degringolade

Before the rains

Can’t really say that I have much to say today. The gloom looks to be here for a while and I have to readjust to that reality. You would think that I would be used to this, I have been here in the Pacific Northwest for thirty years now. The rains shouldn’t still be affecting me, but they still do.

I remember the old saw about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb. Well this year, the lamb part happened during the midpoint and now it looks like crap for the rest of the month.

I did finally receive my pressure cooker. I am ready to go, but I am stalling until I work up a better plan.

I am thinking that canning some kind of pork and beans as a first step will be the way that I want to roll. I need to acquaint myself with the pressure cooker and define exactly what it is that I am wanting to do with it.

One of the things that folks tend to think when they get older is that they know more than what they do and that due to this mistaken belief, they don't feel the need to plan. Nothing could be more incorrect. I am in no way as sharp as I used to be, and I seriously doubt that any of my fellow geezers or geezerettes are any different.

I'll hang out a little today with the eldest and chat with him over a lunch somewhere, I am thinking that during the week coming, I will can some pork and beans and maybe even some pulled pork for consumption on the high holy day of Super Bowl.

Because the universe we observe appears designed.

Attributed to Steven Hawking by Thomas Hertog (The Origin of Time)

Isn't this simple statement by a pretty smart guy a clear enunciation of the principal problem of theology at the core of all philosophy?

Lots of answers have been posited. None of them are satisfactory. It doesn't mean that we stop looking, it just means we don't have all that great a chance of finding out for certain. Oh, you can be certain inside your own brainpan, but outside of that, all bets are off.

Impressionism / Claude Monet/ Haystacks at Giverny

One of the reasons that I chose yesterday as my retirement day is that it was the second anniversary of case zero here in the USA. I tried for two years to do what little I could to keep a small portion of the ship above water, but in the end, the attempt didn’t really seem to do anything whatsoever.

Now, I want to be really specific in laying down the blame. I blame the PMC (Professional Managerial Class) for the abject failure of the last two years. Just to make things clear, this is a very specific, very small class of folks. Professionals without management responsibility are not to be taken to task here. Granted they might have been using the Nurenberg defense (I was just following orders) but despite protestations to the contrary, this is a valid defense most of the time.

Nope, I am talking about the folks with MBA’s who genuflect at the altar of Bernays and the holy writ of the time and motion study. Simply put, these are the whores who have lost sight of the final product and genuflect at the bottom line. But like all whores, they spend the bulk of their time servicing the customer’s desires for a greater share of the customers wallet.

So, we have managed to get ourselves played into the whores game of running the country on the whim of an elite that only looks to their own needs and forgets (or worse, doesn’t care)that their decisions have real life consequences.

So, the truth is that I tried and failed. I am retreating into the netherland of retirement now where I am no longer in the game. I think that this will work out just fine.

Symbolism / Arnold Böcklin/ Pan whistling at a blackbird

I know that I live in Oregon and part of that is learning to deal with grey skies, but right now I am just kind of tired of that.

Not really depressed right now but I am kinda tired of keeping up the stoic thing. I am winding down to retirement and truthfully could use a time machine to vault me forward, but there is a low five figure number on a spreadsheet that keeps informing me that there is a way to go yet.

Best I can figure, I could bail at the end of this year, but things would be tighter than I prefer (and remember that my standard of living isn’t that high). But it could be done. I think that it would be best that I wait until the planning date of October 1, 2022 to go. But the grade of the hill sure seems to be getting steeper as time goes by.

The hardest part of any hike I have ever taken was the last bit going to the car. Even if it is downhill it takes it out of you.

Current Location: Coffee and Happy Lamp

Expressionism / Gustave de Smet/ De Wiedster

Mike in a sense showed me the positive ways that “sealioning” could be used in a social setting. By taking the time and asking questions, one could gently let other folks take to time to transition their views to something more accurate.

That isn’t what I had in mind at all.

I see the act of sealioning someone who is missionary as a twofold kind of thing. I have a sick kind of enjoyment in watching folks explain crazy ideas that they firmly believe. Especially if they are just completely wrong in my mind. The idea of a person sitting down and sincerely explaining something that makes no sense whatsoever is always entertaining. I think that is a carryover from my younger days growing up in Utah with my friends trying to explain the theological tenets of Mormonism. It always made them happy to do this and the hardcore training that I got from the Jesuits let me let them guide my “hosts” into any number of dead ends and internal contradictions.

That is the bad person part of it. I don’t make any effort to “guide” them to the proper way of thinking. I just ask questions about what they are telling me and enjoy the process of having them inform me where they haven’t thought it through well enough.

Lately though, I have been operating a little differently. My sealioning seems to be getting more sincere. I still look for what I see as errors, but that is becoming less and less important. It is more like someone telling me where the land mines are in the worldview that they are using. What I am looking for now is the parts that I can use to clean up my own worldview.

The hardest part about this is that a lot of the time the ore that I am mining is pretty thin. Sometimes there is nothing there at all.

I think that the degree of true sealioning depends on whether or not I like the person. Some of the folks that I know and that I like have some decidedly odd worldviews. So they get a pass and if they want to talk about it and explain their way of thinking, I will be happy to provide them the dumb questions that let them expound. When I run across a person who rubs me the wrong way and goes all missionary on me, I change my tactics and use sealioning as a way to fuck with him/her.

So I guess that kinda explains my take on things. Like everything else, Sealioning is a tool. How it is used is what is important. If you use it to make someone happy, I suppose it isn’t sealioning but a kindness to allow folks to talk about themselves (always a good thing for them and an important part of day-to-day conversations). I suppose that using it to fuck with people you don’t like is a mark of immaturity and self-absorption. I guess I am not above that.

Woke up early today. Couldn't get back to sleep. It's my own damn fault. I crashed too early yesterday (you have all heard too much whining from me about Thursdays) and now it is 04:17 and I am pecking away and sipping some java. I took some time to work on the pictures that I take while wandering about Stumptown so I have a little bit of a backlog for the top of future posts. So I got that going for me.

Screed:

I do check in over at the Chef's. It is on my reading list and we agree on many things. Not all, but many. A couple of days ago one of the things that routinely get my goat surfaced over there so I am going to rant on it a bit. Sorry Chef, still love you, but since I am writing and you showed the poor time management skills needed to let me wander about your musings, a couple of your commenters get taken to task.

What irks me is that in American politics lately, all we have had to choose from is douchebag A versus douchebag B. That is bad enough. It does give me cover for my poorly disguised drinking problem, but that is the way it goes in late stage 'Murca. So every election some folks start talking about "leaving" and going to another country that is better. I'm going to Canada. I'm going to Belize. I'm going to Thailand. I'm going to XXXX because XXXX is better than here.

OK folks. Get over it. Those places aren't "better" than here. They have the same people as we have here. The same racisms. The same wealth disparities. The same pot. The same just about anything. The governments there have the same record of locking up inconvenient people and repressing a major portion of their societies. You aren't going anywhere because y'all bought into the shit when times were good and you were fat and sassy, now you are telling me that that now, because you feel some off-flavor of political douchebag has permanently spoiled your view you are going to pull up roots and move to someplace where they don't want you anyway.

America is a fucking train wreck right now. Yep. But don't think for a minute that your actions and your whining aren't part of the fucking problem. Shut up. Buckle down. Start bailing the boat.

Current Location: happy lamp and coffee
Current Music: Alan Parsons Project: Breakdown