When I sit down to make a decision, the thought "What would be the best for me" isn't always at the top of the list. Often it comes down to "What would my family think", "How would my family feel" "how would my parents react". Yeah I know these are a bit strange for a 27 year old man to have, but my family are still factored into my decisions.
When I say family I naturally mean my parents, grandparents, siblings and so on, not a wife and kids. In my Supertramp post I talk a little bit about the "wish for adventure" that every young man has, its kind of grown into us through the stories we read. Me, I grew up on "The Hardy Boys", "Bill and Ben", "Morgan Kane". I read other books like the futuristic stories of Jules Verne, I'm not going to list them because I don't know the English titles of all of them. "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. I still on occasion have dreams of discovery, and adventure, sure not in the exact same way as when I was 10ish but the urge is similar.
Society isn't equipped for this anymore though, for most their great adventure is a 2 - 3 month trip spent backpacking in Europe. Think about a 15 year old boy/man signing on a ship to sail to Asia, America, Africa about 30 - 40 years ago in Norway this was almost commonplace.
The dream of the great white north, for Supertramp, regardless of his mental state at the time (I think he was in the middle of a serious psychological breakdown) was something alien to him, that should be so much nearer to us.
The more technologically advanced we get, the further away from our nature do we go, the more "subdued" our instincts become. Now I'm not saying that everyone needs to strip nekkid and run into the woods, I'm saying that the urge to explore the unknown is human. The need to discover new things is human, but they do not fit into todays society as much. "A High school diploma is the key to the future" oh wait its useless since you pretty much need a bachelor these days, oh wait no maybe a Master.
Sure there are stories of some guy dropping out at 15 and then becoming a multimillionaire but those are rather rare. The level of education leads to people getting out into life later, with more student loans, more responsibilities and so on.
When a person spends from age 6 - 18 in school, then becomes "an adult" and passes into 3 - 4 years of college, then perhaps graduate studies, and a person is in their late 20s before they finish their schooling. At this point the pressure to find a significant other and procreate increases because after all "By the time I was x I had 3 kids".
Sure its possible to have kids until you die as a man but quite frankly I would like to be young enough to still actively take part in my children's life.
I don't want to be the grayhaired dad with the potbelly stretched out beyond the bleachers, who goes out of breath screaming at the ref. Or the guy sitting halfway down the slope drinking hot chocolate while his kids are having the time of their life.
But by the time I have children if I do, I would like to have things relatively well set up for them to be born. I'd like my life to be stable, to have the financial means and time to be there in their lives, and not some dad who has to spend 60 - 80 hours a week at work.
So if I finish school at 27, get a job right away, it will take a few years before I can build up the financial "power" to build or buy a home big enough for my future family. I also need to find a suitable mate, and make sure that relationship is suitable for a child. So time is of the essence if you're looking to sort everything out.
Now sure thinking that far ahead is just distracting, but for someone getting bombarded by suggestion every day, from parents, media, society and so on its a whirlwind of WTF. So many expectations, so many thoughts and options, so little time.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Mental health and modern life
Despite all the progress of modern life, there are a few things that still carry heavy stigma. You can be gay, a tranny, you can be a flaky bohemian, provided you don't have mental health problems. You see despite our progress, mental illness still carries a heavy stigma.
The thing is people with mental health problems can still make huge contributions to humanity as a species. The story of John Forbes Nash is an example, despite the producers and writers of "A Beautiful Mind" taking huge liberties with the story, it does show that a person with mental illness can make a huge difference in their field.
The truth is that a lot of people currently living in our modern world could use a few hours to a few months on a therapists couch, I've even spent some time there.
All of us, rich or poor, smart or dumb, tall or short, thin and fat, from every religion, every walk of life could benefit from a little while of self exploration, and having a professional as a mirror, or as a magnifying glass. It's very interesting how even the most down to earth of us have issues that bubble to the surface once in a while.
Van Gogh without a doubt had some issues, Einstein the same, Napoleon, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy. All of them clearly disturbed on some level. Greatness requires that one is disturbed to a certain level, in order to obtain the vision of what one seeks to do. Why do you think so many of our prime artists have died to drugs in the last 30 years, some of them great while alive some not appreciated until after their death?
I think that in order to create something great one has to be a little bit crazy. Not Norman Bates in psycho crazy, but a few connections in your head need to be a little different.
The thing is people with mental health problems can still make huge contributions to humanity as a species. The story of John Forbes Nash is an example, despite the producers and writers of "A Beautiful Mind" taking huge liberties with the story, it does show that a person with mental illness can make a huge difference in their field.
The truth is that a lot of people currently living in our modern world could use a few hours to a few months on a therapists couch, I've even spent some time there.
All of us, rich or poor, smart or dumb, tall or short, thin and fat, from every religion, every walk of life could benefit from a little while of self exploration, and having a professional as a mirror, or as a magnifying glass. It's very interesting how even the most down to earth of us have issues that bubble to the surface once in a while.
Van Gogh without a doubt had some issues, Einstein the same, Napoleon, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy. All of them clearly disturbed on some level. Greatness requires that one is disturbed to a certain level, in order to obtain the vision of what one seeks to do. Why do you think so many of our prime artists have died to drugs in the last 30 years, some of them great while alive some not appreciated until after their death?
I think that in order to create something great one has to be a little bit crazy. Not Norman Bates in psycho crazy, but a few connections in your head need to be a little different.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The Supertramp
I recently learned the story of Christopher McCandless and while I do understand his need to search for something beyond the fairly easy life of the 21st century, some things are a bit weird. The need to go back in time is something I've dreamed of quite frequently. Not because I think it was a simpler life, but because I think the modern world tend to throw a bit too much at us. Life in the older times was more about primary survival needs than luxury goods and cravings for things we don't need. So living off the land and separating oneself from being owned by possessions is noble, I wouldn't want to go without most of my shit thought.
However at some point you have to take a look at what is idealism and what is just plain stupid. McCandless or Alexander Supertramp as he called himself on his journey, went into the Alaskan wilderness with a .22 calliber rifle, 400 rounds of hollowpoints and 10 lbs of rice.
No map, no compass, no axe, no decent knife. At the very least anyone heading "into the wild" should bring sufficient equipment. Now for the shotbus fuckers that means; Knife, first aid kit, axe, sharpening stone/iron, clothes suited for the climate and clothing repair kit, a flint or another reliable tool to make a fire. Weapon (s) suitable for what he or she may come across. This means that in an area where you may run into this fellow you might want to bring something with a bit more punch than this peashooter. Shooting a grizzly with that is the equivalent of shooting Fat Albert at 20 paces with a BB gun. Unless you get a direct eye hit that bear will keep coming at you, and now he/she is pissed!
Maybe something like a proper hunting rifle and a second rifle for small game, perhaps a fishing pole or some form of nets since the rivers tend to have quite a bit of fish in them, you know in case you get hungry. I mean you wouldn't want to starve to death right by a river full of fish, after you try to preserve meat in a way unsuited for the area in effect spoiling it.
Am I calling Chris McCandless a moron, I guess I am. Sure he's portrayed as someone who rejected the life his parents wanted for him, he's not the first nor will he be the last to do that. In the movie we get a picture of charming, intelligent young man, and I'm sure he was. however he cannot possibly have been of sound mind when he went into the wild.
At one point his behavior started to show way to many signs of being reckless rather than on an adventure. I might feel this way since I've grown up among people who frequently go into nature to hunt, fish and whatever else they feel like. None of them would voluntarily go into the wilderness unprepared. My uncle who used to spend weeks in the mountains hunting would do laps where he placed dry goods depots around where he would be hunting later, so that if shit happens he knew where he could find food.
Now am I saying that people shouldn't try to live off the land for long periods of time? No I'm not, I'm saying that if you insist on doing this shit, prepare first. Get a map, get a compass, you don't have to look at either, just have them with you. Spend a little time speaking to people who are used to living in the same type of terrain, the best ways to preserve meat isn't always the same.
Get a fucking first aid kit, with a few bandages and such. Even the great adventurers of history didn't go out completely unprepared. If Christopher Columbus had done what Supertramp did he would have sunk before he left harbor. If Lewis and Clark pulled this shit they would have died before hitting the halfway mark.
Being an adventurer isn't the same as being reckless and having no regard for your own life.
However at some point you have to take a look at what is idealism and what is just plain stupid. McCandless or Alexander Supertramp as he called himself on his journey, went into the Alaskan wilderness with a .22 calliber rifle, 400 rounds of hollowpoints and 10 lbs of rice.
No map, no compass, no axe, no decent knife. At the very least anyone heading "into the wild" should bring sufficient equipment. Now for the shotbus fuckers that means; Knife, first aid kit, axe, sharpening stone/iron, clothes suited for the climate and clothing repair kit, a flint or another reliable tool to make a fire. Weapon (s) suitable for what he or she may come across. This means that in an area where you may run into this fellow you might want to bring something with a bit more punch than this peashooter. Shooting a grizzly with that is the equivalent of shooting Fat Albert at 20 paces with a BB gun. Unless you get a direct eye hit that bear will keep coming at you, and now he/she is pissed!
Maybe something like a proper hunting rifle and a second rifle for small game, perhaps a fishing pole or some form of nets since the rivers tend to have quite a bit of fish in them, you know in case you get hungry. I mean you wouldn't want to starve to death right by a river full of fish, after you try to preserve meat in a way unsuited for the area in effect spoiling it.
Am I calling Chris McCandless a moron, I guess I am. Sure he's portrayed as someone who rejected the life his parents wanted for him, he's not the first nor will he be the last to do that. In the movie we get a picture of charming, intelligent young man, and I'm sure he was. however he cannot possibly have been of sound mind when he went into the wild.
At one point his behavior started to show way to many signs of being reckless rather than on an adventure. I might feel this way since I've grown up among people who frequently go into nature to hunt, fish and whatever else they feel like. None of them would voluntarily go into the wilderness unprepared. My uncle who used to spend weeks in the mountains hunting would do laps where he placed dry goods depots around where he would be hunting later, so that if shit happens he knew where he could find food.
Now am I saying that people shouldn't try to live off the land for long periods of time? No I'm not, I'm saying that if you insist on doing this shit, prepare first. Get a map, get a compass, you don't have to look at either, just have them with you. Spend a little time speaking to people who are used to living in the same type of terrain, the best ways to preserve meat isn't always the same.
Get a fucking first aid kit, with a few bandages and such. Even the great adventurers of history didn't go out completely unprepared. If Christopher Columbus had done what Supertramp did he would have sunk before he left harbor. If Lewis and Clark pulled this shit they would have died before hitting the halfway mark.
Being an adventurer isn't the same as being reckless and having no regard for your own life.
This week's pick for Most entertaining show
The winner is NBC's "The Marriage ref" a semi reality show where celebrities and the host solves the silly squabbles couples get into. The couples are hysterical, the arguments even more so.
This week we have a guy who looks like a biker extra from Police Academy, or a drugdealer from Miami Vice with a love for waxing his harley and watching Mariah Carey.
A husband who's bitch doesn't like his dog, because it keeps trying to eat her.
Finally a 37 year old white, businessman rapper known as "Krispy" who's wife wants to push her head into the sand rather than be seen with him in public.
This week we have a guy who looks like a biker extra from Police Academy, or a drugdealer from Miami Vice with a love for waxing his harley and watching Mariah Carey.
A husband who's bitch doesn't like his dog, because it keeps trying to eat her.
Finally a 37 year old white, businessman rapper known as "Krispy" who's wife wants to push her head into the sand rather than be seen with him in public.
When I sat down to write todays thoughts, I was psyched to do a take on religion in schools but I'm feeling a bit empty today in terms of writing about that issue. I don't really know what this ramble is going to end up being about. Quite frankly I can't think of anything I feel like sharing, there is a lot brewing beneath the surface but supreficial issues are starting to get boring.
I couldn't care less about religion in schools, gun control or half these issues just because to me they are not worth fighitng over and in the end draw away from the important issues.
To me the future is what is important, my future more than yours to be honest, but that's more or less because all people are self centered to a degree. Wanting your own genes to live is natural and so is doing everything you can to make that happen. However as we move along there are different ways to go about everything,.
Some people thrive in peace, some thrive on conflict, some fall outside the boundaries of society and as a result run off. There cannot be a place for everyone, because we're all a bit different. Sure we may fit into personality types as according to Jung, or be overly motivated by the sexual as according to Freud, or both but it's not just DNA, and electrical impulses or arbitrary boxes we place ourselves and others in.
But regardless of what boring subject I could bore the like 3 people who read this, I want to talk about TV. I fucking love TV, I was raised mostly by it, I spent quite a few years laying on the livingroom floor staring at the boob-tube. But lately I don't get to spend as much time with it as I used to, not that I don't have time, more that there isn't shit worth watching.
I mean sure there are shows I follow but 1 episode everyother week on average that lasts from 20 - 40 minutes isn't much. Especially when they decide to air 13 episodes then not air a single one for months. While I'm sitting waiting patiently for my SCRIPTED entertainment provided by decent ACTORS I have to watch a bunch of over the top, over the hill, and preferably 6 feet under housewives of new york. You know I don't give a shit how "real" they are, if I wanted to see how a housewife lives I'd go next door.
The only thing good that can have "housewife" or "housewives" in the title are porno movies.
Mike Rowe and "Dirty Jobs" was fun for a while, but quite frankly there are only so many times you can watch a dude be knee deep in manure or covered in grease. It's entertaining in a sort of "atleast my life doesn't suck that bad" sort of way, but still there isn't really anywhere to go after you've castrated bulls and cleaned out grease from a tank engine. If he wants me to keep watching, he better get himself set on fire. I mean Rowe has beaten this concept so hard that if it was a stingray it would have stabbed him in the chest by now.
American Truckers, American Choppers, American Pickers, Sure choppers was funny for a little bit, but only until you realized that a full on cagefight between SR and JR was never going to happen. However if something breaks out in court I have a 20 on Sr.
American Pickers, are you kidding me? The only thing that could make this show entertaining would be a show about a guy spending 13 hours a day in a fucking semi... oh wait.
It's not that I have issues with reality TV, I enjoyed "Jersey Shore" mostly because I wanted to watch Ronnie kick the shit out of "The situation" which never happened of course.It was entertaining in the same way watching a kid take a piss at an electric fence is funny, or watching retards fuck is funny.
It's that it's not entertaining, its not an escape from reality, it is ... reality! I watch movies, TV and play videogames to escape to reality and what's the point of that if I have to watch it?
I know networks love these shitty shows because they cost hardly anything to make and fill up airtime very nicely, especially since you get to easily plug crappy products during the action as well as during the commercials. It's the equivalent of having Jay Leno wear a Gatorade cap and Exxon mobile cap during his show, and a huge f'ing "MARLBORO" stucker on his chin.
But then they also air the same shitty sit-com plots that they have for the last 10 years. The bitchy wife and the lazy, clueless husband. The overly stressed wife and absent minded husband. The only manly guy in a sitcom is played by Neil Patrick Harris, who is a broadway acting openly gay man, who bleaches his fucking hair! They are either neurotic, overly sensitive, overly metrosexual, stupid, clueless or all of the above. The wife is usually a ballbusting bitch, who between emasculating her husband for wanting to not live in a pink barbie dreamhouse.
If sitcoms are any indication of what goes on in American life I understand fully why people cheat. Because they aren't getting laid at home.
I couldn't care less about religion in schools, gun control or half these issues just because to me they are not worth fighitng over and in the end draw away from the important issues.
To me the future is what is important, my future more than yours to be honest, but that's more or less because all people are self centered to a degree. Wanting your own genes to live is natural and so is doing everything you can to make that happen. However as we move along there are different ways to go about everything,.
Some people thrive in peace, some thrive on conflict, some fall outside the boundaries of society and as a result run off. There cannot be a place for everyone, because we're all a bit different. Sure we may fit into personality types as according to Jung, or be overly motivated by the sexual as according to Freud, or both but it's not just DNA, and electrical impulses or arbitrary boxes we place ourselves and others in.
But regardless of what boring subject I could bore the like 3 people who read this, I want to talk about TV. I fucking love TV, I was raised mostly by it, I spent quite a few years laying on the livingroom floor staring at the boob-tube. But lately I don't get to spend as much time with it as I used to, not that I don't have time, more that there isn't shit worth watching.
I mean sure there are shows I follow but 1 episode everyother week on average that lasts from 20 - 40 minutes isn't much. Especially when they decide to air 13 episodes then not air a single one for months. While I'm sitting waiting patiently for my SCRIPTED entertainment provided by decent ACTORS I have to watch a bunch of over the top, over the hill, and preferably 6 feet under housewives of new york. You know I don't give a shit how "real" they are, if I wanted to see how a housewife lives I'd go next door.
The only thing good that can have "housewife" or "housewives" in the title are porno movies.
Mike Rowe and "Dirty Jobs" was fun for a while, but quite frankly there are only so many times you can watch a dude be knee deep in manure or covered in grease. It's entertaining in a sort of "atleast my life doesn't suck that bad" sort of way, but still there isn't really anywhere to go after you've castrated bulls and cleaned out grease from a tank engine. If he wants me to keep watching, he better get himself set on fire. I mean Rowe has beaten this concept so hard that if it was a stingray it would have stabbed him in the chest by now.
American Truckers, American Choppers, American Pickers, Sure choppers was funny for a little bit, but only until you realized that a full on cagefight between SR and JR was never going to happen. However if something breaks out in court I have a 20 on Sr.
American Pickers, are you kidding me? The only thing that could make this show entertaining would be a show about a guy spending 13 hours a day in a fucking semi... oh wait.
It's not that I have issues with reality TV, I enjoyed "Jersey Shore" mostly because I wanted to watch Ronnie kick the shit out of "The situation" which never happened of course.It was entertaining in the same way watching a kid take a piss at an electric fence is funny, or watching retards fuck is funny.
It's that it's not entertaining, its not an escape from reality, it is ... reality! I watch movies, TV and play videogames to escape to reality and what's the point of that if I have to watch it?
I know networks love these shitty shows because they cost hardly anything to make and fill up airtime very nicely, especially since you get to easily plug crappy products during the action as well as during the commercials. It's the equivalent of having Jay Leno wear a Gatorade cap and Exxon mobile cap during his show, and a huge f'ing "MARLBORO" stucker on his chin.
But then they also air the same shitty sit-com plots that they have for the last 10 years. The bitchy wife and the lazy, clueless husband. The overly stressed wife and absent minded husband. The only manly guy in a sitcom is played by Neil Patrick Harris, who is a broadway acting openly gay man, who bleaches his fucking hair! They are either neurotic, overly sensitive, overly metrosexual, stupid, clueless or all of the above. The wife is usually a ballbusting bitch, who between emasculating her husband for wanting to not live in a pink barbie dreamhouse.
If sitcoms are any indication of what goes on in American life I understand fully why people cheat. Because they aren't getting laid at home.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Stupid issues: Gun Control
Gun control is a much debated issue but one that is pretty easy to solve. Of course there is the right to bear arms, but I somehow doubt that the founding fathers imagined people filling their basements and gun cabinets with fully automatic assault rifles and so on. Unless Aliens invade or something this seems rather pointless. I grew up around guns, I've got a hunting license and I've been shooting guns since I was about 7.
If I was to get weapons for home defense it would be 2 weapons. A nice scoped single action rifle, 10 shot magazine or so, loaded with hollow points.. The second one a shotgun, I'm thinking Mossberg 505, 12 gauge , with "magnum" shells.
My choices are rationalized as follows; The longer range single action rifle as my primary "ranged" weapon, and the shotgun as a close to medium range weapon. If a 3rd one was to be added I would go with an over/under (Rifle/shotgun combination weapon) with different ammunition. Probably 12g slugs or something along those lines.
The reasons for leaving out semi and full auto weapons is fairly simple.
1. They tend to be less accurate and thus lead to a higher ammunition consumption per target.
2. They tend to be overkill for most situations.
3. They are less "useful" in moderately trained hands.
My reason for leaving out handguns is even simpler. They are shit for home defense compared to a shotgun. If you are "defending" yourself inside a house, a relatively short barreled shotgun loaded with "magnum" shells or even regular 12g will turn most things into minced meat at close range.
You can also mount a bayonet on most Mossberg brand shotguns, making them into a rather effective melee weapon should it come to that.
Even for a smaller person such as a woman or small man, by going with a higher gauge shotgun such as a 20 gauge is also possible, this does result in a loss in stopping power of course, but I think the difference between a 12g and a 20g is fairly negligible in terms of destruction at 10 - 25m range.
With the exception of "urban" warfare or mass battles I really see little use for automatic weapons. Handguns make sense as "sidearms" for police, soldiers and so on because they are light, and in a lot of cases offer interchangeable ammo with submachine guns. Assault rifles are really a pure warfare weapon, in a situation where a group works together they make sense since their combined rate of fire create a field of destruction. In urban warefare it makes sense due to the frequent switches from close range to medium range combat in some cases even long range.
That's where the benefit of a weapon like an M16, or AK47 comes into play as they are fairly viable used at long range. Nowhere near a proper hunting rifle but usable. An M4 outfitted with a scope also somewhat fills this role, even though the shorter barrel compared to the M16 does hamper accuracy a little bit.
Since most "I need to defend my home" type activity tend to be stressful, adrenaline pumping action, where you don't really have a steady aim, and where you have to shoot another human being, the drawback of accuracy/ease of defense comes into play. A handgun is "easier" to deflect completely and the odds of missing are higher than with a cloud of pellets flying.
Magazine capacity doesn't really come into play at all, since I doubt that unless the crips are storming your crib you won't need a full magazine. Well situations like Jason Voorhies or Michael Myers showing up not withstanding.
It's also a bit harder for a small child to "play" with a full size rifle or shotgun, of course me not being a moron would prefer to keep the ammunition in a lockbox similar to this one just because I prefer the small children in my family not to be able to get live ammo!
Trust me on this, if you don't have 30 seconds to retrieve and load your weapon, you are most likely dead or immobilized already. The average person is not a highly trained operative who can more or less fire on instinct, hell most people who own a handgun for self defense have little to no training in using or maintaining it.
So here is how we "fix" the gun issue.
1. In order to purchase a gun you need to belong to a gun club, that owns or rents firing ranges.
2. In order to own a gun of any kind you need to have logged at least 40 hours on the firing range in the last 6 months, and have completed a course on weapon safety.
3. Weapons are to be kept separate from their ammunition at all times, so your gun can't be kept loaded under your pillow sorry.
4. Weapons can only be modified by licensed gunsmiths.
I think that's a good way to start, and lets get rid of concealed weapons permits while we're at it, if people want to be cowboys they can carry their gun on their hip.
If I was to get weapons for home defense it would be 2 weapons. A nice scoped single action rifle, 10 shot magazine or so, loaded with hollow points.. The second one a shotgun, I'm thinking Mossberg 505, 12 gauge , with "magnum" shells.
My choices are rationalized as follows; The longer range single action rifle as my primary "ranged" weapon, and the shotgun as a close to medium range weapon. If a 3rd one was to be added I would go with an over/under (Rifle/shotgun combination weapon) with different ammunition. Probably 12g slugs or something along those lines.
The reasons for leaving out semi and full auto weapons is fairly simple.
1. They tend to be less accurate and thus lead to a higher ammunition consumption per target.
2. They tend to be overkill for most situations.
3. They are less "useful" in moderately trained hands.
My reason for leaving out handguns is even simpler. They are shit for home defense compared to a shotgun. If you are "defending" yourself inside a house, a relatively short barreled shotgun loaded with "magnum" shells or even regular 12g will turn most things into minced meat at close range.
You can also mount a bayonet on most Mossberg brand shotguns, making them into a rather effective melee weapon should it come to that.
Even for a smaller person such as a woman or small man, by going with a higher gauge shotgun such as a 20 gauge is also possible, this does result in a loss in stopping power of course, but I think the difference between a 12g and a 20g is fairly negligible in terms of destruction at 10 - 25m range.
With the exception of "urban" warfare or mass battles I really see little use for automatic weapons. Handguns make sense as "sidearms" for police, soldiers and so on because they are light, and in a lot of cases offer interchangeable ammo with submachine guns. Assault rifles are really a pure warfare weapon, in a situation where a group works together they make sense since their combined rate of fire create a field of destruction. In urban warefare it makes sense due to the frequent switches from close range to medium range combat in some cases even long range.
That's where the benefit of a weapon like an M16, or AK47 comes into play as they are fairly viable used at long range. Nowhere near a proper hunting rifle but usable. An M4 outfitted with a scope also somewhat fills this role, even though the shorter barrel compared to the M16 does hamper accuracy a little bit.
Since most "I need to defend my home" type activity tend to be stressful, adrenaline pumping action, where you don't really have a steady aim, and where you have to shoot another human being, the drawback of accuracy/ease of defense comes into play. A handgun is "easier" to deflect completely and the odds of missing are higher than with a cloud of pellets flying.
Magazine capacity doesn't really come into play at all, since I doubt that unless the crips are storming your crib you won't need a full magazine. Well situations like Jason Voorhies or Michael Myers showing up not withstanding.
It's also a bit harder for a small child to "play" with a full size rifle or shotgun, of course me not being a moron would prefer to keep the ammunition in a lockbox similar to this one just because I prefer the small children in my family not to be able to get live ammo!
Trust me on this, if you don't have 30 seconds to retrieve and load your weapon, you are most likely dead or immobilized already. The average person is not a highly trained operative who can more or less fire on instinct, hell most people who own a handgun for self defense have little to no training in using or maintaining it.
So here is how we "fix" the gun issue.
1. In order to purchase a gun you need to belong to a gun club, that owns or rents firing ranges.
2. In order to own a gun of any kind you need to have logged at least 40 hours on the firing range in the last 6 months, and have completed a course on weapon safety.
3. Weapons are to be kept separate from their ammunition at all times, so your gun can't be kept loaded under your pillow sorry.
4. Weapons can only be modified by licensed gunsmiths.
I think that's a good way to start, and lets get rid of concealed weapons permits while we're at it, if people want to be cowboys they can carry their gun on their hip.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
American Politics
As I sit here in my chair and watch American politics, the expression "If only we had a government as good as the people" comes to mind, because quite frankly a government is as good as the people who vote for it. If your population has a large amount of non literate morons, then a lot of your politicians will appeal to barely literate morons.
This is what frustrates the hell out of me with the teabagger movement. They spout slogans without knowing what they mean. They protest single payer healthcare systems because they feel they are socialistic yet also protests big corporations. The thing is you have to make a choice, big business or big government, you can't have none of the above.
If you want small government you need big business to cover the gaps, and if you want small business then you need the government to cover the gaps. Let's take postal service for instance, FED-EX, UPS and so on can deliver a hell of a lot faster around the globe, but they cost a lot more, I would love to see a private company try to deliver a letter halfway across the world for under a dollar.
When it comes to healthcare I will always prefer the government over big business, simply because the government has a lot less motivation in letting me die. A private insurance company make their money off clients that pay their premiums and never need to use their insurance for anything, so any client they have to pay for, is a loss in profit.
When a large part of your population votes against their own best interest, protest their own best interest and so on, democracy is not working in your fucking country. Democracy is based on voting for your own best interest, but a way to large amount of Americans do not know what they are, democracy fails.
John Edwards was without a doubt the strongest voice on poverty in the democratic party, but he gets drummed out for cheating on his wife... and my thinking is "Who gives a shit". Being a manwhore and being a good politician are hardly mutually exclusive, John F Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson just to name a few who pulled off both.
The teabagger movement strikes me as being this strange mass of everything, with no cohesive thought behind. They protest health reform, throw money at and degrade people who have been left for dead by their insurance companies, yet think they are the good guys.
Sarah Palin is the prime example of a teabagger, a person who knows more or less nothing about what she speaks of. Watching Joe Biden's face during the debate was like watching Patrick Stewart's face when Number 1 asked "Captain what's wrong?" and his entire face spoke "I am a fucking classically trained Shakespearian actor sitting here talking to the ambassador from the worm people!"
However she is very very good at tugging at the gunstrings of the "digestive tract is better than brain" people. The thing is a person who is uninformed will always react more viciously to "easy" topics rather than complex, multilayered issues.
The Gay marriage thing, the gun thing, the prayer in school thing, all very easy issues that tug at the biblestrings of an unimformed person. In the end very easy to solve issues to be honest, they will be explored in detail in a series I'm doing called "Stupid non issues"
This is what frustrates the hell out of me with the teabagger movement. They spout slogans without knowing what they mean. They protest single payer healthcare systems because they feel they are socialistic yet also protests big corporations. The thing is you have to make a choice, big business or big government, you can't have none of the above.
If you want small government you need big business to cover the gaps, and if you want small business then you need the government to cover the gaps. Let's take postal service for instance, FED-EX, UPS and so on can deliver a hell of a lot faster around the globe, but they cost a lot more, I would love to see a private company try to deliver a letter halfway across the world for under a dollar.
When it comes to healthcare I will always prefer the government over big business, simply because the government has a lot less motivation in letting me die. A private insurance company make their money off clients that pay their premiums and never need to use their insurance for anything, so any client they have to pay for, is a loss in profit.
When a large part of your population votes against their own best interest, protest their own best interest and so on, democracy is not working in your fucking country. Democracy is based on voting for your own best interest, but a way to large amount of Americans do not know what they are, democracy fails.
John Edwards was without a doubt the strongest voice on poverty in the democratic party, but he gets drummed out for cheating on his wife... and my thinking is "Who gives a shit". Being a manwhore and being a good politician are hardly mutually exclusive, John F Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson just to name a few who pulled off both.
The teabagger movement strikes me as being this strange mass of everything, with no cohesive thought behind. They protest health reform, throw money at and degrade people who have been left for dead by their insurance companies, yet think they are the good guys.
Sarah Palin is the prime example of a teabagger, a person who knows more or less nothing about what she speaks of. Watching Joe Biden's face during the debate was like watching Patrick Stewart's face when Number 1 asked "Captain what's wrong?" and his entire face spoke "I am a fucking classically trained Shakespearian actor sitting here talking to the ambassador from the worm people!"
However she is very very good at tugging at the gunstrings of the "digestive tract is better than brain" people. The thing is a person who is uninformed will always react more viciously to "easy" topics rather than complex, multilayered issues.
The Gay marriage thing, the gun thing, the prayer in school thing, all very easy issues that tug at the biblestrings of an unimformed person. In the end very easy to solve issues to be honest, they will be explored in detail in a series I'm doing called "Stupid non issues"
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Religious people do not have much faith in God do they?
See the premise of the Christian faith is that God is all powerful, all seeing, all knowing, knows when you're sleeping knows when you're awake. So why do Christians feel the need to protest and create so much noise about certain things when an all powerful, all knowing, all seeing God would already be dealing with it in rather mysterious ways I might add.
There are some things that seem a bit "off" to me though. Let's take pro-life Christians bombing abortion clinics and killing people. Now I'm not going into how ironic a pro-lifer killing people is, but just thinking about this;
I am not a religious person, I don't subscribe to any specific faith, I simply state that I do not know, yet I would never dream of killing someone for simply having a different point of view than me. So a person subscribing to the 10 commandments definitely should not kill someone, unless they want to end up in Hell that is. Not that I believe in hell just making a point.
A Norwegian Islamic fundamentalist said "I put my faith in Allah, he will take care of me and he is the best planner that exists" as much as I hate religious fundamentalism I respect where he's coming from. He has faith in his God to take care of him, and not only him but the world.
If I was a religious person, I might disagree with stem-cell research, abortion, drug use, promiscuity, pornography, prostitution, or as I call it "Tuesday" but I would trust in God to deal with it, and judge everyone at the time of the apocalypse. Doesn't God say in his word "The Bible" that he is the one to judge, not anyone else? In that case how can any Christian defend being judgmental of others? According to the son of God, Jesus, one should be tolerant of sinners, somehow the behavior of most of Christian interaction I see is far from tolerant.
There are some things that seem a bit "off" to me though. Let's take pro-life Christians bombing abortion clinics and killing people. Now I'm not going into how ironic a pro-lifer killing people is, but just thinking about this;
I am not a religious person, I don't subscribe to any specific faith, I simply state that I do not know, yet I would never dream of killing someone for simply having a different point of view than me. So a person subscribing to the 10 commandments definitely should not kill someone, unless they want to end up in Hell that is. Not that I believe in hell just making a point.
A Norwegian Islamic fundamentalist said "I put my faith in Allah, he will take care of me and he is the best planner that exists" as much as I hate religious fundamentalism I respect where he's coming from. He has faith in his God to take care of him, and not only him but the world.
If I was a religious person, I might disagree with stem-cell research, abortion, drug use, promiscuity, pornography, prostitution, or as I call it "Tuesday" but I would trust in God to deal with it, and judge everyone at the time of the apocalypse. Doesn't God say in his word "The Bible" that he is the one to judge, not anyone else? In that case how can any Christian defend being judgmental of others? According to the son of God, Jesus, one should be tolerant of sinners, somehow the behavior of most of Christian interaction I see is far from tolerant.
Why we need drugs!
So I'm getting tired of watching anti-drug, anti-alcohol, anti-this and anti-that movements. We are living in a society so far away from what we are designed for, it's understandable that some people need something to take the edge off.
On the other hand people with a high tolerance for things, may pick other drugs. Some may go skydiving, mountain climbing, or throw themselves off a steep slope at speeds up to 60km/h wearing a condom suit standing on a pair of planks.
We all have a drug in some form or an other, and regulating which drugs people are allowed to take seems a bit silly. It's a bit like regulating taste. I for instance have never understood drugs like speed and cocaine, why would a person want to be edgy, have a constant runny nose, not sleep for days and literally pay through the nose for it?
People get prescribed all kinds of crap these days, valium, zoloft, vicodin, oxycontin, and that's only the ones on the table in front of me right now. Maybe there is a reason why so many people are on something, because this life is not what we're built for. Are we really getting the amount of work injuries from computer jobs because sitting there hitting a keyboard 8 - 14 hours a day is what we're made to do?
I mean the hunter/gatherer human spent maybe 5 hours a day hunting and gathering, that was it. Of course on some days there was nothing to hunt or gather and on other days there may be more. I doubt though that the hunter/gatherer spent 8 - 12 hours a day at a job, only to spend an hour or two to commute home. Then once the hunter/gatherer is home, the evening is spent stressing out about loans, payments, how personal relationships break down due to time and so on.
Sure humans can cope with stress, people can survive amazing ordeals of stress, the question is what long term exposure to near constant stress does to a person. Doesn't anyone wonder why suicide rates are the highest among teens and young adults? Doesn't anyone wonder why suicide rates are going up across the board? Why more people are on prescription pills, illegal drugs, alcohol, sex addiction, shopping addiction, food addiction, lifestyle diseases and so on.
Maybe if people didn't have to eat lunch in 20 minutes, but could take the time to have a decent meal. Maybe if people didn't have to commute to regional offices instead of local offices. Maybe if holding my mail for 2 days didn't require me to spend 45 minutes on the phone with a customer service rep in India. Maybe people would be able to enjoy life.
The thing is one cannot enjoy life if 8 hours or more of every day is spent doing something you kind of don't like to do. Like it or not a lot of us spend our lives in careers we dislike simply because they pay the bills. My goals are not to be loaded, in terms of money but to make enough doing what I enjoy to live a comfortable lifestyle. Comfortable to me isn't "MTV Cribs" comfortable either. I'm thinking a little secluded house, perhaps on a lake, second level room where I can sit and look out over the lake while I write.
It would have to be a place with a decent year around temperature since 26 years or snow is kind of enough for me, but it would need to have a picturesque fall with rain tapping at the walls, windows and roof. Decent media setup of course since I do enjoy watching movies and playing games.
But most of all it includes the freedom to spend the days doing what I enjoy, when and how I enjoy it, rather than having to rely on someone else's clock constantly. It's not that I might getting up at a certain time or anything, it's just that inventively you end up with something that makes your workday hell. I've had it be customers (when I was working customer service), it was my coworker when I was working the counter, since I had to do his work most of the time.
It can be anything, sometimes its feeling like you're just a cog in the machine, which would be fine if being a cog didn't mean getting slathered in grease and being forced to rub up against other cogs day in and day out. A wise man I know once said "I don't mind working 12 hour days because I get paid 100x the national average every year" yes in his case it was worth it. But how about for someone who works the same 12 hours but for under the national average? Even just barely scraping by, and even at jobs that should pay a fuckload more.
Everyone always talks about how important children are, but the public school systems in most countries are shit. So clearly they are not, most teachers have more surrender in their eyes than Vichy France and with the exception of math and physics I could probably teach their classes better than them. If schools were important, why wouldn't they be a lot better, or at the fucking least at a point where I have never had to answer a non sarcastic "Who is Stalin?"
Anyway all these little annoyances are why the world needs drugs. Imagine the following for a minute;
Every stoner, alcoholic, pill head etc without their drugs and imagine how many annoying fuckers would die because of those drugs not being there!
On the other hand people with a high tolerance for things, may pick other drugs. Some may go skydiving, mountain climbing, or throw themselves off a steep slope at speeds up to 60km/h wearing a condom suit standing on a pair of planks.
We all have a drug in some form or an other, and regulating which drugs people are allowed to take seems a bit silly. It's a bit like regulating taste. I for instance have never understood drugs like speed and cocaine, why would a person want to be edgy, have a constant runny nose, not sleep for days and literally pay through the nose for it?
People get prescribed all kinds of crap these days, valium, zoloft, vicodin, oxycontin, and that's only the ones on the table in front of me right now. Maybe there is a reason why so many people are on something, because this life is not what we're built for. Are we really getting the amount of work injuries from computer jobs because sitting there hitting a keyboard 8 - 14 hours a day is what we're made to do?
I mean the hunter/gatherer human spent maybe 5 hours a day hunting and gathering, that was it. Of course on some days there was nothing to hunt or gather and on other days there may be more. I doubt though that the hunter/gatherer spent 8 - 12 hours a day at a job, only to spend an hour or two to commute home. Then once the hunter/gatherer is home, the evening is spent stressing out about loans, payments, how personal relationships break down due to time and so on.
Sure humans can cope with stress, people can survive amazing ordeals of stress, the question is what long term exposure to near constant stress does to a person. Doesn't anyone wonder why suicide rates are the highest among teens and young adults? Doesn't anyone wonder why suicide rates are going up across the board? Why more people are on prescription pills, illegal drugs, alcohol, sex addiction, shopping addiction, food addiction, lifestyle diseases and so on.
Maybe if people didn't have to eat lunch in 20 minutes, but could take the time to have a decent meal. Maybe if people didn't have to commute to regional offices instead of local offices. Maybe if holding my mail for 2 days didn't require me to spend 45 minutes on the phone with a customer service rep in India. Maybe people would be able to enjoy life.
The thing is one cannot enjoy life if 8 hours or more of every day is spent doing something you kind of don't like to do. Like it or not a lot of us spend our lives in careers we dislike simply because they pay the bills. My goals are not to be loaded, in terms of money but to make enough doing what I enjoy to live a comfortable lifestyle. Comfortable to me isn't "MTV Cribs" comfortable either. I'm thinking a little secluded house, perhaps on a lake, second level room where I can sit and look out over the lake while I write.
It would have to be a place with a decent year around temperature since 26 years or snow is kind of enough for me, but it would need to have a picturesque fall with rain tapping at the walls, windows and roof. Decent media setup of course since I do enjoy watching movies and playing games.
But most of all it includes the freedom to spend the days doing what I enjoy, when and how I enjoy it, rather than having to rely on someone else's clock constantly. It's not that I might getting up at a certain time or anything, it's just that inventively you end up with something that makes your workday hell. I've had it be customers (when I was working customer service), it was my coworker when I was working the counter, since I had to do his work most of the time.
It can be anything, sometimes its feeling like you're just a cog in the machine, which would be fine if being a cog didn't mean getting slathered in grease and being forced to rub up against other cogs day in and day out. A wise man I know once said "I don't mind working 12 hour days because I get paid 100x the national average every year" yes in his case it was worth it. But how about for someone who works the same 12 hours but for under the national average? Even just barely scraping by, and even at jobs that should pay a fuckload more.
Everyone always talks about how important children are, but the public school systems in most countries are shit. So clearly they are not, most teachers have more surrender in their eyes than Vichy France and with the exception of math and physics I could probably teach their classes better than them. If schools were important, why wouldn't they be a lot better, or at the fucking least at a point where I have never had to answer a non sarcastic "Who is Stalin?"
Anyway all these little annoyances are why the world needs drugs. Imagine the following for a minute;
Every stoner, alcoholic, pill head etc without their drugs and imagine how many annoying fuckers would die because of those drugs not being there!
Happiness and Perfection
They are both concept which very much attract me, but truth be told they both exist as a mirage, something to drive us forward. Be it an illusion of a heaven after you die, where all your desires are fulfilled and there is no sorrow, or jealousy, sadness, depression, where everyone you love is safe and you wake up every day with a smile. Or perhaps a life very different from the one you're leading.
One of the funnier things we tend to neglect in our fantasies of perfect happiness is who we are in them. We tend to believe in that perfection is attainable but if it is, it only remains for a moment, and then it becomes a memory. See perfection literally means "That which has no flaw" and the thing is everything has flaws. If there is a God, he/she/it made a few mistakes. Things like placing massive amounts of oil underneath the seat of several major religions, and made sure that each one of those religions are fairly crass against people of the other religions.
Not publishing a new version of the Bible seeing as a book that happens to be over 2000 years old may not take into account the changes that happen in about 3000 years.
I mean the central story still works, people as a general rule are pricks, a lot of people are out for themselves, there is still prostitution, deceit, lying, violence, wars, persecutions and so on are still around strong. People can still identify with some of the characters, personally I would love to see the Father/Son moment between Isak and Abraham right after an angel had to stop Abraham from killing Isak but I digress.
Everything and everyone has flaws, nobody can live on this earth for a lifetime without eventually getting fucked over in some way, for some it never seems to end. Happiness can be destroyed in seconds, and depression can be turned around in days, but the feelings themselves tend to go away a little with time. My grandmother and grandfather used to tell me how they were even happier together in their old age than they were when they were young. A lie of course or self-deceit, even possibly a little from column A and a little from B. I say this not because I am a hopeless cynic, because I'm not.
I just happen to know very well the effect of various items that changes brain chemistry, and nothing is as strong as the feeling of falling in love with someone. It's a whole body experience with virtually no crash, that can go on for months and months. Our bodies are highly complex simple machines, the tasks they do and how they function are very complex, but the means at which it does them is very simple. Losing weight for instance is hard, because it used to serve us a function to store a lot of fat when the seasons made it so some months there was fuck-all to eat and other months a horn of plenty.
It's not that I don't think a person is unable to be happy, it's that I doubt a person could be happy every day, because after a while happy would become normal. If you haven't felt really bad, you don't know what good feels like.
One of the funnier things we tend to neglect in our fantasies of perfect happiness is who we are in them. We tend to believe in that perfection is attainable but if it is, it only remains for a moment, and then it becomes a memory. See perfection literally means "That which has no flaw" and the thing is everything has flaws. If there is a God, he/she/it made a few mistakes. Things like placing massive amounts of oil underneath the seat of several major religions, and made sure that each one of those religions are fairly crass against people of the other religions.
Not publishing a new version of the Bible seeing as a book that happens to be over 2000 years old may not take into account the changes that happen in about 3000 years.
I mean the central story still works, people as a general rule are pricks, a lot of people are out for themselves, there is still prostitution, deceit, lying, violence, wars, persecutions and so on are still around strong. People can still identify with some of the characters, personally I would love to see the Father/Son moment between Isak and Abraham right after an angel had to stop Abraham from killing Isak but I digress.
Everything and everyone has flaws, nobody can live on this earth for a lifetime without eventually getting fucked over in some way, for some it never seems to end. Happiness can be destroyed in seconds, and depression can be turned around in days, but the feelings themselves tend to go away a little with time. My grandmother and grandfather used to tell me how they were even happier together in their old age than they were when they were young. A lie of course or self-deceit, even possibly a little from column A and a little from B. I say this not because I am a hopeless cynic, because I'm not.
I just happen to know very well the effect of various items that changes brain chemistry, and nothing is as strong as the feeling of falling in love with someone. It's a whole body experience with virtually no crash, that can go on for months and months. Our bodies are highly complex simple machines, the tasks they do and how they function are very complex, but the means at which it does them is very simple. Losing weight for instance is hard, because it used to serve us a function to store a lot of fat when the seasons made it so some months there was fuck-all to eat and other months a horn of plenty.
It's not that I don't think a person is unable to be happy, it's that I doubt a person could be happy every day, because after a while happy would become normal. If you haven't felt really bad, you don't know what good feels like.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
sentimentality
Who wins when your sentimentality fights your desires, when you keep doing something that once served a purpsoe for you, but has now become a waste of time. What does one do when the place one goes to escape becomes a prison?
Sure leaving is the obvious choice, but what if the prison still has a few things holding you back, be it from sentimental value or something else?
Sure leaving is the obvious choice, but what if the prison still has a few things holding you back, be it from sentimental value or something else?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The value of something?
What decides the value of something? Is it societal pressure as we see with diamonds and gold, or is it increase in living condition as with a new house? Is it set by supply and demand, as in the cornerstone of a market system, or is it purely sentimental and arbitrary? Maybe its a bit of all of them.
I value some family pictures, a few gifts, and trinkets more than things that hold a much higher monetary value. On the other hand I have things I valued a lot in a different time. When I first purchased my Zippo lighter, an original not a knock off I felt like it was the coolest thing ever, now it mostly collects dust. Not because its a bad lighter but because its just so much easier and more practical to buy disposable.
Anyway with values attached to everything, we've kind of blocked out when it comes to ourselves. It's considered a faux pas to show or say anything that gives the impression that you see people as having a value just like a watch or book. It is quite true though, for me anyway. You see while most people tend to pretend like they don't notice, they distance themselves from people who have low value to them, and gravitate towards people who have high value. If you have a person in your life that just takes from you, or that you don't enjoy spending time with, you tend to not spend time with that person. There can be other reasons, I don't go to visit my grandfather in the home much because;
1. He is senile so he doesn't remember if I was there, or even who I am when I go there, and when I do he sleeps most of the time.
2. It's excruciating to watch a person you look up to, who has been a person you saw more or less every day of your life until you were 18, turn into a shell of his or her former self. Watching a person become just a body, like their personality being ripped away is more painful than them being dead before hitting the floor.
Sorry for the short tour through sobville, I wrote that because it illustrates that sometimes you avoid a person not because of a lack of love for them, but to take a path of least pain. Now if you have a person who is improving the quality of your life in it, then you tend to want to keep them. Now the value of a person is relative, in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. It can be having the newest shoes and clothes in a subgroup of fashionistas or the Sheen brother without a rap-sheet when they need to explain the dead hooker.
Regardless of that, we all assign values to people. I am honest about doing so and while it does sometimes lead to regretful situations and probably a result of our development.
Among a species the goal is to survive and reproduce, any successful species has to do this. In a world where I am programmed by nature to get my DNA to survive, or to use the literal term "blood" as its used in historical texts, assigning values makes sense. The closest thing to my DNA is the DNA of my siblings, my cousins, and so on. So in order to make my families DNA survive it does make sense to protect them, and to help them. Now a single family isn't much of a force and doesn't offer diverse enough DNA so add a few more families and you have a small community. Now the people of this community will value a member of their community over an outsider unless that outsider offers them something more worth than their members.
Sacrifices to the Gods in ancient and to a degree modern times is an example of a social group valuing the goodwill of their God(s) over members of other groups and in some cases even their own group.
I value some family pictures, a few gifts, and trinkets more than things that hold a much higher monetary value. On the other hand I have things I valued a lot in a different time. When I first purchased my Zippo lighter, an original not a knock off I felt like it was the coolest thing ever, now it mostly collects dust. Not because its a bad lighter but because its just so much easier and more practical to buy disposable.
Anyway with values attached to everything, we've kind of blocked out when it comes to ourselves. It's considered a faux pas to show or say anything that gives the impression that you see people as having a value just like a watch or book. It is quite true though, for me anyway. You see while most people tend to pretend like they don't notice, they distance themselves from people who have low value to them, and gravitate towards people who have high value. If you have a person in your life that just takes from you, or that you don't enjoy spending time with, you tend to not spend time with that person. There can be other reasons, I don't go to visit my grandfather in the home much because;
1. He is senile so he doesn't remember if I was there, or even who I am when I go there, and when I do he sleeps most of the time.
2. It's excruciating to watch a person you look up to, who has been a person you saw more or less every day of your life until you were 18, turn into a shell of his or her former self. Watching a person become just a body, like their personality being ripped away is more painful than them being dead before hitting the floor.
Sorry for the short tour through sobville, I wrote that because it illustrates that sometimes you avoid a person not because of a lack of love for them, but to take a path of least pain. Now if you have a person who is improving the quality of your life in it, then you tend to want to keep them. Now the value of a person is relative, in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. It can be having the newest shoes and clothes in a subgroup of fashionistas or the Sheen brother without a rap-sheet when they need to explain the dead hooker.
Regardless of that, we all assign values to people. I am honest about doing so and while it does sometimes lead to regretful situations and probably a result of our development.
Among a species the goal is to survive and reproduce, any successful species has to do this. In a world where I am programmed by nature to get my DNA to survive, or to use the literal term "blood" as its used in historical texts, assigning values makes sense. The closest thing to my DNA is the DNA of my siblings, my cousins, and so on. So in order to make my families DNA survive it does make sense to protect them, and to help them. Now a single family isn't much of a force and doesn't offer diverse enough DNA so add a few more families and you have a small community. Now the people of this community will value a member of their community over an outsider unless that outsider offers them something more worth than their members.
Sacrifices to the Gods in ancient and to a degree modern times is an example of a social group valuing the goodwill of their God(s) over members of other groups and in some cases even their own group.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The bad thing about democracy.. it doesn't work.
Who are we kidding, no country is truly democratic at best our civilized western "democracies" are ruled by special interest groups and agendas. In a not so distant future more people will die from obesity than from smoking, why has so little preemptive work been done? Shouldn't "Gutfillers" have labels on them? I see no reason why products high in carbohydrates, sugars, high-fructose corn syrup and other unhealthy sweeteners shouldn't have big white labels on them with warnings.
The thing is the sugar industry and corn industry make lots and lots of money, and want to keep making lots and lots of money, preferably so much more that stock prices go up year after year even if the companies are doing extremely well already. So the sugar and corn industry grease a few pockets, use their connections and so on to oppose bills that would hurt their income. Let's take a senator or congressman from Nebraska one of the biggest corn states in the US, would such a man want to work for things that hurt his or her voters? The answer is obvious isn't it?
Renewable Energy is a field we need to do a lot more work in as a species. Countries like China and India are slumbering giants, China is already a big name in global business as a manufacturing nations, but they also have a huge market for goods in their own country due to a huge population more and more becoming consumers. So a need for more energy will be needed as more and more of the world become developed and needs to fuel industry and population. Unless something of biblical proportions happen the population of the world won't go down, the supply of oil will dwindle. People will want things like electricity, plumbing, air-condition, good heating, and the nice things that goes with a higher standard of living. Which it is reasonable that we will see as more of the world become industrialized.
So the need for energy goes up and the supply of a lot of traditional energy is running out, even with improved efficiency in all parts of the chain. So solar energy, wave energy, wind energy and water energy are all renewable sources that can provide a lot of energy cheaper and more green friendly. The second line of defense is something like nuclear power, which isn't as dangerous as it used to be since there has been technological improvements since it was placed in the doghouse.
Anyway the Oil business which is huge today, since most cars require it, all planes require it, has a lot of money gambling on the future of energy. Now they don't want to stop the research into alternative technologies completely, they just want to slow it down. Mainly until they have phased their assets into the new technologies, and have liquidated the obsolete assets. So they have their lobbyists working.
The media has the power, but they abuse it as they see fit. Can anyway disagree with that Elliot Spitzer was a much better governor than David Paterson and even if he had a relationship with a $1,000 in hour hooker was probably significantly better at the job. So who benefits from Ellitot Spitzer having to resign? The other party, the media who made money off the news about the scandal, I don't think the people benefit by having a less qualified official in office, but that's where we end up. If I was overly focused on politicians relationships, I'd be much more concerned with Dick Cheney's relationship with Hallie-Burton, than any sexual relationship politicians have. That is if you're watching their job performance, money is a much more effective motivator than sex,
Now democracy is meant as a system where the people control the country to a degree at the very least. Now the problem is that the people have to go through so many middlemen. Every middleman has his or her agenda, so does every aide, every secretary, every congressman, every senator, every lobbyist. So who wins out the people or the system?
What people forget is that democracy just like totalitarianism, communism and so on all end up with the same result when taken to an extreme. You end up with an elite who has the majority of wealth, influence and every other currency and a gradually worse off middle and lower class. This is exactly what we see in the US today, about 2% of the population has the influence, the money, and the power, while the rest are somewhat tag-alongs. When you take into account that the 2% have control over the media, the politicians, the lobbyists and so on how can that be a fair system?
You see there is no real difference between Stalin's elite and his purges and the various political elites that snipe at each other through the media. The only difference is that Stalin literally killed you, while the democratic elite prefer character assassination.
So in the end the only way a real democracy would work is that every single person eligible to vote has a button on their phone to vote yes or no on laws. However this brings up another problem, most people in a democracy do not know the democracy well enough. You see people tend to vote against their own best interest and vote with their gut rather than brain. I mean looking at what the 2 American parties say they want, most American's would be better off voting democratic instead of Republican. However the Republicans are better at bullshit. You see here is the thing, guns, religion, abortion and so on are non-issues. They are not important in the long run but they win elections.
The thing is the sugar industry and corn industry make lots and lots of money, and want to keep making lots and lots of money, preferably so much more that stock prices go up year after year even if the companies are doing extremely well already. So the sugar and corn industry grease a few pockets, use their connections and so on to oppose bills that would hurt their income. Let's take a senator or congressman from Nebraska one of the biggest corn states in the US, would such a man want to work for things that hurt his or her voters? The answer is obvious isn't it?
Renewable Energy is a field we need to do a lot more work in as a species. Countries like China and India are slumbering giants, China is already a big name in global business as a manufacturing nations, but they also have a huge market for goods in their own country due to a huge population more and more becoming consumers. So a need for more energy will be needed as more and more of the world become developed and needs to fuel industry and population. Unless something of biblical proportions happen the population of the world won't go down, the supply of oil will dwindle. People will want things like electricity, plumbing, air-condition, good heating, and the nice things that goes with a higher standard of living. Which it is reasonable that we will see as more of the world become industrialized.
So the need for energy goes up and the supply of a lot of traditional energy is running out, even with improved efficiency in all parts of the chain. So solar energy, wave energy, wind energy and water energy are all renewable sources that can provide a lot of energy cheaper and more green friendly. The second line of defense is something like nuclear power, which isn't as dangerous as it used to be since there has been technological improvements since it was placed in the doghouse.
Anyway the Oil business which is huge today, since most cars require it, all planes require it, has a lot of money gambling on the future of energy. Now they don't want to stop the research into alternative technologies completely, they just want to slow it down. Mainly until they have phased their assets into the new technologies, and have liquidated the obsolete assets. So they have their lobbyists working.
The media has the power, but they abuse it as they see fit. Can anyway disagree with that Elliot Spitzer was a much better governor than David Paterson and even if he had a relationship with a $1,000 in hour hooker was probably significantly better at the job. So who benefits from Ellitot Spitzer having to resign? The other party, the media who made money off the news about the scandal, I don't think the people benefit by having a less qualified official in office, but that's where we end up. If I was overly focused on politicians relationships, I'd be much more concerned with Dick Cheney's relationship with Hallie-Burton, than any sexual relationship politicians have. That is if you're watching their job performance, money is a much more effective motivator than sex,
Now democracy is meant as a system where the people control the country to a degree at the very least. Now the problem is that the people have to go through so many middlemen. Every middleman has his or her agenda, so does every aide, every secretary, every congressman, every senator, every lobbyist. So who wins out the people or the system?
What people forget is that democracy just like totalitarianism, communism and so on all end up with the same result when taken to an extreme. You end up with an elite who has the majority of wealth, influence and every other currency and a gradually worse off middle and lower class. This is exactly what we see in the US today, about 2% of the population has the influence, the money, and the power, while the rest are somewhat tag-alongs. When you take into account that the 2% have control over the media, the politicians, the lobbyists and so on how can that be a fair system?
You see there is no real difference between Stalin's elite and his purges and the various political elites that snipe at each other through the media. The only difference is that Stalin literally killed you, while the democratic elite prefer character assassination.
So in the end the only way a real democracy would work is that every single person eligible to vote has a button on their phone to vote yes or no on laws. However this brings up another problem, most people in a democracy do not know the democracy well enough. You see people tend to vote against their own best interest and vote with their gut rather than brain. I mean looking at what the 2 American parties say they want, most American's would be better off voting democratic instead of Republican. However the Republicans are better at bullshit. You see here is the thing, guns, religion, abortion and so on are non-issues. They are not important in the long run but they win elections.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Reality
We might not like to see it, to some its the one thing they would love to see and at the same time love to never see again. We have split emotions about it, sometimes its better to ignore it, other times one needs to take a long hard look at it. Reality is different from person to person, some let it pass by and some of us analyze, dissect and try to put it in system.
One thing stays a constant regardless of what you do, Occam's Razor. It's a fun principle and goes nicely in hand with When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" from Sherlock Holmes. If you first apply Occam's Razor to a problem, and then Holmesian deduction most questions and problems will be solved or at the very least understood better.
However once you add Illusory superiority into the mix we lack the needed objectivity in most cases to judge ourselves. People tend to come in 2 categories, the ones who judge themselves too lightly and the ones who do it too harshly. Very few people if any of the ones I've met tend to be on the mark with every aspect of themselves.
*This wasn't ready to be posted, but I decided to post a work in progress because a friend might need to read this right now*
One thing stays a constant regardless of what you do, Occam's Razor. It's a fun principle and goes nicely in hand with When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" from Sherlock Holmes. If you first apply Occam's Razor to a problem, and then Holmesian deduction most questions and problems will be solved or at the very least understood better.
However once you add Illusory superiority into the mix we lack the needed objectivity in most cases to judge ourselves. People tend to come in 2 categories, the ones who judge themselves too lightly and the ones who do it too harshly. Very few people if any of the ones I've met tend to be on the mark with every aspect of themselves.
*This wasn't ready to be posted, but I decided to post a work in progress because a friend might need to read this right now*
Monday, March 8, 2010
Happy International women's day
I am happy to see so many great women walking in support of their gender all across the world. I am glad that we, by having an arbitrary day where "women come first" we can help bring women as a gender forward in the world. The 8th of March is to thank for so many important things, the abolishment of suppression of women in the middle east, abolishment of arranged and forced marriages. Oh wait it does none of those things.
I'm Norwegian born and bred, I still live in Norway actually and here the 8th of March seems to be yet another day where feminine values are boasted as better than male values. While I am in complete support of "equal pay for equal work", that discrimination based on gender is wrong and so on, I feel like my gender has come under attack.
Not to the degree of "damn you women who have had your boot on the neck of men for centuries" but I feel like my values are marginalized by increasing pressure from certain groups. The women's right movement as it started, to bring women from being second class citizens to full citizens I understand, it was a great things and it needed to happen. However can we stop this fullscale attack on everything testosterone driven?
Of course if you look to countries like Spain, Greece, Italy and France where the male values are seen in a different light the women's rights movement and subsequent assault on male values is less severe but in cultures with less clear male role models and patterns the man is slowly being etched out.
Of course in "The Honeymooners" the line "Straight to the moon Alice" was a bit over the line, domestic abuse is not funny, unless the wife dressed up as a clown is beating the crap out the husband. On the other hand the lame, feminized, empty ballbag of subservience and groveling done by Doug Heffernan on the king of queens, Ray in Everybody loves Raymond, Alan on Two and a half men, and so on isn't fine either.
Nobody ever draws a line, that's the problem and nobody seems to be willing to say "Ok we've gotten what we came for, now pull out!" At the start it was rights to vote, which I and most of the men I know agree with, then it was no discrimination against women when it comes to jobs, then it was equal pay for equal work all of which are very reasonable.
Just like the Republican Party, the various interest groups for races, and groups Feminism got hijacked somewhere in the late 70s early 80s by extremists. While most women are reasonable you always have the "PETA" people of an organization that just takes the ball and runs with it without looking back. As I see it, if someone truly wants to be an equal they are willing to give up privileges in exchange for rights.
I have never seen a bar or nightclub have a "Men's night" but "Ladies night" where women drink for half off and get in for free is a pretty common occurrence around here. When looking at apartment listings I frequently see "Women only" and when I look at job listings I often see "Women are encouraged to apply" I have never seen the same for men.
I have never seen campaigns to get more men into what has been considered "female" professions. Male children would be better off with more male employees in kindergarten and in school, mostly because I think its unhealthy for a male child to grow up without male role models. Why aren't men quoted into jobs that are largely female professions?
Yes I wrote most of this to provoke to a degree, but to be honest the women's lib movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, they are all about the same thing; Choice. Am I wrong? It's not about every woman having to get a college eduction and have a career, but having the choice to do so. If a woman chooses to be a wife and mother instead of hunting for a career its her choice.
It's the same basic right we all want right? To choose and enjoy our own path in life rather than one set out by society? To have the choice to decide what we enjoy and value not what everyone else does. However this choice is rapidly being driven to hell in a pink Prius.
So men do want to get married and have kids, some don't. Some women don't want kids and a husband, some do.
So lets just let everyone be who they want to be as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else ok?
I'm Norwegian born and bred, I still live in Norway actually and here the 8th of March seems to be yet another day where feminine values are boasted as better than male values. While I am in complete support of "equal pay for equal work", that discrimination based on gender is wrong and so on, I feel like my gender has come under attack.
Not to the degree of "damn you women who have had your boot on the neck of men for centuries" but I feel like my values are marginalized by increasing pressure from certain groups. The women's right movement as it started, to bring women from being second class citizens to full citizens I understand, it was a great things and it needed to happen. However can we stop this fullscale attack on everything testosterone driven?
Of course if you look to countries like Spain, Greece, Italy and France where the male values are seen in a different light the women's rights movement and subsequent assault on male values is less severe but in cultures with less clear male role models and patterns the man is slowly being etched out.
Of course in "The Honeymooners" the line "Straight to the moon Alice" was a bit over the line, domestic abuse is not funny, unless the wife dressed up as a clown is beating the crap out the husband. On the other hand the lame, feminized, empty ballbag of subservience and groveling done by Doug Heffernan on the king of queens, Ray in Everybody loves Raymond, Alan on Two and a half men, and so on isn't fine either.
Nobody ever draws a line, that's the problem and nobody seems to be willing to say "Ok we've gotten what we came for, now pull out!" At the start it was rights to vote, which I and most of the men I know agree with, then it was no discrimination against women when it comes to jobs, then it was equal pay for equal work all of which are very reasonable.
Just like the Republican Party, the various interest groups for races, and groups Feminism got hijacked somewhere in the late 70s early 80s by extremists. While most women are reasonable you always have the "PETA" people of an organization that just takes the ball and runs with it without looking back. As I see it, if someone truly wants to be an equal they are willing to give up privileges in exchange for rights.
I have never seen a bar or nightclub have a "Men's night" but "Ladies night" where women drink for half off and get in for free is a pretty common occurrence around here. When looking at apartment listings I frequently see "Women only" and when I look at job listings I often see "Women are encouraged to apply" I have never seen the same for men.
I have never seen campaigns to get more men into what has been considered "female" professions. Male children would be better off with more male employees in kindergarten and in school, mostly because I think its unhealthy for a male child to grow up without male role models. Why aren't men quoted into jobs that are largely female professions?
Yes I wrote most of this to provoke to a degree, but to be honest the women's lib movement, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, they are all about the same thing; Choice. Am I wrong? It's not about every woman having to get a college eduction and have a career, but having the choice to do so. If a woman chooses to be a wife and mother instead of hunting for a career its her choice.
It's the same basic right we all want right? To choose and enjoy our own path in life rather than one set out by society? To have the choice to decide what we enjoy and value not what everyone else does. However this choice is rapidly being driven to hell in a pink Prius.
So men do want to get married and have kids, some don't. Some women don't want kids and a husband, some do.
So lets just let everyone be who they want to be as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else ok?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Productivity
I watched the new show "Undercover Boss" where the boss goes undercover in his operation to see what his employees work and live like. Most of the time these bosses seem shocked that their employees are treated the way they are, have low morale etc.
This isn't a huge shock to be honest, after working similar jobs as the people on the show, low morale is the least of their problems. I had this job at one point where we were clocked every minute of a 7 hour workday. Breaks were lined up by the minute which is fine, if we had more out time than the allotted breaks we had to fill out a report as to why. Half the workers smoked and yet we had to smoke outside in very cold weather. The tools at our disposal were totally inadequate, we didn't have internet and the about 7 times I got suicide callers I wasn't even allowed to contact them later or to contact the police and send them to the address.
Yes I totally love to know that 7 people out there were desperate and depressed enough to tell a random guy that they were going to kill themselves. Entertain me with their sad stories, how it feels to be 15, pregnant and kicked out by parents, how it feels when your 4 year old son dies and not even know what happened to these people.
Some might be cold enough to ignore this, I am not.
At the end of the show the CEO brings the employees who have been hurt by slaveownerish policies by these companies and presents them with some arbitrary gift without changing the policies. The funny part of this is that it shows the divide in thinking between the CEO and the employee. If the CEO put in place policies that improved how the people felt about the company they work for productivity would go up, slacking off, stealing from the company and not giving a shit would go down.
I don't screw over a company that treats me fairly, and like a person as opposed to employee 281. Of course stock prices have to go up every year, so where does a company that is already streamlined and effective go? They have to push the margins, on the product, on the production of the product and in every line, except well the CEO salaries. You see those also seem to go up, stock options, bonuses, golden parachutes and so on. So with a limited amount of money to cover salaries, benefits, and so on, the company has to make a choice.
You can't really squeeze the top dogs at a company because they are the guys who "keep it running" sure every employee helps a company keep afloat, but the top guys are the people who keeps it afloat the most. They are the guys making the big deals, the faces of the company and so on.
They are also hard to replace, a guy flipping burgers, answering phones, delivering lunch and so on can easily be replaced, especially in todays jobmarket where the unemployment seems to go up every month.
Think about it, like a Donald Duck cartoon. Scrooge has all the money, Donald is in debt to him, so Donald is forced to work at a slave wage doing menial tasks exactly the way Scrooge wants him to. Now you can't fire Scrooge, but you can find someone to do Donald's job of polishing coins. Scrooge has the money, he has the connections, he makes the big deals happen, Donald shines coins.
So when you have a CEO making 300x as much as a regular worker, there is a slight distribution problem. I'm a capitalist but I also think some things are obscene. Communism can't really work but I do think taxing the shit out of luxury items might. Let's be honest nobody needs 40 room mansions, nobody needs a huge boat, 20 cars etc. So how about this;
Cars that cost over a certain amount has a high tax, maybe as much as 50% on them.
Mansions have a similar tax, lets make it a % of the sales value, to prevent people just hiking the price of them.
Now these taxes would go towards things like universal health care, Increasing the minimum wage, and generally improving the standard of living for Lower and middle class. One could even give tax breaks on normal house, home loans and so on.
What this would do is to redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom, yeah sure it may be against what all the people who've recently read and started masturbating to "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand but it would help. You see I am of the belief that a lot of things are like the high end audio cables most audiophiles orgasm in their pants about. Sure they look pretty and saying how much better they are makes you feel good, but the human ear can't tell the difference.
Sure some things are nice to have but why do they matter? That's the problem, we've moved away from a culture that cares about character, integrity and knowledge and onto what a person owns. We don't need most of the things we want. I don't need a TV in the bedroom, I don't need a fridge that makes ice-cubes, I don't need a coffee maker with a self timer, I don't need a million different knives in my kitchen, or sun-dried tomatoes from the Sicilian cost marinated in extra extra virgin olive oil.
My body doesn't know the difference between a slice of bread and pure sugar, my body can't tell the difference between a prime cut and a crap cut of beef. I still enjoy the nice stuff but I don't need it to live. That's the problem we indulge, and indulge and indulge, until there is nothing left to indulge in. We're a culture of overindulgers, going from one lust to another.
It's not just sex, drugs and food. It's religion, Television, videogames. Religion has gone from spirituality to commence, Television has gone from something you watched once in a while not the whole day. Video-games are made to be as addictive as possible.
We're a world of people who have strayed from our path, we don't get the adrenaline and stimulant rushes from our brains that we used to in our lives so we have to mass produce them. From bungy-jumping to sex addiction to emo's cutting themselves and people pouring pure high fructose corn syrup down their throats. It's all a hunt for rewards from your brain.
This isn't a huge shock to be honest, after working similar jobs as the people on the show, low morale is the least of their problems. I had this job at one point where we were clocked every minute of a 7 hour workday. Breaks were lined up by the minute which is fine, if we had more out time than the allotted breaks we had to fill out a report as to why. Half the workers smoked and yet we had to smoke outside in very cold weather. The tools at our disposal were totally inadequate, we didn't have internet and the about 7 times I got suicide callers I wasn't even allowed to contact them later or to contact the police and send them to the address.
Yes I totally love to know that 7 people out there were desperate and depressed enough to tell a random guy that they were going to kill themselves. Entertain me with their sad stories, how it feels to be 15, pregnant and kicked out by parents, how it feels when your 4 year old son dies and not even know what happened to these people.
Some might be cold enough to ignore this, I am not.
At the end of the show the CEO brings the employees who have been hurt by slaveownerish policies by these companies and presents them with some arbitrary gift without changing the policies. The funny part of this is that it shows the divide in thinking between the CEO and the employee. If the CEO put in place policies that improved how the people felt about the company they work for productivity would go up, slacking off, stealing from the company and not giving a shit would go down.
I don't screw over a company that treats me fairly, and like a person as opposed to employee 281. Of course stock prices have to go up every year, so where does a company that is already streamlined and effective go? They have to push the margins, on the product, on the production of the product and in every line, except well the CEO salaries. You see those also seem to go up, stock options, bonuses, golden parachutes and so on. So with a limited amount of money to cover salaries, benefits, and so on, the company has to make a choice.
You can't really squeeze the top dogs at a company because they are the guys who "keep it running" sure every employee helps a company keep afloat, but the top guys are the people who keeps it afloat the most. They are the guys making the big deals, the faces of the company and so on.
They are also hard to replace, a guy flipping burgers, answering phones, delivering lunch and so on can easily be replaced, especially in todays jobmarket where the unemployment seems to go up every month.
Think about it, like a Donald Duck cartoon. Scrooge has all the money, Donald is in debt to him, so Donald is forced to work at a slave wage doing menial tasks exactly the way Scrooge wants him to. Now you can't fire Scrooge, but you can find someone to do Donald's job of polishing coins. Scrooge has the money, he has the connections, he makes the big deals happen, Donald shines coins.
So when you have a CEO making 300x as much as a regular worker, there is a slight distribution problem. I'm a capitalist but I also think some things are obscene. Communism can't really work but I do think taxing the shit out of luxury items might. Let's be honest nobody needs 40 room mansions, nobody needs a huge boat, 20 cars etc. So how about this;
Cars that cost over a certain amount has a high tax, maybe as much as 50% on them.
Mansions have a similar tax, lets make it a % of the sales value, to prevent people just hiking the price of them.
Now these taxes would go towards things like universal health care, Increasing the minimum wage, and generally improving the standard of living for Lower and middle class. One could even give tax breaks on normal house, home loans and so on.
What this would do is to redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom, yeah sure it may be against what all the people who've recently read and started masturbating to "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand but it would help. You see I am of the belief that a lot of things are like the high end audio cables most audiophiles orgasm in their pants about. Sure they look pretty and saying how much better they are makes you feel good, but the human ear can't tell the difference.
Sure some things are nice to have but why do they matter? That's the problem, we've moved away from a culture that cares about character, integrity and knowledge and onto what a person owns. We don't need most of the things we want. I don't need a TV in the bedroom, I don't need a fridge that makes ice-cubes, I don't need a coffee maker with a self timer, I don't need a million different knives in my kitchen, or sun-dried tomatoes from the Sicilian cost marinated in extra extra virgin olive oil.
My body doesn't know the difference between a slice of bread and pure sugar, my body can't tell the difference between a prime cut and a crap cut of beef. I still enjoy the nice stuff but I don't need it to live. That's the problem we indulge, and indulge and indulge, until there is nothing left to indulge in. We're a culture of overindulgers, going from one lust to another.
It's not just sex, drugs and food. It's religion, Television, videogames. Religion has gone from spirituality to commence, Television has gone from something you watched once in a while not the whole day. Video-games are made to be as addictive as possible.
We're a world of people who have strayed from our path, we don't get the adrenaline and stimulant rushes from our brains that we used to in our lives so we have to mass produce them. From bungy-jumping to sex addiction to emo's cutting themselves and people pouring pure high fructose corn syrup down their throats. It's all a hunt for rewards from your brain.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Procrastination
We all procrastinate at some point, the question is at what point does it become damaging? Is it at the point where you realize that some deadline is looming at the end of the week, end of the day? Maybe its when you realize that you've spent your whole life wondering, instead of experiencing? At age 26 I know more than most people, I could hold lectures on psychology, history, social-anthropology, social dynamics, computers, literature, art.
I've written 2 full length novels, a myriad of short stories, I speak several languages, yet I feel very unfulfilled because one aspect of my life lay unexplored and I have no idea how to proceed with it. Most topics have a set curriculum, read the basics, then move on to more advanced stuff, then move on to the expert part. As you learn a topic it expands and becomes more interesting as a whole. Read about WW2, and you tend to develop an interest for fascism, Nazis, concentration camps, then you may dip into reading about fascism in Italy, then you start to wonder how such a policy could ever get support. So you start to read up on the pre-nazi years in Germany and you realize that the Versailles treaty was a bit harsh and as a result Germany was plunged into a despair where a lot of people couldn't even afford to buy food.
Anyway, I've spent a lot of my life reading and observing, but I've always procrastinated on certain subjects, like human interaction because I felt it was unimportant at first, then as I grew older however the task of learning became more and more daunting and as a result I chose to procrastinate it further.
I've written 2 full length novels, a myriad of short stories, I speak several languages, yet I feel very unfulfilled because one aspect of my life lay unexplored and I have no idea how to proceed with it. Most topics have a set curriculum, read the basics, then move on to more advanced stuff, then move on to the expert part. As you learn a topic it expands and becomes more interesting as a whole. Read about WW2, and you tend to develop an interest for fascism, Nazis, concentration camps, then you may dip into reading about fascism in Italy, then you start to wonder how such a policy could ever get support. So you start to read up on the pre-nazi years in Germany and you realize that the Versailles treaty was a bit harsh and as a result Germany was plunged into a despair where a lot of people couldn't even afford to buy food.
Anyway, I've spent a lot of my life reading and observing, but I've always procrastinated on certain subjects, like human interaction because I felt it was unimportant at first, then as I grew older however the task of learning became more and more daunting and as a result I chose to procrastinate it further.
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