Inexpert Opinions

 It has been a while since I've posted. There have been a few life-changing events, some welcome additions, some welcome losses. A few wars. However the old thinker has yet to give me peace and tranquility, especially since I am now romantically entangled with someone that believes the relative position of stars during their maternal escape is somehow a personality generator. She's a Taurus, and I have been led to believe that means something. That being said, my post today has nothing to do with cosmic personality traits or what I get up to under winter blankets. Instead, I would like to throw out an opinion on ideology, or rather why I think most ideologies seem to fail. Around the world right now, there exists a proverbial buffet of ideologies one can scoop up and add to one's already overstimulated sense of social reality. As if  surviving the modern media minefields weren't treacherous enough. They have literally got everything that might (or might not) suit your n...

For the past 32 years—definitely more for some—I have been told by various forms of self-proclaimed authorities that I am a victim, a sufferer of the debilitating and nightmarish illness that plagues so many of my like-aged brethren and sistren: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Pause for dramatic violin stabs. Let's clear a few things up first. I have recently come across a very interesting take on the matter of ADHD, which neatly fits into a previous post— Unnatural Selection —and it's this: ADHD, the tuning out, is the result of being in a situation where the instinctual fight-or-flight response cannot function. If you cannot fight, and you cannot run... what is there left to do? Shut down. A quick point as well: ADHD in no way means that there is no attention to be had. It simply means that whatever attention is there is not on whatever the aforementioned authority figures want it to be on. If the child struggles to focus on their math homework, or the adult struggl...

Along the treacherous twists and turns of useless advertisements and self-induced self-loathing that some of us refer to as the internet lies a treasure trove of "what if's" and "how about's" that tends to fog up the ol' biological processing unit with needless 1's and 0's that keep me awake at night. The most recent brain-worm to dig its way into my waking mind is: teleportation. For thousands of years, we have used only our Jesus wheels (feet), and perhaps the pedes of fellow mammals we have enticed into servitude, to get about at speeds too negligible to mention in any great detail. Taking days — even weeks, depending on the amount of teeth between point A and point B — to traverse distances we alive today would call a Sunday drive. Even today, the most common mode of moving ourselves about is becoming more and more tedious with every passing mile, because it just does not seem fast enough. Even with hyper-vehicles capable of breaking the 400 ...

In various previous posts I have made mention of the advancement of civilization and society pushing fairly important aspects of nature — like natural selection — aside, without really touching on what I mean. I figured I should explain myself to some extent, or at least get my chest unweighted. For the vast majority of human history — nearly 290,000 years — our greatest struggle has been survival. Where is the next meal coming from? Will we survive the angry clouds? What was that noise? And as morbid as it may seem to us now, if you were weak, stupid, or lazy, you died. This was natural selection at work, ensuring a functioning and productive population for efficient and continued survival. As civilization began forming, however, many of the trials and tribulations faced by our hearty ancestors were replaced with walls, gates, windows, and storefronts. No longer required to run out into the great, dangerous unknown in search of food or water, they were graciously provided by ingenuit...

So... There are some on the right side of the political spectrum who believe that the courtesies and conveniences that we affectionately label "Human Rights" are authored and prescribed by a magical super-dimensional entity that gave different people a different number of different rights (Thanks, George Carlin). And that this is more than enough reason for these rights to be binding. Then there are those on the left side of that spectrum who, by the same kind of magical thinking, believe that they are imbued with these rights for nothing more than the selfless act of being born. Now, if these folk were to be born in a non-Western, non-democratic country, we can be sure that they would have been whistling a different tune. The fact of the matter is... Rights— all of them—are manmade (and womanmade; again, we are not sexist unless absolutely necessary). Each and every one of them is made by us and enforced by us. These rights—at least the current ones—are the culmination of t...

I’m sure we’ve all come across the ever-present phenomenon that presents itself as the hopeful, selfless display of generosity and human kindness: The impeccably well-dressed and groomed lady figure, wearing the saddest expression she can squeeze through the Botox and three-inch layer of concealer, approaching the downtrodden man sitting lost and confused on the sidewalk — in suspiciously clean shoes — and presenting him with a variety of mass-produced products and emotions. Only to look back at the camera as if to say, "Yes, I am just THAT kind. Drop a like." This, of course, is the manufactured version of the social media trend where genuine kindness is candidly captured on video, generating mass amounts of support and praise. A few — a very lack-minded few — saw this as an opportunity to cash in on the likes and followers… by fabricating the entire show. You read that right. Sub-D-level actors who would be chased out of the Sharknado 12: It’s Getting Windy Out There stu...