Opinions and Change

Opinions. We all have them by the truckload on every subject imaginable. Just ask anyone you know what they think about something and they're more than happy to let you know in spades. Everyone from regular folks to famous people, politicians and even criminals have them.

The problem with opinions I'm starting to have is all of us have somehow lost the true meaning of what an opinion really is.

OPINION:
–noun
1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

So www.dictionary.com tells us the truth, I think. It does not say an opinion is some kind of superior truth written in stone on some magical tablet found in a sacred cave in the holy land. It clearly says an opinion is a belief or judgment a person has. A personal view or attitude.

I'm going to add one more definition to this. In my humble "opinion", opinions are nothing more than our attempt at bullshit, my own opinion notwithstanding included....None of us know what we're talking about in most instances at all. Our opinions are just an excuse to sound like we do. They also are the grease that keeps conversations from falling off a cliff. Our opinions and a dollar might get one a cup of coffee.

Especially now in these trying economic times everyone on both sides of our great divide in this country rattle off their bullshit opinions about causes and cures without the slightest inkling of the realities or complexities involved therein. All the Television newscasts and radio personalities get in on this insane game of course. They are just people with opinions but they somehow want us to believe they possess some kind of supreme truth. They especially are guilty of prostitution because they get paid the big bucks to put their bullshit out.

We, the gullible public walk around saying "Well, Rush said, Hanna said, Katy said, Brokaw said and spew the same crap as if it means anything at all. As if there is one iota of truth involved. Now the next logical step in my little opinion bullshit piece would have to be......What is truth? Are there such things as absolute truths? Truths that are always the same forever? I would have to suppose that the only people who lay claim to that would be all the various religions of the world and maybe some of the scientist who believe they know the absolute truth about some subjects.

So that leads me to the second thing in the subject line. That would be change. I propose that the only true, real and forever thing in life is change. If our president actually gets anything right during his term in office, it just might be his emphasis on change. I'm saying that everything we think of as truth is actually a forever changing landscape of opinions. What our forefathers thought was the truth is vastly different than what we think nowadays, to say the least.

Even in the religious realm our decedents from the very distant past believed they would appease the gods by throwing virgins into the mouth of a volcano. In fact it was a great honer to be such a chosen one. They knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gods would shine their loving light on them for their sacrifices.

In the not so distant past, women and children were possessions of men and they could do onto them whatever they wished. Blacks and American Indians were savages to be killed on sight or turned into slaves for the white mans bidding. All of these truths were only just recently re-examed and found to be wrong.

Change happened, didn't it? We constantly change our minds about what's real and true. What was true and real in 1950 is vastly different than what's true and real today. I know we often times pine for the "good old days" but guess what? They are forever gone. Change comes whether you like it or not.

Just off the top of my feeble brain I can guarantee you that homosexual relationships, gay marriage, marijuana and all drugs for that matter will be legal sometime before you know it. Our prisons will be much smaller when we treat the whole drug thing as medical issues as they should be.

The youth of today look at us hassling those "issues" and just shake their collective heads and roll their eyes in wonder. They wonder why in the hell we are even talking about such trivial things in the first place in the light of such huge social, economic and political problems that we are facing. These changes and many, many more you can't even imagine right now will take place for sure as soon as all of us old codgers with our stuck in the past ideas are dead and gone.

Ok, I've freely given you a hearty helping of my bullshit (oops, I mean my opinions). Now if you add in a smidgen of your bullshit, we can make a fabulous bullshit stew. The next paragraph will tell you how.....





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