Disturb and engage yourself

Warning this post is disturbing and insensitive in that it exposes the oft-unsaid sentiment of many people that I know

OK, so I’ve had some pretty disheartening things happen to me in my lifetime (rehab, divorce, debt, dead dogs, etc.) but two days before Christmas I had the pleasure of being given the auditory equivalent of a carefully planted weapon of mass deception subversively plopped right in my own lap by none other than a close family member. I have been flirting with the idea of putting pen to paper, or is that keyboard to memory, on my reflections of ideological and unstated premises of close friends and family members with whom I vehemently disagree but have kept my mouth shut in the spirit of harmony. Well this last conversation really just lit the proverbial match under my ass and here I am for your literary pleasure. Below is a collection of sentiment I have heard often uttered under ones breath or in the safe confines of ones home surrounded by others who share your view or at least would never have the audacity to say something contrary to your opinion. But hey guys you forgot one thing, I was there and I heard you and now I want to engage you. It may sting a little at first but in the end I think we will all be the better for our endeavors.

Now I expect that the majority of the citizenry of United States, or any country for that matter, however an unfortunate statement of humanity it may be is relatively unconcerned with politics, personal civic responsibility or major world events. I mean who cares about those Muslims in Iraq? Lets just bomb all those sand niggers…right? Kill em’ all and let god sort them out. After all they let Saddam Hussein become their leader and you know we (the US) came in to liberate their sorry asses….right? I can't believe that you could possibly expect me to believe that the US went there for the oil. They shouldn’t have been harboring terrorists. They should be thankful and yet all they can do is fight each other to undermine all of the goodwill that the US military has sent. Global warming?….come on, it is just some plot to scare us. The earth has always had cycles and we are just in an upswing. It is just stupid to think that man could have a hand in global warming through our own actions. I mean cows are more responsible than humans with their methane gas. I’ll wait till the government tells me that something is wrong and then I’ll worry about it. Besides why should I worry when an asteroid could come along and wipe us out at any moment. I just want to have a good time in life and live a “normal” life like everybody else. Peak oil?….I bet that is just a ploy to charge us higher prices so that energy companies can rake in the profits. It sure does serve their interests. The earth is not a finite resource, it has and always will provide humanity with everything that it needs. People in the third world making my tennis shoes for pennies a day…..fuck em’. Most people are poor because they are lazy. If they would just get off their asses and work then they could succeed like everybody else.

Yes most people are more concerned with shopping at the mall, getting a fake tan, just trying to have fun in life, apathetically disengaging from reality in video games, buying lattes from Starbucks or just plain trying to get by on minimum wage to worry about what some talking heads in the government are doing or saying. I mean they are in charge so let them do their jobs and don’t question or critique their performance. We all know that those in charge always have peoples best interests in mind and will always act to ensure that the publics best interests are kept at the forefront.

The preceding paragraphs were meant to be sarcastic and snide. They were also meant to disturb some and engage you. Disturb some in that there are actually people with these convictions and engage people with those convictions as to why some people might be disturbed. Got it….good. Where do I start? Over the next couple of days I intend to expand on a few of these ideological issues and lay out how I view the world and how I view our collective responsibility as members of the human race to engage these issues. I hope to challenge a few assumptions and instigate dialogue with those in my life so that we can seek truth and come to a better understanding of each other and hopefully reach a more enlightened level of consciousness.