I rode slowly on this podcast. I took vacation two weeks ago and found myself the far away land in Dominican Republic. In the course of soaking up sol, I thought about happiness and what it really means. I talk about Aritisotle’s take on it and then my own. Lastly a small rant on participation trophies to top it off.
Experience something awesome: you are listening to me.
A friendship is like a home. And like a home, you need a fresh coat paint, some lawn care, and a clean up every so often. It’s maintenance. Its upkeep. The home will treat you good as you treat it.
If you forget to cut the grass, clean the gutters, wash the driveway, well it looks shitty. The friendship is the same. What all this mean is when close friends become just friends, then become acquaintances, and finally familiar strangers.
Its one thing to lose touch, grow apart, or live off the grid. But it’s another thing to stop returning phone calls, not meet up for a drink, or find out their back home and don’t even bother to tell you.
Here’s my thing: give yourself permission to purge your friendship list on facebook, twitter, cell phone, or plain old Rolodex of inactive friends in your life. Yeah, write them off. You are not on their radar, nor should they be on yours.
Don’t plot payback or confront them. You’re not going get the satisficaiton you’re looking for. It’s like when an adopted kid looks for his biological father to tell him off on how successful he became, to only sorely meet apathy face on. What a disappointment.
Do this: remove them from your life. If they ever attempt to reach out to you, fine. But don’t burn calories to get their attention. Who cares. Live a successful happy life, for that’s the highest payback you can achieve.
Funny thing I heard on the Adam Carolla Podcast today: the walk of shame for guys. For a guy it’s walking into the local video store, to be eyed all the way to the adult section, 200 feet of horrible 80’s carpet, in the back of the store. It gets worse when its in your hometown and Cindy who went to your high school in your class, is working at the check-out desk. She gives you the stink eye and shames you on the spot. Thank God for the internet. No more of that.
How about it? What’s another walk of shame for a guy?
Its to my belief now that smaller entries are better. Long drawn out rants and arguments end up losing the reader. That means you are yelling into the abyss. At some point it’s narcissistic intel-masturbation The only exception that comes immediately to mind is sharing something personal, that reveals or pulls the curtain back a bit.
That, I give a free pass.
P.S. I understand the below entry is a long-drawn out rant. Notice no comments.
I’ve been thinking about philosophy lately. I can now see why people think its BS. A few days ago, in course of a few beers, I conversed with a well-school guy on the history of 1960’s and its consequences. There was a good amount give and take dialogue with common ideas in between. But a certain point, I concluded this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Let me explain.
Exploration of ideas without consideration of real-world consequences is where people stop buying into whatever you’re saying or at least, I call BS. The guy asserted drugs like LSD, unadulterated use, are simply brain altering substances and can raise conscientiousness to a higher level.
Yeah right.
That’s hippie talk.
Multiple acid trips are good way to go crazy. Scientific literature journals on drug abuse and addiction express stuff like chronic LSD-induced psychosis and long-term flashbacks as significant adverse consequences to these drugs.
What about the therapeutic benefits to LSD? Yeah, there some work on treating alcoholism with it. But for the most part, this stuff is unpredictable as it depends on factors like setting, genetics, mind-set, expectations, and drug content purity.
Later, the idea of families living on communes as a viable lifestyle is nonsense. Imagine my head shacking no, side to side, at this point in time. I always ask myself, in this system, who is going to take out the trash? The idea is shared responsibility, no restrictions, live free kind of society. But reality is a bunch of potheads squatting a campsite, never scooping the 3 day old dog poo from the carpet, kids running around like Lord of the Flies, and every guy is father to some kid, but don’t know which one.
And here’s my thing: fine. I don’t care. Do all the free sex, love, and drugs to your heart’s content. But as soon as there’s a kid in the picture, I got a problem with it now. This is a good way to screw up a kid. The neglect of no adult supervision or parents, the abuse of horrible living standards, the non-sense of home schooling from screwballs, and then the denial that, hey, what is it to you, can’t judge, stop generalizing–folk, is dangerous and irresponsible.
So back to philosophy. This goes for right-wing philosophies too. One comes to mind. Pro-lifers adamant campaign against the morning after pill, or Plan B, and Wal-Mart’s move to relucntantly sell over the counter back a few years ago because a) pro-lifers belief its an abortion pill and b) it encourages sexual activity, and) its morally wrong/bad to give this to the public, specifically teenagers.
Here’s why I don’t buy into their campaign. Its a contraceptive pill that works exactly like birth control, that you take after sex instead of before. Awesome. Here’s a product that can reduce the number of abortions in this country. Awesome. And this can prevent unplanned pregnancies. Awesome. Do they bite? Nope. They say its an abortion pill and its dangerous to take it.
I suspect their stance is not motivated by pro-life, but teenagers having sex without consequences. They didn’t have sex in high school and judge those who did. And now its payback.
Instead on working on and coming to common ground with the pro-choice folk like reducing the rate of teenagers having sex, both are quite content to yell at each other on the margins.
Conclusion: I don’t like dogma or orthodoxy. Ideas are fine. I like playing with them and exploring them. But the neglect of real-world results suggests to me they don’t know what they are talking about. BS I call.
Bacq and Fourth