Category Archives: Purpose

Ramblings

It is good to think. For yourself.

Most of us have given up on that. We take what we are being presented with as the truth. Not much of it is. TV, Radio, really any form of mass media or communication only have one product. They only sell one thing. That one thing is you.

The audience.

The only reason there is content is to make you watch. You will be exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of different product placements every day. The very fabric of your reality is determined by advertising and the pursuit of your money.

Make no mistake, they know what makes us tick.

Yesterday I was taking an escalator. It was going down. On my left they were advertising sunglasses on a poster. A semi naked young woman was embracing a young man. She had her back to the audience, the young man was facing you. He was wearing the sunglasses, of course.

Really?

We are that dumb now?

As you are the product, you might wonder who the customer is. Everybody who wants to sell you something. Everybody.

They spent billions in an attempt to earn trillions. And they are succeeding.

Along the way this particular end has become the only end. We are, for better or for worse, a total consumer society. All our culture, our once noble pursuits, our science our art. They are all geared to sell more things no one really needs.

One of the greatest achievements recently, was the extremely high altitude jump from the edge of space. Sponsored by Redbull. Wow.

A softdrink company has a better space program than most nations.

I do not mean to be too negative but it is hard to see your way past the inevitable. We are becoming creatively barren. No art for art’s sake anymore. It is all driven by the mindless need to consume and make you consume more and more. Without end.

We live on a planet with finite resources. Unlimited growth is a dangerous fallacy. We will consume ourselves to death. The need for greater and greater profits and more and more stuff will, eventually, be the end of us.

Think for yourself. Do you really need that thing that you feel you must have? Really?

How about just sitting down and writing down your thoughts. You could start blogging…

Feeders

Sure, everyone has a fetish. People come in all varieties of crazy. Who are we to judge?

But,

if there are people starving and your fetish will eventually kill you, should you pursue it?

We are living in an age where psychiatrists are trying to have grief and sadness classified as mental disorders. (Look it up if you do not believe me.)

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘He is sad, his friend died.”

“Ooh, better lock him up and medicate him into happy land.”

Unlikely? Not really.

So, then, normal emotional expressions are becoming fast unacceptable, while unnatural emotional and physical states are protected under the banner of fetishism, consumerism and political correctness.

Eat until you are so morbidly obese that you become disabled.

Saying our children have ADHD is equally abhorent. Kids do not have the attention span of adults – period. Nor should they. Has anyone ever looked at the diet those alleged ADHD kids consume?

I bet my bottom dollar that it is full of sugar, additives, artificial colours and preservatives.

Morgan Spurlock made a brilliant point in his ‘Supersize me’ – he reported on a school which took in all the disciplinary cases from other schools – a last resort kind of school. The solution to the kids problems was largely diet. They fed them whole natural foods in the right quantities and at the right time.

Wow, common sense.

We are so far off course that any corrective action will take years before we see the fruits. That does not mean we should not do it.

Let’s start at home.

By the way, do you know what kind of food our grandparents were forced to eat?

Organic, whole foods. Because there was nothing else available.

How many cases of morbidly obese people and ADHD kids did your grandparents have to deal with?

Such is life…

This morning I took my wife to work. Traffic, as usual, was very busy and it was more of a stop-and-go arrangement rather than a swift and decisive drive.

The last part of the journey took us past a cemetery to our left. It is beautiful, small and recessed headstones, luscious lawns, well kept small hedges and a blue sky and sparkling sunlight to boot.

That was on our left.

On our right we see the legions emerging from the underground railway station into the blinding light. They assemble into shambling cohorts and trudge along miserably, already knowing the shape and circumstance of their day. No joy, no surprises there.

It seems odd that the near living should be in a position to envy the finitely dead. I look left again and think that I would probably prefer to bask in the sun – even under the lawn.

It is clear that most of the undead on the right in their pale imitation of life think similar thoughts if they are still able to.

Where did we go so wrong?

How about that?

As I sit here writing this, only a few hours have passed since an asteroid the size of a four story house hurtled passed our little blue-green marble at a distance of 28000 kms or about 17000 miles. That is well within the orbit of our highest communications satellites.

Simultaneously (well, a little earlier really), a meteor entered the earth’s atmosphere resulting in widespread damage and some one thousand injured people in the Ural mountains.

Personally, I think we will find that these incidents are related.

It raises, however, a rather dire spectre. What if the next chunk of space flotsam does not pass us by, what if its motto is ‘Earth or dust’. We have no serious funds invested in protecting ourselves from this very real threat.

One only needs to look at the scar(r)ed surface of our closest companion – La Luna – to see that hits are frequent – speaking in geological ages.

In fact Gaia herself has ample scars resulting from the failure of near misses – a failed near miss is a hit – yes – I know – I am being facetious.

So, I propose, unless we wish to go the way of the dinosaurs, we all write to members of Parliament, Congress, Senate, Knesset, Bundestag, Upper House, Lower House etc ad infinitum, stating our desire, as lawfully registered and enfranchised constituents, to funnel some of the billions we spent on bailing out the big end of town to the protection of our species (and, incidentally, every other species on the planet, as well).

What say you, the great unwashed?

Just a little kindness…

As I sit here beavering away for the man, and yes I am on a break, just in case you are wondering, I cannot help but think that we all labouring to no discernible end.

Truly, what difference do most of us make? Since that difference cannot be made in our working lives, let’s try to make a difference in our private lives. Kindness will echo through the community and society at large.

We do not have to get angry when we get cut off in traffic, we could let someone else take our seat on the bus or train, we could say ‘Good morning’ more often and mean it.

Like I said – just small things.

Here is smiling at you, babe.