1) Loneliness is unconquerable. Loneliness is like driving. A driver can be the best driver [s]he can be. The driver can obey the rules, be considerate, and behave exactly how [s]e is supposed to. This, however, will not prevent the driver from being cut off or having their proposed parking space stolen. It won’t prevent the driver from being caught blindsided by another running a red light or driving drunk. The driver is a part of a system and unless everyone participates, there is only so much one driver can do. Loneliness is like that, a system that is unconquerable by any singular entity.
2) People can abandon their principles and absolve themselves of personal responsibility to descend into dishonorable human beings and justify it [even celebrate it] provided the other guy did it first.
3) …umm…EPA?…oops.
4) You know you live in sad times when the best sources of spin-reduced news are comedians.
5) There is a scale, it may not be the same from group to group, in which we degenerate into something less than we are individually. Individuals have a higher chance of being of rational thought, possess a tendency to listen more and consider the views of the other people involved. Individuals have a higher chance of thinking for themselves and acting upon it. Once we pass a certain population threshold, the group loses its ability to listen properly, respond properly, sustain rationality and willingness to engage honorably with those outside it’s organization. Examples are, but not limited to: Gangs, Political Parties, and Religious Cults. Empirical evidence suggests groups that surpass their rational-to-irrational threshold begin engaging in affairs that could often be interpreted as detrimental and ensuring the system as a whole will be harder to change and will only encourage others to emulate their behavior within their own organization.
[Glossary, to prevent confusion:
Rational – The ability and willingness to admit the possibility of error.
Irrational – The inability and/or the unwillingness to admit the possibility of error.
Cult – a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.]6) The further from “center” an organization is, the louder of a voice they seem to possess. The frequency in which maximum volume is used may also increase.
7) Social Media has given individuals convenient ways to avoid openly admitting “I don’t care” and has reduced multiple, previously meaningful, interactions into a single click.
8) Arrogance is believing that one’s experiences and convictions dictate how everyone else’s experiences and convictions should be. It doesn’t take long to find an arrogant person.
9) “Courage” is found through alcohol and anonymity. Combined, there is nothing no one wont say. Absent of both, it is amazing how restrained/polite one becomes. Courage [no quotes] is found through integrity of self. Lonely people are often courageous.
10) Congress does appear to be the antonym of Progress after all. This problem is compounded by the veracity and size of the population assigning, with astounding conviction, the ‘opposing’ side with all the blame, and then they voted.
11) It is acceptable to change verbs into nouns as long as it is their verb-noun conversion choices. So it is ok to ‘inbox me’ or ‘google that’ but it’s not ok to ‘[mini] cooper down the street so I can Buffalo Wild Wings before I Price Chopper.’ While the approval authority remains undefined, indignation can still be expected when one is not understood. Mysteriously, it is often not the fault of the user of new and “trendy?” linguistic tendencies for the misunderstanding – no, that falls squarely on the shoulders of the one who was content to speak a dialect commonly understood. Attempts to reconcile with rapid adaptation of the standard they set forth [see above] are frequently received with visible negativity: ranging from unamused through confused and into frustrated. As we all know, ideas are best transmitted through incomprehensibility, just ask the builders of the Tower of Babel.
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monk@anchorwind.net
