Deviant Rambling

  • “That’s not what he meant.”

    Over the weekend, during a rally, a would-be emperor said that everyone needs to get out and vote just this one time. He said that things were going to get fixed over the next four years so they wouldn’t need to worry about voting again.

    I read this remark as the obvious threat to democracy that it is. Another in a long series of off-hand comments that the man has made that belie his true intentions. It isn’t even hard to see where he is going with that, and if you look at all, you’ll see that he telegraphs his next moves all of the time. He tells you exactly what he intends to do and then he does it. This would be an admirable quality if it were attached to a human being with even a modest amount of decency, but he isn’t any of that. He craves power for its own sake and will stop at nothing to achieve it.

    The right mobilized immediately to defend the comments as harmless, trying to contextualize a statement that was a complete thought that didn’t need framing. The man wants to be in the White House until the day he dies, and he wants to put his family in it for good so the power outlives him but remains in his name.

    Bombastic rhetoric aside, if you remove all of the inflection from the statement and read it in an objective way, what does it sound like to you? To me it sounds like he wants to reorganize power to favor the executive branch doing whatever it wants, whenever it wants, so long as he remains in power.

    You know, like a dictator might.

    July 29, 2024
  • Social security.

    I found myself in a discussion about personal finance earlier and we made our way to the topic of Social Security. During the course of the conversation, my beautiful and incomparable lady love simply illustrated the importance of the program and how it effectively works.

    People who are working right now are making contributions to the massive pool of funds that make up Social Security. The department responsible for handing out the checks takes money from the current pool to pay recipients who made sufficient contributions in the past to collect now. So the people who are working now are not investing in their own fund, per say, rather, they are helping to keep the elderly and disabled of the country afloat in the present. The social contract is that in the future, there will still be a fund, and the younger people of that generation will continue to work and contribute, making it available to our generation at that time. It is, as the base, one of our most socialist programs, and part of what makes us truly special.

    But it’s also one of the first things on the chopping block literally every time a discussion about fiscal responsibility comes up at the federal level. Every one of these schmucks ran their campaign saying that they would protect this crucial program, but the second shit gets tight, they are sharpening their blades and eyeing vital organs.

    Social Security has existed since 1937 and during my adult lifetime it has stood as a pillar of what all of this “hard work” was really for. You put in the time so that later in life, you can enjoy literal security in the form of a monthly stipend.

    But one of these times, the calls for cuts will put the program in danger of becoming completely unviable and eventually the pool dries up and it ends. When I started working out of high school, I couldn’t even imagine this happening. It didn’t come up because there was no way such a shift could occur.

    And then:

    9/11.

    The Dot Com bust.

    2008.

    COVID-19.

    Hyper inflation and what might be permanent changes to housing affordability.

    (Enter next world-shattering event.)

    Alongside all of these devastating events, I saw the increasing threats to gut Social Security to make up for budgetary shortfalls. And more and more I see a real possibility that the program will dry up and die in my lifetime, ahead of when I might stand to collect from it. That leaves a person feeling insecure and not especially social.

    July 26, 2024
  • Not ringing any bells.

    Just got an email from a prospective gig that greeted me by name and as though I had applied for a position with them but it isn’t really ringing any bells. It seems like a decent enough gig, posting social media and website stuff, but it also feels like a cold pitch to try and get me to subscribe to something in the hopes of getting gigs.

    Believe it or not, there are entire websites that lure people in with the prospects of consistent, lucrative gigs, as long as you are willing to pay a monthly fee to have access to their job board. There are enough outside, impartial reviews of these places to show them for the scam that they are, or how truly ludicrous your acceptable pay rates have to be for consistency. Sure, they can get you some work, but you’ll have to be willing to do it for next to nothing.

    There are entire countries that can serve as living content farms and will work for a few dollars a day, but I’m not in one of those and value my time way too much to give it away for that little. I respect the people who churn out garbage for slave wages all the same, though. What they are doing is exactly what I’m doing, but their lives are so necessarily different that they can afford to take the pennies on offer. There are times that I churn out what I consider to be garbage for a fair rate and I can’t help but feel like I’m getting away with something in the process. I wonder if people in other countries feel the same way when they create? Some things feel like they are universal and that seems like a natural candidate to me.

    I responded to the email and asked where/when I applied for this position to refresh my memory and to see if it’s legit. If it seems like it might be I’ll see if it leads anywhere as a way to add a revenue stream to my work load. Fingers crossed but I’m not holding my breath.

    July 25, 2024
  • Storytellers.

    Over the weekend we had a party for my lady love’s birthday and it was hours of good fun with agreeable company. We did well to steer clear of the minefields of politics and religion and the rest is history. General revelry gave way to various levels of intoxicated storytelling, and it reminded me the importance of good stories.

    Sure there were dead ends, and people who had to be drawn out of their shells. But there were also tales from the past that had the crowd rolling with laughter and paying genuine attention. We were all present and accounted for, simply enjoying the admittedly mixed company we had invited.

    Any time you host a gathering involving different groups of friends, you feel an anxiety welling up as the date approaches. Or in my case, I felt this welling as a byproduct of someone else’s anxiety. People from different towns and even states were present, all with completely different lives, so it can be awkward at first as guests get their bearings. Once these jitters have passed and everyone’s good and loose, we all got to learn about one another in a relaxed and enjoyable environment.

    Stories were shared, and new friendships formed alongside the strengthening of old bonds. We helped to facilitate this and all of the work we put into the event proved worth it in the end.

    The importance of times like these is not lost on me, I took note of the energy I experienced and felt satisfied that everyone enjoyed themselves. Having said that, we will probably never do it again without a major cause for celebration. It was a ton of work and weeks of nervous energy with nowhere to aim but at one another, which is counterproductive for the other 364 days of the year.

    July 24, 2024
  • What a week.

    The past week has been an absolute blur here and it seems like everywhere else, too.

    I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the elephant in the room that is Biden officially dropping out of the race for president and supporting Kamala Harris to be the nominee. Over the past few years, I had growing suspicions that Biden’s mental health was in decline and that the party was doing everything in their power to keep that quiet. After seeing an increasing amount of gaffes this year and a truly disastrous debate performance, the party finally spoke up and started urging Biden to end his campaign.

    Mercifully, Biden made the most difficult decision of his political career and did as he was asked (or told, depending on who it was). It was an act of bravery the likes of which most of us will never have to perform, and for that, he has my respect. But on the flip side of that coin is the fact that the party could have spent the past four years elevating an appropriate candidate that would win against Trump by default. Now they are scrambling to mount a campaign for the de facto and soon-to-be anointed nominee Harris, having about four MONTHS to achieve what takes years.

    The whole thing is a complete fucking circus and it has only bolstered my opinions about opting out of American politics entirely in the only way I can. I will not be voting again. With my limited knowledge of the inner workings of our system of government, I can see plainly that the popular vote means nothing. A democrat has won the last four elections by that metric, with one giant orange smear in 2016 when Trump won the election despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million. The electoral college makes the decision based loosely on the way the people voted, but they have the authority to go whichever way they like. That is exactly what happened in 2016, and historically speaking, it was a big deal. Through a little Google-fu, I’ve looked into this and discovered that this has only happened five times since our inception as a nation. And of all of the times for the fifth instance to occur, it had to be when the country had been divided at it’s worst, and broke in favor of a candidate who has become a stain on our legacy as a great nation.

    Now we have candidate Harris, who could break every record worth noting if she wins. I want nothing more than for her to win and drive home the message that women deserve a seat at every table because we need to move past this insane notion that they are somehow less than men. I am afraid we aren’t there as a country and in the event that she loses, women will suffer a backlash because the alternative is a sexist, xenophobic, demagogue. Further more, if he wins, I can foresee the end of American democracy in short order. If either party achieves a majority in Congress alongside the presidency, it is a chance for them to shape policy for decades, for better or worse.

    If the Republican party of today achieves this, they will create a system that benefits predominantly wealthy white men and ensures they will stay in power for as long as possible. I can see a truly dark time in our country if this becomes the case, one where it’s not impossible to imagination our past coming back to harm us in the form of increased racial and politically motivated violence.

    If the Democratic party of today achieves this, they will run the country straight into bankruptcy under the guise of doing the most good for the greatest number of people. Necessary but liberal social spending will cause us to have to start printing money and the myriad pitfalls of this strategy will become painfully obvious during our freefall into another depression.

    Neither party is fit to lead, but we can only seem to operate with all or nothing logic here. Compromise went out the window decades ago, and what used to be an occasional news item about the goings on in Washington is now 99% of the news coverage. We can all see that they just want to argue and get paid to do it, but instead of burning the whole thing down, we choose a side and hurl blame because it’s all we can hope to do to help. The blame is meaningless and so is the arguing.

    I have zero faith in a positive outcome during this election cycle, and having spent the last few cycles sick to my stomach casting my vote, I have decided this is a sickness I can avoid. Fuck both of these candidates and our government in general, I’m out.

    Of much more pressing concern were the events happening on the home front. We hosted a gathering the past weekend and had over around a dozen people, so weeks and months of preparation culminated at long last in a successful and fun evening. By the time the weekend was over, I was completely and utterly drained and hadn’t slept well either, leading to a Sunday full of naps and recovery. The very next day, family from out of state was visiting and I spent two days preparing meals for everyone and genuinely being involved in conversations. It was all at once energizing and depleting, and I have found my stores of social energy once again near the bottom.

    We have a few days of nothing happening now and I’m grateful for the reset, but I can still sense that things are off all around. I know I’m still recovering so I’ll chalk it up to that and take my rest as it comes.

    July 24, 2024
  • Eccentricity.

    I have never felt as though I belong in this world.

    It isn’t a statement of contempt for the state of things, but rather an implicit understanding that I don’t see things the way other people do. It isn’t to express my desire to leave this world behind either, at least not in the final, mortal sense.

    Instead, it is to say that when I consider what motivates the average person, I find myself thoroughly confused. This has always been the case for me and I can remember feeling out of place as a child no matter where my parents tried to place me. Whether it was in sports, or in clubs, or through a spiritual community at one of a few different denominations of the same watered down Christianity, there I was, in my own little world wondering what all of these people were doing in it. I was perfectly content playing by myself, first with toys, then with video games, and much later, at projects around the property.

    I learned early on in life that I can play well with others, but I simply preferred my own company most of the time. If I’m the stuff of the universe, and there was an infinite stretch of time before I arrived, then I have everything I need inside of me to stay entertained and maybe even happy forever.

    It is only as I’ve grown older that I have come to understand that relationships are a cornerstone to living a fulfilling life. We all inherit this basic understanding as part of our birthright as social creatures, but it is only through familial and societal integration that we come to realize exactly how important it is. Having spent all of my non-adventure time immersed in this particular location in the world, the forces meant to inform me could have turned me into a cynical, closed-minded person. Instead, I remained open to the experiences of those I didn’t know or understand, and it became a desire to meet as many of them as possible and add to my level of cultural understanding. I feel as though I can speak definitively on what it is like to be an outsider in my own community, feeling as if all of my beliefs are counter to the norms I was raised around. Thanks to my incredible luck and to the character of my parents, I wound up with a set of beliefs about right and wrong that are generally sound. Where we disagreed, it was rarely contentious, and if it got to such a level, it was short-lived and ended with a proclamation of our love anyway. Because of this, I rarely find myself mired in argument for the sake of it, and I do my level best to give others the benefit of the doubt and room to speak. I have two ears and I use them to the best of their aging ability.

    The world as I see it is a rich tapestry, far from the black and white that is reported through media sources. The nuances contained in any given day could fill a volume in their own right, and when taken in concert, given life an unbelievable depth. I have seen this depth from the shallows and as I’ve moved along in years, find myself in deeper and deeper waters. I can’t help but gaze backward and see that less of us are out here where the tangible world meets the infinite one on the horizon. The shore is absolutely littered with most of us, vying for a spot in the crowd, jockeying for the best ways to fit in. I cringe at the thought and push myself further into the unknown to seek wisdom from the endless supply the universe has to offer.

    I can’t remember exactly when, but at some point, I made a conscious decision to extricate myself from concerns of fitting in. I am not the same as anyone else, save for the ways we are all identical in our mortality and general frailty as creatures, susceptible to any number of ills and injuries.

    My experience has not suffered for this decision, and I believe it to be central to the reason I can read people fairly well. I learned to become an observer of behavior, and in doing so, allowed people to tell me who they were without a word. This can act as an almost 6th sense, allowing me to cut through what a person says and establish their intentions from the start. It has also prevented me from meeting as many people and learning as much as I can about others, because if alarms raise, I will remove myself out of self-preservation. My time is precious to me and I value it higher than anything. If I perceive someone threatens to steal any of it away through action or lack thereof, I immediately seek to remedy the situation by leaving. Nuance is lost in the transaction, and what may have been a perfectly acceptable interaction gets lost in the storage of my mind or discarded entirely.

    Now I live in a world that is as connected as it has ever been and shows no signs of slowing in that direction. But I see this connection as weak when compared to any genuine form like an in-person conversation with a friend or loved one. The way we communicate reflects what we have become as a species, and the specifics reflect what is accepted in our society of choice. In that regard, I believe we have become shallow, incapable of giving proper respect to tried and true methods of communication. We can easily hide behind the anonymity provided by the internet and use it as a shield or a weapon, depending on our proclivities. People will wrap up a substantial portion of their time in this kind of meaningless, sophomoric arguing with strangers on the internet for no other reason than to be right. I observe this kind of thing almost daily because it is unavoidable, and I can’t find my way to any kind of understanding. There is no world where this kind of “No, you!” back and forth is productive, and more often than not, it is being weaponized by one side or the other to try and do real, lasting harm. Words aren’t meant to be able to do any real harm, but if they are used enough times, they can become sharp enough to pierce any armor.

    And I’ve seen the internet become a kind of lawless hellscape, where one comment can end your career or cause someone to kill themselves. They seem like extreme examples but with a few short keystrokes, you can cause some demonstrable, life-altering harm to yourself or others. I am not sure it was intended to be such a place, but our intentions are laid bare as more of us are connected and contribute to the ever-changing landscape. I still believe in the general goodness of people and when push comes to shove in real life, see more good than bad behavior, but what passes for polite society has shifted a great deal in the past decade.

    Some of this is to be expected, as the proliferation of information has increased exponentially, the ugly head of misinformation has reared as well. People are left to figure out what they believe on their own, and there are powerful interests that hope to help us all figure out what we should believe. It remains on all of us as individuals to discern what we believe to be true, but it is also up to us to remain open to the possibility that we are wrong and that new information should help inform us how to proceed. New information doesn’t do that any more. People entrench themselves in the first belief they can find that resonates with them and refuse to accept information to the contrary. This can be used by the aforementioned interests to control large swaths of the population, influencing what people do with their time and how they spend money. Yet we all feel as though we have complete autonomy over these things, when nothing could be further from the truth. What we do control is how much of this influence we allow to be in our perception in the first place.

    I have spent a truly embarrassing amount of years plugged into the news cycle watching doom and gloom unfold. This is time that I will never get back, and that I can see now was only negative in scope. Sensationalism sells papers (and clicks in the modern economy) but it isn’t what the world really looks like. The large-scale, world-ending dramas being sold by network television are just a narrative, not reality. After you’ve seen this narrative objectively and determined what each side is trying to communicate, you can safely disconnect and be better off for it. It has been used in recent years to pit us against one another and narrow our minds to the point that we feel genuine animosity toward someone based on such meaningless things as identity politics. We decide which team we are on and get to work trying to beat the other team but this is an endless, pointless contest. None of us gets out of this alive and yet we spend what precious time we do have arguing over things that don’t matter. We listen for orders from our leaders, but there are none to be found.

    “It’s us versus them!” The cry of the leadership intent on controlling us all, knowing damn well that it should be taken literally. If we ever stopped fighting one another, we would see that “We the People” doesn’t include the ones we elect to keep it all running smoothly. The politicians remain insulated from any real danger because we gave them entirely too much power and almost no way to stop them from running the whole thing into the ground. When they inevitably tank the whole thing, they blame the opposition and shirk responsibility entirely. They then use this rhetoric to convince their constituents to keep them in power for as long as possible to keep fighting the imaginary good fight. And so on to the ends of democracy, with all of us serving as fodder to line the bloody fields.

    I have found it difficult to remove myself from this, but the freedom I experience from doing so is indescribable. I can once again give others the benefit of the doubt, and I haven’t felt that in years.

    July 10, 2024
  • A history of rambling.

    In the early 2000s, I began to cut my teeth as a would-be wordsmith and armchair philosopher when I created a rather lengthy, meandering work on my general observations of the world as I had come to see it. I referred to it as a manifesto but have since distanced myself from using that word because it is often included as evidence in criminal trials of certifiable sociopaths with body counts.

    The word itself is harmless, though, and I feel it is time that I consider wrangling it back to the center as it is described in simple terms. A manifesto is simply a written document to expound upon the guiding principles of a group or in this instance a person.

    The manifesto of my youth contained many of the principles I continue to hold sacrosanct, but having long-since lost the full content of the post, I’m left to piece together what I can recall. Having lived through additional decades, I feel as though I have further polished this living document to account for the many twists and turns of my own life and that of the world at large. As a living document, I continue to make minor adjustments as time goes on and my perceptions change but the thrust remains true in form and direction.

    In order to honor the person I was in the past, and grow in my understanding, I will attempt to recreate this document to suit the world I find myself occupying in 2024. There is so much ground to cover and there feels like no better time than the present to begin.

    This will take the form of a series of articles that form the backbone of my philosophy. They will not necessarily form a linear progression, and must be taken as a whole and complete work. As with so much of my work, there will be order under a healthy layer of the chaotic fire used to forge me in every passage.

    To maintain some semblance of order, I’ll post these items under their own category for easier sorting and consumption. It will take however long it takes, because I want it to be complete.

    July 9, 2024
  • Does a philosopher need a degree?

    As I have spent a little time delving into philosophy and the greater questions of what life is generally about, it has made me wonder about more than a few things. One that keeps coming up is whether or not a philosopher needs a degree to be recognized as such.

    I want to pursue knowledge for it’s own sake, and I’m perfectly happy to dedicate a substantial portion of my time to do so. But I really don’t want to go through the formal education system, spend 10s of thousands of dollars, and have what is widely considered to be a useless degree. I seek the wisdom of those who have walked this well-trodden path before me, and I hope to make meaningful contributions to the endless discussion about our place in the universe.

    As it stands, I consider myself a generalist, with a growing appreciation for certain philosophical schools. The Greek philosophers in both the Epicurean and Stoic traditions have written so beautifully about what it means to live a good life, and they both interest me greatly for different reasons. There is just so much to learn and so many different directions I could go that I am spoiled for choice and excited at all of the possibilities. I have really dug into both of these schools of thought and I will use this as a foundation for further study. I am sure that some areas of philosophy will bore me to tears, but I mustn’t dismiss them without a proper study.

    If my time is going to be dedicated to anything, let it be the pursuit of knowledge so that I may share in this timeless tradition.

    July 9, 2024
  • An out of place hurricane.

    Beryl made landfall in Texas sometime this weekend and now it is on a track to hit us square with buckets of rain. We will go from needing rain to wishing it will go away in the next couple of days, with forecasts putting the amount anywhere between 1 to 3 inches. For this time of year, that is a ludicrous amount of rain for a month, let alone two days.

    Our dying grass and garden projects will rejoice and then cry out for mercy, and we will only be able to sit and watch as it happens. We remain powerless against these forces as it must be our lot in life.

    I am glad to see the green popping back out but I hope everyone stays safe and sound through the bulk of it.

    July 9, 2024
  • The irony of money.

    I once again feel the pinch of not having quite enough money in the bank, and having to do my work just to alleviate this feeling makes me want to just abandon the whole project and go live in the woods. It takes the joy out of writing to know I am on a self-imposed deadline to get it done.

    I have to complete the assignment I have to get just enough to squeak by, again, and that makes me want to ignore it and let the whole thing implode. But I know I alone will be left to clean up my own mess, so it would just result in more work in an increasingly agitated state.

    I hate everything today and it is because of the need for money, and I realize that if I just got enough to cover costs my mood would immediately improve. What is the point of all of this drowning, recovering, and drowning all over again? I’ve yet to find an answer that makes any sense.

    July 5, 2024
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Deviant Rambling

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