Spring fever or just plain madness

So much going on and I am with the rest of the country, just flat out tired of reading or hearing about school shootings. That is all I am going to say for now because I cannot accept that this just keeps happening.

That isn’t the madness I had or spring fever when I first sat down to write, but Nashville Tennessee happened today and it cannot be ignored even when you do not want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it, but it is not ignored.

And now I am just left dumbfounded because what I wanted to talk about was much more light hearted so I will wait until another day. 

I will say this though, there is still much good in this world and I experienced it this past weekend. It is a shame you come home and tragedy has struck.

Rest all, and prayers for the families in Nashville. Maybe one day we can be better overall.

Award show credibility or is it blahs

First let’s start with the fun question of the day which was also tweeted out earlier and I am going to add a bit to it now.

What is the difference between faith and trust? And to add to it, what is the difference between faith and trust with God? And what is the difference between faith and trust with ourselves?  And which one of these is dangerous? 

Talk amongst your self. or yourselves.

Now back to why are the Oscars or the Grammys or the Tonys or any other awards show still relevant? Are even sports awards still relevant?

I say this because how much of these awards are based on a standard criteria versus some perceived criteria. Most of these awards are voted on by “their peers” or “the media”.

This leads to so much determined by the times and what is culturally relevant. Do these awards represent what is the best right now? Or do they represent what fits into the moment? 

I struggle with an answer because the above may actually be the way it should be. Well, as long as it is the best of the times versus the loudest reaction of the times. And yes I know mixed into all this are quality endeavors that reflect the actual vehicle of the awards. 

For example tonight, I do believe that whoever wins best costume design or set design probably deserves that award. This is very technical and the whole scope of people n the industry can make a decision on who created the best in their category. It is the subjective categories that are a problem to me. And I may be the only person that has a problem. Does best film or best actor or best director come based on the work no matter the subject? Or does this subject or perception play a part in who wins? 

I do not know..

And I am not the best person to ask. When I was young I use to play music. I was one of the millions of 16 year olds that wanted to be a rock star. Eventually I played in a few clubs, tried recording demo tapes with bands I was in of music we wrote, but like millions of others that was about as far as I got. I was never a rock star, but the Grammys was important to me. I wanted to know what was going on and what made impressions with people. Since then though I have had little to no interest in the Grammys much less any other award show. 

And I am a big local team sports fan, and yet unless there might be a chance that someone from one of the Dallas’ teams might win an individual award I have no interest. I prefer that the team win a championship rather than hear of individual accolades. Some fans want to see the individual awards. I would be happy to see that happen because I am a fan, but am not watching the award show to find out.

So with the Oscars tonight, I am typing this post instead of watching because I have no confidence of what might be the best picture or who is the best director based on some long standing criteria. And what is worse I haven’t seen that many new movies in the last few years. Partly because of cost and partly because of the movies coming out. Some of my favorite movies were not block busters and I actually saw them because I rented them (back in day). 

Indie movies always had some enjoyable topic or story that was more attractive to me than what is going on in the mainstream. Not saying I haven’t seen blockbuster movies or not enjoyed them, I am just saying for me there is much more out there than what you will see highlighted tonight. 

Which may not be correct. I have not watched the Oscars in years so maybe things have changed. Shoot I do not even know what is nominated for best picture and things have changed so dramatically this post is irrelevant. I doubt it though. Something as large as Hollywood doesn’t go through drastic changes without making headlines.

Cheers

“contemplate your death”

what the heck? someone suggested I contemplate my death, and actually there is a larger context involved, but when that person said contemplate your death and I took it in a vacuum for the first moment, it was a bit overwhelming.

And this follows the fact I was significantly ill for a couple of weeks and was taken to a hospital via ambulance at the start of being sick. I won’t go into all the details, but I am here typing so take that for a good sign. I still tire easily and have lingering issues, but overall am back to work and other endeavors. so when I was told to contemplate my death recently I was in a place where I can. Or at least I hope I can.

And the actual contemplation is a personal journey,  for now though we can talk about the process of contemplation. I don’t even like that sentence even as I wrote it.

And what does it mean to contemplate your death? Does this mean think about how I want to die and that one is actually easy. I prefer to live much longer and die peacefully in my sleep. Unfortunately we do not get to choose our natural death, whether it be from falling off a building to a car crash to illness in our sleep or what ever the case may be. 

And what is natural death? Is it living long and dying peacefully? Is it any type of death not self inflicted? And is either consciously or subconsciously self inflicted death a non natural death? Shoot can a person decide they want to die and so they start not looking both ways when they cross the street?

Or do you look at the religious view that when I die am I going to heaven or not? 

Or do you look back at your life and determine whether you led a good life in general and did you impact others or improve someone else’s life in a good or productive way? And does that lead you to heaven. Were you a Saint or had Saint like life or is purgatory going to be a long ride?

We never know, but maybe we should contemplate our death much sooner than when you reach my age? Depending on your worldview much can be accomplished just by this contemplation. And of course does it change the way you live? Or hopefully it doesn’t change it much if you have done well for others. And subsequently is there a way to change your life by contemplating your death. On the surface you would think so, but until a person goes deep into the recesses of their neuron pathways of their brain they will not know. 

And does that contemplation need to fulfill profound philosophical thinking? I actually think not. It takes some self awareness and some honesty, but you can leave the philosophers in the books. Do you pull out the family Bible and find chapter and verse that answers your questions? Or do you get bogged down in the study of worship and not really reflect on your death?

I am still struggling with finding the inner strength to go down this path, yet I am feeling pretty confident that over time I am going to delve into this piece by piece. I do not think it has to be done all at once. You just have to set an internal compass in this direction and over time the path will be laid out for you. I would make it a point to put some effort to it since you want to have this resolved before you die. 

And it would be nice if the Dallas Mavericks would contemplate playing defense or putting forth effort for the full 48 minutes of a game. They just aren’t good enough to coast at any point and they are beginning to frustrate me to death.

And whose says editors don’t matter, after reading over this for a moment I have switched back and forth between the first and second person you must be  dizzy. And I am not resolving this issue, you, as the reader, get to claw your way back to standing upright and hope the room stops spinning. I will probably die due to indecision.

Cheers

Death of intellectualism

Now that is a catchy phrase for a title. I internet searched that phrase on a well known search engine and received the usual amount of millions of hits in lightning speed. When I starting typing the phrase in the search box, by the time I got to death by intel death by intellectualism appeared as a choice, however there was no actual reference to death by intellectualism, well at least on the first page.

What was provided were titles, articles and other options like:

the death of the intellectual

what is the hatred of intellectuals

anti-intellectualism. (which by the way was a Wikipedia reference) which seems to be an interesting use of a resource for this topic)

intellectualism another topic with Wikipedia as a source-both seem so contradictory

and a series of questions on the topic such as 

what is the intellectual movement to what is a synonym for anti-intellectual to what are pseudo intellectuals to what makes a person an intellectual

And the last question I mentioned is somewhat where I was headed when I thought of that catchy title. I never got there.

Many of us who are not overly well read have that fear of and abhorrence of people who write that quote from historical writings or historically known intellectuals that references another historical writing from another historical intellectual that basically make you want to scream get to the point. And people who write to the overly well read audience seem to think that is the only people that matter. 

I use to read George Will regularly yet only understanding half of his vocabulary. Every now and then I would pull out a dictionary and realize he could have made this easier. Does it make him an intellectual because he has a large vocabulary? 

I do need to say that I did not read all the options or much of any of them from my internet search, I was more enthralled by the choices that came up. My main premise for why I decided to write was that the average American is not impressed with intellectualism. All this effort by a few intellectuals is lost on so many and not just Americans, but people all around the world and offers them no solutions to their world problems. 

As stated before in this blog I feel a big problem is intellectuals on the left are way too pretentious. Their version of my way or the highway is just as bad as the right wing extremists trying to shove their anti intellectualism down our throats. And yet we somehow muddle through trying to rationalize which madness is actually the correct answer. Of course neither is and both are and not because it depends on your viewpoint, but that some ideas no matter where it comes from works.

After writing the first sentence in the paragraph above, I am laughing at myself. I have multiple times said the left is pretentious, and on the search page, one of the questions was are intellectuals arrogant. I didn’t read that section, but I thought, duh. A bit of a non intellectualism answer there for you.

And non intellectualism didn’t exist so there I coined something worthless. 

This could be a much more fun topic to explore, yet alas it is late and like all good Americans I have to prioritize my job and so I must hit the hay, go off to slumber land, so I can get up and perform my tasks that allow me to spout off on a world I know nothing about which is okay, because they know nothing of my world.

And I did touch on a few of the items on the search page so if you have some time, it looks to be an interesting rabbit hole to dive into head or feet first, but it never answers the original question of death of intellectualism.

Cheers 

Exactly what is it you want

So go ahead and legalize pot. The problem becomes what does that mean? Do you let everyone spoke it everywhere? I hope not.

“back in the day” pot didn’t stink like it does now. Everywhere you go you can smell it and it is not pleasant. I really do not care if people want to smoke pot, but there are going to need to be limitations and yet how do you enforce them.

I would hope that people smoke at home or in specific establishments. I really do not want every bar in town to open up to allowing people smoking pot.

So how do you legalize it without it becoming a complete overload on everyone’s senses? I don’t know, but someone needs to figure that out.

And I do not care what corporations say, but paying bills online is now more cumbersome than writing a check and mailing it in. And probably less secure. I don’t trust any corporation with all this information since hacking is still a major problem, yet now we are stuck with most companies forcing you online to pay your bills. You have to enter excessive amounts of information each time or you have excessive amounts of information on their website so you can pay or even worse you set up autopay and who knows what can happen. 

Their websites aren’t secure and yet more and more you enter more information just to make a payment and heck they don’t even treat you like a customer, much less a human anymore.

Finally got the Covid, it took three years for it to find me and the better half. To all those who haven’t gotten it yet, more power to you and keep up the good work. It just about killed the better half and I and I am not exaggerating. We were out of pocket for almost two weeks and some of that time in the hospital. We definitely feel for the people who got it those first few months and went through hell then passed away. It was quite scary even now. I am still tired every day and the better half has a lingering cough that is aggravating no end for her. We never wanted it and after getting Covid it only confirmed we didn't want it. Thank goodness for some of the new meds nowadays. We still need a better healthcare system in this country. Too much for profit crap even with some of the Covid help and insurance. And for how much they charge you figure hospital management could keep up the facilities better. Saw way too many little things that needed repair such as faucets that didn’t turn completely off so water was dripping or sinks that drained real slow or tv remotes that struggled to work and more. Somewhat sad for 2023 and the costs you bear.

And more and more my crazy idea to build a nationwide canal system similar to the interstate system is looking better and better. I had that idea for years and put some version of it on paper, so to speak, on this blog years ago. Looking like is is more needed everyday. Yet as long as the pretentious left and the radicalized right own the media noise, good public policy is only a pipe dream. 

Stay healthy all, things are falling apart at the seams.

And on a more serious note, still praying for the people in Ukraine, now add Turkey and Syria, Ohio, a few unknown conflicts in Africa, Greece and it just never seems to stop. Natural disasters are bad enough, but man made human suffering is the worse.

Finally for all Dallas Maverick frustrations and other nonsense, don’t forget the Twitter is dallasareaopin.