Im Back!
Its now been a month since Ive written anything on here so I am here to break the cycle of my non-perceverance... Theres much to tell about really, its been a fairly busy month. The biggest piece of Jeff-story this month is that me and the family are moving to a townhouse about 10 minutes away by car. That is general is better, though this place is out of the way enough that I wont have the 24 hour rabba right by me. I'll have to shop during regular store hours... Sheesh.... I love this central part of town, but its far better for the family so its a good move. Other than that, work sucks, Tash is great, and I have a cold that is clearing up some. I'll think up other stuff later.
What really got me on here is a question I wanted to record for the sake of my sanity, somthing Ive been thinking on lately that I wonder if anybody else thinks about.
What truely makes a diffrence in the world? Is it the big ideas that shape 'good' or 'bad' outcomes? Or is it the practices that are put in place afterward?
There are a great many ideas which float about in society today. We are privy to some of the greatest minds humankind has ever produced, we have near free flow of information. I can suddenly decide to become an expert on the history of helium ballons simply by tapping into the net. It will provide much of what I want, and if I still have questions I can find places that will reveal such lore should I choose. It seems we are in a constant state of learning, processing, development. Or are we simply a group of information zenophobes, simply working to keep ourselves from anything new?
Have the great minds of the past and present really done anything to better our lot? Or is it the adminsistrators, the janitors, the makers that make our world more livable? It seems our world is completely divided on this, though nobody really wants to chat about it because we simply assume others have our same belief's. Or we simply dont care (this is getting more and more frequent).
I sat down with a friend tonight and he simply had a disdain for what he called "hippies", the free love, free drug types who were prominant during the 60's.... He said the movement did nothing but create more trouble. The main reasons were 1) The spread of aids because of the "sexual revolution" coined and put into the practice by this group and many others. 2) The growing use of drugs, not weed persay, but harder drugs such as LSD and whatnot which essentially kill brain cells. My defense of such a movement was mostly against the braincell thing because LSD and other hard drugs were not really part of the scene, possibly later, but the whole concept of those movements was designed around simplicity and nature. His retort was simply that just because the origional idea was harmless, how it was put into practice was how it turned out.
Now aside from the fact that there may be factual ommisions from both, these arguments still stands on a base level. Every movement goes bad in some way, its humanized in some way. Communism, to free enterprise, to Democracy, to Christianity every idea that ever was put into practice went bad in some way. So really, are good ideas important to our development? Should we ever try to design somthing better? To think beyond the current state of the world? Or should we simply attempt to put into practice our current ones better? IS there a reason to think "Big Thoughts"? Because if entropy will simply mutate it from its ideal course, whats the point?
My own opinion is that its important to at least try, to innovate, or even wipe clean and try somthing completely new as much as possible, to try to get it right. To me its the simple fact that we try to better our lot that makes us better? And that even ideas that do get corrupted will do somthing to change things for the better. I would incite the fact that the free love and the sexual revolution has done much to liberate us from oppressive ideals about sex, incited feminism, and just generally made us feel proud of the fact that we could actually get some without guilt. Free enterprise has increased infestructure, gave a certain amount of power to all of us to better our security and has blossumed resource management throughout the world. Communism (the marxist version anyways) has created social equality among even the poorest of workers and improved living conditions (through unions). You see, even though humans must make bad things happen in even the best intended places, its the core values of an idea which permeate through society, making the whole better.
The fact that often many choose not to think for themselves, and let others do that for them is the main problem today. Not enough people have an opinion, or the drive to try to better societies lot. In no other time in history has it been so easy to think for yourself. Yet most have not the willpower to go out on thier own. They leave the ideas and opinions to others to make for them.
Thats the honest shame in all this.
(On that note, VOTE, find somebody you believe in... They are out there if you want to do somthing about it... We're going to polls within a few months.... So figure out where to go)
What really got me on here is a question I wanted to record for the sake of my sanity, somthing Ive been thinking on lately that I wonder if anybody else thinks about.
What truely makes a diffrence in the world? Is it the big ideas that shape 'good' or 'bad' outcomes? Or is it the practices that are put in place afterward?
There are a great many ideas which float about in society today. We are privy to some of the greatest minds humankind has ever produced, we have near free flow of information. I can suddenly decide to become an expert on the history of helium ballons simply by tapping into the net. It will provide much of what I want, and if I still have questions I can find places that will reveal such lore should I choose. It seems we are in a constant state of learning, processing, development. Or are we simply a group of information zenophobes, simply working to keep ourselves from anything new?
Have the great minds of the past and present really done anything to better our lot? Or is it the adminsistrators, the janitors, the makers that make our world more livable? It seems our world is completely divided on this, though nobody really wants to chat about it because we simply assume others have our same belief's. Or we simply dont care (this is getting more and more frequent).
I sat down with a friend tonight and he simply had a disdain for what he called "hippies", the free love, free drug types who were prominant during the 60's.... He said the movement did nothing but create more trouble. The main reasons were 1) The spread of aids because of the "sexual revolution" coined and put into the practice by this group and many others. 2) The growing use of drugs, not weed persay, but harder drugs such as LSD and whatnot which essentially kill brain cells. My defense of such a movement was mostly against the braincell thing because LSD and other hard drugs were not really part of the scene, possibly later, but the whole concept of those movements was designed around simplicity and nature. His retort was simply that just because the origional idea was harmless, how it was put into practice was how it turned out.
Now aside from the fact that there may be factual ommisions from both, these arguments still stands on a base level. Every movement goes bad in some way, its humanized in some way. Communism, to free enterprise, to Democracy, to Christianity every idea that ever was put into practice went bad in some way. So really, are good ideas important to our development? Should we ever try to design somthing better? To think beyond the current state of the world? Or should we simply attempt to put into practice our current ones better? IS there a reason to think "Big Thoughts"? Because if entropy will simply mutate it from its ideal course, whats the point?
My own opinion is that its important to at least try, to innovate, or even wipe clean and try somthing completely new as much as possible, to try to get it right. To me its the simple fact that we try to better our lot that makes us better? And that even ideas that do get corrupted will do somthing to change things for the better. I would incite the fact that the free love and the sexual revolution has done much to liberate us from oppressive ideals about sex, incited feminism, and just generally made us feel proud of the fact that we could actually get some without guilt. Free enterprise has increased infestructure, gave a certain amount of power to all of us to better our security and has blossumed resource management throughout the world. Communism (the marxist version anyways) has created social equality among even the poorest of workers and improved living conditions (through unions). You see, even though humans must make bad things happen in even the best intended places, its the core values of an idea which permeate through society, making the whole better.
The fact that often many choose not to think for themselves, and let others do that for them is the main problem today. Not enough people have an opinion, or the drive to try to better societies lot. In no other time in history has it been so easy to think for yourself. Yet most have not the willpower to go out on thier own. They leave the ideas and opinions to others to make for them.
Thats the honest shame in all this.
(On that note, VOTE, find somebody you believe in... They are out there if you want to do somthing about it... We're going to polls within a few months.... So figure out where to go)