My Thoughts

We, whether consciously or comatose, no longer seek the why, satisfied that things are as we think they ought to be in our self-described universe. We have enslaved reality, conformed it to our will, and by our will conformed reality to our facts, to our truth. Objective truth, whenever inconvenient or counter to our needs and interests becomes a lie; immutable facts are self-mutable by reason of equal validity. Every cocoon a perfect reality; a New Eden where nothing is forbidden, good and evil are synonymous, and every desire is satisfied. And the residents of New Eden are gods unto themselves for God is an inconvenient truth and thus adjudged a lie.

It requires little effort to unearth evidence of this alarming trend, just read any newspaper or listen to the pundits masquerading as authorities on every improbable subject. The script is a common one, one that has been followed for many years: independent of actual facts, either ignore the facts as presented and provide a narrative supporting alternative facts, or, excoriate and dismiss the facts while declaring such facts lies, and thus, either implicitly or explicitly establishing the source of the lie a liar.

It is the case, whether politics or religion or everything in between: facts are made to fit the narrative, gently massaged, carefully shaken not stirred. The objective is to move the goalposts and thus avoid the unpleasant task of actually playing the game. Battles neither won nor lost, victory never met, Goliath killed David with a blow that knocked him all the way to kingdom come. Dare deny it at your peril. Everyone knows the Bible is full of lies written to appease the gullible by a well-known fake Divine.

Two decades ago, there was a movie, The Truman Show, in which Truman Burbank was unwittingly the star of a hit television show. Unknown to Truman, a corporation had adopted and raised him inside a simulated television show revolving around his life where everyone but himself were actors playing roles of friends and acquaintances. This seems to me too awful to contemplate but too real to be disbelieved outright. Too many of us believe what we want to believe, believing we understand more than we do, disbelieving what threatens to tear the fabric of our self-defined reality. We believe in ourselves and as Chesterton suggested, such belief is the cause and consequence of our madness.

Those who still hold to some degree of sanity—those who believe in objective truth, true reality, and above all else, Almighty God—should not too quickly dismiss this mad malady for it will not soon fade away. Those who are true believers in this madness are every bit as much convinced they are sane and you and those not believing in themselves are as mad as that madcap hatter appeared to poor Alice. They are immune to reason and inoculated against OTD (Objective Truth Disorder;) intervention and therapy have been found to be largely ineffective.

Once, in a moment of temporary lucidity, while in a rather piquish mood I should admit, while sitting down I wrote this bit of satire (it is germane, I do and must insist):

Extreme Epidermal Translucency, infrequently diagnosed prior to a mere decade or two ago, has quite virulently infected, or so it would appear, the preponderance of the population and at the current rapid rate of infection threatens to become a global pandemic so pervasive and widespread that within virtually no time at all is expected to claim more victims than that of the Black Plague, the Third Pandemic, the Plague of Justinian, the Great Plague of London, the American Plagues of the 16th Century, the Great Plague of Milan, the Plague of Athens, the Antonine Plague, the Great Plague of Marseille, and the Moscow Plague combined, so reported the International Office Blaming Just Every Cottonpicking Thing (IOBJECT) in today’s totally expected, completely undocumented and really unimportant pre-shredded report.

A nondescript, completely forgettable, inoffensive, generic spokesperson reported that everyone should be assured that absolutely no one had actually written a single word in the report and thus it was estimated that at a minimum four trillion trees had been saved in the process of compiling the report which the spokesperson insisted had been read by no one at all, thus preventing further outbreaks of Extreme Epidermal Translucency or EET, just in case you had difficulty properly enunciating more than two syllables.

The nondescript, completely forgettable, inoffensive, generic spokesperson went on to report that symptoms for EET were typically Facial Redness & Extreme Temper (FRET,) immediately followed by Brash Angry Raving Fury (BARF,) Complete Lapse Of Decorum (CLOD,) and Frequent Outbursts Of Lunacy (FOOL). The IOBJECT spokesperson refused to respond to any questions, provided no further information, either written or verbal, and failed to produce any of the purported four trillion pages of exhaustive documentation supporting these alarming claims which the IOBJECT spokesperson assured the lone reporter present at the unscheduled and unannounced news conference never existed as it would have been a complete waste of time and an abhorrent misuse of rapidly depleting resources to collect, collate, staple, slice, dice, and then wad into giant paper wads.

As inexplicably expected, immediately upon release of the report an equally nondescript, completely forgettable, inoffensive, generic spokesperson for Universal Society of Total Idiots Counting Kooties (USTINK) countered by saying that USTINK objected to IOBJECT’s report calling it a total fabrication and misrepresentation of the facts not in evidence which no one had a clue if there were in fact any facts at all and that attorneys for USTINK would be asking the court to issue an immediate injunction effectively barring IOBJECT from continuing to claim that they had single-handedly saved the lives of six-quadrillion tree toads. When last seen, both nondescript, completely forgettable, inoffensive, generic spokespersons were observed sticking their tongues out at each other and uttering nah nah nah nah USTINK! IOBJECT! No USTINK! IOBJECT!

Public reaction to this totally expected turn of events was as expected. Those who objected to IOBJECT were completely and utterly pessimistic. As one IOBJECTor noted, “I’ve been sick of these zombies for years and do you think they care? Their report ain’t worth the paper it’s written on, that is if they had actually written anything!” Another person who appeared to have one of the worst cases of Extreme Epidermal Translucency this reporter has ever encountered literally disappeared in an extreme fit of virulent apoplexy. It was as if suddenly there was an extremely loud noise coming from absolutely no visible source, accompanied by a rather malicious odor. It was truly amazing and quite perplexing.

Public reaction from the other side of the road was extremely objectionable. One witness stated that it was absolutely odoriferous what USTINK was saying about IOBJECT’s spurious report. “Look, every time a new unfounded, fallacious report appears, those USTINKers throw their slime and make up insanely accurate claims against IOBJECT. I mean let’s face it, nobody can get away with even a little bald faced prevarication or two anymore. Like where’s the harm in that? I think all those USTINKers are bigots and…dude they’re ugly and stinky? Somebody needs to go soak their head for darn sake!”[1]

What you think of me is none of my business so let’s keep it that way. Help stamp out Extreme Epidermal Translucency before it spreads any further. All we have to do is show a little love.

That’s all.

Really, pinky swear![2]

Wake up America.

Just my thoughts for a Wednesday, for what it is worth.

[1] Disclaimer: Anyone who believes they have been harmed, flamed, inflamed, disrespected, insulted, slandered, libeled, judged, misjudged, mischaracterized, denigrated, slighted, victimized, put-down, slammed, mistreated, maltreated, injured, scarred, ignored, deplored, floored, dissed, bothered, upended, beaten, sneered, ogled, leered, snarled, gnarled, bitten, slapped, hit, belittled, or burned…please, I say this in the most genteel, kindest way possible, really: have a nice day.

[2] From an essay, Mind the Construction (Colloqui, January 11, 2019).