Keep Quiet, and They Come After You

My lament: 

In the first Godfather movie, Don Vito Corleone refuses to enter the narcotics trade, staying quiet and put.  This only invites his enemy Virgil Solozzo to attempt assassination and start a gangland war.  In the same way I wonder whether calmly going about my postal duties on the job (back in 1998) wouldn't have welcomed harassment and bullying from the folks finding themselves with some floor supervisory authority over me at the time.  I refer here to Henry Lang., Art Green's Lorraine, Menal, Jose and the two Lisas. If I were Tom Petty or Bob Dylan I might add a few pointed lyrics for their great Jammin' Me song. Glad to be finally done with the lot of these bullies: completely useless people on every level  Oh, and near the end there was also Willy, a young, ignorant hyper-macho boo-butt bent on crushing people with his alpha-male persona and cutting, combative tongue.  Bye-bye, creepos.  Nothing wrong with me being reasonable and a good worker, but sometimes a little bluntness and confrontation can work well. Later today I have scheduled an infusion chemotherapy treatment at the Cancer Pavilion...I've reacted well so far to chemo in the past.  No ninth grade nonsense and discouragement today, and I've already done about 3 minutes of home exercise. Looks like the bigshots in state and nat'l government are at it again, trying to roll back my already-confirmed citizenship and voting status.  Leave me the eff alone, fascist jerks...

Now that that's off my chest, I'd like to shift a little into gratitude mode.  Those folks were probably, in their own minds, just doing their best and maybe to them I wasn't quite measuring up to their expectations.  Today I had a chemotherapy infusion session at the UF Health Davis Pavilion.  The techs seemed at first unable to find a stick in my arm or hand to draw the needed lab blood, but later all went well.  I'm tired after a long day and would like to rest under pleasant temperatures at home in this warmer than seasonable weather.  Tomorrow's hump day Wednesday.  I've concluded already that the Smiths' How Soon is Now is my Song of the month for February and for the year 2026 as well.  It's a profound anthem on asserting myself in the face of my shyness and deep feeling of social alienation: the ultimate Goth/melancholy song!  Go Morrissey, you hit it out of the park.  As for Bad Bunny, sorry but he just comes across to me more like a gangland hoodlum street pimp than a true musical artist with that phony woke demeanor of his.  Maybe someday one of these folks will produce something musically memorable...but maybe not.  As for Super Bowl halftime shows, though, that does it for me.  A close runner-up to How Soon is Now is Zebra's chilling Who's Behind the Door, with Tom Petty's 1987 Jammin' Me Right Behind in third with its relevant, funny and pointed lyrics.  What a rocker... Running-in-place (IPF) updated counter after today: 22 minutes...

October Now...for Better or Worse

So it's October...let's see what I can make of this month, when I turn 69, the same age David Bowie reached when he died of liver cancer two days after his January 2016 birthday.  I don't know what all is in store for me, but I have already defined my enemy: those who deliberately set themselves as obstacles to my daily existence.  In other words, drama-queen prima-donnas. I'm already NOT looking forward to this contrived Grief Share "support" group that meets Wednesday evenings at a nearby church.  It's one of the sad life lessons I've learned that folks, when they get old, tend not to become wiser but rather entrench themselves even more in trying to set themselves apart and higher than others around them, acutely conscious of their "pecking order" status.  So I guess I'll go there and humor these deluded fools.  I think, though, that I'd rather just stay at home and spend the time preparing for our upcoming cruise.  I'm seriously considering writing separate daily articles through October 10th and then, after returning, "back-posting" them on this blog.  Or maybe not. I'm wondering, since I'll generally be avoiding the news shows on TV, whether I'll be spared some of this accursed fascist president's antics as he continually seeks to be the center of attention and controversy. And I suppose that there is another enemy out there: the completely effed-up, morally bankrupt weapons nut who feels justified at settling scores by going after random people in public. Has my country lost its collective mind?  Doesn't look so good, let's see how the high seas do for a few days...

Society Becoming Unhinged and Violent, Mirroring World Leaders

I'm looking around me and it doesn't look good.  People in society, and leaders around the world, are becoming mentally and morally unhinged, holding tight to their resentments and grudges and then exploding into acts of terror.  Putin keeps sending drones to bomb his neighbor Ukraine, knowing that the main result of his actions is murderous terror against ordinary civilians.  Yet in the interests of longevity he touts a vaccine that is supposed to ward off cancer, and in personal visits comes off seeming like a reasonable and congenial individual.  Those two children massacred in a Minnesota church by a sick monster, and the young Ukrainian immigrant woman who finished her work shift, boarded a Charlotte, North Carolina commuter train, and was promptly stabbed to death in random fashion by the young man who happened to be sitting behind her seat, are just the more recent examples of what I see as a complete breakdown in civil society. And this president of ours, I'm sure, would be an active part of this chain of violence and terror as he is governed by vengeance, fear and anger. I don't need to watch the national news to get more than my share of disheartening news.  The local news shows consistently come up with stories about people who shot up their own home or of others who got mad at someone at a party, workplace or bar and then went back to their car and returned, guns blazing with fury.  I go out of my way on my neighborhood walk/runs to keep my mouth shut and eyes trained on the road ahead of me, but this doesn't stop some motorists around me from slowing down and checking me out from safely behind their tinted windows as if my mere existence posed a kind of threat to them.  Life is fragile: that's a lesson I already learned but which was brutally reinforced in the last two years with the deaths of my son and sister-in-law.  Stephen King wrote a 2006 novel titled Cell, in which cellphone users would suddenly become violently deranged and go on killing sprees.  I don't think we're so far off from that scenario, I'm afraid. Lord, get me through this day...  

People in Groups: Always a Power Struggle

In the preamble to the first Lord of the Rings movie, Fellowship of the Ring, the "Lady of the Woods" elf Geladriel (played by Cate Blanchett) explains the origin of the conflict about the special Ring of Power that the evil spirit Sauron used to bind under his domination all of the rings he "gifted" to the different nations of beings.  To the nine men-kings he bestowed each with a ring, for more than anything they coveted power.  Yet upon each's passing, they found themselves completely bound to Sauron, abject slaves to his will. Still, to the extent that they could strike terror in the hearts of ordinary people, I suppose that they would have derived much pleasure from this evil bullying.  I think J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of this fantasy series, had much insight into the basic, rank human nature that is much more universal among our species.  The truth is that you can't get three people together into a group without them sorting out their respective ranks...from top to bottom.  I'm not just theorizing this: I've lived it, going on 69 years come this October.  Barbara Streisand once sang, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world."  But beyond the benefits and protections that an advanced civil society can bestow on me, I find it annoying, demeaning and stifling to find myself entangled within groups...and I'm sick of that sorting of pecking orders. Just before the Beatles broke up in late 1969, there were two group meetings, one on the 8th and the other on the 20th.  In the earlier meeting, John Lennon made the all-too-reasonable proposal that he, Paul and George each be accorded four songs on their future albums, with one or two given to Ringo. Paul, full of his perceived role as the the group's leader, rejected John's offer.  After Lennon's successful concert adventure a few days later, he announced his "divorce" from the Beatles on that second meeting twelve days later.  There was a flexibility, a willingness to work things out, in Lennon's original proposal, but people stuck in their minds with power aren't rationally reasoning things out.  The general problem I personally see in this translates into all social situations, whereby there are individuals consumed with their own sense of standing within the group, and they will sabotage any meaningful input from me while putting me down in what they regard as my "proper place". I am so sensitive to this that I don't even want to "show up" in some of the gatherings offered at church or in connection to the Parkruns I frequent...and when I was at the post office I tended to avoid union meetings: now it's retirement reunions I steer clear of.  But you know, I can always attend and just sit in the back and keep my mouth shut or just engage in small talk...

Nobody's Perfect...But What Was Bill Maher Trying to Accomplish?

One of the problems with writing a blog over an extended period of time is that I may extol the virtues of a public figure, be he or she in government, academia, news media or entertainment.  Then a little while later the same individual becomes enveloped in scandal, or they may say or do something that is completely abhorrent to me, causing me to regret my earlier praise.  But I realize that this is a fallen world, with its people prone to display that fallen nature within themselves...and I'm not superior in this regard.  That having been noted, it still grinds me when someone like Bill Maher, whom I've praised for his outspokenness and general common sense, deeply disappoints me by doing something like what he recently did when he essentially went over to the White House to suck up to Donald Trump, following this event by praising the Narcissist-in-Chief to high heaven.  Last year, in the midst of the presidential election, Maher seemed dead-set on running down Biden and the Democrats while propping up and promoting Trump...I don't get it.  But I just tuned in to his latest show for his monologue and old Bill was making fun of Trump again...but with absolutely no credibility to his words.  I'm sorry that the American people were collectively so foolish last November as to return to office a convicted felon who, from what I can gather, is working on behalf of Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence to implement their agenda.  But that's my opinion...you're entitled to yours. Maher's recent love-fest with the Republicans...even to the point of making a smiling appearance on the Gutfeld show...makes me wonder whether someone somewhere had discovered something on him that they could expose if he didn't "play ball" with them.  Just wondering...

Watched the Movie Conclave Tonight

Since Melissa and I are Amazon Prime subscribers, we had the opportunity to watch the suddenly-timely movie Conclave on their channel.  I have to admit to being a bit resistant to sitting there through this fictional account of the selection of a new Bishop of Rome, i.e. the Pope, after the death of the incumbent pontiff.  But I thought, why not, especially after reading up on it that it received high critical reviews and starred one of my favorite current actors, Ralph Fiennes.  Fiennes plays Cardinal Lawrence, tasked as the manager of the Conclave.  The College of Cardinals, all with their red beanies, are shut off in a well-staffed and well-supplied building in the Vatican, and have to take repeated ballots to finally come up with their selection for the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.  Since Pope Francis just passed away recently, this Conclave process is coming up soon, at the beginning of May.  The deliberations and negotiations behind doors will last as long as it takes until someone is finally elected.  As for the movie itself, I found sticking through it all rather tedious, with men representing different predictable factions vying for an edge against each other.  Scandal, tenuous alliances, megalomania and betrayal abound here...these "holy men" would fit in quite well with the Nazgul of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings for their coveting of power.  I'm not Catholic and I don't harbor any delusions that their situation is any worse than anyone else's...the urge to lord oneself over others is a human foible, largely male, as I have suffered from this desire on the part of would-be alpha-male "leaders" to make me subservient to them, going all the way back to childhood and continuing through school, work and even into old-age retirement.  I don't boss others around, nor do I want to: if you see yourself as my leader, then you ARE deluded and need to stay away.  Conclave's depiction of humans in conflict...albeit peaceful conflict...may enhance a story's dramatic appeal to many, but it left me flat and drained.  Who cares who they finally picked, and sadly, who cares in the real world how "our" Cardinals will  decide...

Political, Media Manipulation Will Only Get Worse

A few weeks ago, while surfing through YouTube in their section devoted to running, I "ran" across a couple of Canadian middle-age brothers who decided to tackle distance running and triathlons in order to get themselves fit after undergoing some health scares.  They're really a couple of top-notch athletes, it turns out, and they have their own channel committed to their ongoing efforts and accomplishments.  These two are, however, a bit insufferable with their self-promotion and putdowns of those they don't feel measure up to their standards...I felt early on that they held themselves to be on a higher plane of existence than me.  That's okay, they have their thing and I mine...to each our own: I don't HAVE TO watch their videos.  I cannot say the same regarding our recycled president and his musky wingman.  It's clear that the convicted felon that my own country saw fit to return to office has, as a centerpiece of his strategy, the notion of keeping himself the focus of media attention EVERY DAY with some new outrage to say or someone to offend.  Sadly, I think he's on to something...America is hopelessly hooked on reality television and celebrities: the more off-the-wall they are, the better. Some folks think that all they have to do is outlast this president and then things will return to normal, but I think the change is permanent.  From now on future candidates, on both sides of the political divide, will apply the lessons in mass manipulation they're learning here to their respective campaigns. If you think it's bad now, wait 'til AI and quantum computing attain their full realization and seamlessly merge into our mass and social media, forever blurring the distinction between fact and fantasy. Hell, it's already happening.  At least those Canadian brothers are real (I think).  On the other hand, it seems to me that the American voter doesn't even care anymore what is real or not: they just care about how it all makes them feel...   

A Brief Note About the Recent Election

Just a brief note on the recently transpired general election.  Yes, we are all on a runaway train...hopefully it won't crash.  Never before have I felt so alienated from those around me.  I feel that too many of my compatriots are in a state of voluntary self-brainwashing, comfortable in their own designed (by others) social and mass media feedback loops.  The funny thing is that, when politics is factored out of the equation, everyone for the most part seems pretty normal and coherent.  I know many wonderful people in my life who, for some reason, go off the skids when it comes to politics.  Oh well is all I can say, I guess it's part of being a human being in the year 2024.  On the other hand, I don't have to be in a state of voluntary servitude to media.  Just turn it off, or at least pause a moment before settling on a channel or posting.  This is just as important following such an election as it is preceding it.  As I mentioned in a previous article, I'm done with it all.  Sure, I plan to occasionally read up on the issues and candidates and vote in future elections, but beyond that, don't bother me about your political notions, which were probably spoon-fed to you by some mass-media hack or social-media agenda-driven foreign hacker...

Quote of the Week...from Stephen King

We've switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics...trying to play a serious part in the world...to a culture that's really entertainment-based.               Stephen King

Stephen King is my all-time favorite writer...I've read more of his books by far than those by any other.  I'm not convinced, though, that this in itself means I would want to hang on his every opinion any more than I would anyone else...writing per se does not automatically impart supreme wisdom on the craftsman.  But that having been said, I am more or less in alignment with King's views on politics and society in general.  As far as the above quote of his is concerned, it's definitely an over-generalization of the state of our country, but since I grew up as his contemporary, immersed in it all, I totally get what he is driving at.  And I think the change from seriousness to entertainment began some time in the late 1960s when the drug/sex revolution, coinciding with the counterculture anti-war movement, went viral long before that term became common currency.  The seventies heralded the "me" generation that focused on self-examination and alternative lifestyles.  Then came the digital revolution and all kinds of entertainment became easy to access and portable...and here we are, all in our "safe spaces".  I remember the generation that came before me and it definitely had a different outlook on life.  I think that's one of the reasons that my all-time favorite novel of Stephen King is 11/22/63, a brilliant time-travel story that deeply examines those earlier attitudes and emphasis in our culture.  Try reading it some time if you haven't...not many books have literally made me cry, but this one did...

Sinister Trend Shifting My Political Allegiances

I don't know whether others are feeling as I do, but I'm starting to feel a shift...a fundamental one...in my political leanings.  Not that the so-called "leaders" and candidates that I'm starting to lean toward are themselves worthy of following, any more than those I've preferred up until now...they're full of their own flaws and demagoguery.  And the chief one among them is, sorry to say, a complete buffoon who defines the word narcissism.  But I see something sinister and foreboding going on in my society, and it's being pushed primarily from the end of the political spectrum that I have been supporting for many years.  Comedian/commentator Bill Maher has covered this phenomenon extensively in his monologues on Real Time with Bill Maher, and I see it all around me in the media and corporate environment.  So that buffoon I mentioned notwithstanding, where I go this November 2024 election is up in the air.  But I'm realistic about it all, knowing that my one vote is just a drop in the ocean, and I don't pretend to tell you or anyone else what to think or do... 

The End of the World as We Know It

Ever since COVID-19 made its grand entrance into our collective lives in early 2020, I have had the uneasy feeling of society's decline, both in terms of economic vitality and of people's will to succeed.  I know that's got to be difficult to measure or wrap your mind around, but it's a composite of a number of things.  For one, it seems that every business that used to operate later into the night now closes up measurably earlier, for some painfully early.  Housing and transportation costs have skyrocketed...young people nowadays must have a terrible ordeal with the narrowing choices they have for getting themselves independently established on a shoestring budget.  The availability of prompt medical and dental care...outside of emergency rooms and clinics...has deteriorated, with the professionals breaking appointments with patients and throwing their needed care sometimes months further into the future, and of course the costs of said care are soaring.  Speaking of decline, is it just my own subjective perception but are people more and more prone to voluntarily letting themselves get brainwashed politically by the mass and social media that they have now on their fingertips?  Furthermore, have people now redefined their view of reality itself to encompass virtual, digital realms instead of what is actually physically out there?  There's more I'm seeing as well, and it ain't getting any better, folks...but at least I'm still getting by (so far).  As Michael Stipe of R.E.M. prophetically wrote in a 1988 song, "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine"...

Quote of the Week...from Pablo Picasso

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.            Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, of course, was the great twentieth century artist probably best known for his development of the cubist genre.  While he didn't exactly eschew publicity during his long life, his above quote struck me for its wisdom...I'm only 67 but know from personal experience that Picasso is right on target here.  The problem is that seeking solitude seems to count in our relationship-obsessed culture for a kind of mental disorder that needs to be nipped for the sake of "community"...a buzz word that, for me at least, seems to signal that whoever uses it is about to manipulate me.  I'm not against relationships per se, it's just that the only meaningful, constructive and loving ones are concentrated and deliberately few in number.  But even with these, it is no insult to any of them that I often want to be by myself, think, and work things out.  I don't, however, feel that solitude in itself has to take place physically isolated...I'm writing this at a table in my nearby Starbucks, with many customers and workers all around me.  But I am not engaging with them, nor they with me: there is no interruption of my thoughts and efforts here. On the other hand, at my job there are times when I need to focus on my core assignment, which demands that I meticulously concentrate my attention on important, pertinent matters without distraction. Unfortunately, though, my seriousness to my work in this regard I'm afraid is sometimes framed as antisocial...nothing could be further from the truth. I've also noticed that many of those who act as if they want to socialize along with their work are continuously "forgetting" things they need to do, things that interfere with the ability of others (and sometimes myself) to effectively perform their jobs.  Nothing wrong with having a chat from time to time, but please don't screw me over in the process...

Quote of the Week...from Carl Jung

The shoe that fits one person pinches another.  There is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

                               ---Carl Jung

Lately I've been exploring various podcasts and YouTube channels that feature individuals expressing their personal and/or professional viewpoints about various topics, in particular on fitness, running, personal development, language learning and aging.  Several of the sites have as hosts medical doctors or PhDs, yet often their advice runs contradictory to one another.  With me that's okay, because I believe I can filter out a lot of what's going on with them...and often they're speaking to different audience groups.  As for me, I am no physician and have no doctorate, yet if you've read a number of my five thousand-plus articles over the past nearly sixteen years, you just might conclude that there are things I approve of and others upon which I vehemently frown.  But the carry-home point you should get is that they are all my own subjective viewpoints.  A lot of what I say and do may or may not be constructive or even appropriate for you or others.  The above quote by the famed Swiss psychiatrist/psychologist Carl Jung crystallizes this perfectly: we tend to wear different types and sizes of shoes...ultimately it's the individual who has to draw the line and determine what works for them.  Sadly it's been my experience that some folks have such a low opinion of their capacity to do this that they spend their existence flitting from one fad, belief system or cult idol to another, ingesting everything without discernment or questioning...and even becoming indignant at anyone who isn't even directly criticizing their adopted beliefs but who is just living their own life by their own individual standards...

 

Volunteered at Gainesville's Depot Parkrun This Morning

This morning I volunteered at my local Depot Parkrun, held each Saturday morning at Gainesville's Depot Park, just south of downtown.  My role was to be the Tail Walker, which is the person who follows everyone else in the race/run/walk and makes sure that all have either finished or dropped out.  It was a pleasant 3.1 miles...four laps around the park...with temperatures in the low-to-mid forties and many birds, chiefly red-winged blackbirds, grackles and mourning doves, contributing their songs. When you're a Tail Walker you still get credit for a race...so tally up my 34th Parkrun for myself: click HERE for today's results.  It's also my 4th volunteer gig...Melissa was signed up and wanted to go but was recovering from a bad cold.  With the good folks running the show, I...may I be a little blunt...got mixed signals.  On the surface, they seemed so altruistic and goody-goody for leading at this event, but anytime I wanted to reach out and engage one of them in conversation, or, more to the point, ask a pertinent question, they were pretty damned dismissive.  For an introvert with misanthropic leanings, I find it more than a little disconcerting to be confronted with "good" people who see me as little more than a distraction or annoyance to be flicked away.  In any event, I'm really not offended but rather just file it all away with my other experiences.  As the recent Depeche Mode song People Are Good goes...

Keep reminding myself

That people are good

And when they do bad things 

They're just hurting inside

Keep fooling myself

That everyone cares

And they're all full of love

It's just their patience gets tried

Heaven help me, heaven help me

Heaven help us, heaven help us

Quote of the Week...from the Movie Groundhog Day

Phil Connors: What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?

Ralph: That about sums it up for me.

This to me was the funniest line from a very funny movie, 1993's Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray as Phil Connors, a vain Pittsburgh TV weatherman on an unpleasant assignment to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  Only things suddenly get much worse when he wakes up the morning after February 2nd...and discovers to his horror that it's Groundhog Day all over again, with the same people saying and doing the same things and himself exactly the same as if he had never already lived through the day...the same, that is, except for his complete memory of what is happening to him.  After a few experiences of repeatedly waking up to the same day, he goes out drinking with some local blue-collar dudes, the above-mentioned Ralph being one, and poses the quoted question.  Of course, Phil means something quite literal as he asks about what if nothing you did mattered...and promptly comes up with the answer: no consequences...leading to another hilarious scene.  As Phil's affliction keeps going on from same day to same day, the movie does change in tone to that of desperation and ultimately acceptance and a deeper appreciation of life and what should be one's priorities in it.  But Ralph's answer so poignantly expresses so many people's viewpoints without needing to undergo any supernatural time-bending experience. Time does tend to march on from day to day in a cyclic, repetitive pattern.  Part of this is how we're constructed as biological beings tied in to the solar cycle, part is society's way to organize itself to prevent chaos, establish some order and effectively function...and part is each individual's aggregation of habits...some of them more recently acquired and others lifelong...that resist spontaneity and change.  There's not so much to be done with the first two reasons, but that last one is within each person's power to control and steer into a more interesting and meaningful direction... 

On This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

On this national American holiday commemorating the birthday of our great civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr....this year it actually does fall on his birthday, I pause to reflect on the progress of the struggle he inspired to fight bigotry and promote creative altruism and diversity in our society.  There's certainly a very long way to go in this regard and yes, there's been progress as well.  King emphasized the need for love and non-violence as people stand up not only for themselves but for others as well who they see persecuted for the color of their skin.  Forgiveness and reconciliation are the ways to progress here, and folks just need to stop getting defensive and fearful whenever something triggers those primitive responses in them.  Dr. King was also a vehement proponent of peace, asserting that war only breeds more wars.  Unfortunately, scapegoating those "other people" and rationalizing one's own country's aggressive military adventures have continued to be traits common to huge sections of the human population across the globe, not just in the nations we ostracize and/or sanction for being "naughty" or "evil".  A good look in the mirror might do some wonders here, but folks...other than rare jewels like Martin Luther King, Jr....just see what they want to see...

Quote of the Week...from Albert Einstein

Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.          ---Albert Einstein

Quotes by the great physicist Albert Einstein have often appeared on this blog...I had to go back to make sure I hadn't yet used this one.  There are many different ways to tackle today's quote: since we're entering a national-level election year in which the next US president will be chosen and the Congress is up for grabs, I thought I might steer that way today. A few years ago, I wrote an article here in which I threw out a challenge for those not only entrenched in their political beliefs but also who felt strongly about a politician or opinion maker, either positively or negatively.  It was simply this: if you're strongly "pro" about a political idea or person, take a few minutes to come up with the other side...the same goes if you're strongly "con".  One of my readers, a strong Trump supporter, answered in a comment that no, he simply could not come up with anything negative to say about his hero.  And that, my friends, is how you go about throwing away the truth, for no one is perfect and no one is above criticism.  If you tailor your news watching/listening to only the stations that espouse your own established predilections, then you are selecting your own authority as well.  Republicans in this vein will go to FoxNews for their "truth" while Democrats tend to file over to MSNBC for their "authoritative" slant on the news.  I will say this: from my perspective, whether you're on the political left or right with your beliefs, you need to step back a bit from the passion and manipulation being perpetrated on you by the media with your consent.  Stand up for what you believe in, sure, but don't automatically demonize the opposition or their views...instead, learn to discern, that is, filter out the valid points from the crap and separate the person from their message.  Not that anything I just wrote will happen: I just see more of this self-deceitful blind belief in authority just ratcheting up in the year to come...and beyond, sad to say... 

People and Happiness: Not Synonymous

A few weeks ago, I discussed a "Goth Kid" quote from the cartoon series South Park.  The Goth Kids embrace that alternative culture complete with black clothes and idiosyncratically gloomy music while smoking, drinking coffee and talking about bad everything is.  Well, I had to check myself to see how Goth I was...at least from the South Park writers' perspective: "yes" on black clothes, gloomy music and coffee, "no" on smoking and "sometimes" on running down what's going on around me and in the world. I think a lot of so-called "self-help" gurus out there, religious preachy-types and unapologetic extroverts tend to confuse being down on people and society with being down on life. But you can be highly critical and even cynical about people and society while at the same time thoroughly enjoying life: those Goth Kids seem to dig their own scene! I am tired of those who think I'm unwillingly in some kind of shell that they need to crack in order to expose me to the company of all the annoying, problematic people that they feel will bring me real happiness.  But truth be told, I'm already pretty happy, thank you, and for the most part hanging around a lot of folks tends to drain me mentally and emotionally while elevating my anxiety. On the other hand, I've always enjoyed good one-on-one conversations, so go figure. People and happiness, for me, are neither synonyms nor antonyms...they're completely different concepts and if the former piss me off from time to time I'm gonna call it like it is, whether I'm "Goth" or not...

Does AI Pose a Future Threat to Us?

In a 1950s futuristic series of novels and short stories, science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote that robots were specifically designed with the imprinted program to never intentionally harm humans or to passively allow such harm to befall them.  In spite of this, in his version of our future, society became suspicious of them and eventually banned them from fear of being dominated by what we now would call artificial intelligence, or AI.  In subsequent decades, though, as computer systems...as opposed to individual units called robots...were more quickly and highly developed in the real world, science fiction turned its attention to supercomputers and the imagined threats they might pose to humanity.  In particular, with regard to my own television viewing experiences as a kid, the original Star Trek series episode The Ultimate Computer, in which a sophisticated computer imprinted with a human personality is installed and independently steers the Enterprise into war, was an early exposure to real fears developing about digital technology running amuck.  Then there was the 1970 TV movie Colossus: The Forbin Project...based on a 1966 novel by D.F. Jones...in which an American supercomputer, designed to defend the country and prevent nuclear war, itself takes over the world and uses the arsenals to establish its power.  Several other movies would ensue, to me the most notables being The Terminator and The Matrix, presenting nightmare scenarios as human beings fight for their very right to exist in the face of uncontrolled AI dominating the planet.  Returning to reality in 2023, it seems to me that only within the last few months have we seen an exponential development of artificial intelligence, and the internet connects it all together.  Major software and internet corporations like Google and Facebook liberally use AI to run their algorithms...I believe one of these erroneously booted a recent compliant post of mine off the latter as no real person would have made such a decision.  I recently checked out YouTube and there are a number of folks raising the alarm about AI being out of control, with a bleak future ahead for us all.  I just checked out a book on my library's Libby app by one of those voices, Mo Gawdat...I'll share some of my insights after I've read it.  Is all this negativity about artificial intelligence like the unfounded public fears expressed in Asimov's earlier novels, or do we have a much more ominous future in store that reflects scenarios like Colossus, Terminator or Matrix?  I don't know yet...maybe I never will...but my gut feeling tells me that the answer lies somewhere in the middle...

Looking (and Laughing) at Ridiculous Trends of the Past...and the Present

Sometimes people post old pictures of themselves and their buddies on my high school nostalgia website.  Everyone...especially the boys...has long, long hair that's screaming for professional style haircuts.  And those sad omnipresent bell-bottom jeans: give me a break! I don't know of anyone back then in the early seventies who deliberately preferred, on their own initiative, this style of clothing.  No, it was something that the fashion industry imposed on the population and one day, that's all people had to choose from...at least that's the way I remember it.  In any event, I think everyone looks kind of dopey in those old pics, and it's largely because they were following the herd mentality in trying to fit in and look like everyone else.  Don't think that I'm letting our present time off the hook.  Nowadays the "in" public appearance revolves around carrying one's cell smartphone in the hand, spending inordinate time looking down at it instead of paying attention to their ongoing surroundings and situations.  I know this because I regularly drive to work here in Gainesville down US-441 past the University of Florida, midday when the students are flooding the sidewalks with their presence.  Students who walking in couples or groups don't stare at the phones, but a large percentage of the "singletons" just go walking down the sidewalks...even crossing busy streets...with their eyes glued to their object, even when the sun is glaring down on them making actually seeing anything at least theoretically impossible.  I couldn't do that simply because I'm afraid I'd trip on something and fall on my ass...these kids must have an inner gyroscope guiding their motions!  I'm speaking from 1973 to 2023 here, but what will be it like fifty more years in the future, in 2073, when these very students are old fogies like me and are themselves observers of the passing scene: how will the inevitable changes manifest themselves?  I don't see this smartphone culture as static in the least.  Cyber technology will become more internalized and private, to the point I think that folks from the future will be laughing at images of these people stuck on their phones today.  In that sense I'm already way ahead of my own time.  On the other hand, those 2073 folks may be laughing at stuff they see from 2023 that I think is perfectly normal...