WISDOM
OF THE SAGES
EPISODE XII: WINTER 2017
EPISODE XII: WINTER 2017
Hello
People of the World;
We
are closing in on the end of another “WORST YEAR EVER!” and it is freezing
outside. Yet, once again, humanity bemoans the scientifically-proven fact that
as the earth rotates on its axis in its annual rotation around the sun, the
northern hemisphere moves away from the warming waves of sunlight, thus it gets
f*cking freezing sometimes. Worry not, the earth will rotate back again and the
warmth will return in excess. Of course, we will be caught off-guard once
again, as we complain that it gets hot in the summer.
Here
we are on the last day of the year. You are here again, reading my sad missives
of the month. Thank you Dear Reader. I just had a thought, then, I lost it.
That seems par for the course. All right, let’s get going (Holy shit, I just wrote
a verse to a “The National” song!):
1:[ Opening thoughts: When did we get this idea
that work is NOT hard? I hear from all kinds of people. Especially, now that I
am a “common” worker at a movie theater, I hear this kind of talk more
frequently. Where ever did we get this idea that work, in not hard? You hear it
especially when people complain about not getting their way at a business. “You
work at a McDonald’s. How hard is that?” or “You work in a movie theater, that
shouldn’t be hard.” Okay, then you clean up after yourself you fucking slobs.
Seriously,
when did we come to this groupthink? I hear people muttering at baristas, ‘you
serve coffee, how hard is that?’ Try doing that for eight hours a day for at
least five days a week and you’ll be complaining about how customers are shitty
too. Sorry that they couldn’t get the thing you wanted exactly right or quick
enough in the three minutes you interacted with them. I mean, it’s not like
you’re going to forget all your complaints once your fucking food arrives and
you start shoving it into your fucking piehole, you dick….
2:[ I am shocked to see how comfortable and
encouraging we are becoming toward corporate media monopolies when it comes to
comic book movies. I mean, monopolies are destructive, that was why they were
outlawed. It removes choice in business so the market cannot “sort itself out”,
as options of where to buy from are taken away. For the most part, the average
citizen has been against conglomerate monopolies, but for the Disney-Fox
merger. Suddenly, because we want the X-Men to fight the Avengers we are okay
with Disney being to sole company for our entertainment needs, from whom we
will be able to buy the orange cube from in the future. Yet, with the massive
control to power to sway public opinion and the elimination of competition this
will give Disney, and the only question coming up in this massive mistake is
“Will they put the fanfare music back at the start of Star Wars movies?” We are
fucked if that it the attitude.
3:[ I have been catching snippets of that
saccharine family dramedy hit “Wonder” about a young boy with Treacher Collins
Syndrome. As it turns out, no matter what you look like, you will eventually be
accepted as long as you have the right colored skin. I hate how they equate the
little girl of color with his condition, which is why they become friends, and
it is only by his grace that she is accepted too. This is a disgusting movie,
that we are shoving down the throats of school groups that see it, showing them,
not only that fighting solves everything, and you will eventually be accepted
by everyone, so long as you have every advantage growing up and have the right
skin color….
4:[ Star Wars The Last Jedi was the best Marvel
Movie so far. I also hate how lip service paid to diversity suddenly shields it
from critique. It is not a good movie….
5:[ You ever notice how stupid other people’s
conversations are? I mean, how self-centered can you get that everything is
happening TO YOU!? I guess it is worth it to monopolize the conversation,
making all about you, just to here “Wow, that’s amazing”, because, you really,
really are. Another example of being okay with monopolies….
6:[ The new U2 album “Songs of Experience” is one
of their best in a while. At first I was skeptical. As is typical for me.
Hearing the songs first online did not paint a god picture of the upcoming
album. I guess I have become a File Listener and lost my ear for entire albums
as when I was young. But hearing the songs in the context of the full album,
they are great. I will write a longer review on my annual Best of Year Reviews.
It is definitely an album where you have to listen to the whole thing…
7:[ Another example that “Justice League” is
junk. When Wonder Woman lassos one of the bad guys at the start and after
explaining what the lassos does, again, the man describes him and his group as
“Reactionary Terrorists”. What a load of shit. First, it the lasso compels the
lassoed to tell the “truth”, but truth is subjective. The lasso should compel
you to NOT lie. People see truths differently. Who we deem as terrorists, will
NEVER see themselves as terrorists. That is THEIR TRUTH. The truth should have
been “We are a Revolutionist Militia seeking to enlighten.”
But
we need to place the world in black and white, good and evil terms, but keep it
vague enough to still be able to hang terrorism on people we don’t like. But we
would never attach militias to bad things. “Justice League” is shit, is what I
am trying to say…
8:[ Some time ago, I had this discussion with a
friend of mine about psychics. They claimed one of their relatives was psychic
and claimed to have predicted 9/11. When pressed why they did not contact the
authorities, they back-stepped about the needed accuracy, going from predicting
two hijacked planes being deliberately crashing into buildings to “having a
feeling that people would die today.”
I
mean, I can predict that too. Really, people, lots of people die every damn
day. To which my friend had the temerity to ask, “Do they need to be 100%
accurate?” Yes, they do have to be 100% accurate, THAT’S THE WHOLE DAMN POINT!
otherwise, why call them ‘psychics’?
Look,
I get the need to believe, I really do. I mean, we are all so fucking awesome,
that there has to be something, SOMETHING, right? Afterlife, superpowers?
Right? Sorry to say, psychics are a fraud. I stopped believing in them years
ago, decades ago.
Over
the years, I have learned a lot more about Cold Reading, Pattern Recognition
and how our brains work, and most especially, Priming, which is used on us on
the daily. Example: when someone tells you a place you never visited before is
haunted, your mind shapes patterns to conform to that suggestion. There are no
“haunted” hotels or houses. But when someone tells you that a place it haunted,
your brains sees patterns of shadows and movements and sounds as human shapes,
moving objects, and human voice. See?
I
used to work as a night watchman at a bingo hall. (Clichéd, right?) I spent
nearly a year sitting in a dark, empty open-spaced building before anyone told
me it was haunted. When asked if I saw anything, I said no, never. They
attributed it to “A strong mind” but in reality, it was because I did not know
I was SUPPOSED to see ghosts in there. I was never primed. Understand? I never
saw anything after either.
I
know people have seen ghosts. It is because they were primed to do so, because
they so want to believe in an afterlife. It is that belief that overpowers
logic. Which begs the question: when you see a ghost, who has no more earthly
concerns, why do they need clothes?
The
most easily explainable thing for ghost is a phenomenon called Infrasound.
Think infrared light, but for sound, something measurable, but our physical
bodies cannot detect. Infrasound is a high-pitched frequency that affects our
cognizant brain functions, creating shadows, figures, and has us thinking we
hear and see things that are not there. It has been around since the earth
formed. Sorry to break it to you.
Sufficed
to say, I have quit believing in a lot of things. There were times I think I
saw something, but now; I think it was a trick on my own mind. When no one else
saw it, the more determined I became that what I saw was real. That is another
aspect of how this works. I think this conversation I had with my friend was
vocalizing my skepticism and affirmed my non-belief. So, thanks to my friend
for solidifying my path of critical thought. I wonder if your great aunt would
have seen that?
That
is it for this month.
Stay
warm and I do hope you all have a good New Year’s Day. Just remember, in the
larger, longer picture, it’s just another Monday. You don’t have to hold
yourselves to such high standards of completing huge astronomical goals in 365
days. It’s just not possible. Change comes in generations of which we are just
one. Make the time you are in a good place to be, add your contribution to that
change in anyway you can. In the end: Don’t be an asshole.
As
always, I invite you to comment, correct, or contradict anything I write here.
I am open to a critical debate. Thanks for taking the time to check out what I
write here and I will see you in a month.
Until
next time, remember “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to
control everything really are.”
2017
Ernest M Whiteman III