Humans are Retarded.

All of my life I have thought critically. I can't actually recall a moment when I didn't question authority in some way--be it the words of my parents, or the lessons taught in schools, or the propaganda fed to me through various news services. However, I rarely met (or meet) anyone at all who is skeptical of the society in which we live and in the things society tells them to believe. I think this has always been the most frustrating thing for me when it comes to trying to communicate with other people. They seem incapable of free thought and any attempt made to get them to question official dogma is met by a kind of panic, or fear, or outright hatred.

When I was younger this frustrated me tremendously. To see people accept things as they were fed to them seemed absolutely insane to me. They were all locked into a kind of patriarchal method of acceptance that is a specific type of indoctrination that seems lockproof. Whatever they are told by those they trust (for no really good reason) they accept as unimpeachable truth.

Conversely, today I meet young people who believe in all sorts of insane things, fed to them via the Internet. Some of these people began to mistrust the things society and parents were forcing into them and so they turned to electronic commerce to find new answers. There, they have found all sorts of quasi-religious, unscientific, and extremist dogma that they have taken to heart and from which they cannot be freed. Chemtrails. Wild conspiracy theories. A mistrust of, and complete ignorance of, science and scientific principle. Adherence to new and wacky religions and nascent political dogma that lead nowhere. In some ways, this is equally as frustrating as the original closed minds I encountered earlier in life.

These days I witness western society in the grip of obscene nationalism, racism, and xenophobia directed at enemies who don't exist, or which the status quo wishes us to recreate as enemies. Frankly, I'm sick of it all. Some people continue on with the frustration and the hand-wringing, the Old Testament equivalent of the gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, and tearing of hair. But, like the all-seeing, all-powerful deity of old, the new power of the 1% capitalists who sit in their palaces don't care about anyone's frustration, and they are immune to your protestations. All complaints fall on deaf (or nonexistent) ears.

I suppose it's time to just accept the inevitable and push on. There are trails to hike, mountains to climb, waterfalls to see, wild animals to watch. Well...for now. Maybe there will still be some of that by the time I shake off this mortal coil. Or maybe by then all of the forests will have been felled and all of the animals killed off.

Or maybe I'll just watch some loutish Norm MacDonald standup. Yeah. That's what I'll do.

"You know what country scares me? Germany."