author | explorer | thinker. infinitely inquisitive about our fascinating world. i write a lot. i have fun and do my best to spread good vibes.
Every time someone protests in some way, someone is there to tell them it makes no difference. I disagree. Every action makes a difference in its own space. Is one activity going to dismantle an entire corrupt system? No. But there’s no other way to get there except via these small steps of actions. Every step counts and is necessary. Never let people tell you that you don’t matter.
I’m not usually a literary genre person but I saw the hype about Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar and gave it a try. PROS: Interesting perspective of Iranian man. He comes to the USA and has common problems (fitting in as a gay man, battling addiction, struggling with injustice.) The repeated mentions of the US Navy shooting down an Iranian civilian flight is a good reminder about that crime. CONS: No real drive to the plot. I get this is a side effect of the literary genre, but it was too… Read More »Book Review: Martyr!
It’s weird how often we have to remind alleged adults that you can agree with a person on Subject A but disagree with the same individual on Subject B – and still not hate them. The phrase “strange bedfellows” in political context (and not a post-drunken adventure context) are productive but unlikely team-ups. It’s so obvious. But so many restrict their views to false binaries, to all-or-nothing attitudes. I don’t even agree with myself on some things I did or believed yesterday. Everyone is like that. So why are people… Read More »Strange Bedfellows – the Good Kind but not THAT Kind
The world is only chaos if you insist on listening to too much at the same time. If you played six different songs at the same time you’d go nuts. That’s exactly what people do when they tune into social media and suck down multiple news inputs. You go to a party you don’t interact with each person simultaneously. You go a few at time. That’s how we’re made. Too much input and you’re going to go insane.
The Jerkiest of Jerks It’s no secret this world is full of jerks. Jerks of all kinds. At the top of the scale, the jerkiest of the jerky, are those that exploit kindness. I mean those who pretend to be in distress, then when a passerby tries to help, the criminal strikes, robbing (or doing something worse to) the kind soul. Those goons achieve peak jerkitude because they not only harm their victim, but they create a world frightened to help out a stranger. They steal kindness from us all. … Read More »The War on Christmas Is Over! Bring on the Toilet Wars!
The more I write about tech, artificial intelligence, and algorithms, the more I sound like I’m talking about religion. Humans Need to Know Why Like many folks in this era of podcasts, I have listened to far too many true crime stories to be healthy. There is one thing I find extremely fascinating about the families of the victims. They’ve expressed a common feeling that’s surprising, when the full fate of their loved-one isn’t fully known. Say a person has gone missing, evidence indicates they were likely murdered, but their… Read More »An Upgrade is Available for Your God(s)