Nothing To Be Proud Of
More of why the world around you is effed up...

Where were we?

For this next part, in some ways, I'd like to blame the media, particularly advertising. On the other hand, as each and every one of us is supposed to be a thinking human being, I can't do it. The interesting thing about TV's and Radios is that you can turn them off. The neat trick with Books, Movies, and Magazines is that you don't have to look at them much less buy them. You choose to do it.

Lemme ask you one important question before I go on: What has knowing that there was an earthquake in some remote part of the world done for your life? What good does it do you in Des Moines to see a car chase in LA? What has footage of any celebrity getting out of a car in front of a premiere added to richness of your life experience? If you answered "none" or "nothing" to these questions, you'd be absolutely right. And that's just the news, I don't even consider it worth contemplating the value of sitcoms, soap operas, game shows, and so on.

So what I'd like to posit is that we are all insecure in some way. You're gonna have some of that naturally. You can't be good at everything. There's bound to be some feature on your body that you may not hate, but you may not love it either. There's phobias and worries. The point is you're bound to have a little doubt, but what do you do with it?

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was this thing called humility, and even if it was false, it helped keep things politely in perspective. You don't have to have absolutely no belief in yourself, but you should be realistic in knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Of course there's ego too, that's partially what we're talking about, but you can't make up for shortcomings with ego.

Anyhow, I'm seeing a lot more blatantly insecure people. A lot of 'woe is me' types. That's how we ended up with all this reality make-over plastic surgery crap on TV. These people are too far down that hopeless road, the "I can't even get out of bed" generation. Sadly, in this day and age, people get away with that kind of sh!t. I don't wanna talk about them. It's one thing if you are seriously mentally ill, it's another if you limited yourself and let the world fall apart around you. Think of it this way: "No you aren't going to hook Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie, but a lot of other 'pretty' people didn't either." Then again, if you even think your headed for the altar with a celebrity, you're in for one big motherf*ckin' suprise out of life anyway.

The other end is the puffed up variety. The one's who are making up for every shortcoming in their life with all too-much bullsh!t ego over one thing or another. People who are convinced they're better looking than they are. Smarter than they are. More Talented than they really are. Funnier than they are. Etc. Or people who have any one of those traits, and they think it makes up for everything else. As in, they're good looking so they don't need anything else (but secretly they're afraid you'll find out they're dumb as a rock). I don't wanna harp too long. Basically they look, talk, and act like the people who I mentioned yesterday. The difference primarily is that they can't back it up whereas the folks yesterday can (but just happen to be obnoxious about it).

Anyhow. I see this leading more and more toward this gang mentality. Than can be politically, sports team-wise, country clubs, religiously, etc. You pick a group and you stick by it wholeheartedly. First of all, lemme ask you: would you honestly be prepared to die in defense of the Denver Broncos or the Houston Rockets or the Detroit Redwings? If you answered yes, do us all a favor and ice yourself. If you answered no, good, but you should realize some people answered yes.

The irony I find is that all of this "diversity" has only served to divide human beings rather than bring them together. People keep thinking, making actions, or voting in smaller and smaller groupings, but it affects the greater populace. There are just two sides to any issue, there's hundreds. Now while it's true there are many sides to nearly anything with any complexity, each person moving toward their micro-managed angle won't achieve anything.

It's why as a nation, there's no such thing as true democracy. You can't have millions upon millions across huge distances each voting their own way in their own voice. Doesn't work all that well.

Anyhow. I think part of the cause of this gang-like mentality is due to people being afraid that they might be wrong. It's strength in numbers. It's reassurance. "I can't be wrong. All these people I agree with me. They can't all be wrong." The funny part is that it has so little to do with being wrong. That's beside the point. My main point is that it turns into this puffed up arrogant fanatacism.

Much of this has to do with lack of intelligence. People don't have the time nor do they make the effort to properly educate themselves on the myriad of bullsh!t thrown at them constantly. Again, I'd like to say it's the media's fault, but it isn't. People go with what they hear, hence the word hearsay, but in this case taken as truth. They go on advertising. They go on rumor. They go on innuendo. They don't get the satire because they don't know enough about the joke, so they believe in it. Much of the time, like I said, they take one of two paths with that information: a) the blissful and belligerently ignorant, and b) the unsure and insecure believer.

Again, it makes me want to slap around a lot of @$holes that I run into or overhear.

Now before I continue I should say a couple of things: 1) You should try to learn as much as you can, b) anyone can still make a difference, and c) you're not the only person out there who doesn't understand what the hell is going on with everything. Relax.

For one thing, you don't have to have an opinion on everything. If you don't care about something and it doesn't affect your life, why have you wasted any time thinking about it enough to come up with an opinion. It's kind of like these guys a friend of mine worked with in the middle of nowhere in Washington state. He was appalled at the constant barrage of racial slurs he heard coming from a bunch of guys who live in a town where 2% of it's population was something other than white. I'm not picking on white guys (reverse discrimination is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, as though discrimination was only something white people did), but these guys fit my example. Seriously, what the hell did they care about black people or Asian people? They never even dealt with them.

Or take me. I honestly don't feel one way or the other about Bush or Kerry. You can act all shocked and astonished if you want, but I couldn't care less. The fact is that what little I've bothered to see about either one of them leads me to believe that they've both got problems. For instance Bush pushes abstinence as a national when he's been shown to have two of the wildest and craziest young daughters the White House has likely ever seen. And, I'd like to know why Kerry is so in my face with what seems like a lot of bullsh!t about his role in Viet Nam, and I'd also like to know why he owns something like 5 mansions.

The funniest thing about me even saying that is that I know from my own research though that some of the world's greatest leaders had sh!tty home lifes and even sh!ttier personalities. Seriously, you can look up yourself, but some of history's greatest champions were world class @$holes. The fact that they were drunken gambling revellers didn't stop them from making great decisions or contributions to the world. It's bullsh!t that we even think that they were all perfect Knights in God's Service.

But if you're gonna drag the personal life stuff out in front of me to judge by....well, you take what you get.

Furthermore, I find people who make their whole life politics are on the same stupid level as people who spend their whole life memorizing baseball stats or Star Trek episodes. I won't go into it, but if you read this crap, you should know what I think about fanatacism of any kind.

Like I said though, do you have any filter for what you take in and whether it affects you?

I know, no one likes to seem like they have no opinion or thoughts about something everyone's talking about, but how often is that anything you really care about? If you honestly look at them, how many of them do you honestly think no what they're talking about to begin with? It's like the Israel and Palestine thing, eveyone seems to fanatically pick a side. Of course here in the U.S., it's primarily pro-Israel, but I've noticed that no one seems to even know why they're rooting against Palestine. (Personally I think both sides are retarded and that no one's hands are clean in that one.)

Another good one is the people attacking the Catholic church and perv-priests....but more interesting is the people who are blindly and fanatically defending the church and their 'beatuiful' faith. Well, I'm not a Catholic basher, but I happen to know more than a few things that the old Catholic church could stand to atone for before they even got to the molesting priests. And I do understand people railing against the church, but I don't see how 'righteous' people could so willfully turn a blind eye to it. Moving on.

My final one is the constant spewing from ignorant faces anything concerning Islam. Why is that everytime something happens in the 'war or terror' that the news has to parade any local Muslims they can find so they can assure everyone that they aren't out to get us? It's sickening. They shouldn't have to. But it's not just Arab-Americans that I don't wanna hear Joe Average Jack@$'s opinion on, but I don't wanna hear what he thinks about their countries or culture either.

Which leads to my final point (of sorts, as this getting to be about as coherent as Naked Lunch): patriotism.

Samuel Johnson said something along the lines of: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." (Admit it: How many of you said 'who?' after reading the name, Samuel Johnson? It's ok. Find out for next time.)

Lemme just say: If this war was bullsh!t, you let yourselves be hornswoggled into it of your own free will. (I keep wondering why these supposedly dead terrorists keep popping up alive.) All I can say is whether we got involved in the Middle East for good or bad, probably the years and years of more terrorism and ire from those countries are the fault of allowing ourselves to root against the "bad guys" like a bunch of good little automatons in the name of patriotism. And the use of "we're gonna kick your @$$" bumper stickers, didn't supply me with any sense of pride. My thoughts were more along the lines of: "When did everyone in this country become a braindead hick."

No offense, but being from Texas, I learned early on that I could never get behind the kind of country music that glorified being a ignorant whitetrash redneck. Come to think of it, country music isn't the only thing glorifying being overtly stupid and over sexed...but we'll just throw that out there for you to ponder.

I don't know, but I'm done for right now. The point is that ignorance and arrogance should never mix, and if you're like me you see more and more of it every day. It scares the hell out of me.

Tomorrow: Maybe more on modern day Hubris.