Searching for something or other.

There are few times in life when we are ever truly and utterly happy. Right slap dash in the middle of joy, if you will. These moments are so seldom a part of our lives. Yet we cling on to them, more so than others. Most of us are, most of the time, mostly, just neutral in every day life. Not feeling anything in particular. Probably because we at that very moment are not on fire, being stabbed, run over, struck by lighting or in other ways dying. Yet people obsess about being happy, constantly happy, overjoyed even. Continually being in positive situations where everything revolves around their positive emotions. Horseshit! Happiness, like romance, cannot be constructed and planned. Only a cheap replica can be created, a lesser versions of the real thing. These can certainly be enjoyable, I suppose, but that begs the question: How is that happiness any more acceptable and real than that which a junkie gets with each fix? It's all just neurons and pathways smothered in chemicals up there in that box of wires you call your brain. I've never understood societies objections to certain things you may do to your own body. Granted the fallout of these actions may be bothersome to the "civilized" world in which we live. But then shouldn't the fallout be the centre of attention? And personal responsibility be the issue? Yes, certain drugs and substances are so potent that they will likely lead to a whole series of problems. Probably resulting in death. Then again, life is a series of problems resulting in death. Maybe a serious heroin addiction is just life in concentrated form? And you'd think people would have heard something negative about heroin, meth and crack by now. I'll just stick to my drugs of choice thank you very much. Caffeine, alcohol and sex. They bring me all the chemical joy I need, most of the time. "Save your bullets tough guy, my disease does that for free." PS - I came dangerously close to writing "chemical romance" in a paragraph. Luckily I was able to stab myself in the forearm before that could happen....

Sports aren't manly.

You would be surprised how many women I talk to think some athlete is the pinnacle of humanity and masculine prowess. He's not even necessarily very good at what he does, which is really the thing that boggles my mind. The mere fact that he's engaged in some ridiculous made up activity is enough for him to be desirable, it seems. When did society go from admiring the athlete to worshiping the sport? The idea that muscular and athletic men are attractive I can understand, it's some sort of remnant from our prehistoric past, further fueled by the media's image of men. The different details and workings of this I'll leave up to Darwinism and sociological research to explain but I think it can be pretty clearly stated that resourcefulness or intelligence come in a distant second for most women. Yes, we've all heard the idea that as long as a man is self-confident or has a sense of humor that's all women really look for. That is complete and utter horseshit. If that were true I'd be knuckle-deep in vagina every other night. We are all, men and women, shallow in many respects. The only real difference is that men are more upfront about it.

Tell me this isn't a little bit retarded... But I digress. My real point here, which I'm fumbling towards, is that sports in and off themselves are utterly absurd and silly. I often make the comparison between sports and live action role-playing. They are both completely made up activities. People put on strange equipment and clothes and meet in some field, everyone plays for points according to some set of rules they've all agreed upon and when they're done they pack up and go home. Only to begin anew in a while. The main contrast between the two is that one group of practitioners are hailed as gods and the other is a subculture ridiculed by most who know of their existence. Oh well, now some might say that sports include a lot of physical activity and thus it's more of a legitimate diversion. Shit a brick. It's all just entertainment. If you like watching sports and cheering for some group of people bashing their skulls together, fine. Have a great time. Just don't expect me to give two shits about when they win or lose. When one person or team finally trumps the others and wins the whole series/season/hoopla they take a little break, and then start all over again! Why do sports, and especially team sports, take up such a huge block of the media's time? Again, it's just entertainment. It doesn't mean anything! At least fiction can grant some sort of insight into reality and truth as well as entertain you. Why are you paying these men, these athletes, millions and millions for frolicking in the sun? As far as sports being manly let me just say this: Get back to me when you've been through the school of getting the shit kicked out of you, like I have. Running around on a field with your friends, hugging some dudes and getting a little dirt on your socks is not any more manly than dressing up as some mythological figure and throwing pine-cones at one another.

Random politico.

Ever since the events of 9/11 the western world in general and the United States in particular have been obsessing over the dangers of terrorism. There are certainly many real threats, but the tools available for fighting terrorism are often very intrusive. At which point does personal freedom and privacy end for the benefit of the general public’s wellbeing and the protection of society? How much should we be willing to give up for safety and peace of mind? The word ‘terrorism’ of course implies that you cannot have terrorism without terror in some form or another. The terror is essentially always the threat of bodily harm or death in seemingly random acts of violence perpetrated by some aggressive and remorseless assailant. The strategy of a terrorist is to use isolated acts of violence in order to instill fear and confusion into the population. That means a very small group of people can cripple an entire society with relative ease. They are able to do so since normal people have an inability to understand risk. Allow me to demonstrate by using an example. After the large-scale terror attacks against America in 2001 airline travel essentially stopped completely for days, even weeks. After the first couple of days it was not because of any government control, people were just too afraid to fly. The industry’s stock plummeted and thousands of people lost their jobs, furthering the damage upon the fabric of society. This is despite the fact that even after these horrendous acts it is safer to fly than drive your car. It is probably even safer than before considering the increased security and fewer number of terrorists. This fear and inability to understand risk drive people to accept their leader’s infringing on their personal freedom and rights. Sometimes it even seems as if they demand that their rights be reduced in order to at least give them the semblance of safety. We are simply fooling ourselves. Society and the world we live in contains far too many dangerous situations to ever be completely secure. Even an airplane can never be secure beyond a shadow of a doubt, far too many people have access. This is necessary to ensure the operational safety of the mechanics of this incredibly complicated piece of machinery. A much more effective method than law enforcement going to extremes in their surveillance of the populace is to educate the population to think rationally about the perceived dangers from terrorism. What are the odds of being killed or even injured in a terror attack? What are the odds of an attack taking place in your neighborhood, or even your country? Curtailing the rights of huge swaths of the population is not only wrong from a moral standpoint but it is also as I have argued ineffective. The only way to disarm the terrorists is to take away their main weapon, terror itself. It is our government’s responsibility to guarantee our safety to a certain extent; I have no objection to this, obviously. However it is also their responsibility to guarantee that fear among the population does not grow completely out of proportion to the reality in which we all live. We do not need generalized statements from our leaders and reduction of our rights. What we do need is competent leadership and reassurances based on facts.