Modern Man

I can not believe the amount of hate in California right now. How can People think that it’s alright to discriminate for any reason.

I have listened to all of the arguments for those that are voting yes and quite honestly, none of it holds water. All of the arguments are based on fear and ignorance. How the hell can two men or two women getting married threaten the marriage of men and women? It can’t!

The argument that gays getting married is immoral has nothing to do with the law. Have you heard of the separation of church and state? If you think God is going to be upset with gay marriages, don’t get married to someone of the same sex, but don’t try to inflict your beliefs on the rest of the population.

I have heard people say that they have gay friends, they have nothing against gays and lesbians but they should not be allowed to marry. What a crock. You can   not tell me that you are alright with someone but in the same breath deny them the same basic rights.

All of the stories about gay marriage being taught in schools is complete and utter garbage. I know teachers. All of them agree that this is a scare tactic. The story of the teacher taking her kid on a field trip to her lesbian wedding is also crap. They try to make it sound like this was a big surprise that the teacher sprung on the parents. Field trips have to be authorized by the principle and the parents have to sign permission slips. There would have been no surprise. All of the parents would have known in advance of this alleged trip.

My favorite is the people that say, if we allow gays to marry, soon people will want to marry sheep or goats.  How can they even say things like that with a straight face?

No matter what your argument for voting yes on this proposition, the only real reasons are fear, ignorance and hate. Plain and simple.

I don’t understand fear. Sure there are things that I am occasionally afraid of. Spiders, big bugs, confined spaces with spiders and big bugs.

What I don’t understand is the constant fear, gloom and doom that we are forced to endure on a daily basis. I mean the media. All media. They thrive on scaring the living daylights out the general public.  Everything has to be the worst it’s ever been, or on the verge of total destruction.

If you listen to the news or read the papers or new websites you would think we should all barricade ourselves indoors and prepare for the flesh eating zombies to show up.

How can people live with this kind of constant downer? Why do people continue to listen? Or worse, continue to believe it?

Some of the problems facing the world today are real. The housing crash, is not one of them. Prices were over inflated by speculators, greed and stupidity. The prices of homes is coming back down to where they should be.

Terrorists? Ya, no. You are more likely to win the lotto twice and get hit by lightning that you are to be hurt or killed  by a terrorist.

The “crashing” of wall street? No. Wall Street has little, to no affect on most of us. The people I hear whining about all they lost on wall street had something to loose. Most of middle America didn’t. We live month to month. That hasn’t changed and most likely wont.

I think a lot of our problems are our own fault. We have been telling the rest of the world how wonderful we are and thinking that we as Americans can do no wrong and we started to believe it.

When you start to believe your own propaganda, you’re in trouble. In this case it looks as though we have crapped in our own mess kit.  Now that it’s time to clean up the mess we are in denial. We don’t want to admit that we could have been wrong. We don’t want to admit that we don’t know everything. We don’t want to admit that we have to make some tough choices and change our ways in order to fix the problems.

It seems to me that we need to take a long hard look in the mirror. Pointing fingers, laying blame and telling other countries how to live their lives has gotten us in one big mess. It’s just not as big as the media wants us to believe. They want us to be afraid. It helps the makes sales.

It’s time to stop the fear and accept the fact that we don’t know everything. It’s time to do what needs to be done. Re-prioritise our lives and get back to what’s really important. Love, not hate. Peace, not war. Tolerance, not discrimination. Truth, not lies.

Maybe it’s time to live our lives and stop listening to people that profit from your fear. Let’s get back to fearing the really important things. Big hairy spiders and bugs.

How many times have you been given directions only to end up more lost than you were before?

The problem could be a number of things. Maybe you didn’t let them know exactly where you wanted to go. Maybe they don’t really know how to get there, but they didn’t want to admit that they didn’t know everything. Maybe their idea of where you want to go is different than yours. Maybe the place you want to go is known only to you. Maybe you just can’t get there from where you’re at.

How many of you got good direction when you were young? From your parents, counselors, teachers, coaches, preachers. Did any of them really try to find out where you wanted to go or did they just push you out and away in an other direction? Maybe they gave you a general encouragement to do something. Anything. Maybe they didn’t give you anything and just left you to fend for yourself.

When I was in grade school and high school, I was not a good student. The teachers and guidance counselors wrote me off as a trouble maker, underachiever, incorrigible. None of them ever tried to find out why.

My parents always told me that I just didn’t apply myself. I could be anything I wanted to be as long as I tried.

I told them what the problem was. I was bored. I always felt that they couldn’t keep up with me.  I was already better than what they had to offer. For years, no matter where I was, I always felt as though I was one of the smartest people in the room. No matter what the room.

Once you leave home, or go away to college, you only have yourself for direction. No one else is going to care if you succeed or not. Where do you go for direction then?

Many students I knew then, and people I meet now, say that they had mentors in college or in their careers that helped them find their way. I never had that. Well not really.

Once a boss told me that she would take me under her wing and make me the best ever. Unfortunately, what she had to teach me was nothing I needed to learn. She lied, cheated, stole.

Even though I knew it was wrong, I learned it all. I knew I was better than that, so I moved on and remembered.

She was one of many people I have meet in life that wanted nothing more than to use me for their own benefit. They didn’t care about me. Only what I could do for them.

My teachers only wanted to pad their stats to make it look like they were good teachers. My baseball coaches only wanted me to win games. My employers only wanted me to make them money.

What about what I wanted? Who was looking out for me? Who Is looking out for children today?

No child left behind. Ya right. From what I see, they’re all getting left behind. And it’s not just the children. All of us are still being left behind. As adults, we look to our communities, our religions, our cities, our states and our government for direction. Look at where they have led us.

What is any body doing to fix things? Pointing fingers. Laying blame. Lying.

“Follow me, I can fix the world.” they all say. My form of greed and corruption is better than their form of greed and corruption.

I’m not sure of  much any more. Seems the older I get, the less I know. What I am sure about, is that we, as a people, not just Americans, but as humans, are severely lost and no one seems to know the way.

I would be happy to tell you where to go, but I’m not sure you can get there from here.

Not long ago I had to close my business. I called it “my” business, even though it really wasn’t. We had partners. The partners are the ones that actually owned the business. I ran it. Made the decisions. I talked to the dealers and vendors. Payed the bills. I did everything. I kept the partners up to speed as to how things were going. They gave me no feed back, good or bad.

When the business needed to be closed, I told the partners what all needed to be payed right away and what they were going to end up with. We closed the business. Everything left was taken to the partners, and that was the end of my relationship with them.

Wrong.

Mail is still being forwarded from the business to my new address. Instead of going to the partners like it was supposed to.

Today I get a notice from the business bank. I find out that our partners have stopped payment on several of the checks I wrote. They didn’t tell the vendors or me that they were going to do it. They just did. Thousands of dollars worth of checks.

There was money in the account to cover all of the checks I wrote. Why did the partners stop payment? They wanted to pay their accountant instead. Sounds very screwy to me and I think that some thing fishy was going on with one of our partners and the accountant, but that is another post.

Even though I have nothing to do with the business any more, these vendors are now very pissed at me. They don’t see the difference between the partners and us.  They don’t know who are partners were. As far as the vendors are concerned, I am the one that stopped their checks. And they want their money.

I can’t blame them. I would too. Especially since they had it. They just didn’t get it to the bank fast enough.

Now I am stuck in the middle, with my reputation being dragged through the mud. I have known all of these people for ten, fifteen years or more in some cases. Now that money is involved, none of that matters.

I don’t think people act rationally when it comes to money. It makes us crazy.