Politics always seem to be important, but often it is not and should not be.  It does not determine happiness on a daily or personal basis.  Done correctly, the politic is the machine that works silently in the background allowing us to believe that we have rights.  It is important and allows us all to live day to day without the worries that most of our forefathers have had to deal with.  This has all changed.

When politics does not work it becomes important and it does determine happiness on a daily and a personal basis.  When the politic is done incorrectly, or criminally as it is now, the machine churns out smoke and rattles as its gears do not mesh and the mechanization works against itself.  It reminds us that our rights are precarious.

As  the American government is sold off piecemeal to the highest bidder we the public are bogged down and being bogged down by details that do not matter, they do not count, and that will change nothing towards fixing the problems we deem so important.  We fight each other and defend our parties and our tribes, yelling about our rights.  We fight for our rights as the political machine slowly reminds us that our rights are nothing but an illusion.

Or as George Carlin so aptly put it, ”

“Yeah… sooner or later the people in this country gonna realize the government does not give a fuck about them. The government doesn’t care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare, or your safety, it simply doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’s interested in its own power, that’s the only thing, keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.”

These are interesting times in politics and regarding social changes.  And in interesting times arguments and grievances are often over simplified.  Such is the case with the current progressive movements such as Black Lives Matter and the MeToo movements, to use a few popular examples.

These are needed movements, no doubt, and continued progress towards equal opportunity for blacks and women is necessary.  And there is, as ever, a ‘however’.  However, the enemy in the sights is the wrong man.

It is true that it has been white, patriarchal powers that have constantly stood in the way of equal opportunity for all, but it is not white men that are at fault here. It has been and continues to be god and greed.  It has and has always been desire to undermine Truth,  and power that is at fault.

To say that white men have created the road blocks that stand in the way of social progress can be likened to the argument that the prisons are primarily filled with black men because black men are guilty of most of the crime.  There is a disconnect.  There is a hidden falsehood.

To argue that white men are the problem, the core of the issue is to imply that other cultures and genders would be or are any different.  They would not and are not, as a study of world history will attest.

If it is white men that are the problem, and currently it is for the most part white men that are the problem, then it is those particular white men that need to step down.  However, and more importantly, it is the power (the corporate and religious power here) that is the problem, not white men.  Rid the country of corporate and religious power, and black lives will actually matter and women will be able to finally claim: me too!

We cannot let those minority of human beings that refuse to evolve with evidence slow the progress of intelligence.  We cannot let those marginalized by their own fear and ignorance, stand in the way of the inevitable march of truth and happiness, of equal opportunity for all, of safety and security.

Teach the ignorant, and remember that we all are ignorant.  Tolerate those that tolerate, and remember that we are all intolerant.  Learn from those who teach and remember that we can all be teachers.

The Truth, like all things of value is worth defending.  Do not censor stupidity, but bring into the light so it too will burn off into the forgotten depths of the evil, that so many bad ideas have disappeared and are destined to disappear.

We have ambitious morons in our presence, and their lies, their trepidation, their unequivocal love of hate, of fear, of power, of money, and deceit will dissolve with their antiquated and unappealing, foolish ideas of a civil society.

We can hate the ambitious morons, but hate is never enough.  Hate is the ambitious sibling of fear, and we must never be afraid.

The ambitious morons of the world must be treated like the fools that they are, like the liars that they pretend not to be.

It is difficult to look at the present situation and hold hope up as a possible future.  The booze flows as we drown out the insanity one glass at a time.  We numb ourselves to ignorance and stupidity right outside of our doors.  We seek solace in social media.  None of these things bring us any closer to the hope that we desire.

But hope does not work in mysterious ways.  It is simple.

There is no future as our feeds contend.  It does not exist.  It is not set in stone, just as there is no past, as our drinks promise us.   We can get lost in the illusion of a dystopian future and be weighed down by the ignoble past so easily.  But, in doing so we give up on the hope that we desire.

We only have the present and this is where hope resides.

If there is a mask on the face of hope it does not mean that there is not a smile behind that cloak.  Hope has proof.  It has been verified.  With every corrupt act from all the power and greed hungry politicians that have ever effaced the country, with every corporate turn of the screw, with every ignorant and angry retort, hope has marched forward in the form of progress.

Hope is the realization of past progress, and the actualization of present progress.  If you don’t have hope, act as if you do.  If you don’t want hope, then lay down and let the waves of progress wash over you.  If you have hope, then march forward as the orange ignorance slowly gives way to the inevitable progress that we have made.

The old adage, follow the money, applies to every situation which entails injustice and attacks against the rights and privileges that Americans take so much for granted.  There is no doubt that profit is the underlying motivation of the conservative movement, but perhaps more heinous is the ideological motivation that is behind it.

With a patriotic, a nationalistic, and religious ideology in place the conservative movement can justify their actions without having to retort to the truth: base monetary desire.

Make no mistake about it, the conservative movement that placed Trump and his administration into office is motivated by money, but money does not sell, ironically enough.  What does sell is ideology.  Both are powerful tools, money and ideologies, especially in the rhetorical realities of people who have the one and lack the other.

The conservative movement’s current stranglehold on this country is no less than a legal government takeover.  Money buys power, and power makes laws.  While the conservative movement is nothing less than a criminal movement, it is not altogether illegal.

The legalization of criminal acts is the beginning of the end for any country, as history will attest to.  And the legitimacy of the Trump administration and the conservative movement that supports it hinges upon nothing more than empty laws.  The emperor has no clothes, but it is becoming against the law to point this out.

IF we can simply put aside our differences we could create magnificence, the utopian ideas that so many before us have held, could become a reality.

IF we could somehow set aside our superstitions we could drop the heavy weight of guilt and fear, and ignorance would become the knowledge that we have spent lifetimes searching for.

IF we could turn our back on our selfish tendencies, we could cease to compete with each other for those things that come free: happiness, security, comfort and love.  We could evolve beyond our nature.

IF we would consume books and literature, philosophy and music, we could see through the fog of lies and empty promises, the darkness of fascism and the light of ideologies  We could leave the shoulders of giants and stand on our own.

IF we could accept our humble ignorance and shed our arrogant desires we could die in peace knowing that others after us would have all of this and so much more.

If only.

There are changes coming.  Don’t be afraid.  They will come of their own accord.  You do not have to do anything.  They come slowly and methodically and without our notice.

Change goes by many different names: progress, regression, passion, hatred, happiness, love, but one name remains consistent.

Inevitable.

We can choose to watch them pass us by or pretend that they are an illusion.  Or we can embrace them.  We do not need to do anything other than choose what we call them.

Change is the only consistent.

But nihilism is not the answer, nor is hope.  Life changes us and we life.  Change has led to life and change will take life away.

Change is the god we worship no matter what we call it.  Do not bow down, but use it to your advantage.

We have very little time to change those things we want to change.

Why(?) is one of those questions that we adults smile and chuckle at, joking to one another about the endless barrage of meaningless chatter that two year olds are capable of.

Why? Why? Why?

Why(?) is also one of those questions that are typically very difficult to answer. It implies purpose, something many don’t consider. Sometimes there are no answers to the question, why?  And because it often has no clear answer, or answers that we do not necessarily want, it is an uncomfortable question.

History is full of why questions, but history often cannot answer them because history is not a static art and cannot read the minds of those that have established historical facts (read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari for more on that).  Science does not consider why, but only how, but it often changes the answers that we believe are true to those why questions that we have asked.

And philosophy, the great approach to the why question analyzes and postulates with more questions, driving us from our comfort to the unstable heights of insecurity and Truth, the illusive concept.

So why ask such questions?

It is simple.  Because when we human beings cease and desist, when we turn our backs on curiosity, we cease to be people and become a mere species.  We are no doubt a cog in the evolutionary machine, but one that can perceive of its role and perhaps change its future without destroying the machine.

Ask why and find out where it can lead you.

Being a motorcyclist one is often told how dangerous they are.  A nurse friend of mine inevitably tells me of ‘horror’ stories and I have friends that call them suicide machines.  I cannot disagree, but they are fun.

Sometimes I point out that one can die of heart disease and stress sitting on a couch.

A motorcycle is freedom and adrenaline.  It is life and it is a challenge.  Last week a challenge posed itself and was answered.

Riding 1500 miles in under thirty-six hours, and doing it on a motorcycle.

Crazy to some and an inevitable gateway to more to others.  The scenery changed as did the people.  The gas stations are all the same as are the shopping malls.  What is the most important aspect of riding a motorcycle 1500 miles in less than thirty-six hours is watching the thoughts fly by as the highway is blur under your boots.

You have to have an iron butt to do this, but you also need a love of riding motorcycles.  You need discipline and you need to know your limits, but these are lessons that all of us need.

It’s just sometimes easier to learn them on a motorcycle.

There is a lot of stress in the world, to state the obvious.  But what is also obvious is that stress offers nothing and takes everything.  There are numerous so-called “self-help” books that concern themselves with stress and its detrimental influence on our happiness, but as the philosopher/comedian George Carlin once pointed out, self-help books undermine the very thing they propose: you are not helping yourself with a self-help book.

This leaves us with ourselves, at night, and in our quieter times, when we stress over those people, those situations, those inevitable times when life seems to be serving up a heaping helping of shit-pudding.  All the while, we might even stress over the lost time that we have spent stressing.  Vicious circles are like that.

Life is short.  It is very short, and spending it worrying about obvious problems without considering the solutions is truly in line with that famous definition of insanity.  Continue to sip coffee in the morning, turning to alcohol in the evening and life will pass us by quickly and brutally.  To be happy actually takes work.  It does not come freely and often comes at a high price.  But the cost of the alternative is even higher.

Remember, vicious circles can twirl in either direction.