If sheep were meant for heaven, call me a goat

I’m not calling for all out revolution. I’m not recommending Anarchy in the US. I’m just saying that having your own opinions and thought patterns wouldn’t be half bad. That the US has a higher voter to viewer ratio on American Idol than on Presidential elections should be a source of worry. Technology advances with leaps and bounds, but human intellect is stunted.

Why read when I can see the movie? That’s pretty much the general attitude of at least half the population, and you know that’s a kind statement. At best, people might have opinions they share on their blogs, but like many church goers, the love of all mankind and respect to one’s brethren ceases as soon as you exit the double doors, get in your car and are faced with the choice of accelerating or letting someone else pass first. That last bit means that people might be righteous online, but in the real world they are a lot tamer.

It’s quite an interesting contradiction: “I want everything for myself except my thoughts. For that I’ll just read my favorite news source, see where people are trending towards and I’ll mold my personality accordingly.”

Sounds like a stretch, but most people seem to behave in that way. Case in point, the worldwide adoration to Avatar. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is super well made, but best movie of all time? Come on. I don’t even consider it the best movie of 2009, much less the 2000’s and certainly not all time. But people still dress up in blue, tickle themselves in their tender places and insist on regurgitating what they were offered as fact instead of opinion. And don’t get me started on the people who learned the Na’vi and were suicidal because they couldn’t live on Pandora. WTF people.

It may be human nature to gravitate towards like minded people, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that people are treating opinion like an organized religion. They accept all they’re offered without questioning a single point and when they see dissent, they cry witch and get their tar and feathers ready for a lynching. The worst thing about adopting someone else’s opinion is that you can’t change it directly. That’s why it should be your opinion. That’s why you should desist on being a sheep. You don’t have to wage all out war. You don’t need to be a terrorist threat. You just need a brain and the nerve to stand behind what you think.

Otherwise enjoy the grass and the company.

Blind Faith: Trusting what’s printed on nutrition labels

People count calories, they compare fat content, they raise an eyebrow at sodium percentages and many shudder at reading the phrase high fructose corn syrup. That’s a good thing because people are reading and comparing and trying to control what they put into their body. There’s only one problem, none of us really know if what we’re reading on a label is really what is in a can, a box, or a bag.

Every single day we put Blind Faith into effect and I don’t mean by putting the Blind Faith album from the 60’s into their stereo or MP3 player of choice. I mean that we trust that something doesn’t have fat, something really is low sodium and that the product we consume doesn’t contain something that could make us sick. It’s not that a cereal box has rat droppings, but who’s to say that a cereal contains what it says on the side of the box. Who guarantees that the salmon we’re eating really isn’t halibut.

Recently a group of students ran DNA* studies on cafeteria food and found that what they were being offered as beef was something else. I won’t get into specifics because the technology is still in development and there are questions to the validity of the results. That being said, what guarantee do we have that it isn’t right, and that instead of beef we’re not eating dog? Truth is we have no idea what we put into our bodies. Sure we read labels, but many are misleading and others go through the traditional routes of saying natural flavor, artificial flavors, but don’t really go into specifics. If you don’t believe me, just read a couple of nutritional labels and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

So next time you’re not feeling too good stomach wise, ask yourself a very simple question… what the hell have I been eating?

(*NOTE: if you want to see an article on what I’m talking about in regards to the DNA food testing, click the title of the post. Not the event I referred to, but scarier, especially if you love sushi.)

Authority was made to be questioned

When you think about the powers that be, public opinion and what’s considered to be normal, one could be quite tempted to simply not accept everything we’re offered as a truth, a given, a more or even a law. Some things are elemental and no brainers and don’t have to be questioned such as heinous crimes or attitudes of a dubious moral nature.

A paradigm by definition requires an overthrow to continue with evolution on pretty much every level, in any industry and in any quasi structure where the norm has been established. It happens with music, it happens with fashion, it happens with art, it happens with religion and it happens with politics.

What’s most interesting is that dissent and the power of breaking a paradigm begins with doubt, questioning, and the use of reason by people who are tuned to a different wavelength, a new zeitgeist if you will. From worshipping mother Earth, we switched to a panel of anthropomorphic deities that more often than not, showed character flaws we could relate to. Then Rome plagiarized the Greek system, changed the names and said it was a new religion. In other parts of the globe, Nordic mythology brought a rich mix of fiction and nature veneration, Zoroastrianism and Islam brought different spins to the Messiah story, Taoism brought a series of beliefs and pagan rituals to the masses, Buddhism ascribed godly attributes to the worldly, Hinduism professes its own series of mores and rules through a richly textured religion, Confucianism and Shintoism offer vastly different ways of seeing life in the same country and that’s without taking into account the beautiful religions from Native Americans, Amazon tribes, African tribes, Eskimos and all other aborigine tribes to explain what is this life we live. And this is just religion and just what we know without taking into consideration something as extensive as the Incan, Mayan and Egyptian religions. But trends have been found and they have changed. Catholicism is fighting tooth and nail to stay as the dominating super power religion while secular trends are trying to bring it down. If history serves as a frame of reference, what this means is that eventually something will replace it.

The same goes for economic systems. Feudalism, monarchies, fifes and capitalism are all wonderful isms for as long as they work to keep the participating parties happy. Politics have the eternal battle of the isms vs democracy. The progress of science is even based on dissenting voices questioning what has been established as knowledge. And as if that weren’t enough, a technological gestalt is pretty much impossible at the rate we’re delivering advances.

What does this hefty intro mean then? Well to quote Dylan: ‘The Times are a changin’. People don’t trust their governments, economic systems are collapsing, a desire to unify the world is in conflict with those who would rather facilitate segregation and knowledge in general has the daunting task of having to convince an ever growing society of cynics that what they’re living is not only normal but that they should be thankful for what they receive.

In this current economic state and even if you hate what you’re doing, it seems you have to be thankful for the cluster rape of work you offer at bargain prices while company magnates expect you to not notice that they have plenty of pie on their face, which they obviously don’t want to share. The debate over what is just and unjust is coming into play and people don’t like the results their observations are offering, and they want an explanation.

Why is it possible that healthcare can put a family on the street? Why do we have to give money to bail out an industry that is based on greed? How can we be expected to trust a government that thrives on backstabbing and scapegoating? Why are the powers that be surprised that we aren’t biting on the red herring? Why are they so scared?

Think, question authority, have an opinion. After all, it is your right... for now.