Here Comes the Future

This is something that I've been neglecting. I'm not 100% sure why, it's not like I'm going to be embarrassed by the two people who actually were reading this, and it's good for me to keep writing things occasionally. I read back at my older posts and they weren't too bad, some parts I actually thought were kind of clever. At least with word choice, maybe not with content. But whatever.

Maybe I should get a livejournal? It seems like there are a lot more folks I know over there, but the very concept of a livejournal was kind of muddied back in highschool; everyone who had one was using it mostly for attention grabbing. I suppose you can't blame the tool for how it's used, but that doesn't mean that everyone should own an Ace Orphan De-boner. Hyperbole! No other way of communicating with the world.

That last statement is somewhat true. I know I've only been around a quarter of a century, but even when I look back at news items from twenty years ago, it seems that things are significantly more intense than they were. Not necessarily worse, the state of the COUNTRY is pretty poor right now, but that was something that was set up in the 80's, and everyone with half a brain and a decent amount of time under their belt saw it coming. Not so much a positive or negative quality to the discourse, just that the discourse itself has become so goddamned hairbrained that it gives one pause to consider the possibility that we're in an alternate reality or that a superhero has been imprisoned/seriously injured and in his or her absence a crazy asshole supervillian took over some important aspects of the world. Or something.

I'm going back to school this fall. Only taking a couple courses so I can qualify for financial aid for the remainder of the year. History of Western Civilization and Beginning Piano. Piano is more or less a throwaway course, but learning a musical instrument is rarely a bad idea. As for history, that's an aspect of the future that I'm starting to falter with.

I firmly believe that a large portion of the problems that the people of this country face stem from the fact that they're lucky to be able to tie their shoes in the morning without breaking their fingers and suing Converse for damages. I don't believe that a majority of them are bad, most people want the same thing: enough food for their family, a certain level of personal freedom to allow them to for from birth to death in a manner of their choosing, and the knowledge that if someone somewhere does something nasty, selfish, or just downright evil, someone else out there will be able to tell/kill them not to. The problem I've been seeing is that your average american believes that in order for them to get food, a chunk of land, and a large quantity of booze/pot/nitrous oxide, and justice (which, of course, is an annoyingly subjective term) they have to be ruthless and self-serving. This, of course, is only true if everyone else is being this way. If enough people were to just calm the hell down and realize that they don't need to defend the haves just in case they one day become them, they will start to actually be happy with what they've got.

I think a lot of these misconceptions come from a violent lack of information from the past. Sometime around 30 years ago, a metric shitload of defensible regulations keeping rich people from becoming their own unique brand of Lex Luthor went belly up, and did so with an unusual amount of fanfare. Before then, rich people weren't as rich, and poor people weren't as poor, and things were more or less okay. Economically, at least. Not so much with civil rights, but that's a different topic.

Of course, this applies to the rank and file of America. Not everyone, but the majority of laborers, janitors, short order cooks, and basically everyone who lives in McCormick Woods. Maybe if I can figure out good enough explanations, have good enough examples, and give good enough information to a generation of kids, I can lay at least a single brick on the foundation of bringing out shit back together.

Or I'm full of crap. That's totally possible. I'll find out in a few years!