Not too far into the New Year to formulate some resolutions. One of mine—yet unspoken—is to cool it on politics. I’m actually quite interested in the subject, but also find it completely maddening…that some people…could…AAUUUGGGHHHH!
OK, I’ll try that again. Sometimes it surprises me that politicians get away with saying certain things that are so obviously false and that the media reports things that are so obviously false, but no one ever seems to call people on it. And it then starts to scare me that folks who would normally be called by most people, “whack jobs,” are given a legitimate voice. If some of the things they say were said by someone in our own families we would just reply, “OK, Uncle Louie. Now, could you please pass the mashed potatoes?” But in the general discourse these extreme voices get major play—and don’t even really get called out for being (1) extreme, (2) demagogues or (3) liars-liars-pants-on-fire. And, on top of it, the media not only reports about the craziness, not calling it craziness, but they seem to turn up the volume on the insanity. All this is not, for me, the recipe for a healthy 2012.
This year, rather than tempt a stroke by following the news blow-by-blow, I’ve decided to adopt a different approach, one that’s inspired by one of my favorite quotes of L. Ron Hubbard (which I’ve mentioned before):
“…instead of worrying day and night about what the federal government is or is not going to do, instead of worrying about the fact that we apparently have no sweepingly effective leaders, and instead of worrying about what they did do or didn’t do or what the army says or didn’t say or what the navy says about the army, and so forth, instead of worrying about this sort of thing, would it not be possible to just skip it.
“That’s a rather startling proposal, but just skip it and be effective by making it possible for a country to exist some time in the future. Instead of worrying about whether it exists now, or whether it’s functioning now, let’s just get down to the grass roots and begin to grow a country, person by person, guy by guy, IQ by IQ. And sooner or later these people will be smart enough to find some leaders and get a show on the road.”
— L. Ron Hubbard
While I will just have to from time to time challenge some majorly unjust statement—it’s just not in my DNA not to—I’m going to try to focus my attention on things that help people become saner. It’s our lane, I’m sticking to it.
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