry, all backed by the alleged support of their relgious beliefs. That stain takes generations to remove, if at all. It’s how we end up with people venerating the flags of defeated ideology and insisting that the cause was something more noble. God must have been wrong about slavery; otherwise, the side suppporting it would have prevailed. (Or so some people say, incorrectly asserting that universal right always prevails. It doesn’t.) The same is true for bigotry associated with being gay. If any book can be used to justify both sides, there’s either a problem with the book, the people interpreting it, or both.
Had a film crew documented everything my dad did and said, he too would have faced a backlash. The only difference is that Phil Robertson had the fame to use his limelight to spout. I’m not saying he was wrong about everything. He wasn’t. But if you look closely, you’ll see that his beliefs coincided with the values and things that supported his small circle’s way of life. His worldview didn’t allow for inclusion of people not like him.
Yesterday, I delved into the complexity of celebrities who believe nonnense. Elizabeth Moss and Tom Cruise of course entered the mix. We can engage with them as celebrities. That same celebrity gives them the money and means to disguise what lies behind their ideologies.
What bothers me most about the example of Phil Robertson is it leads to nonsense like the State of Texas attempting to mandate the commandments in public schools. It hasn’t worked in churches – and it won’t work in schools, either. It’s always about control and the imposition of people’s religious beliefs onto others. I can’t help that saying this pisses off those who follow an authoritarian version of religion.
What does work? Living the message of compassion. Education. Helping others. Prioritizing policies that improve people’s lives instead of starving them, denying them healthcare, or subjecting them to exclusionary behavior. Stop trying to condemn or control people. If you embody the message, you don’t need coercion or control. People gravitate toward authenticity. Loving behavior is demonstrably loving. That’s why we should value actions over words.
If you’re voting against giving people food, education, housing, or healthcare, but actively funding machinery of war and destruction, you’re not doing it right. If you’re rewarding the wealthy at the expense of those with less, I would say greed and corruption have infected you.
We constantly struggle against the narrow-mindedness of fear and prejudice disguised as both politics and religion.
That’s what got us to where we are. Phil was an integral part of the backlash that allowed an imposter to reinvent himself from a misogynist, failed businessman, and bigoted television star into a leader whose biggest contribution is anger and divisiveness.
It’s what gave us the powerful ficitonal example of those in Gilead, with one side using the name of God to insist they have the right to do almost anything to further their cause. The difference is that one side argues for equality and compassion, whereas the other fights for dominance, subjugation, and control.
Could Duck Dynasty entertain? Yes, of course. But it also masks our perceptions of what lay beneath it. It makes me think of another family member, one admired in his small pond of like-minded people. He despised minorities, gay people, and anyone different. He used his influence to ruin people’s lives if they attempted to ascend to his level. Not figuratively. Literally. And he did those things with God on his lips.
You can’t ignore the smirk and snarl behind the curtain. You get both when you entertwine celebrity and belief, just as you do with the people you know.
Every once in a while I write a list like this one.
… Because the biggest myth of all is that we prioritize and reward logic and reason over emotion and poor thinking. The best idea does not win, nor does the process of discovery and innovation get the appreciation it deserves. It’s how we end up with people criticizing the scientific process or convincing themselves that the world is only 6,000 years old.
Almost every TV show and movie gets the science behind sleeping after a concussion wrong. Just like they do with CPR.
Diverticulitis is the perfect example of how science progresses. Despite the fact that we now know that eating popcorn and seeds doesn’t worsen diverticulitis, It will take years for the previous recommendations to stop affecting how people deal with their disease.
Supplements aren’t regulated like other medicines. While some people need them for specific beneficial medical purposes, they are by large a danger to most of us.
One of my favorites is the idiotic insistence that people not swim for an hour after they eat.
The same is true for stomach ulcers. We’ve known for years that they are caused by bacteria rather than stress.
Debunked claims that vaccines cause autism still cause havoc as poorly-informed people continue to repeat claims that they do. As is the case with the flu vaccine causing you to have the flu.
There’s no correlation to a full moon and aberrant behavior. But try telling people who believe it that there’s no evidence to support the claim.
Parents everywhere continue to believe that sugar causes their kids to be hyperactive. Study after study has shown this to be false.
People mistakenly believe that technology invariably causes social isolation. For every disadvantage, it creates the possibility of enhanced connection. Radio was going to be the downfall of civilization. TV was going to produce a generation of idiots.
Every generation for centuries has insisted that the younger generations are at fault for what’s wrong with society. That includes their work ethic and morals. It’s a ridiculous pyramid scheme of faulty logic and thinking.
The teen birthrate has continued to significantly fall over the last few decades. In general, do people believe it? The same holds true for crime and violence, generally speaking. Yet somehow, if you tell someone we are collectively safer, they’ll argue until their fingers fall off the remote control.
Bats aren’t blind.
Reading in the dark or sitting too close to the TV does not damage your vision.
The eight glasses of water a day myth won’t die either. Water consumed as part of your food counts, just as the water in coffee and soda does. Many people overhydrate, which can cause electrolyte imbalances as well as kidney problems. In general, urine is not meant to be clear all the time.
Napoleon wasn’t short. His height was normal for the time.
In conclusion, expecting people to dedicate themselves to learning is as foolish as deciding that someone who has declared bankruptcy several times is somehow a good business person. Or that someone who spews hate and dissent somehow embodies the ideals of a prophet that preached brotherly love and compassion.
Because people are reluctant to share the things that they wish they could say to someone who needs to hear it, I hope that each person reading this stops to consider that it may have been written for them.
It’s not about being a man.
It’s about being a person who communicates openly and boldly when needed.
Everyone has trauma, most have experienced betrayal and loss, and others lack self-confidence for their own reasons.
Behavior can be learned and it can also be unlearned if you’re motivated.
Each of us has defects and things that cannot be changed or taken back.
We also possess things that can be changed. Most things that are worthwhile require effort.
If your goal is to socialize and to become intimate with other people, you must be willing to work on the things that you can.
Failing to do so is a passive decision to let others know that you will not move past where you are.
We must play the cards we’re given rather than the ones we wish we had.
You start with small steps today.
People notice that you’ve acknowledged you’re taking as much control as you can.
No one wants someone perfect. But everyone wants someone moving in the right direction.
We find value in someone who recognizes that action is required. It erases a great deal of the things that give us pause.
Confidence is attractive, often rivaling humor and wit.
Pursuing what you want magnetizes us. Knowing that someone values you and wants you is an element of attraction that’s often overlooked.
Resist complaining about the current situation. Stop talking about what you’re going to do. Instead, commit to movement and action.
Let the changes be reflected in your behavior and the words you choose. Live confidently and honestly.
Some of the things in your heart and reflected in your words will make you fearful of rejection. The truth is we all share a lot more in common than we realize and it’s only through communication that allows us to interact as human beings.
I was in DC when I was young. Historical monuments and artefacts take on different meanings as you experience more in life. Witnessing the ebb and flow of government and the people who deem themselves worthy to serve us as public servants.
As for the Declaration of Independence, I can’t read it without feeling as if bolts of hypocritical lightning might strike me. Only a small percentage of adults have read the entirety of the document. Read it again if you have a few minutes and tell me that you don’t feel massive cognitive dissonance upon doing so. Regardless of your political affiliation, you will feel twinges of recognition in light of current events.
Most of us were taught that the document embodied the ideals of those who assembled around it. But then we independently learned about the struggles of women and minorities wanting their place at the table along the white men who kept a straight face while signing a document indicating that we are all equal.
Two and a half centuries later, we’re struggling with the consequences of corrupted capitalism, oligarchy, and white christian nationalism, all of which now boil in the crucible focused by someone who has no substantive interest in treating the Constitution as sacred.
It’s strange to me that as individuals we mostly want to be left alone, yet so quickly join forces with movements and groups that collectively seek to accentuate inequality and promote favoritism toward their particular cause.
I’m a liberal and as such, I relish the days when we actually return to following the concepts of the Constitution. That we stop saying words like equality if we are going to behave as if the term applies only to our cohort. If we continue down this road toward marginalization or reduction in freedoms while simultaneously imposing a particular religious viewpoint or worldview, it is a certainty how this great experiment will end.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 