Showing posts with label Storytelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Storytelling. Show all posts

Thursday, August 15, 2019

8/15/19: Propaganda: Righteousness And Simplicity

The Propaganda opus resumes with Ellul's take on psychic "dissociation". Includes more on wordknapping, how righteous and simplistic propaganda narratives silence the self and numb natural cognitive dissonance, replacing reality with the electronic eyes of the "verbal universe", the effects of disconnecting a person's personal opinion in favor of an acceptable "public" opinion, and how opposing propagandas affect the target.



ALSO:
  • Democratic Socialists: as ridiculous during Occupy as at their "convention"
  • Aligned, Premeditated, and Secret Consciences: Individuality and Haidt's Elephant
  • Disconnecting thought & action  
  • Opposing propagandas: political abstention or fanaticism?
  • The IDW: Agitation Propaganda
  • Data Overload and the Defective Human Mind
  • Your congenial host and the Ideological Riptide
  • No one's immune. Not even you.
Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747

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*Also check out www.christophermedia.net

Thursday, June 27, 2019

6/27/19: Convulsive Twitch and The Damage Done

Are we representing ourselves accurately via these one dimensional social media avatars? I update the digital detox progress and talk about my over-amplified virtual projection, Toddzilla, destroying meaningful relationships, how the tweet is in the eye of the beholder, missing a funeral for a friend, and maybe a faint glimmer of not-so-Sausage Party Hope.



*Like it? SHARE IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. You are the marketing team.
*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. Missing one? Tell me!
*Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

6/25/19: The Signal To Noise Ratio and A Digital Pretox

How does someone whose life is based online digitally detox? Good question. Let's find out; here's how it's going to start.  Should be a hoot!



*Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team.
*Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. Missing one? Tell me!
*Also check out www.christophermedia.net

Saturday, May 4, 2019

5/4/19: The Boomerang Effect: "Hold My Beer"

Confused as to why your self-righteous demands aren't being met? Behold! 
  • Narratives, mythology, religion, and how they bind us together
  • Making Enemies of Allies
  • Haidt's Elephant
  • Surrendering to the Grand Design of Ideological Religions
  • Intellectual refinement and allowing yourself (and others) to make mistakes and change your mind
  • The abandonment of External Truth and Reason
  • Totalitarian and authoritarian creep
  • No Hitler references!



Need more Toddzilla?

1) Seek help.
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3) Listen on your way to therapy.

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Monday, March 12, 2018

3/12/18: Hitchhiking and Philosophy

The final episode of the Friar Chris Series begins with a discussion about the differences between bicycle touring and backpacking then moves on to deeper topics, including (@ 15:45) my experience volunteering on the Gulf Coast in the immediate aftermath of Katrina and the corrosive and corrupting effects of tribalism and dogma in the Disaster Relief Industrial Complex. We then move on to (mostly) explore the fundamental ideas behind why he and I chose hitchhiking and what we learned and experienced while traveling the country as “disposable” vagabonds loitering out on the fringe. 



SPOILER ALERTSausage Party Hope lies within!

More episodes/subscribe: www.escapingthecave.com
My travel archives: www.toddzillaX.com

Cheat Sheet follows:

Monday, March 5, 2018

3/5/18: Friar Chris - Walking Savannah to Seattle

In this politics-free second of three, I sit down again with Chris Dyson for a chat about his walk from Savannah, Georgia to Seattle which included enduring a turbulent breakup on the side of US 287 in northern Colorado, getting lost in rural Wyoming, and anecdotes and observations about some of the fascinating people he met along the way. Deeper topics include self-generated baseless fear, choosing existential isolation in the name of personal security, internal narratives, religion & spirituality, restless escapism, travel and aging, and more.

Subscribe on iTunes and Google Play. Also on Christopher Media.net and Stitcher.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

A Brief Facebook Relapse and The Last Bender


I’ll begin this expansive multi-part project with two quick anecdotes.

Over the years, I tried to stop smoking several times. Whenever I found success, I’d kill it by letting myself have “just one”. Yep.  “Just one” Swisher Sweet always turned into ten then another pack of Marlboros.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

7/5/17: Springfield, VT - Steinbeck Screaming (Video)

This is the first of two distinctly different parts making up this Wednesday (7/5) in southern Vermont. The trip begins "taking me", again, and its course has nothing to do with my silly "plans" (ha!). Again. Unfortunately, I hadn't realized it quite yet. Funny things, expectations! Perhaps I'll just pack the book next time.

Part of the after-the-fact debrief is here. In the meantime, have some fun at my expense. I did! 

And drive your damn cars!

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

7/4/17 (3): Waterbury to Springfield, VT - Jerking the Wheel



Adventures In Waterbury

I wasn’t “getting anywhere” so around 2:30 I abandoned my roundabout in favor the interstate. My initial instincts: solid. The ramp blew. Hard. No way anyone could stop. After half an hour, despite the blister on the ball of my foot barking, I chose to walk the mile and a half thru Waterbury in hopes of better luck with Route 2 from the other end.

These little New England towns are intoxicatingly Mayberry, especially when they crackle in the summer sun with July 4th patriotism! I enjoyed chatting up an elderly couple sitting on their porch who asked all sorts of questions as I waddled past, then another chat with some folks who’d noticed me earlier. These two were stereotypically “New England”, congenial but not “too” nice, and walking away I’d come to see how conspicuous I’d become loitering in their tiny town. One unaccustomed to the appearance of drifters!

Monday, July 3, 2017

7/2 & 7/3/17: Whitehall, NY to Alburg, VT - Around Lake Champlain (Video)

Freed from Ticonderoga's Revenge, I finally leave Whitehall, make up for lost time, and resume my relentless obsessive hitching pursuit of Route 2 and Maine.


Saturday, July 1, 2017

7/1/17: Poultney, VT to Whitehall, NY - Bill's Ark (Video)

This video is in no an adequate representation of the day but, then again, I'm no videographer. Consider this a placeholder until I properly write it up. 

"The weather unleashes a left hook and and is counterpunched by a level of  unsolicited generosity & humanity that would sooth any savage cynic. Including this one. Top to bottom, days (and people) like this are why I choose to travel this way."


Tuesday, October 18, 2016

10/18/16: Jean, NV - Tuning Up

Cold. Late.

That was my first night back on the road. Once I finally got to sleep, it didn't take long to remember how chilly the desert can be at night. I woke up repeatedly between 4 and 6am almost shivering in my old, 20-degree sleeping bag. Sure, there are no mosquitos and little chance of rain in the desert. But there are other reasons to fight the lazy tendency to just toss the bag down and go to sleep. Like fire ants. They didn't get to me, but close enough!

"Hey! Genius! You have this fancy-ass bivy sack for a reason!"

I'd repeat the same mistake again that night. And the next. And the next. What's the definition of insanity again, Adventureman?

The Jean Nest

I finally got a little decent sleep after the sun rose and warmed me up and managed to snooze in my little rock nest until 9:15. I then spent quite awhile organizing and repacking the mess strewn around the backpack and deciding what I didn't need for task #2: finishing the incomplete gear shipment home.

It turned out that the overpriced UPS Store run in Las Vegas was completely unnecessary. There was a post office literally across Las Vegas Blvd. (yes, the same one!) from Terrible's. I wobbled across the road and boxed up the excess while cursing the fact I'd sent my jeans home the day before.

The next order of business: food and electricity. I needed to charge the phone and battery pack I'd depleted while writing and editing video and, because of my hasty departure from Vegas and the generally hectic nature of the previous day, I'd actually forgotten to eat. My body, or more accurately, the 40# bag on its back, rudely reminded me, immediately, that it required fuel. Thankfully, there was a single readymade solution to both problems: Denny's! To the casino!

I spent an enjoyably refreshing couple hours eating a massive omelette, drinking a dozen cups of coffee, and writing in my journal while my phone and battery pack got full bellies of their own. And spent entirely too much money. I rationalized it by comparing this Denny's run to my first few days whenever I go to Mexico. I usually fly into Cancun, take the ferry to Isla Mujeres, then proceed to party way too much for a few days before clamping down and becoming economically frugal. A $22 breakfast? Comparatively, that's fiscal child's play! And, besides, I needed it.



After breakfast, routine kicked in. The weather was perfect; sun, breezy, and mid 70's as I returned to Terrible's, assumed the position beneath my comfy shade tree, and waited for some variation of divine transportational intervention. Or, so it would seem.

And, again, it nearly worked. A slightly overbearing redneck from Dickson, Tennessee wandered past as his dog came my way to lick hello before relieving herself in the grass. He asked what I was up to, and when I returned the question he shared how his wife, mother, and sister had all recently died. Bad enough. But then one of Dickson's gangs wanted him to join up because (of course) he was a profound badass. When he refused? They threatened to come after him.

Dickson had understanbly lost its limited charms.

So he'd sold his house and ridden his metaphorical wagon west with his friendly dog and whatever he could fit into the van and the large trailer he towed. A timeless Coming West theme: To Start Anew. Where? He had no idea. Other than "not Nevada". In fact, he was rightfully eager to get "back to California" ; something I thought I'd never hear from a proper Tennessee redneck.

He swung his jam-packed van along side on the way out and apologetically said he'd give me a ride if he had room, but "the dog ain't givin' up her seat." 

The pup did look happy and content in that passenger's seat. Who was I to mess that up for her after all the unsolicited friendly licks to the face?

Shortly thereafter, I had this trip's first law enforcement interaction. If you're a veteran of my old blogs, you'll remember these typically being invasive, thinly veiled, blatant violations of "reasonable search and seizure": random, unfounded ID checks. On other trips, I'd taken a bit of a standoffish, if not obliquely combative, attitude to these police state tactics.

But, I've apparently mellowed. I chose to smile and be as positive and cooperative as possible. Why make life any more difficult than necessary while I'm here? Also, why not give the cop a chance to prove he's not a badged bully-cunt?

Lo and behold, he'd stopped simply to let me know that, while what I was doing now was perfectly fine, hitchhiking was technically illegal in Nevada. Convinced it was coming anyway, and in an attempt to get it over with, I proactively offered up my ID. And he refused it. 

Well, shit! A cop. Just doing his job. And helping me out with useful information? Hey! Michigan! Maryland! Pay attention!

I smiled and even shook his hand as he left and felt an appreciation that's sadly too rare today. That wouldn't be my last interaction with Nevada Highway Patrol while in Jean. Each were positive.

The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. No rides. And again: no real effort. At least now, after the hitchhiking statute lesson from my new lawdog friend, I didn't feel slothly about avoiding the I-15 ramp and began wondering about possibly walking Las Vegas Blvd. south to the next town, Primm, and its Flying J.

Around six, as the sun was falling, a young man between 17 and 20 walked with a pronounced limp past me on the way to the casino. I said hello, and told him to be careful as he struggled to cross the busy road. He meekly nodded his acknowledgment; clearly somehow disabled. He initially had trouble getting across and I nearly jumped up to help, somehow. But, he made it on his own. And I didn't think much more about it.

I was still there, listening to the Cubs-Dodgers  playoff game, when he returned an hour or so later. He waved and smiled this time as he returned to the truck parking area. Five minutes later, he re-appeared again. This time with a man I assumed was his father. This smiling fellow also had a strong speech impedement, but was quite friendly and offered me a beer he had hidden in his front pocket. I politely, but emphatically, declined thinking the last thing I needed at this point was impairment! I thanked him anyhow, appreciating the gesture.

Then he walked over to me and coyly, secretively even, slipped me a five dollar bill. Unprepared and taken aback, I took it not sure what to think. Let alone say. Where did this come from? Maybe I read too much into it, but this was WAY out the ordinary. The best I could figure was that he was trying to express gratitude for something, and I was deeply moved by the act...an effect having nothing to do with the $5 itself, but what it represented. A bit more of my toxic, divisive summer cynicism melted away and I was again reminded of why I do this. These two: obviously a couple more of the abundant good guys.

I finished listening to the Cubs game and made my way back to the same sleeping spot feeling much better about things than the night before. My "Spidey Senses" were tuning in and it had become obvious that they had NOT atrophied. In fact, they seemed more enhanced. I hoped to lay out my bag and crash early, but my night wasn't quite over.

About 10-minutes after setting up and lying down to decompress and reconcile everything, I noticed a rather larger person's silhouette coming toward me from the parking lot!

"What the fuck!"

Instantly, I sat up and instinctively puffed my body out in some bizarre, primitive attempt to make myself look larger than I am! I also reflexively dug the knife out of my pants pocket.

This was something new. I've been stealth camping since 2008. This was the very first time I'd ever been found! Never even close! Before tonight! Of course, the paranoid reptilian brain went into hyperdrive.

"He saw you walk back here and he's coming to steal your boots and Clif Bars!" 

The reality? scared the living shit out of him! He wasn't a vagrant predator. He was either staying at the casino's hotel or in an RV, had gotten stoned, and didn't want to risk possible interactions with the police. So, in his inebriated state, he thought it was wise to cross I-15 on foot to get to the Chevron station on the other side! Why? I have no idea. And, after the shock was in no mood to ask. But, there I was. And he was legitimately terrified I was going to shoot him!

He was almost comically apologetic, despite the fact that there's now way he could or should have expected me to be there. That, after all, is the point of stealth camping! He lingered for a minute trying to defuse any potential conflict, obviously picking up on my own agitation; an aggression I was subconsciously projecting intentionally! "Project strength to avoid conflict." I think that's a Fight Club thing. Tyler Durden. Get to know him.

My new friend never made it across I-15. He discovered the fashion perils of encountering barbed wire and returned defeated 5-minutes later. This time, thankfully making plenty of noise so as not to startle me! And, repeating his request that I not shoot him. We spent 10-minutes chatting before he mercifully left me alone. It took 40-minutes before Mr. Reptile Brain was finally convinced he wasn't just scoping me out for a return 2 am assault. In retrospect, almost another Vern Moment. But not quite!

The only return that night: the cold. Of course I stayed atop the bivy again. And again, woke up at 4am. Freezing.

Genius.

Monday, September 19, 2016

The Social (Media) Disease v1.0

I need to preface this sprawling, sometimes disconnected composite post with a considerate warning: this is a bit of a slightly cynical purge that's a work-in-progress. And, as always, I reserve the right to tweak and edit it. I'll change the "v" numbers as I do. It's something I just need to begin working on because chronic, habitual, cynicism can be just as delusional and self-destructive as any ideology or religion. It destroys any perception and sense of possibility. And, nothing good has ever been achieved without that. Being immersed in the social media tar pit has ignited a toxic level of cynicism that’s counter productive, especially considering where my latest, obscure Internet outpost hopes to go. This is an effort to eliminate the poisonous goo to make room for that which really matters. If you choose to stay on this page, brace yourself. You’re about to get hit with a supercharged truth bomb. One that has an eventual counterbalanced punchline, but one you won’t read in this particular post.

Hey, it’s my way. Just go with it, fuckers.

***

So, what triggered a fourth blog? Glad you asked. And, by clicking over here…you asked. There were a few things.

Last week, I had a friend I totally respect and absolutely adore fully deactivate her Facebook account. Her reasons had to do with being fed up with Facebook’s general stupidity and another event sounding vaguely stalkerish; something I’ve experienced myself.

She messaged me beforehand to make sure we could stay in touch. That made me realize, again, something quite important and something that "should" be painfully obvious: At it’s very BEST, Facebook cheapens almost everything. Not the least of all, the notion of "friendship". Of course, I’ve found some real gems in Facebook’s steaming pile of humanity’s worst but, scrolling thru my list, I STILL mostly had a collection of faces and names who, unless I found ways to entertain them, would make no tangible effort whatsoever to maintain our "friendship" or "relationship". And, quite honestly, to a great degree, vice versa. Too many were there because of what they used to mean. Or, what I hoped they’d mean later on. Silly.

I’m sure there’s some very special “psychology” at play here, and I could articulate most of it, but I, for one, demand authentic “friends”. Having someone in your feed offering nothing more than "likes" or an occasional comment, isn't "friendship". That this notion is so widely accepted is relatively new.

I'm still not really interested in defining what it "is", but I decided to follow Amber's lead and force folks to earn the title. It’s simple: Want to keep up with what's going on with me? Cool. Make some basic effort. I'm not going to spoon feed you via Facebook any longer. If you don't? I'll try to think fondly of your ghost. Really. I will. No hard feelings.

Something has become clear since Facebook exploded 8-years ago and we stopped “wondering what happened” to everyone: Not everyone was meant to cross life's epochs with us. Personally? After wallowing in this slop for nearly a decade?  I'm perfectly fine with that. BETTER than fine! I can't say the attempt has been successful, anyhow. Ive lost count how many fond memories were tainted or even destroyed by Facebook’s political, social, and general ignorance megaphone; the constant mindless displays of idiocy by people I used to respect. Used to. From here, it’s a simple realization: Email, phone calls, and these goofy blogs worked perfectly well once upon a time! Even better, actually.

From my perspective, Facebook must be treated like a ridiculously exclusive VIP room with a draconian behavioral policy. Start spewing your filth all over my page, or toward people I care about and respect more than you, like you’re in the Newsmax comment section? Out the air lock with you! (Thanks, Jim Wright.) “*But, what about all the times we got drunk and hunted questionable beaver in 1994*?!?!” Exactly. What about it? And yes, Billy Bob. I’m aware this is a two-way street. That only strengthens the argument. VIP Room now! VIP Room forever!

For the most part, I quit participating on other people's Facebook pages two years ago. I’ve also brutally purged then put my own page on lock down. In addition, I have a few who remain on double secret probation. Why? For the same reason I have "comments" set to "moderate" on this page. Genetic idiots and willfully ignorant trolls aren't just entitled to an unmoderated voice. It’s not covered by the 1st Amendment. Sure, everyone’s entitled to have one, but all opinions are NOT created equal.  Not in my world. And I'm certainly not going to provide a virtual open-mic to every random, drunken, retarded star spangled wombat staggering forth from all corners of the internet’s nether regions armed with piles of second-hand batshit propaganda.

Unless, of course, it’s controlled and exploited with of savage mockery and ridicule.

Random online interactions are risky and should be treated like 2AM bar whores. Kept at a safe distance lest you risk developing an embarrassing, unwanted, very public intellectual rash creeping down on your cyber-groin. One that itches every 10-minutes and just won't go away. We all know that person. In fact, I’d wager that “that guy” is reading this right now. And sometimes you're shocked to learn this metaphorical bar whore is someone you've known 20-years!


THE COUCHED MOB

When I returned from Peru in February, it was becoming clear that my predictions in South America were prophetic: The belching Orange Baboon could actually win! Not just the nomination. The election! It also became clear that the question, “How is this even remotely possible?” had a familiar sound. Germany. Late 1920’s and early 30’s. Since Im a kid, I always asked, “How the hell could people let that happen?” Now, we’re seeing it before our own eyes, in our own back yard.

So, I tore into my bookshelf. Biographies, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Knowing Trump holds a special place in his heart for Hitler’s public rhetoric, I devoured it all looking for similarities and connections. It didn’t take long, and it had to do with Freud, of all people. One of the books Hitler loved most was one he found while in prison following the Beer Hall Putsch: Freud’s book exploring the group mind. Mob mentality.

So, I downloaded Freud’s work (for free) from Google Books and a lightbulb went off, one that tied in to something I had noticed in August & September of 2014 while I was podcasting. The thing that led directly to my first purge and sequestering of random fucktardery. Not only are we isolating ourselves off in idea-proof echo chambers, there’s a mob mentality effect that’s glaringly obvious. What’s bizarre is that the Internet has made it possible to cultivate and exploit the Group Mind without gathering anyone into an actual physical gathering. Versions of the infamous Beer Hall rallies are being held on Facebook and other pages 24/7. These meetings are silently attended by White Walkers sitting on sweat-filled couches in dirty underwear. I mean, I assume they're dirty. I've not researched it.

As I said in the prophetic podcast next no one heard: go check these pages out! DO NOT ENGAGE ANYONE! Lurk. Lurk only! But, you’ll have your answer to the question of “how”. The mob will lead otherwise reasonable people to commit atrocities. There are examples stretching back thru Hitler and Napoleon to Caesar. There were community-minded family men who were vicious Nazis; in their normal lives they weren’t monsters. That’s the group mind and mob mentality doing its dirty work. And it’s in overdrive. Right here. Right now.

One of the beauties of hitchhiking is that I get people in single doses. Something I took away from it is that ”individuals" are smart. Often thoughtful. However, ”people" (too often your other "friends", family, and un-vetted random contacts), when they dress in their “ism” costumes are mobs of rhetorically drooling buffoons eager to take whatever social media disease they've contracted in their tiny intellectually incestuous bubbles and unleash it, literally, on the entire world. An individual 21st century mob-cell stalking the streets.

Mobs are groups of individuals who’ve gelled together into a singular mass of rationalized, primitive, willful ignorance. And, there's no functional distinction between the willfully ignorant and clinically retarded. Except for spelling and grammar, the interpersonal experiences are identical. And only an egocentric fool who's feasting on the sound of his own voice would attempt social, political, or even existential "discourse" at "the home". Therefore, online Mob Control is an essential practice.

There wouldn't be the need if we lived in a sophisticated, enlightened society both capable of, and willing to, critically examine their informational sources and check their own tendency toward ideological bias. We don't. We live in a collection of blissfully engorged, sloppy, Idiocratic mobs that have lost all connection, let alone commitment, to basic fundamental fact.

Want another metaphor? Cool!

“The People” are living in competing, incompatible alternate informational universes. Ones with completely different laws of intellectual physics. And, here’s the sobering part: it’s going to turn violent. Therefore, at some point the FCC, or even Congress, will likely need to address the explosion of fake, unaccountable media. There's a difference between a free press and a free-for-all tabloid orgy; for-profit conspiratorial fiction and extremist propaganda masquerading as "news". Right now, there's absolutely no distinction being made and we're suffering the results.

And, like it or not, the Internet as a whole probably needs to be regulated at some point. You're OBVIOUSLY woefully ill-equipped to simultaneously roam free in an informational jungle and choose your own leaders. You're basically being feasted upon as irrational psychological prey. Theres’s a Toddzillaism™ for that: Fleecing the Fucktards.

This is what makes my Cynicism Vein throb and almost burst. There's no treatment or cure for willful ignorance. Political and social discourse are only a temporary symptom of disease that’s about to go Stage 4.

Beyond the political vulnerability, our small simian brains can’t even begin to conceive of our own existence. But, we also can’t help but try. So, we fill in the blanks with staggering degrees of mythical, religious, and “spiritual” egocentric bullshit. Collectively, we delude ourselves into thinking we're divinely created little critters who are meant to run free. The functional reality is something closer to a mangy intellectual jackal that endangers everything nearby when it gets out of its pen.

Trump is incredibly revealing in that context. He recently added a Breitbart executive to RUN HIS CAMPAIGN. What happened? His numbers rose! He’s gone full-frontal batshit, and it's probably only going to get worse. People keep asking, “Why? How can this possibly be??” Because that’s what “the people” want. The guy who rhetorically puts their “threatened” tribe at the Center of the Universe and high atop the imaginary food chain? Complete with convenient scapegoats? Yeah, the mob will love it. It’s called fascism. There’s a precedent or two. And why the Founding Deities worked to thwart mob rule.

And how wise they were. People keep saying Trump is a "national embarrassment". Nope. He's a brand; an expert media whore. The fact that his Political Reality Show was even a temporary thing is the embarrassment. He didn't achieve that in a vacuum. Our shame doesn't lie in one ridiculous individual; he "should" have been taken about as seriously as Mama June.

No, the "national embarrassment" lies in the millions of fucking idiots, racists, and willfully ignorant fools who rationalize then eagerly gobble up his slop and support him through feats of "mental" gymnastics & verbal incontinence. Not to mention the bouts of uncontrollable public rhetorical-masturbation fits.

Wipe the "intellectual" goo from your stomach, fuckers. Have you lost all dignity? Did you have any to begin with? And, don't give yourself a lazy reach around by blaming Clinton. Trump didn't defeat fifteen Hillary clones in the Republican primaries.

To put a bow on the political aspect, I hope you're not seeing 11/8 as the finish line; the day "sanity" and civil "discourse" returns. You may vanquish Trump, but while you're basking in the self-righteous afterglow of victory--congratulating yourselves for winning an election against a babbling, poorly crafted Mussolini knockoff & reality TV star--the White Walkers are only getting angrier. And dumber. It's. The. Stupid. People. Stupid. Winter is coming.


DELUSIONS & PERSONAL NARRATIVES: QUIXOTE PERSONALIZED

About seven years ago this month, I had an external realization that rocked my internal core and sent me reeling. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever even tried to personally reconcile and manage. To date, I have failed miserably. At least functionally. I dubbed it my Don Quixote Insight. Examples are shown above, but in an oversimplified nutshell, it's the idea that human beings are corrupted and enslaved by their egocentric need and reliance upon self-created comfortable delusions. Our willingness and/or need to abandon reality for happy internal narratives. Or to be snookered by someone, anyone, who provides them for us.

That little insight threw me into what I mentioned repeatedly my first post: I dubbed it (borrowing from Nietzsche) "The Abyss". I looked Quixote's Demon in the eye and, while the idea began as an observation of others, it quickly turned on me and ravaged a previously useful foundation and metaphysical engine. I've never really recovered and in many ways I've been wobbling along ever since searching for a sense of authentic replacement purpose. That's meant chasing money again so, again, it's little surprise I've had little success in finding that!

I've tried to put my spiritual genie back in the bottle but, of course, that's impossible. You can't "unlearn" something. But, in the process--usually out of desperate self-interest-- I've frequently searched for cracks in Quixote hoping to prove myself wrong so that maybe I could reclaim some of the lost audacity that came from believing "The Universe" was obsessed with my existence and happy to be my personal little bitch.

I've also spent increasingly short phases of the last few years almost bending over backwards trying to execute the mental gymnastics required to give humanity a sympathetic, merciful benefit of the doubt. But at every turn Quixote is left standing even stronger as my futile hope in resurrecting the Divine Noble Species Theology is savagely bludgeoned. I wish I still had the ability to freely delude myself. But I've recognized that the maiden was imaginary and the windmill is, and always has been, just a windmill!

Tonight it's crystal clear to me that our willfully ignorant, gleeful insistence on abandoning fact and reality for the drug of self-delusion is humanity's curse. And will likely be its downfall. I'd like to get melodramatic and tearfully tell you how tragic that is. I can't.

If you want to envision ”The Universe" as an entity, it surely isn't a benevolent "Sky Daddy" benefactor looking out for your well being and best interest. The reality is closer to a cold-blooded fucking reptile that doesn't care if we live or die. Individually or collectively. "The Universe" gives nothing; we get what we give. And deserve. And, if it's incapable of even basic collective introspection, a tribal species that's so helplessly self-destructive and murderously addicted to fantasy deserves to be squished and meet its demise as Carlin put it: as a failed mutation. A destructive bug stomped out on an evolutionary cul-de-sac and quickly forgotten.


Why hasn’t Hallmark called? I can't figure it out. Must be reverse racism. Wait. If I claim "gender fluidity" can I start blaming misogyny?