Personal Responsibility?

I was born and raised on a small farm in mid California. Everyone raised in those conditions and times learned very early in life that there were things out there that could possibly hurt you. We were taught to be careful in life but told that bad things could still happen to you and it was your responsibility to take care of yourself. Example.....One time I was playing over at my friends farm. Now his father had dug a huge hole in the ground. No idea why. Maybe he was putting in a septic tank or something. Here's the deal though. With such a tempting thing as a deep hole in the ground, where do you think me and my friend were playing? Yup...right there on the edge of that hole of course. Probably throwing rocks in or something young boys do.

Well, the inevitable happened and I fell in. Smacking down in the bottom of that big old hole, I broke my arm. As I lay there yelling, crying and screaming in pain, my friend ran and told his Mom what happened and they called my parents to tell them what happened. My Mom came and everyone dragged my sorry ass out of there and she took me to the local doc to get it fixed. Guess who got in trouble here? Me and my friend of course. All the way to the doctors office my Mom was berating me for doing such a stupid mindless thing as falling in that hole. I knew my friend was getting his ass chewed out real good for the same reason.

Now I'm telling you right now that the idea that my friends parents should be sued or held responsible for having this huge, dangerous hole for me to fall into did not even cross anyone's mind, much less my parents. The only person they were mad at was the people responsible for doing such a stupid thing and that was me and my friend. Can you imagine how different this scenario would be nowadays? Nowadays, not only would people sue those negligent land owners for not properly protecting innocent kids from such a dangerous situation, the people who owned that land might even lose the whole farm over this.

How idiotic is that? Nowadays the injured party would not even feel bad about suing because it's not personal, you see. That's what insurance is for. With the advent of insurance, we have lost our sense of responsibility of our own actions.

Another example. When I was in high school, there were a couple of cool things all of us did. One would be to hang out at the bowling alley and the other would be to go roller skating. Now I remember plain as day, even at that age that as we walked into the roller skating rink, there was a huge sign up on the wall that said:
"Skate at your own risk". As far as everyone was concerned at that time it was a done deal with that sign. It made it perfectly clear that it was our choice and responsibility if anything were to happen while skating.

Another example we've all heard about is the lady who spilled her hot coffee she just bought at a McDonald's and won millions! Now clearly she was not responsible to make damn sure she was careful with that coffee. The restaurant was negligent for having the coffee too hot.

One of the insane things that drives me crazy nowadays are those jerks, mainly in politics both national and local who constantly try and make everything perfectly safe for us. Impossible, I say. What ever happened to the reality of "Shit happens"? Just to make a very clear, concise and direct point. In my perfect world, which doesn't exist of course, when some poor unfortunate kid fell down in the skating rink and became paralyzed from the neck down, everyone would of course feel terrible for him or her but that would be that. His or her parents or family would just have to deal with this unfortunate and sad situation themselves as humans have done all throughout history. The skating rink or society in general would have nothing to do with it.

Whatchathink?



Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!

Garbage in, garbage out.

Has anyone else noticed the shadowy, slowly creeping, insidious "Dumbing down" intellectual place we seem to be entering nowadays? Let me take a wild guess here that the main cause is our entire drugged, hooked, obsessive fascination with "The Media". They very well might be our present day demon. The demon who is determined to erode our minds with trivial, shallow junk. Stuff about as stimulating as watching paint dry.

Lets take a good cold hard look at what's going on with the media. Starting with the News. You've all heard that only bad news sells? A stupid concept in my humble opinion but there it is folks. Doesn't matter in the slightest which news program you watch or listen to, the only things you're going to learn is how the world is about to end in one catastrophic way or another. Here's the truth though if you read between the lines. Pretty often the normal news programs will have a small story about this amazing man or women who does some absolutely stupendously wonderful thing for mankind out of the kindness of their ample hearts. Helps drug addicts or provides housing for the poor or started an organization to show our military people how thankful we are for their sacrifices.

I could go on with examples for pages here but you know what I'm talking about. These geniuses are most always just one person. In a lot of cases, if that one person went away, the whole fantastic organization would just melt away. Here's the thing though. Those unbelievable folks are out there right now doing stone cold miracles. There out there by the millions, all over the world much less. So, how come the "News" doesn't tell us all about their good deeds and accomplishments? Stories about these kinds of people would certainly be good food for our minds and souls huh? I'm going to take a wild guess that for every negative thing going on in the world right this second, there are thousands of purely wonderful and positive things happening also. Remember the golden rule though......Only bad news sells.

OK how about the general entertainment media now? If you have a bit of age on your bones, you'll remember that Movies and Television's early days had programs and shows that were intellectually stimulating. Alfred Hitchcock for instance put the fear in your imagination and intellect instead of throwing a bucket of blood and guts in your face. The shows had at least a modicum of substance and value. They set up situations that demanded your complete attention.

Nowadays? I personally think there are a few little diamonds in the ruff out there at this time as I'm sure you do. The vast majority though is pure unadulterated garbage. I would go so far here as calling it poison garbage. Ultimately insidious, dangerous garbage. Instead of challenging our minds, it's like having that 14th beer, third glass of wine or third joint. You've gone from fun to stupidity. The creators of the majority of programs or movies being made now could care less about the effects of the madness and stupidity their pumping in our vanes causes. They have the same exact agenda that all the other media outlets have. That's to take as much money out of our pockets they can and putting it in theirs.

The main point I'm trying to make here is we have let ourselves slowly but surely be pulled into the media's version of reality but it's all a damn lie. It's all not only false but mind numbing crap designed to rob us of our minds and turn us into something we clearly were not meant to be. Humans are the most amazing things on the planet. We were strong enough to pull ourselves out of the dirt and caves of long ago to be the creators of all the amazing, creative, artistic and useful things we have now.
The only thing I can think to do is try with all my might to remember it's all a bunch of bull pucky. It's not real. It's all just crap to draw you in and get your money. I think I would much rather spend my money on that first glass of wine.

My advise? Sorry, don't have any. Nor am I presumptuous enough to think I could tell anyone else what to do. Just more of my Esoteric Mumblings.




Now click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this blog and add your response or thoughts for others to see when they click on the "Comments" link (Try it now!). It makes it far more interesting if we make it a conversation, instead of just my bullshit. Thank you to those who take the time and effort to do so.....
COME ON..........DO IT!!!