It is 5:30 AM on Friday April 12th, 2019. The first few months of 2019 has been nothing but colds and fevers but luckily not the flu in this household. I’m now on my third cold and getting tired of this. It is true what they say that you don’t have anything if you don’t have your health. With a cold it is hard to get motivated to do anything and I feel like a slug who just wants to lie on the couch.
Speaking of motivation I’ve found that Friday, which used to be such a joyful day has lost its luster. This realization has been slow in coming but I said it out loud yesterday. My son’s school had an open house and when we were discussing what to do for dinner I mentioned that we should go to a restaurant for a change afterwards. My wife said it was only Thursday and I responded that Friday isn’t exactly a fun day anymore. We’ve got karate and often do both the regular and fighting classes which don’t get us home until later than usual. My son really doesn’t like fighting class and for me, it is the stamina portion I don’t really like although I do it to get stronger.
On Saturday my son has Japanese class and my youngest and I go to karate where again I have two classes. It’s no good going to karate all bloated from a Friday pizza and besides, I really cannot eat pizza and drink soft drinks like I used to as my body just doesn’t like it. So Friday and Saturday are actually busier days than usual in terms of activities; it is not a day to just kick back and relax.
In other news I’m getting very tired of social media. I had a ‘middle age moment’ the other day when I realized a lot more of my peer group are posting religious and political things and are generally becoming much more conservative. It is very disheartening to see how many of them support Trump. When we were younger we were more liberal, empathetic and looking to change the world. But with age, their views harden, and it seems they are becoming dumber, not smarter evidenced by their support of Trump. It is sad because I thought they were smarter than that. Trump is dragging this country through the mud and with every new mud ball comes more cheers.
It really is amazing to live through something like this. In their eyes he can do no wrong. He has made fun of a handicapped reporter, calls people ‘sleezbags,’ alienates all of our allies, surrounds himself with criminals, separates kids from their parents at the border. There is in fact no new low that him and his lackeys in the Republican party that they won’t stoop to in order to keep power. All of this and the Trumplicans cheer right along. Should they have been born in a different generation they would have made excellent Nazis or followers of any dictator throughout history.
Through their support of Trump they’ve shown that we’re not on the same team as Americans. We are partisans living in a country that is more of a business than a country. It is this business and profit over all which encourages them to help destroy this planet by disregarding science. They will blindly follow anything that Fox news says and disregard facts as ‘fake news.’ They simply do not have the ability to think critically and are so misinformed by Fox that it is almost criminal.
Just thinking about it puts me in a sour mood and for the sake of my own happiness I have to resort to a mental effort to try and block it out.
As for religion, that is man’s way of trying to explain his surroundings. It is their answer to what the universe and reality is. It provides them a blanket of comfort in the belief that there is some higher power intervening directly and taking care of them. Yet, they make up excuses as to why kids get sick and die, wars kill scores, diseases spread and so on. They will follow an institution that has had scores of pedophiles and when yet another one is outed say things like “well, there are always bad apples,’ while failing to see that the organization is rife with bad apples and always has been. The previous Pope just yesterday blamed all of that on the sexual revolution of the ’60s! Well, I’ve got news for you in that this has been happening ever since the Catholic church was founded. Just read Lazarillo de Thormes which was written in 1554. But, but that is just one example of another bad apple they would say.
Take a good, clear look at the Christianity and see it for what it is. A made up reason to explain what is hard to explain. The Churches ideas such as Earth being the center of the universe are debunked time and time again, but through a twist of logic, ignoring facts, banning science, they keep pushing these old false beliefs.
So here I am, surrounded by people that support a misogynist, narcissistic dictator who has no empathy for anyone and yet these so called Christians, whose false belief tells them to ‘love thy neighbor’ emphatically cheer on this orange cheeto who currently holds the Presidency. What the hell is going on?? Sometimes this makes me feel quite alone and so in the absence of being able to talk to anyone I only have this blog to write down my thoughts. But this isn’t for them to read and I have no inclination to waste my energy or time trying to change anyone’s opinion. This is for myself and own descendants so they can know exactly how their ancestor thought.
What is going on? I cannot say my descendants. You’ll read how Trump really hurt America and wonder how could we let this all happen? Well, there isn’t much an enlightened person can do other than vote and watch it all play out. Bad times like these come and go and we’re certainly in a very strange time. It is terrible watching friends and family support such nonsense and I am as surprised and exasperated now, when it is actually happening, as you are reading from a historical perspective and wondering “How could so many people be so dumb? Why would they actively want to destroy the planet and ignore science?
All I can say is that people are easily lead, no matter how much education they may have received. One idea is that there is so much information out there with the advent of the internet that people have a hard time digesting all this new information. Anyone can write anything and ideas, false or not, purposely inflicted or not will spread. Most people are not widely traveled and will most often follow the beliefs of their parents and those that surround them. That is why you have pockets of political and religious beliefs. If everyone were thinking for themselves then you should have different ideas and ways of thinking scattered in every single corner of the globe with each reaching their own conclusions. But no, one area is Christian while the other follows Islam. Some areas are conservative and others liberal. You simply believe what everyone else around you believes because they do not have the mental capacity and high sense of logic to think on their own.
And so what do you get? You get groups of people that will disregard science and believe that what science tells us is all one big falsehood. You’ll get entire portions of humanity that will continue to follow the fairy tale of religion. And time will continue and humanity will slog along sometimes advancing and other times taking many steps backwards. We are in a period where humanity seems to be sliding backwards.
