Had To Laugh

Read on the internet yesterday that there had been quite a stir down unda, down New Zealand way. A group of twelve or more, an extended family, had been so unruly, unpolite, and unrespectful that media started to track their movements as they traveled through the country and I thought "It's about time!"
It's about time these sorts of people got called on that sort of behaviour because I definitely have been on the receiving end of it and did not fancy it. Like everybody else this has happened to, the ones on the receiving end never saw it coming.

And then 'it' was upon them. A moving train wreck. Noise. Debris. Odors. Discord. Like a storm it comes, messes with you for awhile, then off it moves, leaving you reeling in its wake. 
Families can be like that when they're on the move. Customer service, 'customer care' oughta be forewarned so “Jolly Good, New Zealanders!” We can be like you, ready at the gate, prepared for their arrival. 

Seems a proper traveler.

Aaron Birch- Unsplash.com

Families can view themselves as automatically having been granted more liberties than are given singles and couples. All three entities can also carry 'tourist entitlement'. I've seen various numberings of people barge into situations like they're taking over the place and suddenly everybody 'round has to make room. Family units, especially, carry momentum. Who's going to stand in their way? One person at the counter? Tourists (especially families) bring in revenue! They consume! 

So what if the families have packed enough for an army, take up all the space, and could care less about any people on the periphery? Those 'others' aren't part of the tribe!
Also, children and teens are usually held loosely in their traveling parents' charge so those kids or their parents can't be held to standards of behaviour expected of solitary travelers or couples because those people aren't bearing the responsibility (or continuing the noble endeavor) of bringing children into the world. Such sacrifice! Grant these ones not a solitary boon, but endless forgiveness! 

But 'twas not so in New Zealand. The media there caught onto this one family and would not let go. Whether this family's antics were fairly portrayed or not is unknown but what is known is that the family's behaviour gained worldwide attention. Finally, somebody somewhere drew the line. Like Gandalf, the media declared "This far and no farther! You shall not pass!”

"Our citizens are not to be targets for your low level scams! Don't leave trash on our beaches! Curb your wild children and adults, act appropriately, for we do not wish to harbor any fugitives from restraint!"
"While we don't wish to dampen tourist enthusiasm for our country, this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated!"

(Already many nervous innkeepers are no doubt aghast at how quickly this has spiraled out of control, at how rapidly it has gone viral. "Tone it down! Tone it down!" they are probably urging behind the scenes. "We need more tourist revenue, not less!”)

Ah yes. This is the sort of event that spurs further measures to come to pass. Tracking just might start to become employed, for business' protection, and the protection of the employees within those businesses. When you rate our hotel, we rate your family! Your family’s rating then gets added to your history and you'll be monitored along your way through the country because we can do it and problem travelers, while relatively rare, will be identified. Car rental companies would love to know about you beforehand, and resorts, eating establishments, airline stewardesses, tour operators, and others. 

"Brace yourselves! The Wilsons arrive in five minutes!" could come over the radio or through headsets and for the first time ever we in customer service would be ready for you and yours. I, for instance, could look on the daily passenger manifest and see what flight your squad is arriving on and the time you'd be hitting the ground and moving my way or through my position. This would greatly lessen the shock and resulting trauma that comes from having to deal unprepared with the swirling vortex of disharmony that is the well documented hallmark of The Wilson Family.

To be fair, single travelers and couples would also be rated but being less gang-like, they're far easier to deal with, should dealing with them need to be done. 
And all this discreetly, for we do enjoy the revenue you provide, though at times we wonder if we need revenue that desperately, or if pawning you off to others is an option.

The world has long departed from the genteel travel days of olde, where politeness reigned and courtesy flourished. What is dealt with now is volume. Numbers. Mobs. Crowds. Travel providers process people in, and process people out. Experience is what people want. They want a lot of it and so the travel and transportation world (hospitality industry) is modeled like a convenience store where people simply walk in, grab, and go. No waiting, no patience, no respecting the staff is required, it's all about me (and mine) and so off the travelers go, flyin' the ‘friendly’ skies, to who knows where and when they get there they walk in like they own the place, which they do, temporarily, 'cuz they paid for it. 

And because they did, all of heaven and earth shall bow before them, or at least that was the way it used to be, until those brave folk from New Zealand said enough with this entitlement culture and endless forgiveness. Let it be known that we will tolerate you and yours up to a point. If you become a problem, you just might find your posse on TV!

(I personally would not like to be portrayed on the British press, who have sensationalized this case, as is their wont, to the extreme. So okay, this family, from all appearances and reports, is a band of louts and Artful Dodgers. But to hound them until they have to go into hiding? That’s unfair and should not be allowed. But, once you’re in the British press’ crosshairs, it’s already too late.)

Arrogance

Is a quality displayed as a matter of course by Americans, who imagine themselves superior to all other beings. We're number one. Winner take all. Losers walk. This quality has been with us since our inception as a country, probably because we had spent a whole lot of lousy lifetimes living in Europe under the boot heel of this or that lord or king or member of royalty, who treated us not so nicely. 
Experience that and inwardly one vows "Never again!"

And so the new land opened up across the ocean and we non-royals flooded over to there, took everything that wasn't nailed down, and claimed it as ours. So what if there were people there before us? They weren't armed as well as we were and so we overpowered 'em. That's a fact, it's in our history, and though it's not exactly portrayed in that manner....
.....everybody knows that back in the day, those settlers came in and kicked ass and justified it by whatever means. Because there was no goin' back. 

Some of those settlers turned out to be Democrats, and some Republicans, and over time the nation split pretty evenly, or so the pollsters tell us, where jus' 'bout fifty percent of us lie on one side of the fence and fifty percent on the other and that depending on what is going down in D.C., or at the state level, we're likely to vote slightly to one side or another. It's almost like America has a split personality. We play to win, but we're also troubled by conscience, by what we've done to get where we are, and so we want to do right for the losers at the game, even if for some of ‘em gettin’ around to making’ amends, if any could at all be made, ain’t happenin’ and most likely won’t, least in my lifetime. 
'Cuz, gettin’ back to our proclivity to dominate, we know what it's like, each and every one of us, to be on the losin’ end. Ain't no glory there, ain't no fun.  

The alpha piece in this symbolic representation can be easily seen.

Markus Spiske- Unsplash.com

Well, years and years pass and now the nationwide vibe is that a tiny contingent wants to take everything that they can grab and leave the rest of us in the dust. Don't they understand that that is UN-American? Hell yeah we grab all that we can but- we disperse a lot of the booty to those that lose 'cuz even though they're losers, they're still kin. We try to make things right. 

The people what wants to take everything and give nothing back are messin' with American minds right now, they're trying to justify their positions by whatever means are necessary, which is a tactic that sits right with winner-take-all Americans, 'cept these people (I wouldn't go so far as to call 'em 'folks') really do mean to take it all and though that ain't exactly bein' stated, every American at a deep level ain't 'feelin' the love', as the sayin' goes.

What we're sensin' here is the ominous possible return of the olde days when we had to bow to the royal procession as it passed by, and give the roadway to 'em, whilst we stood there in the mud. 
An' how when it came to livin' conditions, how we usta look up at those castles on the hill and wonder what went on in there, 
An' when we were fightin' the wars for 'em how we thought that doin’ that would improve our situations, and it did some, for awhile, but then one of 'em would pick a fight with the guy across the river and back at it we'd be again. 

That was no way to live! 

It felt more like dyin'.

We remember all that, oh yeah, that's in us and that's why we don't like what we're seein', hearin', and feelin'. High up people go around sayin' they're gonna Make America Great Again well, that better be meanin' for all of us, not just the wannabe lords and ladies at the top. 'Cuz we've been there, meanin' Europe, and we ain't goin' back, even though they've got their acts together over there now for the most part. Either way, we can't go back 'home', they aren't lettin' in any more immigrants.

So what gives, what the hell, and WTF even? Maybe your arrogance has blinded you, power grabbers, but we see what you’re up to. True Americans ain't gonna let this slide. 

Forces Of Containment

Like it or not, you exist for the benefit of others who you probably do not know. Your life makes their life possible, a grander life, perhaps, because you act as support for their enterprise or enterprises. This is called being part of The Economy. 
The Economy is by no means a static thing, it changes as we breathe and as I write this and because it changes, it has to be monitored. 

Various monitoring systems are ever in place and have been since centuries past, these monitoring systems evolving with the times. The goal of these monitoring systems is to see to it that things do not get out of hand and that control is kept in the hands of the ones interested in seeing to it that their enterprises continue to function and prosper. This is not news to anyone, of course any business would see to those ends being accomplished, but often is it the case that long after any benefit to the operators of the enterprises has been realized, and benefit to the masses has been gained, that the enterprises themselves continue in operation. They do this until a superior technology or process comes along to overpower them, usurp them, which has happened quite regularly over the last few decades with the arrival of computers and digital technology. 

All enterprises have a beginning and an end. Initially, the process or device they introduce acts as a breakthrough and is seen as useful. This process or technology is adopted, that which it can supplant is retired or done away with, the process 'takes' more and more, becoming dominant, and then it meets its demise. This cycle has happened rather slowly throughout history and has been painstakingly documented but what about now? What technologies are being developed that could act as more rapid game changers upon our existing systems?
There are many. Any one could play a significant role in labor reduction, improvements in efficiency, or the outright elimination of existing means of doing things; these process improvements also affecting any resource gathering, stockpiling, needing to protect resources, the abilities to relocate and build, and may act to spur even more change. 

Existing enterprises most likely won't embrace these changes and will seek to thwart them in various ways, try to outlaw them even, but that will only work for a time. How many holes in the dam can you plug before you run out of fingers? 

Not Reality… …just reality… ..not Reality.. ...just reality…

Rye Jessen- Unsplash.com

The times we are in raises the potential of a lot of changes happening at once, which could severely destabilize the existing reality bubble humanity exists in and this is something that is exciting while at the same time frightening, for in the introduction of any element into existing systems there are reactions. Some are benign, hardly noticed, while some can be explosive. 

Enter the Forces Of Containment to temper the introduction of elements of change, to slow them, delay them, to (try and) thwart them entirely. We live in a system of duality and nowhere is that more true than in the balance of power. At the present time power lies in the hands of a few, who use money and information to condition the masses. 'Just enough' is given, is allowed the many, to keep them occupied and content with their lot, which makes them easy to manage. It's all about management. 

But is a human a cow? One of the herd, mindlessly chewing cud amongst other cows in some grassy field called suburbia, content with its lot because, compared to all the other cows in the field, he or she appears to be keeping up? 
Nay, I think the truth is that most humans have no idea who they actually are or why they're here, that they don’t know that each and every one of them was born innately noble, deserves only the best, and that they've been severely conditioned to think otherwise. But, such conditioning has kept perhaps many egos in check, egos that would have battled amongst each other and squabbled like playground kids over trivialities, with utter disregard for other's needs or the needs of the planet. School for us was necessary, is what I'm trying to say. 

And now, after the passage of many ages, perhaps it's now time for the Forces Of Containment to fall away to a greater degree. Many of us have matured and are now able to treat each other with kindness and respect, responsibly steward the earth, know when to say yes to an action and when to say no. 
It's nigh time to leave our need for parenting aside, time to do away with stodgy, suffocating governance, restrictions, and rules, and chart our own courses as we learn, over time, who we really are. 

It'll take time to drop the conditioning, there has been a lot of that applied over millennia. Multi-generational, our conditioning goes way back. Finding out who we are will be a joyful process of rediscovery and I don't think we'll be able to rush it for we cannot fathom our nobility, worthiness, and value, or come to terms with the fact that a benevolent system has carefully and patiently guided us through a very long process from afar, for we have a place in The Universe to fill, us gallant human beings of earth. Eventually, we shall take our places among the heralded, and many will honor us in legend and song.

Coffee Shop Window

     There was a coffee shop in a city I usta live in that had big plate glass storefront windows. Now I know this doesn't sound like anything out of the ordinary because there are very few coffee shops that don’t offer views of passerby, but with this this particular coffee shop, it was different. 

     Maybe it was the light. Maybe it was the location. Maybe it was because it was close to the river. Maybe it had to do with the diversity of the populace in that part of town. Maybe all of the above. And maybe there was something more, undefined, that made the view from those windows so compelling for the view out of this coffee shop's windows approached art. 

     People of all races and ages walked by. Shuffled by. Staggered by. Limped by. Ran by. You name it. 

Some days it was incredibly hot, some days it was bone chillin' cold. Every person walking by was as unique as a snowflake. To some degree different. Most were ordinary, not so noteworthy, the difference between them and the person I saw ten minutes ago that looked kinda like them wasn't much. Life was, however, indelibly etched upon passerby faces and some particular faces I wanted to draw in black and white. I wanted to capture whatever was in those faces because they modeled universal human traits. They were striking in their features, in their expression. This was a persistent idea I had but never actually followed up on, probably due to my wanting to look at the next passing person's face!

Lots of data being taken in.

Antonio Dicaterina- Unsplash.com

It was mesmerizing to watch this parade of humanity pass by. Of course, after you spend time anywhere you start noticing local characters, but of those there were relatively few. The sheer number of different people that this tourist town constantly brought in from everywhere got me wondering over time if God was keeping track of all these people- and why?

 
Surely there was a lot of life experience there, for good and bad, but what did all that experiencing amount to? Anything? Were people born to simply experience being human- breathing, eating, excreting, procreating? To experience being a child, then a teen, then an adult? To experience the wearing of clothing, courting of one's mate, holding job(s), wending their way through school, getting on the wrong side of the law? Some looked to have been been lucky in their experiencing, while others looked beaten down. Some were missing limbs, or they were walking in what looked to be painful ways. Some were exuberant, some sullen. Jesus it was better than any reality show on TV because here it wasn't just pretty faces, voluptuous bodies, and workout builds. Not at all. Here it was all the people that you don’t see on TV, which is most of humanity. I wanted to know their stories. "What (the hell) happened?!”.

  
But finding that out was an impossibility. I had to turn away. It was too much. There were too many of them- and they kept coming. Numbers! What does a hundred mean to you, a thousand? A hundred thousand, a million? Those are the numbers demographers throw out when they reference people. Describing people in this manner is necessary but it turns people into abstract entities, almost unreal. 

Mind-boggling, this is. There are over three hundred million people in the United States. China and India each contain over a billion people. That's a lot of faces! 

So what does it all mean? Why did all these souls volunteer to be here? From what I have seen, the vast majority of them didn't come here to party. Why did they volunteer for endless suffering, boredom, and lackluster daily experiencing, which could be succinctly said to be 'just existing'? Is human life so precious that each and every one of them would pit themselves against a mass of other people in an arena, an arena from which very few rise to positions of wealth or prominence, in order to 'give it a go and see what happens', knowing full well that the odds were against them; that there might be one or many who would subdue them, cheat at the game, shatter their dreams, place them in cages political or financial; this along with the possibility that they themselves might fall ill or suffer accident, sidelining them temporarily or permanently, and so many, many other things?

    Really, why bother? What's the point? Were we born to watch Netflix and SportsCenter (hey- gettin' personal here!), watch other people on TV, read about them in the papers, or online, watch them on the silver screen again and again as they play out their careers while we read the Good Book and wait politely our arrival to The Promised Land (via Rapture, preferrably), while others await the arrival of benevolent aliens and still others enlightenment- or oblivion? 

Are not all of us dreamers? Wishful thinkers? Each one of us on a personal quest, each one of us on the Hero's Journey of the ego trying to make who we are and what we do matter? We must be! There is no other sane answer. We're all givin' life a go and buckin' serious odds but you know, while winnin' at the game is great, losin' at it ain't so bad. 

Just take a look through any coffee shop window. You'll see you got plenty of company.

Time Out

I have recently acquired some new gadgets so, in order to operate them properly, I have had to resort to actually reading the owners manuals and then applying what I have learned. If I ever thought that devices would become totally intuitive, that I would ‘just know’ which button(s) to push and why, I gave up thinking that long ago. 
So I take time to figure out how to run the program or process and right now I'm at the point with my latest toy that I have to continuously go back to the owner's manual in order to get what I don't get but thought I got when I read it the third time. "This is soooo enlightening!" I then cry, with great relief, for I then discover how to edit/store/crop/save/delete/etc.
The amazing thing about tech is how the builders of devices have managed to hide the operating toolbars and menus and have left us with a mainly uncluttered screen which is very nice to look at but when it comes to any navigation within the system it's always "I wanna change this setting/function! 'Zactly how do I do that again?"
Why it's easy! Just swipe down, to the left, or right, double click/tap, press and hold, pinch to zoom, reverse to expand, drag three fingers to pan and where is that toolbar again? Or, what do these icons mean, in the upper right? I gotta get back to the menu.....

Techies write things in code. Tell me about it!

Nesa-by-makers Unsplash.com

My modus operandi is I learn just enough to get by, and bypass all the other information- which might be very helpful were I to learn it- but the problem with that is if I do, the tech guys upgrade the system, like they've done on I-Tunes numerous times, and all that I have learned has to be learned again! I am tasked with having to learn how to navigate upgraded systems in addition to having to learn how to navigate within new devices and apps. 
Meanwhile, time is wasting and I want to get the device to do what I bought it for or the app to do what I loaded it for and so my life at times is spent learning how to navigate all these various systems and I just don't have the patience for that, though my partner does. 
Relying on her to solve these tech issues doesn't help though, for approaching the issue that way leads only to a sense of pained helplessness and naked vulnerability for is she's not around, and I haven't yet learned how to navigate, I'm stuck staring at the screen without a clue. Not a good place to be (and just forget about me calling customer support/chat!).
So like it or not, learning the program, getting around in the app, configuring the layout on the website, converting the file, and all that other stuff calls for applying oneself and that doesn't happen intuitively, that comes only through hands on. You must read the owners manual and it's painful and hurts your head almost because every step is spelled out in excruciating detail in order that you get from A to B the first time. But, after that, you gleefully throw the manual away because you know (this is what I think of when I hear the word ‘intuitive’) how to get there. You can forget about all the jargon and just do it. 
Twenty somethings and younger kids were born into this technology but us elders learned a far different operating system and have had to relearn or unlearn a lot of stuff in order to acclimatize to the swipe/tap/press and hold world. Give us a break already!
But no, although the promise of intuitive navigation has been dangled before us ever since tech arrived not yet has any of this become intuitive to me. In desperation I have at times employed my intuition in order to think out of the box the techies have trapped me in. I have resorted to trying to feel my way around.  
Whatever. Whatever works! I don't care! Yo, tech bros, I got a full time job and SportsCenter is gonna show the Top Ten plays of the day here in a minute. Do you actually think I have time to read a dozen owners manuals and figure out what you changed after the latest upgrade?

"What'r You Gonna Do?"

My current employ is going to end this year and this is also true for the little gang I work with and so we're all being peppered with questions a lot about what we're going to do next. (But enough about them! We're fellow job seekers now, in competition with each other) 
Ideally, I should like to retire to a life where this kind of question troubles and vexes me not but the situation is such that this is not yet possible. Close, but no cigar, as they say. 
And it's not like I haven't done this sort of thing before, many, many times, this 're-inventing myself'. However, the older I get, the less career matters to me and the more job satisfaction does. Money is not so big an issue anymore, though money still is welcome, but more important to a seasoned worker like me is that my work environment be suited to my temperament. Like an old dog I am not one to suffer fools gladly, with puppy-esque forbearance, nay, I be snappy with the uncouth and uncultured and perhaps may even growl if I merely sense their approaching energetic signature(s) but are not yet 'blessed' with their physical presence(s). 
So, that being stated, here are a few of the answers I give to those presenting the posit "What'r you gonna do?"

"I hear the Chinese are hiring for their new Martian colony. Three year contract. The shifts in the palladium processing factory are long but the pay is fantastic. However, what truly ices the cake is that us workers will enjoy plenty of top end A.I. company, if you know what I mean. I'm thinkin' on that one. Haven't signed anything yet"

"McMurdo Station in Antartica is another possibility. I've been wanting to get away from it all for a long time but the aforementioned Chinese have taken away my A-list destination, a very ancient and remote cave high in the Tibetan Himalayas, which I had hoped to occupy in profound mediation. Antarctica offers me a similar opportunity, a paid one no less, but there I have to share my cave with others. I'm on the fence with that one"

"Moving away from hermitage offerings, I am considering a gig as a New York art dealer. I saw an article in The Times a few days ago where some of the upper crust dealers were partyin' it up as part of the job, you know, that sort of thing being expected. You must roll with the ridiculously moneyed so that you can correctly appraise works they might be inclined to purchase. I would also, in order to fit in, have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to adorn myself with the latest fashions. While I haven’t laid out that kind of dough before, I have shopped at Savers and clothed myself with high end name brands for years! Waiting on a call there"

"Several news outlets have approached me about being a guest on their shows. They like the fact that I'm highly opinionated and think that I could act as a galvanizing force with their audiences, possibly bringing ratings up into the stratosphere. I have the correct amount of repressed anger and can weave some pretty convincing spin. I've already gone through numerous screen tests and they're liking what they're seeing. The stopper here is that they're thoroughly vetting me beforehand. A couple of people have been assigned to research my past and comb through everything I've ever written in order to see if they can find anything that enemies- contrarians- might use to bring me down. I feel sorry for those researcher guys 'cuz I wrote a lot of stuff. Might take them a year or more"

Been working on this bridge forever.

Peter Usher- Unsplash.com

"Two highly placed people in Hollywood have proposed doing a reality show where I am exposed on a constant basis to five star luxury. They want to set me up in cribs and situations all over the world and film my reactions as I experience things beyond my wildest dreams. They think that this concept show would resonate with a vast blue collar base, I, in effect, becoming the patron saint of worker bees. They could live their lives vicariously through me! I told the Hollywood guys that I considered such a thing absolutely morally reprehensible and would have none of it! They took this as me playing hard to get- and my agent just loves that play! He's reporting back to me daily on how negotiations are progressing on a reconfigured contract"

"Can U believe it?! The Weather Channel wants me to be on their team! They're looking for a long term Storm Guy, you know, the guy that gets placed in the wildest weather situations. Lightning! Hail! Tornados! Cracks of thunder, right overhead! In the path of flying debris! Wading through floodwaters, taking that last breath of clear air before being overcome by a dust storm, slippin' and slidin' for the camera at ice storm ground zeros, and up to his neck in freshly fallen snow- with more coming- that's the job for me. I practiced this one a lot as a kid so I know the ropes"

Now I know all these sound good, and would fit me to a T, but the job I've always wanted still eludes me. The folks in charge of this one haven't responded to my resume yet but I'm gonna hold out for a bit longer and see if they reply. 
Warren Beatty said that the best part of being famous was that you got a thing called access, and that's what I want most of all. ACCESS! I want the ropes to part for me and the doors to open everywhere I go. How you qualify for this one I don't exactly know but I do know that when you're in, you're in. Somebody way up declares that you are access-worthy and then it just snowballs from there. I've lit my manifestation candles, am doing woo-woo ceremonies at my altar big time, and am chanting affirmations continuously over this one.

If it takes me a while to get there it'll be worth it 'cuz I want it all. In the meantime I'll most likely be found working at one of those other jobs I listed, or doing something similar. Ya gotta make a livin', right?

I'm okay with suffering until I get my access gig, you know, until I get my real job.

Cooking

Had I things my way, I would just show up at a different one of those 'Burgers, Brew, and 'Que' places every day of the year and order take-out but logistically that is impossible so I have had to learn how to cook. 
There are a lot of things you have to have in order to cook. You have to have the right equipment. You have to have the right ingredients, and the right quantities of those ingredients. You have to have time. 
Then you just 'follow the recipe', right? Sometimes that works, if you're making something super simple, but most times you cut corners on cooking time, run out of ingredients, substitute this for that because you couldn't source the exact ingredients, forget to measure something correctly, use too much heat/not enough, or.....
There are thousands of cookbooks and perhaps tens of thousands of recipes so you pick one out of the book or one from the listings online and off you go and when all is said and done most times it doesn't taste as good as you think it should. Why is this?
Spicing your dish is critical. Amateurs tend to put in too much, or not enough. Add too much heat or salt and you might as well throw what you made out. You can't cut that stuff enough! Make it too bland and you can add some spice later but it works better when it's introduced during the cooking process. Flavors meld. 
I never thought cooking would be as difficult as it is. You do a lot of winging it during the cooking process because things happen quickly sometimes and you have to make decisions.
  You learn over time to spice food as you go along. You build a spice arsenal to help you with that.
  Fresh vegetables taste better than ones that have been sitting around too long. Properly cooked vegetables call for precise cooking times. 
Meat calls for high temperatures sometimes 'cuz you gotta sear that stuff initially to lock the juices in.
  Stock is necessary if you want to achieve taste. Fat adds flavor, as does caramelization, zest, sprinkling cheese on top, adding cilantro, etc. 
Little touches complete the dish. Little touches are (usually) worth the effort. 
Bland ingredients aren't going to taste any better once they're cooked!
  Many recipes on the internet are touted as sure winners but a lot of them aren't. 
You can spend your whole life cooking and never come close to learning everything.
  Professional kitchens use spicing tricks that they won't reveal but if you're lucky somebody will have found out and will tell you what that special something is that they did or added. 
When you get something down, you can make it over and over and possibly sell it. People will flock to your table or food joint because you offer a taste found nowhere else. 
It helps to know the chemistry of food, why certain things happen, or what is happening when food is undergoing transformation in the pot. 

When you get the recipe down, you can scale it up. Chai tea factory?

Prijun Koirala- Unsplash.com

Prep work always takes longer than stated, and cleanup during and after the cooking process as well. This makes take-out attractive but one thing about home cooking is you know what is in the dish because you put it in there! 
Unlike stores, where everything is labeled, restaurants don’t have to tell you what is in the food. 
You never do a recipe the same way twice because you're always tweaking it this time around.
Over time you build up a huge repertoire of dishes that you have made and you think nothing of it.
I always balk at recipes that call for exotic ingredients. Can't source those where I live and where do you get that kind of stuff anyway?
'Serving size' is sometimes ridiculously small.
Lots of recipes call for more butter, sugar, or salt than I can stand.
  Having a freezer stocked with dishes that I have made is my forever goal.
Few people like to cook- but everybody likes to eat.
Soups call for a lot of salt.
Pork loins and chicken breasts call for a lot of seasoning.
Kitchen disasters are just part of the process of learning. Overspice it one time and you'll never do that again.
Try a new recipe out on a small scale before you commit to making large quantities. 
There are wildly different tastes to be found in common ingredients. Butter. Olive oil. Tomato sauce. Use the best ingredients if you can afford them.
Deep fryers aren't worth the trouble. Get take-out if you want fried food.
Cooking is best done with a partner. The process is more fun and goes much faster.
Restaurants use food prep short cuts. Read about those. Seek them out. They won't affect taste but they will save you time. 
Make too big a batch of food and you'll be eating leftovers forever.
Realistically, working people don't have the time or inclination to source fresh ingredients at the local farmer's market, they won't be found studying produce and buying just enough for ‘tonight's special dish’.
Multiple dishes can be cooked at once. It calls for skill at multitasking but it can be done.
Flavors must be balanced. Flavors are sweet, sour (acid), salt, heat, umami (savory).
Cooking shows are invaluable. Watch some and see how the pros do it. 
If an internet recipe sounds like an odd flavor combination, it probably is.
You can get award winning recipes on the internet. All the award winning chili competition cookoff recipes, for example, can be found. 
You will make it 'restaurant quality' and surprise yourself. Many times. 
Baking is messy. Flour gets everywhere. 
You need lots of countertop and island space in order to cook. 
Gas stoves rock. 

Erudite

     (In a video I see a diminutive man, against a background of gray. Not physically strong is he. But mentally, this man is a giant. After watching for an hour, I turn away and some time later post these words) 

What really drives us? Should we blindly take others' conclusions about what this world is about or should we question those conclusions, and by so doing, come to a further understanding?
Why, you'd think that this had been done already. By the many who have come before. You would think that we would have this (human life) down. 
From the looks of things, we have. We have 'figured life out and are expanding our horizons' but is this so? Perhaps 'expanding our horizons' is only us still searching, searching for something satisfying. 
  Looking around, everybody seems to be busy doing something, which is in a way searching for something, so what other action should a herd follower take but to join the pack and search too- for fulfillment, higher purpose, better sex, more money, endorphin highs, adrenaline rushes, enlightenment, bliss, inner peace, etc. Why not 'bundle it' all and call it 'Satisfaction'? 
But I, like many, can't get no satisfaction no matter what I do so I search and search but this little Indian man patiently and logically brings it home to me and anybody else that cares to listen that searching is unnecessary and is only a product of the mind. Searching comes through thought. We search because we have thought ourselves into searching! We have promomoted thinking over being and have created worlds upon worlds, concepts upon concepts. We have turned simple into complex. We have woven personal webs that must be cut through and torn apart in order to get back to simplicity. 
This man shows us the way but we must carefully follow his words, for he does not err in his reasoning, though we, in a rush, might choose to take a shortcut. We are in this rush, at first, for we think that what he is talking about is some sort of desirable state but we find that what we desire can only be in conflict with what is. 
And there is only what is. 
This gentle yet unwavering man brings us back to the state we were in before we started thinking about everything and anything and that was probably so long ago none of us can remember for we have been seemingly wrapped up forever in thought, in analyzing information, in trying to make sense of things in hopes that we will get to......
.....The Answer but if The Answer comes as a result of thought it cannot be The Answer for The Answer is beyond all thought and can't be expressed for in expressing it you have placed a limit on the limitless! 

The roots of the tree of knowledge run deep.

Jeremy Bishop- Unsplash.com

But still this urbane man tries, even though he is now not of this world. Recordings of him live on though, and his words continue to ring true in numerous books. 
Some would say that this man of wisdom didn't have it all figured out, that there were flaws in his reasoning and so they argue amongst themselves about that, about things that they don't get about what he said, even though he tried to articulate his understanding as clearly as possible. His understanding had to be articulated in a precise and painstaking manner so that it could be transferred and we could comprehend. 
Mental silence was what he was leading us towards, seeing things as they truly are in their pristine state, unsullied by thought.
Some listened, but many turned away, perhaps to return at another time or in another life when the pain got to be too great, when the 'world got to be too crazy' and their minds roiled, like the minds of many are probably roiling now, so great is our political dysfunction. Madness, our present state is, the result of thoughts running wild, logic and reason abandoned for magic, fantasy, and deluded states of being held only in the minds of those so taken by them, these states of being having nothing to do with what actually is. 
Presently, it is being asked of many to share in these states of madness but the man from India said that this has been commonplace throughout history. When minds are in conflict with reality only corruption can result. The power hungry seek to foster, and then capitalize, on widespread states of delusion.  
And thus it is that many are arguing now with what is and wanting to assert their worldviews to such an extent that they are willingly putting filters over their eyes and distorting the sounds coming into their ears to match the 'realities' that they, and only they, hold as being true. 
The cure for this is the cold logic of The Universe which filters not and this is what came into the mind of the refined man, he one out of a multitude, who defied worldwide madness. He asked not to be worshipped or followed but only that he be listened to, for he wanted to alleviate the confusion the masses were undergoing. He truly wanted to help, for there was no personal gain to be had for him, he being far beyond the needs of money or being liked.
Krishnamurti was his name. He's alive and well on You Tube and if you're so inclined, cue up one of his talks and listen. It won't be as exciting as watching any one of the eight "Fast And Furious" movies, but it also won't have you wanting more substance at the end. After watching any of the videos of his talks you'll feel nourished somehow, like your mind has permission for once to just be still. Maybe watching one of the videos of him will point out to you something you've got a hang up with, or through watching you can see how to approach the process of thinking in a different way. You'll see why it's highly important to not go unconscious, why it's important to always monitor your thoughts. You'll see many benefits and those benefits will accrue. 
For sure, you will see that there is an antidote for what passes for 'deep thinking' these days, and be comforted by seeing that before you came into this world, there were actually people that wrestled with and came to some pretty good conclusions about life and why we're here. 

Errand Runner

I dispatched Carlos, on his E-bike, to make rounds for me within the city. As he zoomed away I breathed a great sigh of relief. A time window had opened on my day that I was now at the luxury of filling. 
Meanwhile, Carlos was standing in line at the post office acting as my agent, telling the person at the counter that some mail meant for another had been mistakenly and consistently stuffed in my P.O. Box. That rectified, he zoomed over to the local bakery and scored some stick donuts for me to enjoy later before the bakery sold out. 
On and on he went and the fee I paid him for his weekly services more than made up for the contentment his services brought me, the luxury of time. 

Processes that we grumble about that consume great quantities of the precious commodity we call time are what we call work, road construction, or airline travel, while processes that consume less of that time we call commuting, shopping, or cooking. 
Watching TV and perusing the internet can be said to be activities where time 'stops' (commonly called 'quality time'), for in doing these activities immersion occurs and the passage of time is hardly noticed. 
Ditto sitting on the beach, participating in sports, or eating a meal in a restaurant. 
Thus, when Carlos takes on my 'bad time' tasks, I am able to experience 'good time' activities in their place. Nothing wrong with that. Anybody that can afford this would do it. 

Is there a cure for 'bad time' activities? None that are known by humankind. Errands are errands, chores are chores, work is work, and a whole industry has developed to make the intolerable tolerable. Neck pillows for travelers. Satellite radio for commuters. Spas for the overworked. Sports bars to counteract non-exuberant workplaces. Take-out for the weary, etc. Toxin/antidote. No time/time saver. Un-fun/fun. 
Pain/pleasure is the standard human response to things within our environment. We avoid or lessen pain, seek out and try to increase pleasure. Yes/No. Attracted/Repelled. Approach/Retreat. 
The so-called 'masters' at the game of life (most of us witness this in one way or another, through TV, film, or videos) gravitate always towards pleasure and seek to reach the place where pleasure is continuously experienced. Full immersion. Heaven. Bliss. Nirvana. 
(I like the word Nirvana 'cuz it sounds like Nir-van-AHH.....)

But really, could anybody actually experience a constant state of bliss? After a while, the high would seem to be a vague thing, for how could you measure how high you were? Contrast provides the answer. The shadow side must exist and we must know of it, in order to determine whether we are experiencing 'pleasure' or 'pain', for without the ability to identify any difference we would only experience sensation. Without contrast we would simply feel. That's all we would know. That's all babies know. 
You might say that that is hogwash, that there is a huge difference between pleasure and pain, that 'pleasure' (eating exquisite food) and 'pain' (hand on a hot stove) are self-evident things not requiring thought. They are built-in, instinctual reactions to stimulus. "Yum!" is obviously pleasure, while "Ouch!" is obviously pain.  But is this so? Animals may be observed to be experiencing either state but are they defining those states, differentiating between the two? Probably not. To an animal, things just are. Separating sensations can only come through thought, through reason, where it is determined that there are such things as 'good' and 'bad'. Judgement has entered the picture. There is that which we think serves us, and that which we think is to our detriment.  

The intrepid Carlos pauses on his rounds.

Josh Appel- Unsplash.com

Only humans reason, and through thought, decide whether something should be or shouldn't be (is 'good' or 'bad'). In essence, we are arguing all the time with what is and if anything can be done about it and that is why I can't stand to run errands but Carlos is more than happy to do them for me. He has no judgement about them. 
That's also why the crippled man is happier than the healthy one sometimes, and the grimy peasant smiles while the wealthy layabout scowls, and so on. Judgement colors most people's perceptions, and most people have adopted their perceptions, their worldview, through conditioning. Conditioning that has been brought about by the unique environmental exposures they have experienced. Conditioning that very well may have been relentlessly thrust upon them until they adopted it entirely, or assimilated it to a degree deemed 'acceptable' by their peers or society.
This may be unfortunate but it is what is. Ultimately, to know who we are, we must overcome this conditioning in order to view the world through unconditioned eyes. This responsibilty is thrust upon us and can't be relieved by any exterior force. Drugs, sleep, and distractions can remove this responsibility from us, but only temporarily. Dissociation from reality can be a longer term coping strategy, anger another, depression a third, but still the responsibility remains. We're born with it and it will dog us throughout our lives, and into the next one(s).
So why not deal with it now? Not in a desperately ambitious "I'm going to solve this once and for all!" way (which may bring about the inner peace of 'enlightenment'), this approach working for a few but seeming to be highly arduous and destabilizing for the majority, but in a slow way, a measured way, a determined way, a methodical and patient way?
One could start by assuming that they know nothing, that they don't actually know (you can pretend here) why they're having a reaction to this/that/whatever and explore their thoughts about it. "Something is occurring and I'm having thoughts about it. Why?" you can ask yourself. Little stuff, to begin with. "Who ever said?" is a question you can ask about conclusions that others have reached.
It is in this questioning that you can find out how you feel about things, how you can separate your thoughts from the mass consciousness, at least for a while, if doing so for a longer time makes you feel uncomfortable. Because deep inside you know that when you do this you're stepping, even if it is just one toe's length away, from the comfort of the conditioned herd. But you also know deep inside that you have to do this, and do it consistently, because until you do you won't know who you really are and what your true thoughts are about whatever is occurring. You won't know if for you something is 'good' or 'bad'.

As to this pertaining to myself, I don't know if I'll ever come to the place where I don't have judgement about running errands and 'wasting time'. Perhaps Carlos knows something I don't? It could be that my 'wasting time' issues, my "Why am I doing this instead of that?” issues are actually much, much deeper than I think, they having to do with greater things called purpose, reason for being, why did God create me anyway, the egoic need to feel special, fears of inadequacy, abandonment issues, and who knows what else. Obviously, I have a great deal of judgement about where I am placed and what I am doing. Somewhere, somewhen, conditioning took hold.

That's okay, though. I'm looking at these issues, at least. Questioning them. I might not get all the answers in this lifetime but until then...

….you guessed it….

....I got Carlos running errands for me.

E-Bikes

        It's a disconcerting thing to see a bicycle whizzing by too fast, or one that is keeping up with traffic for too long. It's one of those things that you know, from your own experience, that shouldn't be happening because you have ridden bicycles and you know firsthand how much work is involved in doing that and the person on the bike you're watching doesn't appear to be working hard enough.  
Well, that guy or gal zooming by while slowly working the pedals isn't loping along in the highest gear. They're riding an E-bike. An electrically powered bicycle.
Virtually nonexistent only years ago, I started seeing signs of them now and again but the manufacturers were entrepreneurial, widely scattered, or regional. These bikes weren't for sale nearby, is what I'm trying to say. 
And far as I can tell, this is still valid. E-bikes haven't yet caught on with the mainstream, and I know what the mainstream is because I used to live in a very bike-friendly town which prided itself on having numerous bike paths and trails and very few E-bikes were to be seen. If any townspeople in the country would've been onto E-bikes, it would've been those folks. 
E-bikes, if we can get into the technology here a little, have of course batteries and motors. These add weight, so the frames on E-bikes have to be sturdier than regular (or should I say 'old fashioned'?) bikes. As well, because of the extra weight and the fact that E-bikes move faster, they come equipped with better brakes. Disc brakes. The tires and rims on E-bikes are wider and stronger and the suspensions are more robust. Make no mistake about it- these bikes can move.  Because of that (and because riding a bicycle is inherently dangerous) more care needs to be taken when operating an E-bike than a normal bicycle. 
E-bikes can still be ridden like an ordinary bicycle, they come equipped with crank pedals and have ten or twelve speed gearing, but their extra weight means extra work for any rider solely using human power for propulsion. Some degree of electric motor engagement is always needed to assist the rider, which corresponds to the bicycle's effective range. I myself have never ridden an E-bike so I don't know the particulars of this tradeoff but by the looks of things, that day may be near. 
Very near. There are numerous super-slick You Tube videos showing the top E-bikes of 2018 (of ‘2019’ too, even if the year’s only ten days old) and you can see that these bikes aren't your old low tech, heavy, factory made let-'em-die-chained-up-forever-on-a-bike-rack-in-the-rain throwaway commodities. These things are like scooters, or motorcycles even.

Me, schlepping to work using human power only, back in steampunk days.

Clem Onojeghuo- Unsplash.com

And because they can outperform regular bicycles, they can be hazards to them on bike paths, the pedestrians that walk on bike paths, and the pets that pedestrians often take for walks on bike paths. I don't know how municipalities are going to handle those issues but they will have to, in one way or another, because these E-bikes are going to be new elements added to established, predictable-in-speed systems. The interaction of E-bikes and cars on city streets and sidewalks where there aren't defined bike paths is already disorienting for automobile drivers, who need to track them constantly. They're hard to spot, come upon drivers quickly, and don't require highly visible headlights or taillights.  

Let's talk about range. The Lithium-Ion batteries that power many of these bikes provide them with ranges of over 50 miles! This is incredible and means that people in most places can use E-bikes in good weather to get to work and back without depleting the battery, which is a commute game changer on a global level. No fossil fuel tank required, no license required, no insurance, no license plates or registration, and minimal road impact (the reason for all those registration and gas tax fees). All this for a price less than you'd pay for a beater car!
Theft might be the biggest danger in owning an E-bike but technology to disable them and track them might deter thievery. One model I viewed has a detachable battery. 
So- goodbye throwaway bike in the bike rack in the rain, eh? This is the kind of bicycle you want to take care of. E-bikes to me are an absolute no brainer. I wouldn't be surprised to see these things take over the existing bike market and become the majority of sales. With their durable electric motors, elegance of design, lightweight quality parts throughout, inevitable future upgrades coming in battery charge time and output capability, and the riding pleasure they offer, E-bikes are winners right out of the gate. The only thing lacking right now is people to fix these bikes, because they're so new, but that will be temporary. Gaps in any emerging market get filled quickly.  
In closing, an aside here that might illustrate the potentials of E-bike ownership. I used to work at a job that was about four miles away. There were three different ways for me to get to work and back. Choice A was to take the city bus, and taking the bus always means waiting for it. The bus stop was a ten minute walk from my house, and dropped me off right across the street from my job. It got me to work and back is all I'm gonna say about that. Choice B. was to drive my car to work, which was always an exercise in overkill. By the time I warmed the thing up, I was at work. The cost effectiveness of this was negative due to all the costs associated with owning, maintaining, and legally operating the car. Choice C. was to ride my bicycle (one of four I owned) to work. It called for physical exertion, which warmed me up in the morning, but after work I wasn't so much for working out. Had I had an E-bike then, and been able to whiz home in the warm afternoon without exerting any effort, while enjoying the scenery along the way (and not be stuck navigating rush hour traffic on the city arterials that lay on either side of the serene, bucolic bike path or back streets routes I chose to meander along) that would have been my A-list choice hands down. 

A Watershed Moment

Back in the day, prior to the internet even (!), I was a subscriber to the local (daily) newspaper in a decent-sized town because I wanted to be kept well informed. In addition to that, I purchased the big fat Sunday paper of one of the major metropolis’ nearby so that I could read the in-depth stories that were only printed in those kinds of esteemed publications. 
     The daily paper I read had about five sections to it, there was national and local news, sports, social and leisure activities, financials, and classifieds. 
I started with the national and local news always and in doing that I was kept appraised of the goings on at a national level as well as the happenings within the local government and area. As well, I was informed about criminal activity and apprehensions, of which there seemed to be a lot. 
The sports section was always a lively place, full of meets, playoffs, matches, statistics, schedules, and analysis. Always involved reading there, for those who were interested. 
The social section was hit or miss, some of it was interesting, some not, but it was worth a looking over, at least. 
  Ditto the financial pages. Stock info wasn't all that exciting to me but what was interesting was reading about all the stuff that was going on in The Economy, be it local, national, or global. How anybody could figure that mess out was beyond my comprehension. Though many tried to shed light on the subject that light, unfortunately, never dawned in me. 
The classifieds (pre-Craigslist) contained small type, which was worth perusing if you wanted to check out the local job offerings, cars for sale, furniture, etc. It was all there. The Sunday classifieds carried the best job offerings and descriptions of jobs so the Sunday classifieds were always worth a look. 
What happened to change all this? The arrival of the internet? No- what happened is I started to fall behind. I got busy with life, with other things during the day, and I wasn't able to fit reading the newspaper in so I set it aside to read it 'later'. 
This became more and more frequent and before I knew it I had a whole pile of newspapers to read, which I did, and it was a chore but a necessary one for one had to do this to keep informed, right? And I was very informed. 
My head was full of trivia. I never knew I could pack so much in there, and how little that information was doing to actually serve me. The more information I read the less it seemed to matter! Maybe the notion of being 'well read' and 'well informed' was the newspapers' way to keep me pursuing some sort of preposterous level of overall understanding, this only attained by consuming superhuman amounts of content. 
Over time, the local and national news seemed to be throttled and stale renditions of 'life'. This was also true about the crime section, where no matter how many bad guys and gals got busted and taken off the streets, more seemed to crop up, 
In the sports world, things got ever more involving as leagues expanded pretty much across the board, 
The social and leisure scene events had a repeating seasonal theme to them, which I recognized over the years, 
I found I never could make sense of the financial world, no matter how many of their columnists and pundits claimed to have their fingers on the pulse of things, 
and the Classifieds seemed to be the same old same old week in and week out. 

All those words gotta mean something, right?

Waldemar Brandt- Unsplash.com

The big Sunday issues I could spend hours reading, which is something you could do to while away a Sunday afternoon, but after whiling away enough Sunday afternoons I started to want to read them less and less because, like the dailies, they weren't that enlightening. 
Back and forth I went like this, for well over a decade, seeing the pile of papers accrue, tackling it, watching it build again, taking a day off to read through it, skim through it, whatever it took to say I got caught up and then.....
...one day I just let things slide completely out of control and the pile grew and grew until it was two stacks of newspapers, each stack rising knee high from the floor. "Enough! I'm not going to read that!" vowed I, and I didn't. 
For what had started as a pleasure had become a chore and a duty, which was so sparse on payback as to be laughable. 
  And then along came the internet. With this a news junkie could get his fix twenty four hours a day, and didn't have to wait for it to be delivered. Ka-boom! What great news this was! 
But now my news was all over the place. Different sites ran different content. Local stuff was a little bit here, a little bit there, or wasn't even being covered at all. I started to miss newspapers and still do to this day because with newspapers, everything was in one place. 
Those days aren't coming back though, no way. However, through my experience with the amount of data in newspapers, I know of the impossibility of 'keeping up' and 'keeping informed' so The World is just going to have to turn without me knowing every damned detail about what is going on. And this is true for everybody else too. Nobody knows or can know it all, there's just too much and most of it is fluff. Filler. 
Added to that, who's editing this internet stuff? Newspapers used to have credibility. They had pro editors. Sure, the papers had 'slants' to them, many were privately owned, but if they ran a story it was similar to the ones other papers ran. With interent 'news' you don't have a clue. Could be a guy that shot a video in his back yard, or a montage of images doctored to look real. Use your imagination!
So this is where intuition comes in. You need it now more than ever. Bypass the fake stuff and the filler and let your guidance bring to you that which you absolutely need to know. Got a better system? I don't. All I need to remind me to apply intuition to this issue is to think about those piles of newspapers laying on the floor of my living room begging for my attention and what a waste of time tackling all that 'data' was. I'll take a short cut to what passes for 'news' any day if it leads me to a clearer and far less laborious conclusion.

Let Us Pray

     From Etrusians, 12:22:
     "... and henceforth there came upon the village a man, who was wearied. Seeking comfort, he drove his SUV into the parking lot of the inn. The innkeeper, seeing the arrival of this disheveled traveler, quickly put up his 'No Vacancy' sign. “Whyfore is there no accommodation?" asked the weary traveler, for others in a line next to him were offered room keys and given maps of the town. 
"Those ones are welcome, for we knew of their arrival beforehand" lied the innkeeper, for he had still rooms, but of this the traveler was to be kept unaware. "The entire village is without accommodation. It's "Givens Day".
"Givens Day?"
"Yes" the innkeeper lied again. "A holiday. They do not celebrate this one in Twinchville, fifty miles further down the road. You many be able to find accommodation there"
"But I am weary, and feel not to drive any more this day" said the traveler. "Is there not some way you could call the other innkeepers in town and...."
"Nay" the innkeeper said, shooing the traveler away. "I am busy. I shall deal with you no further"
And so the traveler set out again upon the road, and drove the fifty additional miles to Twinchville, where he immediately found a room. It was there that he gained rest, and in the morning he enquired the innkeeper at his accommodation what 'Givens Day' was, for he was curious, and had not thought to ask the rude innkeeper of the day before. 
"There is no such thing that I know of. Wait a minute, and I will ask around" The innkeeper queried many others in the office, who all shook their heads, save one, who, looking sideways at the traveler with sad eyes, said he knew of the custom. He rose, pulled the traveler aside, and related this tale:
"I was denied accommodation in that town, and it was for the same reason. It was because I am white, like you are"
"I have never heard of such a thing!" the traveler gasped.
“Yes. Givens Day is the local slang for 'givin' back' what they have received. It could have been much worse. You were wise to leave that town"
"Prejudice?"
"Oh yes. Ever since The Wall went up, the barbed wire was set in place, the soldiers manning the guard towers got orders to shoot tear gas if necessary, the German Shepherds were trained to rush and subdue, and all the rest, animosity has ruled the land. They protect their own and shun the rest, like you do"
"Like some of my kind does, but I and many other white ones are not like them"
"You're the same color. That's all the justification they need. Trust is gone, my friend. The Wall signifies that trust between people is impossible. There is now talk that villages will build walls again, like in days of old". 
"Castles!"

That looks welcoming.

Tim Rebkavets- Unsplash.com

"Yes. The return of the feudal system. Vassals, lords, serfs, and knights. That sort of thing". 
"Who started this?"
"One man, who could not trust anybody else. One man who, through cunning, sought to divide and conquer the world, his play being fracturing every relationship he could. Burning through people. Calling for loyalty then denying the ones who fell for that, for they were only to be used by him to achieve his ends, those being temporary ones, mainly. It was in this way that he had built a smaller empire before, and through that method became very good at it. Over time, a master even. He asks for trust, then pulls the rug out from the trusting when he needs them no more, leaving bitterness in his wake. His henchmen act for him one by one, or in unison, until they are ultimately removed, leaving him alone on the throne”. 
"The ultimate personification of ego!"
"Correct. There is no greater example"
"How then do we, who seek expansion and welcome, defeat this ones' purpose?"
"We learn to trust each other again, for only in trust can greater things be built. Isolation is self defeating. It leads only to stagnation and ruin. The game stops. The world is frozen. Trust is the thawing agent that leads us back to springtime again. There are only two roads, away from each other or towards. His road leads away, trust leads towards"
"Thank you for your wise advice. Why do you give it to me? Do you not suspect I will use it against you?"
"You can't. For within you you see the value in it, as do I. The only reason that ‘powerful’ one is atop his self-created pyramid is because he does not see the value in trust. His world is very alone. You and I, on the other hand, are now friends”. 
“Trust enables friendships!”
"Yes. It's the only way out of the trap. Think of it as a vortex, and follow what I have to say closely, in order to eliminate confusion. Non-trust draws inward, like water draining through a hole. Trust spins outward, throwing its fruit in all directions. Clockwise and counterclockwise. The old Nazi symbol was an inward spinning vortex, while the Buddhist one, which predated it by millennia, and the one used by certain Native American tribes, spun counterclockwise. It's there for all to see, this knowledge".
"Thank you. I feel greatly refreshed, and am ready to continue my journey". 
"Where go you this day?"
"Home, ultimately. The route I take doesn't matter so much. However I choose to get there, I shall along the way build friendships with those that understand the value of trust".
"You are wise in doing that. Perhaps we shall meet again?"
"In another guise, perhaps. Adieu!"

(and Amen!)

Number 1

I'm older than the former president and younger than the current one so I guess I could be president, which is something that I think about these days- a lot.
All that power. All that attention. My name on the front page every single day. My words closely monitored and analyzed. I could make appointments! Not dental, like I do now, but I could put people I deemed qualified in charge of super important departments. 
The EPA! The Department Of Veterans Affairs! The Department Of Homeland Security! Stuff like that. 
I could tool around in Air Force One, which wouldn't be my conveyance of choice as Number 1, but I would have that at my beck and call, say, if I wanted to jet over to Europe and talk with my compadres over there about trade. Wow would that be cool. 
'Cuz I would be the first president in a long time, if ever, that has actually held a real job, and a factory one at that, one of those jobs that Presidents always want to save!

Another day of highly trained artists gracing the halls of my abode.

Larisa Birta- Unsplash.com

White glove service wherever I went, an armed entourage shadowing me at all times in case some nut job wanted to take a shot. 
Golf every time I felt like it, that would be my style, and I would invite every entertainer I knew of or that was recommended to me to come play at the White House, which would be my crib. 
Congress would be knockin' on my door, trying to get me to sign off on bills with far reaching consequences, those bills entailing laying out vast sums of money or, I would be calling certain people in Congress I wanted to talk to about funding (currently 'The Wall' 'Space Force' and others) to come over to my crib and sit around The Conference Table that the press always takes pictures of, the one I'm always sitting at the head of. Heady stuff, that, but I think I would be able to handle it because you know what? 
There is no report card! Ever! I couldn't get fired! Well, I could, but as long as I was useful to certain factions such a play would be unlikely. 
Then, when it came to the military and those impeccably dressed Marines standing rail straight at the entrance to my crib, or at the chopper, giving me snappy salutes with eyes forward, whoa..... .....that's the kind of respect and honoring I've always been Jones'n for. Generals and Admirals would be asking me for my opinion on whether we should continue to occupy this or that country like I knew all the details that they were droning on and on about in the briefing room. Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know that lives are at stake and delicate balances exist in the region but what is more important to me right now is that tee time is at 1:00 and where is my headwaiter and personal food taster Mr. Sloan with the chow because it's almost time for lunch.

On the downside, though, it'd be only a four year gig, eight at the most, but I'd max out my time on the throne then drift off to a cushy retirement afterwards, maybe make some personal appearances here and there to bring in some cash, or I’d write a book (have to hire somebody to help me with that though, ‘cuz I figure I’ll be just too busy). Whatta life! 

Just to clue you in, those of you younger than presidential age, who think that age brings wisdom, well.....
.....I won't let you in on the gamut of old age knowledge, you'll get that automatically when you get to be my age, but I will tell you this: "Beware of anybody that claims to know it all, says that they have the master plan, has it all figured out, knows exactly what to do, can process tons of input and is able to make sense out of it, 'cuz they can't!”. Leastways, I can't. I know that about myself, and about everybody that I know of that is my age. 
But it just may be true that the president can process like that though, and that's the mystique that surrounds the guy that holds the office. Out of three hundred plus million, there is one man in the USA like Superman. 
When you get to presidential age, if you're not there already, you'll know exactly how plausible presidential mystique is. But until then, the question will relentlessly churn in your mind. "You know, it could be that there is somebody that capable!"

It’s like your car, if I can give you an analogy that you might better be able to understand. You pop into the thing and flip the key (or nowadays, press the button) and off you go, never thinking about the extraordinarily compex process that is going on under the hood. Any mechanic will tell you that flawless performance is like a damn miracle every day because they know all the things that can go wrong. The concept of 'presidential capability'' is like that. Ditto the concepts 'King', 'Prime Minister', 'perfect leadership', 'the economy', 'the stock market', 'the cooperation of all the nations in The World', and many others. You’ll get there. You’ll figure it out.

Of Course They Are

Faux News ran this piece where some lady ‘guest’ they had on said poor people on food stamps just wanted to lay around and watch porn. Ha ha ha. 
Welcome to the world, Faux! Of course that's all that they want to do! Do you think that they want to hold jobs?
Now I know that the people over at Faux have an issue with people not wanting to work. Oh, they rail and rant about it. Constantly. Why, you'd think all of the world's ills could be traced to lazy welfare grubbin' layabouts who just want a handout and not a hand up. 'Cuz, by gum, if they took that hand up, we could stop worryin' about 'em. 
And that 'worry', if you follow the line of thinkin', is that they are going to adversely impact somebody's pocketbook, which is what all the gripin' is really about. "Don't cost me, us, the city, state, or federal government any money"

We got our paws out! Fill ‘em!

Alain Pham- Unsplash.com

So ‘they’ (not Faux, government in general) makes it hard on poor people. They won't shelter the homeless and that's so you'll be scairt into holding a job, and that scares plenty of folks. But still, some have a workaround for that. They just happen to be crippled or lame or barely able to function in our high functioning society and although the folks at Faux would probably like to see that made illegal somehow that's just the way the human race is. There's folks that can't compete because, well, they just can't. 
  And you can tell. You can spot those folks right quick. But we're not talkin' about those. We're talking about those slippery eels that sneak around collecting free booty at the expense of hard working people and in America, the land of the Self Determined Individual, that ain't right. It jest ain't right. 
And so Faux has waged a decades long war of sorts against this kind, tryin' to root 'em out and get 'em goin’ to work like the rest of us, the majority of us, but really- how much are these breed, class, strain, or ilk, to use a few commonly tossed around descriptors, costing us? Compared to possibly- and I'm just suggesting here- a greater share of the proceeds being taken by those at the top, which is kind of like welfare in reverse, ain't it?
I'm just sayin' that maybe it's time Faux oughta shine their spotlight on that and stop harpin' about the layabouts like they're some kind of danged army or something. Because they ain't. 

‘Cuz, you know, those folks sittin' way up high jest might be, while not exactly needin' food stamps, watchin' porn too.

The Frightful Five

     Talkin' ‘bout Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon. 
     Been doing a little research on these entities and, well, they're big. They're building campuses. They're hiring a lot of talent. They're building new headquarters. Some of the places where they are building locals are being priced out, but in the name of 'progress', so what? There is a lot of money behind what they are up to. They have scary amounts of cash with which to finance their endeavors. 
     They are deeply embedded and highly positioned already in a lot of the things we do and seek to further their presence. Many competitors to The Five are faced with having to in some way use their services and are paying The Frightful Five a percentage in order to do business. Antitrust laws written in times past simply may not apply to some of what is taking place now. 
     The Five are building their company's infrastructures so that they can rebuild the entire country’s infrastructure. They're into the ways we drive, shop, interact, communicate, store and share data; they're into mapping, A.I., entertainment, shipping, advertising, and shaping our view of the world. They're huge concentrations of power and with that always comes political power. They just might be bigger than the government in some ways, as far as calling the shots. 

A little less of that….

rawpixel-Unsplash.com

Which might call for the 'R' word- regulation- because when things got overly concentrated in the past- in railroads, oil, telephone networks, and airlines- to name a few- Uncle Sam stepped in and leveled the playing field somewhat but now? Things are moving awfully fast. Spinoffs and subsidiary enterprises of The Five are multiplying. 
     If I was at the helm of one of these giants, with a virtual army under my command, I would be highly appraised of what my troops were up to, what our strategic goals were, and what our goals would be once our immediate objectives were reached because my army would have to continue to be fed! I read just last night that Amazon employs 500,000 people, and if that doesn't qualify as an army.......   
I also know that Google is building an office complex that will employ 20,000 and there was a picture of Apple's circular Cupertino, California campus that looked like some sort of otherworldly ring as viewed from an airplane and you have to wonder "What are they doing in there?" because that is like an alien beehive or something. Bees get busy in places like that!
  The cash flow that these companies enjoy enables them to finance all sorts of research and development, so much so that it's almost comical. If the ol' Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz looked distant and foreboding in a way so do these quasi empires to me and if I were inside one of these campuses the amount of incomprehensible geek talk going on would be completely over my head while the smug smirks of the techies would indicate that I was one of the outsiders, one of the rubes that is being taken for a ride. I am one of their marks, one of their targets, a clueless ordinary citizen as easily taken advantage of as a child. In other words, a sitting duck.
  Yikes!

…‘n more of this, please.

Hannah Valentine- Unsplash.com

They of course, all the while, quite routinely and without clearly asking, have been compiling data on me left and right and using that data to shape and mold me unawares, but in their corporate view this has been 'for the greater good' because they are now the determiners of fate, my fate, your fate, and act as the hidden hands that steer the world. Is this not James Bond's Number 1 that we are witnessing here, but instead of a singular Number 1, there be now five?
Who is there to reign these entities in for they are running pell mell towards profit and growth and letting nothing stand in their way save their own steering currents, the members of their boards, their company's ethics, the leadership of their CEO's, and the social consciousnesses of their employees, who, like the engineers of Area 51, might be working on projects, compartmentalized, so that they don't individually know the ultimate uses of the technologies they are developing?
Does this not lead to paranoia? Yes! We've already seen that Facebook can be used to sway opinions, and that people on You Tube can produce videos professing that the earth is flat and actually gain some traction with that. We've seen that apps on phones can track personal movements in minute detail, that The Cloud can store some of your personal data- forever- you being unable to delete it, that tech workers can be employed on mysterious contracts financed by the Defense Department, and that algorithms are being feverishly developed to predict every aspect of your behavior, so that- what? You can simply be sold things? Tip of the iceberg, methinks. 
Facial recognition, military robots, drones, surveillance networks! Enough money to redesign parts of existing cities, or develop new tracts of land! Self driving cars and trucks being introduced with the ultimate aim of taking over and controlling the transportation network that we now autonomously use- all of these things and more lie in our future.
So far, these tech giant's influence on the citizenry has mainly been a boon, one that has greatly improved our quality of life. But I am wary, for I have seen corruption take over enterprises before. People can get woozy and suffer lack of astute judgement from breathing the rarified air in ivory towers. 
As 2019 dawns, brothers and sisters, let our shared resolution, our (to use a tech term here) ‘Call To Action’ be that these tech behemoths only have the best of intentions, 'cuz in the face of this kind of momentum, global willpower might be the only thing ordinary citizens have left.

Time

     Oh, 2018, where art thou gone?

To the nether regions
N'er to be seen again,
save in archived footage 
that gives evidence of what once was, then
so that future generations, historians, can pick apart and study
that which so rapidly took place, 
present to us cause and effect,
connect the dots,
and show us how it happened
because when it did, it happened fast. 
We were befuddled then, and couldn't make correlations.
But, in the light of meticulous process,
through the triangulation of myriad sources,
and in the piecing together of evidence,
evidence that at one time was seemingly unrelated, dubious, or speculated, 
true causes have been identified 
and now serve as study for those who seek to thwart reappearances 
or, for others not so nobl'y inclined,
     enables them to present the same in a new guise
in order to do 'it' again, whatever 'it' is.
But, it also may be the case that true causation might never be known,
and people will only be left to shrug, 
for in the pace of events, 
not many are that interested in the past.
But some are. 
     I am one so intrigued and thus
 those are the kind of books I read, 
films I watch,
and videos I peruse. 
Documentaries, they are called. 
For ones in the thick of portentous things
  be they in the heat of battle
upon the storied field
or experiencing the whirlwind of success
only see what is in front of them, at the time
while I, later, observe the greater picture of
how things unfolded,
what effects actions had, 
and the legacies that were left behind. 
Momentous change indeed has by these ones been spurred.
But the unsung played their parts as well,
for all actions great and small
affect the whole
and none of us know what the effects of what we have done 
have had upon the whole until later, if at all
for effects build on effects
and who can sort out the varying degrees of impact
save only God
though I don't want to sound religious

God occasionally checks on things

John Towner- Unsplash.com

but when it comes to supercomputing capabilities,
he (or she) is still the champ.
And what all this means, or where it leads,
is anybody's guess
because we can't imagine that which lies beyond what we know
and we don't know much.
But at the same time
it can be said that we must know a lot
because earth is a school
and the fact that we're all still here
says that we must be good at cooperating.
And so,
as the calendar starts anew, the game continues,
and time marches steadily on,
as do we,
it can be said that nobody really knows why we're here,
or why we bother keeping track of years,
and all that years contain.
It must be for an important reason
but the only one I can ascertain is that 
we do it simply because "We Exist!".
     We're proud of what we have created, mainly.
     The new year is an opportunity for us to create better renditions of, well,
     everything.

The Swamp

     I never could have imagined what vile creatures existed until my guide took me, in my Haz-Mat suit, on a tour of The Swamp. 
     Apparently, these creatures had lived there for a long time and had been only recently exposed to the rest of the world, who until then had suspected of their presence but did not know of their actual existence. 
The exposure to foul odors, hydrocarbon mists, rank layers of putrid mud, and slimy decomposing matter within the morass had served to alter the composition of these creatures who had, decade upon decade, wandered in. Once in, the conditions had so affected them that they could not make their way out again for outside of The Swamp they found that they wouldn't be able to live. Their makeup now was such that they could only 'live' within The Swamp, albeit in the wretched manner that they had come to know as 'life'. 
Herein we must give credit to The Media, who over many years bravely sent members deep into the stagnant backwaters to relay back to us what grew in there, and how it grew, for The Swamp had been growing larger and larger and no one from the outside could ascertain with any certainty the cause(s). 

Blue? That’s the hue I saw in there!

Kristian Piatek- Unsplash.com

Hideous anomalies greeted them inside, creatures with tentacles and many arms. The very air was toxic and affected the journalist's mental and reasoning abilites. Some went unconscious. Many were carried out after only short exposure. But, despite the hardships, rudimentary maps were created. Trails and paths were carved out and clearly marked that led ones in and quickly out. (It was by following one such trail that my guide had been able to give me my tour, which had taken us through the relatively safe 'green zone'). 
Further exploration was in this manner established, but only for those with strong constitutions. 'Twas not an endeavor for the faint of heart, for hearts could close in a place like this. 

The findings of what existed within The Swamp, when they were revealed, were deemed ridiculous and preposterous by some, who claimed that no such creatures could possibly exist. But, the evidence showed so, and more and more evidence accumulated over time. 
Sound bites, videos, documents, and audio recordings were made or gathered of the creatures and sent to researchers a good distance away, where they were studied under safe conditions. Mounting evidence proved that in highly toxic environments mutations could be regularly expected. Organisms could rapidly adjust to threats affecting their health and vitality by some sort of unknown method of resilience, one that was unique to this base ecosystem. The news was extraordinarily alarming. 
Some said the way to halt the creeping malaise was to drain The Swamp but what region or municipality wanted to deal with the wastewater, full of contaminants, that was highly unlikely to be made pure by any method known to science? Perhaps containment would be better, they argued. Vehemently. 
A Wall became the agreed-upon solution and though funding it called for bipartisan agreement, the urgency of the situation made members reach across the aisles and one of the greatest construction projects of the twenty first century was undertaken. Construction took less time that expected and was likened to the building of The Three Gorges Dam in the amount of material, equipment, and manpower expended.
The Wall now stands as testament to those thoughtful leaders of days gone by, who saw a looming danger and curtailed it. 

Scientists say that 'twas the flow of money coming in that made The Swamp, and once that flow was diverted as part of the construction of The Wall, the writing was on ‘the wall’, so to speak. Eventually The Swamp and all that is within it will die, they say. 
Be that as it may, it raises no moral quandries in those safe outside The Wall, for it was determined that for the greater whole to survive, some species would have to be given up to extinction.

2018

2018 shuffled slowly towards the exit. His shoulders were hunched, his face was etched with the creases of worry, and his skin had the weathered look that comes from too much sun and not enough moisturizing. In his right hand he carried a scythe, which he here and there grasped with his left hand, and through the power remaining in both his spindly arms, he swooshed the scythe across some growth to reap a bit more news. The harvesting was almost done. Yea, it was old Father Time himself. 
I hailed him.
"Father Time! Looks like you've had a rough year! Thanks for doing what you do"
Father Time looked at me, astonished. "I've never been thanked before. Thank you for thanking me. I get a lot of pushback. People mistake me for The Grim Reaper, which I am not. I am, however, as relentless as he"
"That you are. We're just about done with this year. Only a little more, er, 'reaping' left"
"I am tired, citizen. My workload has steadily increased over the last three hundred or so years. I have so many more endings to officiate"
"Any benefit in that? For you, I mean?"
"None whatsoever. Being Father Time, I can wait for no man. I am duty bound to reap the fullness of whatever crop I am called to harvest, be it a life, a company, a leader, a country. I am the Omega"
"And here comes the Alpha" I quipped, spotting Baby 2019 crawling up the lane. "Is he an 'upgraded' version of you? Better, different, New & Improved? I've always wondered"
"He appears to be different, but nay, he is only me in a different guise. He is the appearance of youth and promise, new beginnings, and fresh starts. A blank slate upon which to draw upon. In time, he will mature and by the end of 2019 he will appear as I do now, withered and old, weary and wobbling, yet still able, for The Universe gives him strength, to complete his appointed task"
"Somebody has to do it"
"Somebody has to act as a reminder that time passes for your culture has made the passage of time almost a taboo subject. You are entranced with youth, perpetual youth. 'Forever 21' is your ideal mindset. But I must show you always, every single day, the fleeting nature of your existence. I must show you things like road kill, dying flowers, and the obituaries of famous people"
"Are you the one that brings us all that death stuff we see on TV, you know, zombie and vampire shows, crime shows, horror movies, that kind of stuff?"
"No, that is Satan's department. My task is to simply show you that the world of form is an illusion. There can be no permanence in the world of duality. There is only emergence followed by disappearance, birth and death, arising and dissipation"
Father Time got busy with his scythe, mowing down some outdated concepts, passe words, and terminally ill technology before turning his attention back to me. 
"See what needs to be done? Were it not for me no room would be made for my replacement" He pointed to Baby 2019, who was crawling up some steps that led to a stage. 
"That is where the ball is going to be dropped at the moment 2019 arrives. Baby 2019 has to be there, amongst the cheering throng"
"A destiny thing" I said, observing.

“An absolute” Father Time corrected me.

I looked directly at Father Time. "And where will you go, at that moment?"
"I will be no more" he replied, without a hint of trepidation or remorse.
"Sounds uber harsh. Just like that, winked out of existence? Hopefully, there won't be any pain"
"There won't. I will simply reappear in the embodiment of Baby 2019, and start over"
"Wait a minute! Baby 2019 is a separate entity! You can't be in two places at once!"
"You have a lot to learn, young man"
"Obviously you haven't seen the gray hairs! Here, I'll turn a bit so they pick up more light"
"I have seen them, but you're still a youngster to me. I have lived forever! As time itself, I cannot be bound to the concept of the passage of time, as you are"
"Ooh. Got me there. I'm very much bound by time. It's all I think about. "How much time do I have left?"
"There will come a day when that won't be an issue for you, and you will simply celebrate existence, like I do every 'day'"
"Mowing things down with the scythe of time is celebratory? That sounds kinda sick!”

Winter is the appropriate backdrop

Seth Macey- Unsplash.com


"It's not. It's necessary. Without me, you would not be able to orient in your world. You would have no reference point and things would appear to be happening in a random fashion. Time is the tool humans use to measure sooo many things. You are fixated by the concepts of progress and history, and compare your 'standards of living' and 'evolvement' to years, decades, centuries, and epochs gone by. The calendar you swear by, the careers you toil within, the vacations you take, the children you raise, the accomplishments and accolades you gather, the contributions you make to this thing called 'society'- all of that is computed in your minds and out comes the result of your efforts- the purpose of your existence! These things matter not outside of this planet you ride upon, whose existence is measured in billions of years. You think you're important but you couldn't stand to see yourselves as I see you- as temporarily animate motes of dust in the void!"
"Gulp!"
"Gulp is right! Be thankful that I am gentle with you, and stay confined mostly to the shadows. Enjoy your 'time' in the sun while you can"
After sobering me with that wintry blast crotchety old Father Time left me, and I must admit I was very glad to see him shuffle off, muttering, looking this way and that for something to lay his scythe into. Meanwhile, Baby 2019 cooed cutely upon the stage. Some people up there were already decorating it and polishing the glittering ball that would be raised, and then dropped, at the moment 'he' (Baby 2019) arrived. 
I turned away. There were still a few days of 2018 left to experience, but I gotta admit, after Christmas, the rest of the year seems like a lame duck. "Is it over yet? everybody wonders, because they're ready for the next year to begin. Ready for all the events that will happen in the next 365 days, those days marking our planet's orbit around a timeless sun.

Genetics II

Due to my work, I have had the 'pleasure' of being around hundreds of thousands of people over the last eight years and I have seen a lot of faces. I have seen every race and culture represented, save the indigenous that never leave their homes.
In seeing these many faces I have observed that the overwhelming majority of them fit a standard mold while only a few of them are exceptional. Those faces stand out because they are amazingly beautiful or strikingly ugly. Many have just been born that way, their looks being the result of happy accident or cruel fate. 
  Sure, there are ones after birth who have made themselves better looking through cosmetics, working out, and plastic surgery but with those techniques you can only do so much. And as concerns ugly, some born common have along the way met with misfortune or brought it upon themselves. Some faces bear scars, some tattoos, some have medical conditions that have disfigured them. 

The beauty of it is you won’t even have to work out to look like this….

Henri Meihac- Unsplash.com

As well, the bodies I observe are more or less the same but there are those that stick out, the ones that I spot in a crowd and fixate on, me being unable to look away due to those bodies being striking compared to the ones around them. These bodies are extraordinarily fat, thin, tall, or short, or they are crippled, missing limbs, or having one withered arm, things like that.
I bring this up because the potential exists now for designer babies who, through gene manipulation, will only be beautiful. Their eyes will be blue or green, which currently are rare traits. Their hair will be lush and full, blonde for the women, of various colors for the men, and that hair might be curly or wavy, which is also rare, for most people's hair is straight. 
Their noses will be perfect, ditto their cheekbones. They'll have wide mouths and smiles full of pearly white teeth. Their bodies will be lithe. Men will have solid builds with tiny butts and women will have curves in all the right places. 
Women's breasts will be enhanced and so will men's equipment. The women will have long eyelashes and full lips, both sexes will have perfectly formed ears that hug the sides of their heads, and men will have the square chin of Superman. When the replacement for me shows up at the airport of the future all he will see is supermodels everywhere and the world will be a very beautiful (albeit bland and uninteresting) one indeed, for right now the airport is fascinating in that there is so much variety. This will slowly go away as people start to look more and more the same. There will then come a point when people will be perfect in every way.

At the present time, looks mean a lot in our society and definitely give you an edge over others. Studies have shown that beautiful women and handsome men are automatically assumed to be 'better' and are given preferential treatment while those not so good looking have it harder. No surprise there. Need I mention skin color and the advantage that brings? But, that depends on what culture you're in. You're not gonna make it in Japan if you're a tall white guy just as much as you're not going to fit in in the Middle East if you don't have Arab looks. 

Getting back to the not so beautiful people, which is most of us to some degree, these ones amaze me because they have to try harder to make it in a world that greatly favors looks. I have determined that there are only two kinds of people when it comes to dealing with this challenge. There are those who don't look very good and go around trying to hide it, and there are those who go around and own their 'affliction', their 'deformity'. In my estimation those latter ones are the ones who handle this issue correctly. They act powerful and confident, proud of the fact that they are unique.  
They realize it’s not their beauty that sets them apart, it's their scar, or limp, or hooked nose. Something I saw of great interest the other day was a whole family that had near unibrows like Frida Kahlo, the artist. The gauntlet of great confrontation had definitely been thrown to these ones. 
This genetic anomaly had been passed to the kids through the mother, who had a pronounced near unibrow. The father's influence had softened the trait somewhat but the kids still had near unibrows to varying degrees. Mom had dealt with it all of her life, how her kids were to handle the hand they’d been dealt remained to be seen. These kinds of weird, family-specific issues are going to go away in the future because you know most people, given a choice, are going to have 'unibrows-being-passed-down-to-their-kids' as the first item on their Trait Alterations List when they go to visit their pre-birth 'Geneticist', who will be a very in-demand specialist of the future. So many changes to be made! 

…your body will just naturally turn out this way!

Igor Starkov- Unsplash.com

Brown eyes, super common now, will be a thing of the past. Black straight hair. Short bodies. Big, protruding ears. Skin color! That's a big one. Skin tone will be adjusted so people will have permanent tans. Bodies will probably become taller, as height is advantageous. Nearsightedness and the need for glasses will be eliminated. Less facial and/or body hair will get a yes. Also being altered in some way will be inner traits, such as intelligence, health, fertility, stamina, etc.
  It's going to be a very different world.

For now, I (and you)  can enjoy the passing parade but in the future.....
  ....it's gonna be boring, man. People living then in their perfect bodies will look upon us as if we were circus freaks and wonder how we dealt with what must have been almost unbearable amounts of rejection. There will be books written about us and studies will have been made of how once the human race was a sea of mutts with only a few purebreds scattered in here and there. 

The biggest challenges of the future might be in choosing which clothes to wear in addition to having to determine other people's character, education, or skill level because simply looking good isn't going to be automatically getting you (or them) into any clubs. Social interactions not being based on looks? Sounds confusing already!

Naught Of The Day

Due to The Holidays or some other reasons, perhaps many, some of which I am aware of and some that I am not, The Mind has been quite still. 
Thought trains still occur, but they derail not long after leaving the station, leaving me trudging back to the platform to catch the next one, which- you guessed it- derails too.

“Why, it’s Christmas Day, Mr. Scrooge!”

Josh Harrison- Unsplash. com

So why fight it? It is what it is. Thought Of The Day is known to take time off arbitrarily like that because, well, because that's just the way it goes, when it's the right time it's the right time, and now is not the right time to wright did I get that right? I think I did but it doesn't matter. It's all good. 
Expect more fresh words when- er- whenever. Which just might be tomorrow. 

Until then, Happy Holidays to you and yours.