P.R.

It’s reassuring that if I ever get into any real trouble in my life, if I hold a press conference and proclaim ‘this is political correctness gone too far!’ I’ll have at least 50% odds of getting away with my crime, whatever that might be.

Ingredients

I have come to accept that all of us are full of shit to a certain extent. I guess the goal in life is to keep the percentage of shit on our ingredients label as low as possible, like, say, under 10%, and to cram in as many virtues as possible without completely ruining the flavor. We all need to meet our daily requirements of compassion, patience, and humility, with just the right mix of vice and neurosis to maintain our patented taste. Too much of the secret sauce causes diabeetus of course, and we never want to tip the full-of-shit balance so heavily that our label reads ‘Complete Shit, now with human flavoring’.

So Many Poisons to Choose From

I just had my first casino experience. Aside from having a vision of how easily and quickly I could blow up my own life flash before my eyes, the most interesting part of the experience was how easy it was to tell the difference between the folks who wanted to be there, and the folks who HAD to be there.

How We Learn

There are truths in life that I have come to believe we will learn one of two ways:

1. By having an open heart and mind, by being willing and able to look inside of yourself, and having the humility needed to honestly assess your own strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and history, so that when these inevitable truths come to you, you are ready to receive them.

2. By pain.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn many important lessons by the second means, due to personal pride, magical thinking, or ego. 

Because I am deeply invested in being the best father I can be to my children—and realizing that kids learn more from how we behave than what we say—I am trying my hardest to reorient myself to receiving my lessons from the first means. It’s challenging, because we are pattern seeking animals designed to feel discomfort whenever we are forced to step outside of our own personal rituals, delusions, and thought processes.

We will all be humbled. The question is, do we embrace it, or have it forced upon us?

The Theologian

I know there's no god because my chihuahua's tail sticks straight up in the air so he walks around and everyone can see his asshole. I don't know what kind of god would do something like that.

Take Your Own Advice

Man, if I didn’t have so much cognitive dissonance over my failure to apply all of the brilliant ‘this is how to be happy and have a meaningful life’ advice I so freely offer others to my own life, I would probably be happier and living a more meaningful life.

On the Death of American Presidents

There has not been a president yet who hasn’t ruthlessly ordered the murder of numerous human beings to benefit their own careers. Yet it is anathema to mention these war crimes upon their deaths. Posts about their passing are always loving eulogies without qualifiers from their tribe, or loving eulogies from the opposing popular tribe with the qualifier, ‘maybe I didn’t agree with all of their policies, but...they were a good man, etc.’ This is gross. All 45 of our presidents have blood on their hands, and the rival tribes are different variations of capitalist original and capitalist diet. The fact that all the leaders of the ruling class in this country have to do is live at least a few years past their years in power to become respected elder statesmen harkening back to a better time—however many lives they’ve destroyed and families they’ve disrupted—should make everyone vomit. But I’m the troll, right?