We prefer you call him The Great Pumpkin, thank you.

I concur with all of your statements, to include the one concerning the realization of being a cog in the machine.

I have several errands to run, and would love to continue the discussion when I return, if you’re amenable, of course.

You have a great points, though your scenario is a bit too simple.

It’s not that we’re so fat and lethargic that we can’t be bothered to get off the sofa long enough to effect meaningful change. It’s that “the media” is gargantuan and goes far beyond the synthesized news cycles and reports. The OG social media outlets like churches, work culture, family structure, regional Identities, and every other socialized structure you can think of manifests itself into these ideals that have been pummeled into our head since the first time we stood up in preschool and recited the pledge of allegiance.

Making it more complicated is that our real concerns like, paying our bills, feeding our families, getting Timmy to soccer practice, protecting our kids, being a good employee so we don’t lose our job, being a good dad, being a good son, keeping our relationships healthy, etc., etc. is condensed into an infantesimally small amount of time. When you finally get to stop you’ve only got the bandwidth for bullet points. It’s not laziness, it’s exhaustion. It’s not lack of self-reflection, it’s overclocking. We have an entire backbone population that’s absolutely exhausted and still feeling like failures because somehow the American dream is feeling like a greasy, over-hustled nightmare that we’re constantly struggling to live up to.

This cycle does lend itself to your headlines of gun violence, gladiator arena us v. them politics, and on, and on. The system with which we now live is a constant grinder that no longer leaves time for, nor praises individualism and ideas. It’s a finely tuned revenue machine built on an overhauled slavery model that instead praises corporatism, classism, ruling parties, and residual monthly income… with a smiley face of nationalistic exceptionalism posted on the packaging.

Apologies for being so long winded, but some sympathy for the devil might be in order. We’re largely not a bad people. Most of us are kind, optimistic, and try very hard to change the things we see out of place. The problem is we’re becoming more and more just white noise in the background. A sort of spectre of idealisms past.

The avocado toast is fan-fuckin-tastic here.

I bought bidets for the house during the COVID toilet paper lunacy and it’s likely the best personal hygiene investment I’ve ever made. I still get upset when I have to poop somewhere that doesn’t have a bidet.

Clearly this man has never

Grifter gonna grift.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Hol’up. They don’t want that?

You forgot the “/s” bro

Great. Because another sycophant is what we need.

Shit. That maybe the most clever meme I’ve ever seen.

Don’t we all?

I was a better person having never seen this.

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Unfortunately, propagating ignorance is useful as a tool to keep change from ever occurring.

I’m a white dude that lived in the South for 42 of my 51 years. I was fortunate that my parents were flower children that didn’t fit in with the hate scene of the time, and they taught me to respect everyone.

Their biggest hurdle was the limit of their knowledge. Like me, they weren’t taught the history of atrocities that we’re perpetrated against our citizens. The advantage that I had as a parent, over what my parents had, was the good fortune to live in an age of enlightenment through information.

I did my best to make sure that I passed on that part of my parents legacy to my, now adult, children while also making sure they understood what the actual history looked like in our country. I’m hopeful they’ll levy their advantages to continue to help break the cycle.

Being clear, living in the sticks for 42 years of my life wasn’t ideal. That is unless you like living in a dry county surrounded by narrow-minded, puritanical shitbirds that were working OT to make sure people either went to church, or publicly shame them if they weren’t. There was also the in crowds that held people back or elevated them, depending on which family you were related to.

I do miss the hunting and fishing, though I can head back any time I want to do that. Meanwhile, I’ll stay where I can maintain my chill by having copious resources readily available when I want them, and enough anonymity to enjoy them without anyone asking me where I was last Sunday.

Y tho

Say it ain’t so!