Are we decidedly so? Who is ‘we’? Am I a part of we? How do I know I’m not the stupid one and that is the reason everything in my life makes perfect sense? Perhaps me being stupid is my saving grace. I can’t know what I don’t know and therefore this ignorance is the foundation of my stupidity and as ‘they’ have said for many years now, “happy as a pig in sh**…..”. Perhaps I’m rolling around in it all day everyday and it is just normal to me not even knowing that there is something to be known that will change it all for me. That begs the question, do I even want it to change? I’m happy in my stupidity, or at least I think I am.
This being an age old philosophy question has always been for the interested. Not all people want to be better. Not all people are interested in better. In my experience most people use fear as an excuse for why they can’t even look at a proposal.
“No, I won’t even talk to you about it because.” Minds eye: (“I’m afraid that I’ll need to do something that I don’t want to do.”
“But what if it makes things better for you?” (“Life could be great!”)
“What if it makes things worse?” (“Who is this positive thinker? He’s one of those trouble makers everyone is worried about.”)
“What do you have to loose?” On and on it goes. I could fill volumes of dialog like this never getting to an end, never arriving at a place of understanding or perception of the reality we actually witness together. If I press harder for an acknowledgement of that reality it spirals down into an argument castigating me as ‘one who has to be right’ or ‘a trouble maker who just wants to argue’ or ‘a narrow minded person who just can’t see the light of how good their life is.’ Forget that we got into all of this because of their plight in life, they are bitching about their situation. The harder you press for them to realize something better, the more they dig their heels in and pull against the rope of change, the more they identify the rope as the problem and not their defiant pulling. What I find interesting here is that we can learn this premise just from watching animals. A good horse quickly learns that the road to a better life is cooperation with good people. He gets a warm safe shelter, he gets regular feeding (even when snow and drought), he gets kind attention. All he has to do is go along, learning how much better it will be. Instead decidedly stupid.
I hear some of you saying, “I’m not a horse to be led around and made to work for the man.” Is that right? I assure you that you are not the free man you believe yourself to be. If you were interested to see you would easily find all of the places that someone else controls your life by managing the things that make up the choices you make. The perception of freedom because you can walk into Walmart and choose whatever you wish is a sign of your freedom. Let me ask you, “who chose what was available to you?” “Who else can you choose from?” The more you drill this down you will find that more choices are made for you than you make for yourself. You are no different than me, especially if you live in the US. Your life is exactly the same save the preferences you express by your so called ‘choices.’
One of the reasons I am doing noobo is this. The perception of choice when there really is none or very little. The basic idea that I can choose Democrat or Republican based upon how I see things, choose to affiliate myself with that like minded group and make a better life for everyone, all along wontonly desirous uninterested in what is actually better for everyone. These two choices in particular are the easiest to discredit if you’d care to look at all. You will clearly see that this is a psy-op as these things are known today. A distraction to get you caught up in the perception of a good moral choice, ignoring what it actually does, which is cause division. What made this country great was the willingness of it’s people to be united, not in everything but in freedom. One decides to be American even though he would say, I’m from Pennsylvania with some sense of pride. Not because Pennsylvania is better than Wyoming but because Pennsylvania is part of America, the United States of America and that is a great thing to be a party to. If we take that further we could drill it down to his street. A guy meets a guy in Panama whose from the states. Where you from? Pa. You? Pa. Yeah where? Eastern Pa. Where? Philly area. Where? Upper Darby. Yeah me too. Where? Beverly Hills. No kidding, what street? Linwood. Man, I grew up on Crestview. Finding out that they are a few years apart and just never knew each other. This happens everyday all over the world but only in America does it mean something special. Because being a Wyomingite is like being German or French. Period. There is not other group of which to be a party. No other unity. Being a Wyomingite says we do things a little differently than you all but you know, I believe you’ve got my back in the thick of it. If I’m German, I don’t really give a rip about the French. Especially if they are doing things I don’t like and they share a border. That border is a demising line, real or otherwise.
Del., Pa., Wy., or whatever state is just another neighborhood of the Great Old US of A. No demising lines, no borders, to sectionalism just America. Why? By choice. We choose to make it that way. We choose to look at each other as brothers. As the sisters so poignantly proclaimed, “we are family.” We choose that motto and we live it. It makes us different. More and more we choose sectionalism. Us and Them mentality. This erodes our freedom to be American, it is reductive and harmful. We need to turn our focus to what make us all better together. How can I choose to “be the best I can be” and not be in the Army. Or maybe choose to be in that army of people who choose the best America possible.
Please go scrutinize your choices today, study them carefully. Am I choosing to satiate my stupidity or am I choosing to be great because we all need to be great.
Make a different choice today and see what awaits you,
Greg