A Deadly Mistake

The worst mistake man ever made was to speed everything up. As the old man in The Shawshank Redemption said before hanging himself: “The world went and got itself into a big damn hurry.” While at that time he referred to the abundance of automobiles and the sudden speed with which business was being done, today that speed has accelerated even more.

            Today, we live in what appears to be an instant world. Instant food, instant communication; the only thing that’s not instant is our transportation, and even then we’ve managed to speed it up in many ways and for many purposes, though our freeways remain jam-packed at rush hour and stand completely still any time a collision occurs. The Internet, it has been argued, has had many benefits, but perhaps if we step back and examine the evidence to these “benefits,” we will find that they are only beneficial in the context of a fast, instant world wherein any task can be done instantaneously as long as it can be done digitally. In fact, I would argue the Internet has done more harm than good, for despite the speed with which processes can be completed, people feel more like they have no time to do things—to create a coherent thought, to research a point as completely as it can be researched—even to relax and take a break from all the pressures that have resulted from the breakneck speed to which we have developed. The more we connect in the virtual world, the more we demand immediate results, the less we connect in real life and the more alienated we feel from our peers.

            Relationships build over time. They are a natural process like the rest of life. The Internet, in many ways, is destroying the very foundation of a relationship. No longer do people take time to get to know one another. They group together online and share things, but often times when someone shows a point of view that disagrees with the group, the person holding the opposing position is ousted from the group itself. The more connected we feel in the virtual, instant world, the less connected we feel to and within real life. People don’t touch each other as much anymore; their fingers are too busy swiping and tapping screens, pressing keys, clicking mice; their eyes are too occupied by a screen; their ears are so preoccupied with electronics that they fail to pick up sound waves that emanate next to them from partners, family members, friends, colleagues, etc.

            Naturally, one might ask me, “If that’s your argument, why do you use the Internet?” The answer is simple: I grew up with its development. I began using computers in 2001, at the age of 9. I played the hell out of The Sims and I spent more time online than I did talking to my family, every chance I got. Suddenly, the world seems so much bigger for the addition of the World Wide Web, and so much smaller when we remain rooted in reality. My experience in the military expanded the world greatly for me, and also showed me that as big as it gets, it is only so big. The thing is, I think that’s okay.

            Our population on this planet is such that there is no way any one person can meet every single other person on the planet. Still, I think that our goal in life should be to make connections, to communicate, to learn and grow from one another. Our purpose should not be to drive a sales bargain, to find the bottom line of a deal, to cheat and swindle our way to the top of an imaginary ladder or the front of an imaginary race. The Internet has done me much good in my life, it is true, but to connect this to what I said before, I would wager that the benefits I have experienced have been a direct result of the desire in our society for immediate results. Research papers are due in just enough time to find as many sources as possible, and most of those sources today come from the Internet rather than a library. Printed books are going out of style in favour of digital copies that can instantly be downloaded, eliminating the need for people to get out in public and interact with other bookworms in shops, or shopkeepers themselves.

            Pokémon GO was the best technological advancement in gaming since Ingress. It got more people outside than did Ingress, and even now, as it continues to update, people can come together within the game, make friends, and trade Pokémon. These are new developments and while I can talk all day long against technology, I can also talk all day long in support of it, because this kind of development is just what we need to get people outside and interacting with one another in real life again. Further advancements must be made, however. We cannot allow ourselves to be limited to these games to explore the outside world and meet people face-to-face. The problem still exists that everything in this world today is moving too fast.

            People today are literally working themselves to death. This phenomenon has been reported by Forbes in this article, and Time covered it in their own article. It seems that overwork is most common in Japan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the cardiology-related deaths in America are caused by the stresses of overworking.

            It’s time to slow down. The Internet may have many uses, but it’s so large it’s literally uncontrollable. There are proxies and workarounds for the most censored nations. Truly, unless a person lacks a connection, the Internet is nigh unavoidable in today’s age. Still, I think its development was in many ways a mistake and I wonder how we might be able to change it so that it could be used more primarily for research purposes, or more accurately, how we might slow down the frantic rat race of our society while maintaining the use of the Internet for all the good it does us.

The Problems with Americans and Guns

           The Wild Wild West. The Industrial Age. The Age of Information. We have learned so much throughout time, yet so many fail to look to history to find the answers to the present problems.

            America was born in violent revolution. We seceded from England because the British government refused to represent our interests during Parliamentary proceedings. We have Founding Fathers who stood strongly against the banks, and we have time in our history when we existed without a “Federal Reserve” or any big-bank entities that create misery wherever they take hold. Due to our diverse population and thus our diverse set of ideals, our people have always disagreed on every topic. Our government is made up of a Democratic Republic, not a Democracy, not Communism, and not Parliament. Yet, we see our American dream—something that was cultivated in our early years and greatly enforced during Westward Expansion after our Civil War—is under direct attack, has been for a long time, and is getting worse.

            There has been another mass shooting at another school, this time in Florida. I don’t keep up with all of them, I’m just glad it hasn’t happened in my neighbourhood. I realize how blessed I am, for it is not a privilege to live without fear of your neighbours, it only seems so to those who cannot do so.

            Many people say that America should be like Australia and implement a gun ban and subsequent mandatory buy-back program for banned firearms. However, this idea has many flaws, primary among them being complete lack of Constitutionality. While it is true that Australia’s rates of violent crime have fallen over the years since they implemented their first gun bans in 1996, people who use these statistics to support their unconstitutional “ban-all-guns” ideology fail to recognize that there is never only one reason for something like this. The falling rates in violent crime in Australia have many more causes than simply lack of availability of firearms. For one thing—and this is something that Leftists also say America should mimic, and for this point, I would agree—Australia has a single-payer healthcare system and no Australian citizen needs to fear for lack of availability of care when he or she is sick or has a serious health issue. While it can be good to look at other countries for ideas, it does not do to encourage people in America to demand mimicry. Australia’s drop in violent crime since their gun bans began in 1996 has absolutely been the result of multiple factors, but all anyone can really see is a statistic showing trends.

Australian Violent Crime Trends, 1996-2013

            America is meant to stand alone, stand tall, and stand strong, United States whose unity is fierce and fearsome. Instead, we have become divided, poisoned by the corruption in our government and legal systems that continue to pass damaging legislation that keeps us at war with other countries and continues to pull resources away from the very people who make the country what it is.

            America has a corruption problem in our politics, our legal system, our law enforcement system, our education system, and it all stems from a problem in our banking system. I say this with a measure of hesitation, for it is a large accusation to make, but from what I have seen, all our problems come from people with large amounts of money wishing to make larger amounts of money and exert control over those who do not have as much money. This ultimately leads back to the banks, all of which have teams of lawyers and lawmakers working for them to affect laws in their favour.

            Naturally, America is not the only country with this problem, but this is not the only problem the United States face. Our healthcare system is expensive and unsustainable. Our education system is grossly underfunded, and our culture discourages critical thinking and intellectualism. More and more people in America spend their time trying to start an independent business, selling goods and products, rather than taking up gainful employment that gives back to their communities and is beneficial and productive to society and culture.

            We have a country full of salesmen and businessmen and our culture is shutting down the artists, engineers, scientists, philosophers, social workers, teachers, doctors, and nurses. Instead of encouraging critical thinking and community, our culture continues to strongly encourage individualism, “us-vs-them” mentality, and a distinctly capitalistic attitude geared towards making a better bottom line for the sake of one’s own personal gain. This is evidenced by the constant ads you see, and all those Facebook friends who are constantly trying to sell you things and join them in their sales. These include things like BeachBody, ItWorks!, Scentsy, PartyLite, Younique, and various clothing brands, makeup brands, and more. People who manage to make money in this way typically use that money to create a lavish lifestyle full of vacations wherein they continuously move around, and do not create roots or meaningful personal connections with others that can last tests of time.

“We have a country full of salesmen and businessmen and our culture is shutting down the artists, engineers, scientists, philosophers, social workers, teachers, doctors, and nurses.”

            These people are all over social media, and if they aren’t selling a brand, they’re selling something from themselves, such as fitness routines, nutritional guidance, lifestyle advice, etc., and they spend all of their time broadcasting and making themselves bigger to make their money and live lifestyles that are egocentric. While some of them may contribute some of their monies to charities, these people are still not engaging in employment within their communities and within society that gives back to the people around them, even when they give back to those who helped them get to where they are in their success.

            Banning guns is not the solution.

            Bolstering our education systems is a solution.

            Reforming our healthcare system is a solution.

            Holding our politicians, lawyers, and bankers accountable is a solution.

Thanks for reading.

Anxiety and Depression: Roots in Childhood

All good parents want the same thing: Health and wellness for their children. As we propel ourselves into the future, parents take action and give more and more thought to better provide healthful foods and activities for their children. Studies that prove the detrimental effects on children of such disciplinary practices as spanking and yelling resonate with today’s new parents on unprecedented levels, encouraging parents to be gentler and kinder when shaping the personalities and characteristics of their children. This article aims to let parents know what they may be doing wrong and why their kids may act out more than others.

            The purpose of this entry is to shed light on the ways in which parents are unwittingly damaging to their children, how they can better support their children moving forward, and what happens to children who grow up without proper support from their families. To accomplish this goal, I will tell my own life’s story as a means of letting others out there know that they are not alone. Abuse takes many forms and we do not have to lie down and take it.

            My life started like any other girl’s life in the early 1990s. I was born in a secular hospital to a mother who had been abused most of her life since childhood, did not know how to tell someone “no,” and wanted nothing more than to work as a secretary while raising her children in a farmhouse with horses in the fields. My father was a tweaker.

            I fit in perfectly to the heteronormative expectations of our society, always a people pleaser. Early on, I lived with my mom, but it wasn’t long before I lived with my dad, who, unbeknownst to me, did not make me his first priority and that’s why he would yell and spank me if I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, even if what I said was the truth. It didn’t take long for him to get rid of me so he could focus entirely on himself and his addiction, though. Before the age of 5, I was living with his mother and her husband, none the wiser to his habits or any of the reasons behind my not living with my own mother.

            Those were the easy days. Kindergarten and first grade were the best years of my life. I had friends, teachers loved me, I was social, I fit in exactly the way I wanted to—exactly the way I was supposed to. I was a good kid. I was happy and I didn’t think very deeply about my mom or dad because they were just never around. It didn’t matter whether they were there or not because I lived in a nuclear household with the only exception being that the “parents” were actually my grandparents. Before first grade ended, though, my mother filed to take custody of me and my grandparents asked me if I wanted to go live with her.

            At the time, I could not fathom why I hadn’t been living with my mother all along, so I eagerly accepted the idea of moving to her house and being with her. I knew that my dad was not always nice to me. He liked to tease me, make fun of me, tickle me too much, yell at me, and spank me. Surely, my mother would be much better, I thought. I was wrong in the way only those who have made a decision that ultimately lead to various health problems would understand.

            My mother was neglectful. She would pay no attention to me, leaving me entirely to my own devices, unless it was a meal time or she thought I’d done something wrong, at which time she would yell at me either way. Yelling for food is one thing—most parents do it and it is not a detrimental practice—but when she would yell about the disobedience she perceived, it was a different story. My grandparents would drop me off at my mother’s house and I would scream bloody murder and cry as if my cat had died, clinging for dear life to the elders who provided me safety, security, good hygiene, prescription spectacles that were aesthetically pleasing, and clothes that fit.

            My paternal grandmother took notes. Every time I came back for a visit, she would check me over and note anything that construed child abuse. The welts on my butt from wooden spoon paddlings were the most obvious sign. What she couldn’t see or record was the true damage done to my psyche, but that is not to discredit her by saying she failed to record any important information. On the contrary, her notes were thorough enough to use in court, as that was their intention, and outlined everything from the lice on my head to the dirt in my toenails.

            There was one thing that didn’t make it to my grandma’s notes, one thing that was significant enough to change the way I saw myself for years to come: My mother told me I wasn’t pretty. Explained to me later, as an adult, my mother said that her reasoning behind such a statement was that she was told the same thing as a child. I don’t see how that justifies such abusive language—there is no way to justify abuse—but I don’t hold it against her because now I understand her mental illness, not just how it affects me. The other significant abusive event was when my mother’s boyfriend molested me, continuing to touch my private parts after I told him “No,” and “Stop,” multiple times.

            When he came into my room, lay down on my bed, and began feeling me up, it was the climax to the abuse I’d endured from him over the course of my stay with my mother. Previous abuse, I had tolerated, but this time, I told him to stop. Instead, he licked my earlobe and I could not protest due to the laughter generated from the tickling sensation of his tongue. Previous abuses fled my mind. All that mattered was that he had woken me up and all I wanted to do was sleep, but he would not leave. I was appalled—he had always stopped when I told him to, before. He tugged my pajama pants down and I said, “No,” and he told me to let go. I struggled, my tiny, 9-year-old fingers holding onto the hem of my pants for dear life as this middle-aged man forced the fabric from my grip, baring my legs and letting the cool air of the room violate my sensitive, prepubescent skin.

            “Don’t tell anyone,” an earnest, hushed, panicky request, sounded like a joke when the unwelcome stench of his spunk filled the room and the gooey, sticky substance rendered my blankets unusable. How was I to keep this thing a secret when I had told him I didn’t want him to do it in the first place? I was a good girl and I had been told that it was the right thing to tell on someone who was not respecting your autonomous desires. So, I did. I told my best friend, then my older brother, then my mother. The reactions of the first two were bolstering; the third reaction left me confused and damaged.

            My best friend listened with sympathy and offered me her support. My older brother began scouring the property for blunt force objects including crowbars and baseball bats, with which he intended to beat my offender over the head until death. My mother looked at me and said, “Keep it in the house. Don’t tell anyone else.”

            I was hurt and confused, but I listened to her. I didn’t tell anyone else, so when the cops arrived at the house, I couldn’t figure out why. It turned out my brother had told a neighbor girl whose mother had alerted the authorities. My mother’s boyfriend, the father of my second-youngest brother, was hauled away and I was taken to the hospital for examination given the nature of the crime.

            The hospital gave me an adult-sized, preheated, white blanket that I wrapped around myself, taking comfort and solace in its heat and security. I would keep this blanket for nearly a decade before deciding it served as nothing more than a reminder of my trauma. They looked me over, checked my insides for seed, and then let me go, never once losing their faces of friendliness, concern, and compassion.

            With her boyfriend gone, my mother was faced with homelessness, a fact to which I was clueless in part due to a complete lack of understanding that people could actually fail to find housing. Thinking of what was best for her children in the best way she could think of—all the while telling me it was my fault he was gone, my fault she was facing eviction again, and my fault my baby brother would never see his daddy again—encouraged her to allow me to move back to my grandparents’ house, the very house from which she had taken me.

            I thought I could be happy again. I thought moving back under my grandparents’ roof would somehow fix everything and make it right. The reality turned out to be very different, taking instead the form of further abuse from my mother. Phone calls from my mother greatly upset me as she would yell and scream at me over the phone, telling me that her circumstances were my fault, leading to the purchase of a speaker phone that would allow my grandmother to listen to the entire conversation and help me cut it off when the time was right. I never thought that I needed actual guidance, encouragement, or attentiveness to my development as a 9-year-old child.

            It was not until after I separated from the military that I realized the depth of my childhood ignorance. The advice my grandparents gave me was sound and given with the best intentions, but I thought the advice lacked encouragement. I thought it lacked the kind of rhetoric that makes a child think, “I can do this!” and instead included the kind of rhetoric that makes a child think, “I’d better not try it.” Case in point: When I told my grandma that I wanted to go to art school because my dream was to be an artist, her words were, “What are you going to do with it? Are you going to be a starving artist?” This was a significant exchange, one of many smaller exchanges, that caused lasting damage despite the fact that it was not the entirety of the conversation or even the whole of her advice.

            My grandparents found a counselor for me immediately after the sexual abuse incident. The counselor told them I’m strong and they trusted me when I told them I no longer needed therapy. I had no way of realizing the depths of my mental illness or how it would manifest later in my life. Pieces of conversations are missing from my memory, leaving me with the damaging pieces and not the helpful bits. Phrases like, “That’s not helpful,” stick in my mind, while encouragements like, “You could look into doing a double major,” fall short of my mental registration. The therapist I saw as a teenager was unable to target all of this, but she was able to pinpoint my mother as the root cause of my insatiable rage, thus provoking me to write a large series of violent poems directed at my mother.

            I was lucky. I had access to care, no matter what. I had family members who honestly and truthfully looked out for the best for me. They were not perfect. No one is. Every parent is going to say something damaging to their child. The important thing is to heal the wounds as much as possible. When I finally swallowed my anxiety and called my mother from Germany, I was pleasantly surprised by her response and my ability to have a full conversation with her that ultimately led to the healing of our relationship. When I mentioned to my grandmother her response to my desire to be an artist, she came back a little later and reminded me of the rest of the conversation, giving me a better understanding and helping reassure me that my childhood was not actually as terrible as I had come to believe as a disabled veteran.

            If the most important thing is communication, though, my dad falls short and always has. Where my mother grew and became healthier, my dad has stagnated in that I feel more comfortable of talking to my mother about any issue I have than I am comfortable talking to my dad. I have gone through the forgiveness process with my dad as much as my mom, for they were both equally nonexistent for much of my childhood, though in different ways. When I called my mom from Germany, it was with the goal of forgiving her for the neglect and abuse of my childhood. It went well. Forgiving my dad felt much more forced because he came clean from drugs and practically demanded forgiveness.

            Forgiveness cannot be forced or demanded. Demanding or forcing forgiveness is a good way to eliminate all possibilities of future forgiveness. When my dad came clean and said, “Yeah, I’ve been doing methamphetamines. I would get clean for a short while and get my shit together, then I’d go get loaded and lose it all.” It explained the pattern of behavior I so abhorred in him as a child and with his insistence and my grandmother’s willingness to listen and forgive him, I found myself sucked into his web of deceit. Deception in the form of words that assured me that he would turn around and be a good father. A supportive dad who would actually care about me and encourage me towards my goals. I thought the elimination of drugs from his life would turn him around. I was wrong—not in that he ever relapsed, because he is still clean, but in that his attitude never changed. His way of approaching me never changed.

            It is important that one day, I forgive my father. It is important to forgive those who hurt us, not to excuse their behavior or even to say it was, is, or ever will be okay, but to relieve ourselves of the negative emotions that we harbor without forgiveness. Parents are imperfect. Now that I am a parent, I have a much deeper understanding of what my mother went through. I also have a much better understanding of the ways in which my father has interacted with me throughout my life. I interact with my daughter in many similar ways to how my dad interacted with me when I was young. I also interact wither her in ways my mother interacted with me. But more than that, I have the best example of a parent I could ever have asked for: My husband.

            Without my husband, it is likely I would not be writing this blog post. It is likely that I would not recognize the abusive nature of my father’s rhetoric. So, I will close with advice for parents. Perhaps it will seem cliché. Perhaps it will seem overdone or unsolicited—parents get so much advice already, who am I, as a newbie mom, to interject?

            I’ll tell you who I am. I am a woman. I am a disabled veteran who suffers from major depressive disorder, persistent postpartum depression, generalized anxiety triggered by certain social interactions, and PTSD from not only my time in the military, but also from the course of my life.

            So, to parents, I have this to say: Listen to your children. When they tell you their dreams and aspirations, think before you speak. Make sure your FIRST words are words of encouragement, not of advice or caution. It is good to caution our children of the dangers in life, but it is more important to ensure that our children feel strong, confident, and capable of facing the challenges ahead.

            Be mindful of your reactions towards your children. When your son or daughter spills an entire gallon of milk onto the kitchen floor, take a deep breath before you speak. Walk away if the adrenaline is making your hands shake. Take your child to the side, away from the mess, to explain to them why their actions were wrong. Demonstrate what they must do to make it right and lead them to do it themselves—with the gallon of milk example, clean it up with them, but make sure they do most of the work and remain positive while doing it. There is nothing in the world harder than keeping your cool when your child is testing your last nerve. But that is the absolute most important thing any parent can do for their kids. Keep your cool, remain positive, and encourage more than you advise.

Questions Concerning Humanity and Utility

Humans are an interesting lot. It seems at once like yesterday and like forever ago that I wrote my blog entry, “Humans Are Actually Terrifying.” It seemed a popular enough piece at the time, but I think it’s good to spark some dialogue about the human condition and our habits as we live our lives.

            A classmate of mine asked, regarding architecture, “At what point does development become meaningless?” This made me think of some other things I have thought about, other questions I have asked: At what point do we realize that not every single human needs to ‘make a living’ in order to be valued and loved? What is the true purpose of cancer and why are we so intent on and obsessed with curing it in all its forms? What further studies can we do that might tell us the reason cancers appear? Isn’t cancer simply the evolutionary process taking place? Why do we grieve those who die? Is death not merely a part of life that we should all accept? Should we not honor the dead for who they were in life, rather than bemoaning the fact that they no longer breathe our same air?

            We should celebrate the lives of those who have passed. Take, for example, the late, great, Alan Rickman. Or, perhaps, the wonderful Carrie Fisher. Yes, it is sad that they are gone because they were wonderful to see on screen. Has it crossed no one’s mind, though, that perhaps it was their time to go? It may seem premature to us, as we expected Carrie Fisher to finish the Star Wars movies and Alan Rickman to tell his great-grandchildren about Harry Potter, but since when has the world cared about what humans think should happen? Life happens on its own terms and we simply need to grab on, hold on tight, and figure it out as we plunge forward with the persistent march of time. I was particularly devastated with the passing of Robin Williams. He was like the cool uncle I knew and loved but had never actually met. I felt an intimate connection with him that I would like to mention before anyone tries to tell me I simply don’t understand because I was never a true fan. It felt as though a family member and a true friend had passed when Robin Williams took his own life and I cannot fathom why he did it. All I know is that he was found to have hung himself on the day I gave birth to my daughter. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences. For a while, I mourned Robin Williams, but I realize now that the best thing for me to do is to continue his legacy by ensuring that my wonderful daughter knows all of his movies, so that she can see what a wonderful soul we had with us for some time. I want her to know Robin Williams as I knew him, to feel him as intimately as I felt him, even and especially when he discussed mental illness. Robin Williams can help teach my child compassion and wherewithal, even if there is no longer a chance of my meeting him in person. I hope we can all think of our favorite late celebrities in this way.

            What is cancer, really? I always imagine one of two things. The first is to imagine feeling lumps multiplying within my body at an exponential rate, so that each time I poke a particular part of my body, it feels like more and more little balls are forming within. The other is to imagine what cells look like as they multiply… and multiply, continuously. Why do cells become cancerous? What purpose could cancer serve that humans are blind to due to our “divine spiritual and intellectual development”? People like to share things on social media that condemn cancer for the suffering it induces in those who become sick with it. People like to do things like participate in Relay for Life and purchase items from the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer Awareness (a scam if I’ve ever seen one). “Cancer is horrible!” “Fuck cancer!” “Rest in Peace Grandpa, Grandma, Auntie Susie, and Uncle John, all cancer victims…” I do not seek to belittle the emotional implications behind the suffering endured by cancer patients. I do, however, seek to belittle the way in which we approach the topic. Why do we think it is so vital to save every single life that comes into this world? Why are we the only species on the planet that coddles the weak and unfit? Is it so that we can flash our Good Guy Badges in one another’s faces and claim we’re such excellent citizens because we have compassion? What is true compassion? At what point does compassion turn from strength to weakness?

            I believe death is a part of life. I believe that we need to accept the inevitability of bodily death and focus less on what happens afterwards and more on what happens beforehand. The religious are, in many cases, entirely too focused on what seems to be the end of the journey that is life. I believe wholeheartedly in living in the moment as much as possible. Of course, it is important to plan for the future. After all, we do have an average life span depending on demographic and geography, so that virtually every person on this planet could plan as if to live up to that point. In this way, people could be prepared for the future even if they weren’t to reach as far into it as they’ve planned. We also need to learn from the history we are taught and presented, as well as do our own historical research in order to develop well-rounded ideas of what has happened over time and what mistakes were made, so that we do not continue to repeat that which has been detrimental to our livelihoods. It has been said that the smart man learns from his mistakes while the wise man learns from the mistakes of others. I believe this is true and I strive to learn from the mistakes of others so that I can push forward and hopefully contribute to human evolution in a positive manner. This leads me to a connecting point…

            In coddling the weak and unfit and by supporting those who would otherwise die in nature’s survival of the fittest, do we waste resources on those who do not contribute to our futures? In what way are the severely handicapped useful to our lives aside from teaching us a level of compassion that is virtually useless? At what point will our habit of coddling the weak come back to bite us in the ass due to overextension of resources? We are already an overpopulated species on this planet and we continue to fuck up the environment by transporting wildlife from place to place, disturbing local ecosystems and forcing species after species into extinction not only from the transport of species to new lands but also from such abhorrent activities as shark finning and bottom trawling our oceans. We worry about sustainability but who will we be sustaining for? At what point will we need to prioritize human lives based on people’s merit? At what point do we stop demonizing eugenics due to the Holocaust of World War II and instead look at it as a viable possibility for improving the human race and reducing our impact on the planet?

            I encourage feedback to every blog entry, but this particular entry is one on which I very much wish to see dialogue sparked. I would especially like to see what some thoughts are as far as the question regarding architectural development, as that is the question posed that sparked this entry and all the questions I’ve presented herein.

Some Thoughts about Thinking

Thinking about thinking is hard and most people don’t do it. The Puppeteer runs amok and it seems that the majority of people, at least in the United States, are under Its power.

            The Puppeteer is all of the forces in the world which would have you believe whatever piece of information is presented to you, without question. For example, when the preacher tells you that God is omnipotent and loving because the Bible says so, that preacher is an agent of the Puppeteer and you’re a victim of that power if you don’t question what he says. How is God omnipotent? What evidence do we have that God exists, aside from an ancient text that has been poorly translated thousands of times? How many times has the Bible been translated? How many inaccuracies exist due to translators’ desires to convey cultural context over literal meaning?

            These questions are penetrating, critical questions that help us to think critically about religion and what the preacher says. These types of questions are what I am now exploring in my class through the University of Phoenix and I feel fortunate that I now have the resources before me to take control of my own mind in a way that I hadn’t previously considered needing doing.

            The Puppeteer is evident in Its work; we see It at work with the 2016 election, as we are flooded with information from the different sides of the race. We see Hillary blasted all over the television, Bernie blasted all over the Internet, and Trump slandered all over both. What information should we believe and what information should we toss as useless? The answers lie in the research.

            Yesterday, I did some research on Hillary Clinton. I discovered that she has a history of defending women’s rights and speaking against the big banks, Wall Street, and Big Pharma. I also learned that she stands by her decision in the 1975 rape case that is often cited as a means of “exposing” her as a “villain”. The truth is, she stands by the fact that she is responsible for the lightness of the sentence because she fulfilled her obligation as a defense attorney. Initially, she requested that she not be appointed to the rapist; when her request was ignored and she was thus obligated to defend the young man, she fulfilled that obligation, regardless of how it made her feel or what the result was in the end. She was a defense attorney and she did what all defense attorneys strive to do; she defended the man against his charges.

            Some things I already knew about Hillary are that she did nothing wrong as Secretary of State during the Benghazi incident and she has not been found responsible for any loss of confidential information through her emails. In fact, all speculation against her regarding Benghazi and her emails have been led by Republicans and those supporting the Republican Party, such as Citizens United. Smear campaigns against Hillary should not be any more readily believed than smear campaigns against Bernie; however, so many Bernie supporters are willing to believe that Hillary did something wrong with Benghazi and she lost confidential information in her email scandal. These are the same Bernie supporters who proudly tout that they’ve done all their own research and have all the facts to make their decisions.

            Why are so many intelligent people so willing to sit back and just absorb whatever information best suits them? Why are they so disinclined to dig a little deeper in their research and find the real truth for themselves? It’s been touted by Bernie supporters that they’ve all done their own research, but the more I think critically about the things Berners share, the more I realize they’re sharing false information almost as much as the truth.

            When did our society come to so value laziness and lack of critical thought?