Nihilism is the truth for those who don’t acknowledge truth exists.
Atheism is the religious belief held by those who don’t believe in religion.
Relativism is the standard held by those who say there are no standards.
One thing is certain. Paradoxes are real.
https://fivedotoh.com/2022/03/23/fowc-with-fandango-standard/
Today’s word is “float.”
If I could influence the world, I’d give everyone the ability to float above the constant barrage of smaller details, conflicts, crises, to ‘see’ the Big Picture of forces in this world. By Big Picture I mean, the possible consequences and the baseline importance of actions and their long-term implications.
The only way this is accomplished is by being that little kid who answers every explanation with “Why?”.
Have you noticed how difficult it is to ask questions these days?
That discomfort makes me immediately ask “Why?”
“Why are you mad that I ask questions? “.
“Why are you calling me a ‘conspiracy theorist’ when I examine stuff more closely than you?”
“Are you suggesting conspiracies don’t exist? or are you telling me that your certainty is all I need? or are you lacking imagination and don’t understand the need for questions?”
“Why?”
“How would conspiracies ever be discovered if people couldn’t or wouldn’t imagine them?”
“If you won’t talk to me, and share your ideas, how will I figure things out?”
“Do you think I want bad things to happen or am I ruining your too busy day?”
“Why?”
Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
“Isn’t that the definition of the “Big Picture”?
“Doesn’t that mean the details are not as good as a broad understanding?”
“How can people understand without asking questions?”
“Why shouldn’t I ask them?”
“Why are some people packaged and dismissed for superficial reasons like race, political affiliation, and length of schooling?”
“Aren’t we all people?”
“Don’t we all have brains and concerns and value?”
“Why are my questions less important than your conclusions?”
“Why?”
IMHO- the name calling and labeling of people for their ideas and questions should stop. The people, who do that, are just creating, and dwelling upon, distracting details and holding us all back from understanding.
We’re all in this together folks. ❤
An old Texan was sitting on the porch of his rest home listening to a group of nurses griping about the Truckers for Freedom protest. When he’d heard enough, he called the ladies over and told them this story:
Harley, the old blacksmith, was the last of his kind in our area. He still used an anvil, hammer, and hand-driven bellows to heat the coals. His workmanship was in demand because he formed every knife by hand. Each piece was a masterpiece. He was a humble man, jus’ ta same.
Ole Harley had stood outside his workshop watchin’ his town gradually change, for the worse, some 30 years. Sometimes ‘locals’ would stop by n’ ask Harley ta join their griping sessions at the Cafe’. Most all folks were irritated by them same changes.
“Not today, t’ain’t hot enough for me ta care.” was his response every time.
Soon, the locals just left him be. Many thought he’d ‘lost his marbles’ and some even secretly callt him a coward. But they all decided that his silence was a sign he was ‘soft’, “what’s the word?”, yeah, malleable, to the unpleasant changes and just didn’t care.
Well, then a protest -that turned into a riot- came through our area. Harley stood in the doorway of his workshop chewing on a straw as a lot a smashin’ and burnin’ came down the street. When them punks cum shoutin’ at Harley ’bout their BLT an Q, sumthin or t’other, he pulled out his double-barrel shotgun from behind the door. When he fired it over their heads, they scattered like roaches in the mornin’.
They never came back neither. But ole Harley was arrested jus’ the same. The charge was assault with a deadly weapon. Let me tell ya now, if Harley wanted ta kill ’em, they’d been dead!
When good ole Harley made his case, he pulled out a gorgeous knife and toll the judge this…
“See this here knife, your honor? She’s a beauty, ain’t she? Ya know I ain’t never hurt no one. I never talked crossways ta anyone neither. I don’t like what’s been goin’ on but it weren’t hot enough yet.
Ya see, in order to git steel to turn into anythin’ worth havin’, ya gotta heat it up. If you try to bend it too soon, it snaps and makes a mess. But… when it gets real hot, then a man has ta strike. En that’s what I did.
It was time to shape things up for sure! “
That judge let Harley go right then and there. Last I hear, our town ain’t had a lick of trouble since.
“So, those truckers you’re complaining about, ladies, ain’t no different ‘en Harley. They wouldn’t be makin’ trouble otherwise, it’s jus got too hot and sumthin’ real good is shapin’ up now. You can count on it.”
Now is the time that the generation who has been brought up in the “Look at me!” culture, are becoming ‘adults’. They understandably continue seeking attention (both positive and negative). These are IMO immature ‘grown-ups’ who (as you may have heard) label their annoying real-life responsibilities as “adulting”. They’ll play the role (IF THEY HAVE TO!) but only while they are doing the unpleasant chores to sustain themselves.
This stunted growth into would-be mature adulthood has many correlations to ‘modern parenting’ techniques, but this perfect storm has many variables.
Social media is the drug of choice of many “attention junkies” offering frequent ‘like’, ‘sympathy’ or ‘comment’ fixes.
But, to complete the ‘wardrobe’ of these individuals, they must have, or adopt, a victim status. The more, the better. Intersectionality is the lottery that offers the better ‘attention getting’ rewards by the number of (superficial) disadvantages one can claim. [To heck with character, generosity, work ethic, and talent.]
The growth of the Gender Dysphoria condition by 20,000 % in recent years is only one of the unfortunate byproducts of young parents delaying responsible maturity.
There’s another mental illness called Munchausen Syndrome that may be playing its own role specifically in promoting ‘transgenderism’ in children. Munchhausen Syndrome has long been recognized as the intense longing for attention by assimilating physical illness. There’s no cure but mental health professionals treat it and monitor it for the patient’s own welfare.
Parenting is hard enough but add damaged, self-centered, people having kids and tragic results are almost inevitable.
The parent who obsessively craves attention can add another victim status ‘star’, on her intersectionality chart, if her child becomes transgender. Coaxing and confusing young children, by suggesting that gender is fluid, is an easily achieved goal. Kids, after all, rely on their parents’ translation of the world. Once 3-year-old Johnny is told he’s a possible Jenny because he loves to dance and twirl to Disney’s Frozen, it’s a ‘free for all’. There are dresses to buy and make-up to apply!
In the end, Mommy hasn’t taken on symptoms of her own but (in her Munchhausen mind) can get a brand-new cascade of attention and sympathy living out this latest trendy ‘victimhood’ vicariously through the mental abuse of her child. Well… we’ll all look at her now!
But some of us with expressions of disgust. I don’t even think she’ll mind, though.
It’s the “Look at me!” that matters.
Today’s word is “dogged.”
Karen had a big heart and heightened sense of safety having a history of working as a paramedic but her persistence on everyone in her family getting the vaccine became a problem.
Uncle Harry just said, “No way! I’m not putting that experimental crap in my body.”.
Karen thought, what did Uncle Harry know? He drank too much and had dropped out of high school. He had no medical training!
But he wasn’t the only one who refused.
Her little sister, who had had a bad bout with Covid-19 was also refusing. She had also vowed not to vaccinate her kids.
How could her family be SO blind?! They were “anti-vaxxers”! The new second class, reckless, deplorable citizens.
Karen’s sister had voted for Biden. She had to have some good sense. And, she had a college degree too. Karen was livid! Her family wasn’t reflecting well on her, and her inner circle of friends were raising their eyebrows.
Karen’s dogged evangelizing was driving a wedge between family members but, she knew best!
Soon, all she did was send them CNN articles and NPR statements of FACT.
It was ‘fact’ in her circles, anyway. She had no time for alternative views. Gosh! She was the trained paramedic, and this was an emergency.
Then, cases of the vaccinated (and boosted) started intermittently rolling through the emergency room. More adverse reactions, to the vaccine, started ‘leaking out’ and showing up. When she looked further, she realized that the scientific data available was sporadic and incomplete.
Karen suddenly reexamined her position.
Her family had, thankfully, not lost anyone. They had all (at least initially) been frightened. Covid-19 had been a tragic, and evil, imposition on them all by a foreign country, not each other. The vaccines were a calculated personal risk, just like the virus. There was a non-transparent authoritarian attitude among the most visible scientists, for some reason. And the measures taken to combat the virus had been extreme while the interest in finding treatments was almost non-existent.
Happily, her family held no grudge when she relaxed her judgement of them … because they knew Karen, after all, had a big heart and a heightened sense of safety.
My whole life I respected authority.
Of course, the teen years meant I resented authority too, but the overall trust in my elders was strong.
Then, I raised a family. As I aged, I realized that elders, doctors, and experts were not perfect. They don’t actually know everything, but I was cautiously confident that they all were dedicated to the best possible outcome. Hey… life’s dangerous and a personally complex journey.
Then, I became an elder. It was humbling to realize that the ‘truth’ was hard to ‘nail down’ and that the state of ‘perfect’ didn’t actually exist.
Enter 2020.
An unknown ‘novel’ virus threatened us all. Experts step forward to reassure us. Media offered us information and statistics. We were going to ‘work this one out’ together.
THEN things started to smell suspicious.
Mistakes were bound to be made. We were taken by surprise, after all!
BUT they weren’t being admitted nor were they corrected.
This was not a ‘novel’ virus but a version of other viruses we knew.
The handling of this pandemic was the only novel part!
Soon, the media numbers were exposed as arbitrary… and later it was clear they were manipulated.
We weren’t protecting the vulnerable and we weren’t taking swift action in early treatments.
Governors assumed extreme powers never citing clear scientific suggestions.
Then we found out that the Chinese government purposely spread a deadly experiment through the world. Whether it escaped or was released may never be known.
All trust left the building once Big Tech, our federal government, and our health agencies spoke in unison, telling us their ‘facts’ (never backed with scientific studies) and censoring ‘misinformation’ (which was any contrary commenting). This was science, right? Scientific research is an ongoing diverse questioning not a conclusion.
World famous scientists and hands-on doctors were being silenced. They wanted to focus on therapeutics because they wanted to save lives. They had data to share and ideas!
Ultimately, most people were never offered treatment but were asked to come to the hospital once they were dying!
Hospitals were paid large incentives to label hospitalizations and deaths with Covid-19.
The FDA gets 45% of its funding from vaccines. They pushed vaccines… only vaccines.
Big powerful companies (with lobbyists) were allowed to flourish while small businesses were sentenced to ‘die’. Churches (with specific Constitutional protections) were militantly closed, while liquor stores, lotteries, and large chain stores remained open.
And people kept dying… kids were kept out of school, our economy ground to a halt, and our Southern Borders were sprung wide open. (Covid-19, Fentanyl, terrorists, and criminals uncounted)
No longer was there any hope that the ‘best outcome’ was even a consideration.
Our health wasn’t the highest concern.
Our well-being wasn’t important.
Our children’s futures were cast aside. (The added debt will be only a part of their future struggles)
Our compliance was the only goal. Power and greed prevailed.
Fear, blind trust, and ignorance worked wonders.
Dear 2022,
Trust may be gone but,
Fear is waning and
Our eyes are open.
We’ll work this one out, together.
Better days ahead…
Today’s word is “monotonous.”
She got up, grabbed a coffee, and turned on the news. The trending topics were partisanship, racism, climate change, and equity.
Sophie remembered her grandmother watching daily soap operas. She could visit Grandma twice a month, and her ‘stories’ never changed.
The same cast, the same troubles, and the same solutions.
But, soap operas ran, at most, for an hour and took weekends off.
The ‘news’ was becoming even more monotonous.
She switched off the TV and went outdoors, talked with her neighbors, and reflected on her own opinions.
Perhaps, she’d volunteer, write a letter, or cook a new recipe?
The possibilities were endless.
When she tuned into the News the following week, she found nothing had changed.
Soap operas were never going make sense to her.
FOWC with Fandango — Monotonous – This, That, and The Other (fivedotoh.com)
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