Down, down, down.

So tiresome. Whatever happened to substance? Do you remember in the old days when you'd get a gift as a child - and it would be wrapped in real honest to goodness thick wrapping paper that would take real effort and tear with a satisfying rip? Nowadays its a .05 millimeter affair that tears like tissue paper. Yes, even the gift wrapping was more substantial in those good ol' days.

Like a good glass Coke bottle over an aluminum can, the difference is palpable. Even the cans are made thinner these days as well. Used to be when a can was tough now its a sham that's bound do be dented, distended or otherwise damaged long before you take it home.

The same is true with politics and all these "current events" we observe. They all seem so shallow, artificial and with the character of a will'-o-the wisp. A knowledge of history is nonexistent and the stuff folks do know exists in some nebuliferous portion of their minds. In some ways it makes me think that planetary intellect is a fixed sum and as the population increases, each dweller receives less and less of it to spend. That doesn't paint a very fetching image, but it's sadly quite evident without requiring me to go to any great lengths convince anyone of its validity.

Taken to its logical conclusion, mankind becomes a socialist affair - an ant colony or a termite infestation on a big clump of dirt. The equality of mutual ignorance, the contentment of not stopping to have to think. Survival and reproduction.

Oh, sure, there are a number of intellectuals, and then there are pseudo-intellectuals galore abounding on the web. And yet another subgroup who will parrot what these folks have said because their minds are like play-doh and can be molded with very little effort. And like play-doh their views dry out and become inflexible. To bend them would be to shatter them, leaving them with nothing.

How can you find the right solution when one cannot even evaluate the complete equation? How can a society which grants equal suffrage to all - ever hope to evolve if their collective masses are "dumbed down" and couldn't care less about progression?

You can't. This generation, like each generation from here on which will follow it, will recall their youthful days of reality television and who wants to be a millionaire as the "good ol' days" of intellectual curiousity!

We're technocratic, we're industrialized but we're experiencing an intellectual and cultural wasteland that almost threatens to revert humanity back to the animal kingdom which spawned it.
Perhaps if we had evolved from some altruistic, squeaking dolphins instead of self-gratifying apes we'd have avoided all this monkeying around.

When the world's "intellectual" elite have George Bush pegged as the primary threat to world peace you realize that the word "intellectual" doesn't reall carry much weight anymore - much as the thinning aluminum can. Today's intellectual is usually nothing of the kind. It merely means they are an oft-repeated voice which echoes through the media outlets and is treated as sage wisdom based upon the quantity of those who may parrot it.

What purpose does this ranting obtain? Not much. However, I do have some advice for any and all who read it. Don't ever listen to any one side or person. Don't just listen to me or to any longwinded person and let them mold your thinking. Learn! Learn enough to know when someone is feeding you limited viewpoints and fallacious reasoning. Never stop acquiring data and facts. Never be content to be the part of any "ism" or group. Be your own best source for knowledge and wisdom. Never parrot someone else's view when you can express your own. Think!

This place here is a small flame aboard a child's toy boat in a vast dark and stormy sea. There are still other flames visible, just barely, in the distance here and there, but the spray and the waves always loom threatening, placing in peril these small flames.

Let no religion, ideology or nation control your thinking. All these are the thoughts of other men, often from other times and if you could travel through time and actually meet these men and how they lived their lives, you would likely recoil in disgust at the thought of letting them influence your thinking. You never need kneel in obeisance to any other man's mind. If mankind is to evolve and survive it will require kicking the habit of organized religion, political parties or any fixed "group" think with views as inflexible as an neocenic era fly in amber. Mankind must be a group of individuals who push themselves to greater and greater heights and who are never held back by any "group" think.

For all intents and purposes me, all the other posters here, and all those in the outside world are just an illusion - only YOU matter to your progress and personal evolutionary position.

Take it all (including this post) with a grain of salt and make up your own mind.

;-)

SDAI-Tech1