Updated in 2022 to include…

“…who were just there to be dicks,” Colin Speir, Trainwreck Woodstock ’99

I nodded my head when I heard this quote as I was watching the Netflix series recently, because I remember in the 1990s there were several instances of young people going out of their ways just to be dicks to me.

For example…

“Hey Richard! Not sure if you remember me but I saw you yesterday in the OKC airport and I felt strongly that God wanted me to apologize to you for my behavior back in high school at Ada. Me and some of my friends liked to heckle you at games while you were trying to work. I was young and dumb but still no excuse and I wanted you to know I appreciate your work and how long you have helped with the Ada paper. You even managed to take some great pics of me playing bball! Happy New Year!!”

The worst thing about an apology like this is that it is apparently necessary for an invisible deity to tell us when we’re being assholes. I’ve never been a theist, and yet I’ve never been as big an asshole as these guys were to me back in the day. Why? Because it doesn’t take an epiphany or a revelation for morality to be obvious.

Someone I know and like constantly posts memes about depression and anxiety intermixed with invitations to go get drunk. I want to tell her that alcoholism is the opposite of what she needs to do to combat depression and anxiety, and that the sooner she quits drinking and getting high, the sooner she will find some real friends and finally feel good about anything. But we know how that conversation will go, don’t we?

About extremists: in some ways, they are the only people I respect. Though their actions are fundamentally misguided by their demonstrably incorrect religious beliefs, they view their religious tenets with a kind of purity that few others possess.

“You don’t fly jets into buildings or strap explosives to your chest without believing the idea that you are part of something far larger and more significant than yourself.” ~Sam Harris

Number of pictures of tongues I have ever wanted to see for any reason: 0.

#BlackLivesMatter. #BlueLivesMatter. #AllLivesMatter. All these hashtags are wrong. Life is inherently valueless. Until we lift ourselves up through our reason – intellectually, artistically, morally, emotionally – we are essentially just elements in the food chain. Look at society’s priorities: the Super Bowl, the rock star, talk radio, electronics, movies, sugar, video games, strip malls, cars, money. Money. Do you think your life matters because of money? Because of what you possess? #NoLivesInherentlyMatter.

“I stand with XXX” meme. No you don’t. You stand on obese legs and credit cards. Just admit that you aren’t a social warrior of any kind.

“…why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more/more people, more scars upon the land…” ~Rocky Mountain High by John Denver, who lived in Colorado at the time.

Posted to a friend’s Facebook wall after he call himself a wimp after complaining about postoperative pain: “About pain: it is real and individual. It is indivorcable from the spirit and the intellect. It takes many forms, which we have all experienced in one way or another: broken bones, broken hearts. Your pain is real and undeniable. It doesn’t weaken you or diminish your respect for another if you express it, particularly if that expression is healthy and helps you through the world.”

Am I a racist? Of course. The question presumes that I am. Instead of asking me who I am, it asks me to defend against what you think I am. Racist or sexiest or xenophobe or nihilist: I am not for you to define. All you can ask of me is that I leave you alone.

Download This! By the way, don’t get all bonerous because you passed some internet quiz with 100%, even though it told you that “only one in fifteen can pass this test.” Honestly, if you can’t pick out Argentina from its outline or name the three branches of U. S. government, you are idiot.

As we all all keenly aware, humanity has stooped to new lows thanks to the internet, particularly the fact that the internet is riding around in our pockets. Thanks to this future that no one correctly forecast (since futurists tend to be far too optimistic), we have immediate access to information we barely skim, we have the ability to spread rumors disguised as facts, we have the power to spread lies that once seemed obvious, and we are all offended by something.

George Orwell had no idea.

I have been using words like “nozzle” and “knob” in my head a lot lately. That guy is a c*ck-knob. She was such a tw@t-nozzle.

Today’s rant isn’t about content, but about the way form tries so hard to confuse and mislead us, making it even that much harder to divine even a simple truth.

We are divorced from our nature. Magnets are shaped like ribbons instead of being ribbons; mounds of dirt pre-dug for groundbreakings instead of breaking the ground; you wear fuchsia when it’s “pink out night” even though you don’t know what pink out night is or why fuchsia isn’t pink.

I don’t think it’s healthy for all of us to be so angry at everything all the time, and I am aware of the biting irony of my being angry about everyone being angry.