The mind and thought sure can be interesting. Lately, I have discovered that one benefit of aging (and experience and the wisdom that comes along with aging) is sometimes it allows one to figure some things out.
For example, for quite a long time I could never figure out why the obviously mundane and vapid things in life really irritated me. A while back I figured it out - it is because all these items of insane inanity suck all the attention away from the things that matter and things of quality that deserve the attention that the worthless things get. I think this actually started when I was a teen and my father and I watched a segment of 60 Minutes on a modern-day artist paid thousands of dollars for paintings he never painted - all he did was add his signature to paintings others painted. I watched my father financially struggle all my life and saw what it meant for an artist to be starving. Hell, I bet he never sold art that surpassed the last three years of my combined working wages.
Next, my latest thing figured out thing has to do with the Christmas season and the loss of the "Christmas feeling" and I finally arrived at the answer to that - the Christmas Season has been so diluted from all angles that the power of the Christmas Season has been lost - and it is mostly related to American commerce. I remember how the season used to be such a treat that started the day after Thanksgiving - everyone was cheerful and you could palpably feel the touch of the Christmas Season and American commerce has broken it. The shopping season now starts before Halloween arrives and it has now become all about sucking money from the wallets of all Americans. So now, the entire season has been so diluted by time and commerce that it's not even really a season anymore and with the creation of the fable of a phony "war on Christmas" - shit, American commerce fought that war and killed the Christmas Season of old and we are never getting it back.
Lastly, I have figured out one aspect of how religion in America is faltering more and more and that is largely related to toxicity created by the increased melding of politics and religion. Yes, I know that the two have always been related, but in the last fifty years or so the two have become so intertwined that politics has poisoned religion (and get this - I'm not even religious!).
More and more, polls are showing how more Americans are turning away from religion and the sad thing is that no one is asking "why?" Now, why I give a shit about this is that I do see the good aspects of religion and this has primarily been from my own observations of the benefit of religion in a close-knit community and especially in smaller communities. But now, politicians and the craven power seeker have turned religion and religious beliefs into a cudgel to batter their opponents, rather than for the greatest things that religious beliefs can add to a community.
Anyone else?
