As I get older,
In keeping quiet
Showing posts with label worth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worth. Show all posts
21 January 2019
25 January 2013
on seeking trouble
During the course of one's life, one is likely to be looked at by other people. We look at each other for different reasons, among them to appraise or mock each other's clothing; to justify and reinforce prejudice and racial misconception; to see who is checking out our daring new hairstyle; and, sometimes, simply because we tire of looking at the same spot all the time. It is the author's experience that young men as well as insecure individuals of all sexes are prone to look about in order to find trouble, and that young males in particular will justify aggressive and violent behavior by claiming that their victim had been looking at them in what they found to be an unpleasant or disagreeable manner. An insecure person will tend to internalize even passing or accidental gazes and use them to reinforce a poor self-image and feelings of negative self-worth.
The only method by which one can determine if someone else is looking is by making eye contact with that person. Concurrently, the easiest way to avoid confrontation, heartbreak, self-torment, and sadness is to make eye contact only when absolutely necessary, such as when conversing with waiters, siblings, doctors, or friends. In the course of his observations, the author has discovered that looking at people out of the corner of his eye and thereby avoiding mutual eye contact obviates the need for uncomfortable situations in which someone tries to figure out (by means of examining his immediate surroundings or perhaps checking his teeth for food particles) why someone else was looking in his direction. The author has found that people appreciate being looked at, initially; after a first, cursory glance, however, they tend to become agitated and annoyed if stared or looked at for too often. (This is the primary cause of one worthless whorphan's ongoing, self-imposed sexual drought – his propensity to make eye contact with attractive young females but then failing utterly at all subsequent stages of the relationship.) At this point, the reader is likely thinking, 'By using a mirrored surface to see if someone is trying to make eye contact, I could avoid making eye contact, if I wanted to. Why hasn't the author mentioned that? What an idiot.' The author admits that he has indeed thought of and experimented with mirrors. In his opinion, though, trying to find and use a reflective surface in the crowded environment of, say, a subway car, poses its own unique challenges, challenges that can be avoided by simply not looking anyone in the face and choosing rather to lead a life of quietly miserable solitude. (Furthermore, the human mind recognizes the eye better than it does most other shapes; if it finds that it is being looked at, it will alert its host to danger and not rest until it has discovered the cause of its distress.)
The author reminds the reader of the importance of keeping track of where people are, what they have in their hands, and what they are looking at; he urges the reader to do this sneakily, out of the corners of the eye; he repeats the age-old mantra: “True friends stab in the front” (Oscar Wilde). Experience has shown that if someone is looked at one time but not a second, that person will mind his or her own business as if first contact had never occurred, demanding neither satisfaction nor a second date. Making eye contact with the wrong person can lead to other kinds of contact, including those of the verbal and the fist-based variety, so please remember to do your own time content in knowledge that each one of us lives and dies alone. Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
The only method by which one can determine if someone else is looking is by making eye contact with that person. Concurrently, the easiest way to avoid confrontation, heartbreak, self-torment, and sadness is to make eye contact only when absolutely necessary, such as when conversing with waiters, siblings, doctors, or friends. In the course of his observations, the author has discovered that looking at people out of the corner of his eye and thereby avoiding mutual eye contact obviates the need for uncomfortable situations in which someone tries to figure out (by means of examining his immediate surroundings or perhaps checking his teeth for food particles) why someone else was looking in his direction. The author has found that people appreciate being looked at, initially; after a first, cursory glance, however, they tend to become agitated and annoyed if stared or looked at for too often. (This is the primary cause of one worthless whorphan's ongoing, self-imposed sexual drought – his propensity to make eye contact with attractive young females but then failing utterly at all subsequent stages of the relationship.) At this point, the reader is likely thinking, 'By using a mirrored surface to see if someone is trying to make eye contact, I could avoid making eye contact, if I wanted to. Why hasn't the author mentioned that? What an idiot.' The author admits that he has indeed thought of and experimented with mirrors. In his opinion, though, trying to find and use a reflective surface in the crowded environment of, say, a subway car, poses its own unique challenges, challenges that can be avoided by simply not looking anyone in the face and choosing rather to lead a life of quietly miserable solitude. (Furthermore, the human mind recognizes the eye better than it does most other shapes; if it finds that it is being looked at, it will alert its host to danger and not rest until it has discovered the cause of its distress.)
The author reminds the reader of the importance of keeping track of where people are, what they have in their hands, and what they are looking at; he urges the reader to do this sneakily, out of the corners of the eye; he repeats the age-old mantra: “True friends stab in the front” (Oscar Wilde). Experience has shown that if someone is looked at one time but not a second, that person will mind his or her own business as if first contact had never occurred, demanding neither satisfaction nor a second date. Making eye contact with the wrong person can lead to other kinds of contact, including those of the verbal and the fist-based variety, so please remember to do your own time content in knowledge that each one of us lives and dies alone. Mahalo.
mentiri factorem fecit © 場黑麥
31 August 2012
Commons, constitutional Right
The preamble to the U.S. Constitution states that the role of government is to provide for the general Welfare. We the people, together with local, state, and federal governments, can only accomplish this if we properly protect the Commons, something which neither our system of quasi-free-market capitalism nor today's re-election-focused politicians deem important. The average, hard-working American, however, relies daily on things that make up the Commons, including roads, bridges, radio waves, wi-fi, seams of coal, deposits of natural gas, clean and smog-free air (vital to the health of all persons), clean and potable water (vital to the health of all persons), and national and local parks. Where once, however, a person suffering cold had the right to walk into the woods and collect for herself a few armfuls of wood, now those trees belong to individuals who sell that wood for profit. When something that belongs equally to everyone is sold by one just person, for no other purpose than his or her personal gain, the beauty of the Commons is shattered, Nature's bounty serving not the interests of all persons equally but only the interests of a few, specifically.
Among the gravest dangers facing America today is our loss of appreciation for things that have intrinsic value, that have worth beyond the merely monetary; our system of Me-First capitalism has so infiltrated and poisoned our minds that we think that everything comes with a price-tag, that everything is for sale. If we just admitted to being a nation of whores, a nation focused on the accumulation of personal wealth, if we just fessed up to selling ourselves into wage-slavery in order to maintain our electricity-dependent, non-self-sufficient lifestyles, then our estimation in the opinions of mankind might not be so low; but, as things stand, we come across as childish and hypocritical assholes who complain about the poor state of our lives while sitting around all day watching TV and shoveling food processed by other downtrodden corporate wage-slaves into our ever-expanding stomachs. The notion of the Commons relies on communal sacrifice, on inter-personal sharing, and on the idea that some aspects of our lives – love, mercy, humility, equality, and generosity – cannot be pigeonholed but must remain beyond the realm of definition, classification, and exploitation. To bring about this state of affairs and to rescue our tender humanity from the ever-grasping paws of profit-hungry corporate interests and the greed of unscrupulous men, we must stand together, protecting what belongs to us all with Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor.
The Declaration of Independence defines government as that body which brings about the Safety and Happiness of the people. Furthermore, it grants us the right to alter or to abolish our government should it become destructive of our Safety and Happiness. Friends, Yankis, fellow patriots, we demand that our governments protect the Commons diligently, since clean air, pure soil, clear water, and guaranteed civil rights make us Happy and Safe and poisoned air, barren soil, polluted water, and preferential treatment for avaricious, self-interested individuals makes us Unsafe and Unhappy. The government of the United States of America does not exist to pay $400 billion to defense contractors, to cut taxes for wealthy corporations and rich individuals, to stop funding education, to stop funding programs that assist the poor and the elderly, to attack and kill persons merely suspected of committing grave crimes (such as Al-Awlaki, Osama Bin Laden), to subjugate foreign peoples in order to gain access to their mineral and fuel resources, or to restrict the ability of its own people to consume whichever drugs they decide best; the government of the U.S.A. exists to insure domestic tranquility and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, which it does best by protecting the Commons and making sure they stay free to all who may require their bounty. As long as we remain undisciplined and look the other way, however, and as long as we participate in the travesty of conspicuous consumption, we shall remain the enemies of the Commons, blind to the fragile truths which can save us from ourselves. To free the person, free her mind. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
Among the gravest dangers facing America today is our loss of appreciation for things that have intrinsic value, that have worth beyond the merely monetary; our system of Me-First capitalism has so infiltrated and poisoned our minds that we think that everything comes with a price-tag, that everything is for sale. If we just admitted to being a nation of whores, a nation focused on the accumulation of personal wealth, if we just fessed up to selling ourselves into wage-slavery in order to maintain our electricity-dependent, non-self-sufficient lifestyles, then our estimation in the opinions of mankind might not be so low; but, as things stand, we come across as childish and hypocritical assholes who complain about the poor state of our lives while sitting around all day watching TV and shoveling food processed by other downtrodden corporate wage-slaves into our ever-expanding stomachs. The notion of the Commons relies on communal sacrifice, on inter-personal sharing, and on the idea that some aspects of our lives – love, mercy, humility, equality, and generosity – cannot be pigeonholed but must remain beyond the realm of definition, classification, and exploitation. To bring about this state of affairs and to rescue our tender humanity from the ever-grasping paws of profit-hungry corporate interests and the greed of unscrupulous men, we must stand together, protecting what belongs to us all with Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor.
The Declaration of Independence defines government as that body which brings about the Safety and Happiness of the people. Furthermore, it grants us the right to alter or to abolish our government should it become destructive of our Safety and Happiness. Friends, Yankis, fellow patriots, we demand that our governments protect the Commons diligently, since clean air, pure soil, clear water, and guaranteed civil rights make us Happy and Safe and poisoned air, barren soil, polluted water, and preferential treatment for avaricious, self-interested individuals makes us Unsafe and Unhappy. The government of the United States of America does not exist to pay $400 billion to defense contractors, to cut taxes for wealthy corporations and rich individuals, to stop funding education, to stop funding programs that assist the poor and the elderly, to attack and kill persons merely suspected of committing grave crimes (such as Al-Awlaki, Osama Bin Laden), to subjugate foreign peoples in order to gain access to their mineral and fuel resources, or to restrict the ability of its own people to consume whichever drugs they decide best; the government of the U.S.A. exists to insure domestic tranquility and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, which it does best by protecting the Commons and making sure they stay free to all who may require their bounty. As long as we remain undisciplined and look the other way, however, and as long as we participate in the travesty of conspicuous consumption, we shall remain the enemies of the Commons, blind to the fragile truths which can save us from ourselves. To free the person, free her mind. Mahalo.
場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit
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