I Forgot

Sometimes one can forget things. Sometimes those forgotten things can be once in a lifetime opportunities that cannot be regained. Ever wondered what that feels like? Strangely enough, when one actually manages to forget that, the pain does not hit immediately. I mean, if it's so important, it's quite unlikely that you'd forget in the first place.

Then comes the crunch, perhaps sometime in the distant future when you look back at what you've lost because of your forgetfulness. But for now? It's a sort of...non-feeling, and perhaps that of liberation. Knowing that even though an opportunity has passed you on, its passing allows you to pick and choose from others that you may ignore when you were busy clinging to the first. I forgot. And it doesn't hurt. Yet.

Double Standards

Humans love to establish double standards. The only thing they like more than establishing double standards would be to make them up to suit whatever they strongly believe. An example is human free will and sexuality. Nature? Nurture?

Clearly, humans have free will. They choose to believe it, anyway. They can make rational choices, and are obviously able to make hard choices at will. Humans are clearly not slaves to their urges. Even if a man is violent, the man can obviously choose to not hurt others. This is how free will comes in.

It all sounds very coherent until natureis considered. After all, it is the natural order of things for sexually reproducing species like humans to be heterosexual. How else do babies come along? Now, the only logical thing would be to follow these heterosexual urges and leave it at that. It is the natural thing, after all. Where did free will go? Suddenly, it becomes "right" to follow nature and thus free will becomes irrelevant in the face of this "right" sexual orientation.

Now, now...if people "choose" to turn gay, they obviously won't reproduce. Aren't all you Darwinians out there glad that nobody is sullying your gene pool?

Skill Spamming

From what I know, working in the "real world" is remarkably like skill spamming. That is, repeatedly using skills x, y and z over and over again, because work simply does not require you to use skills a through w very much. Strange, but true. They can teach you a thousand skills in school, yet only a few ever turn out to be really useful out there.

For me, it looks remarkably like someone trying to play an entire symphony with a limited range of notes. I do not think great symphonies should or would use a fraction of the musical scale to achieve its aims. Sure...maybe that would work for novelty pieces. But I think the truly great symphonies simply will not stoop to skill spamming...

Occult Symbols

There are many things written about the "real" use of occult symbols. Perhaps the pentacle is used to summon the devil, or that it represents the five prime elements. Whatever the symbol or its alleged use, it must be remembered that a symbol is what it is: A construct made by humans to represent something. The pentacle can mean whatever its user intends it to mean. As can an ankh, or the Star of David. What matters is the faith of the user. That very strong belief that the symbol can and will do what the user believes that it will. Therein lies the power of symbols.

Advertising Stress

Almost everyone knows that the models in adverts are unrealistic. That is, they simply do not represent average people in reality. In fact, the models as pictured in ads may not exist at all. Strangely enough, this knowledge does not seem to stop impressionable young minds from taking these unrealistic standards as the very picture of perfection that is to be striven towards.

It is probably a matter of the unattainable being the most desirable. Still, it is a terrible thing how people can believe visual media to the extent that they become distressed over not being able to be like these virtual goddesses and gods. Perhaps it is the impact of a photograph, and the implicit belief that photographs reflect reality. Cameras can, do and will continue to lie. It should be time that people wised up and quit believing what they know to be lies.

The Siege Mentality

There is a problem when things cause the siege mentality to emerge in people. Take for example a moving standard by which you are gauged. That standard moves by the quality of your peers. Ordinarily, that would not be an issue. It is fair, since you are evaluated in relation to your peers.

Now put this in the context of a job interview. 5 candidates, 1 opening. Clearly, something has to give. For the purposes of this discussion, the assumption would be that the 5 candidates all want the opening and are unwilling to cede it to anyone else. Naturally, the response would be to engage the siege mentality. That is, assume that everyone will do their best to get that job opening.

The act of fighting for the opening causes quality inflation. All 5 candidates will try to put their best foot forward to best one another. Now, assuming that there will be 1 candidate selected regardless their quality, the best thing for everyone to do would be to put in as little effort as it takes to get in. After all, if everyone is of uniformly poor quality, they would be equally matched as they would if they were all of uniformly excellent quality.

This does not happen, of course. Everyone strives for excellence, creating an artificial constant of stress. Yes, this would improve quality. However, quality at what cost? What will society become, given that it is driven by such ceaselessly shifting measures?

It's...Very Hard

Few things can be as intimidating as something that is said to be "very hard" to do. I worry less when someone tells me that something is impossible. It just means the person who told me that is entirely inept, or it's truly impossible to accomplish. Something "very hard" just pretty much throws it in my face that I would have to put in an incredible amount of effort over an extended period of time to achieve what I want to. Were it said to be impossible, I could just declare it bunk and go ahead to achieve it anyway. I'd get an ego boost in the bargain. Either that, or I could convince myself that it cannot be done, and put my legs up for the entire duration. But if it's very hard? Oh crap...People seldom exaggerate things that way. For some reason, that thing has a very good chance of turning out to be quite true.

What Ethics?

There can be few things as irritating as ethical people. No, not the sort that are against genocides and gender discrimination (those would be moral rather than ethical, I feel). I'm talking about those who just love to set up rules to bind themselves, just so they can fulfill some strange code of ethics that make sense only to themselves. I think it is horribly inefficient to come up with self-imposed restrictions that do not add value to the project at hand. I note this is especially common amongst those who read between the lines when it comes to instructions: If instruction A is there, it implies that it also requires B and C and D. For me, I'd much prefer to do things above and beyond the requirement in order to add value to everything that falls within the bounds of instruction A. I mean...who's against a bit of padding to make things look good...

Women's Money

Strangely, women being unable to earn as much as men has been taken as evidence that women should stay in the domestic sphere than as a clear injustice that must be dealt with. Female power has historicallybeen slipping at every turn in classic patriarchal societies. In the absence of apparent superior choices, it is inevitable that women choose a steady level of reduced rights than a slim chance of full rights as citizens. This could be due to a focus on the dominance of one sex over the other, than as the drive towards giving both sexes equal weightage.

I think complacency is perhaps the biggest threat to human rights in general. This is not only concerning women's money, but the rights to freedom of speech, expression and even common behaviour. When things are horribly oppressive, everyone starts coming up in arms against perceived injustices. Then someone bows to these demands, people feel comfortable and they start resting on their laurels. No wonder dictatorships can arise under the guise of democracy...

Housework

I hate housework. C'mon...someone tell me they actually like that. Housework is the precise thing that has practically zero productivity and seems to be self-regenerating. Anyone who says that housework can ever be finished either doesn't do housework, is lying or simply doesn't have anyone living in the house. My mere presence is enough to make kipple and housework appear out of nowhere. I tidy the room like mad, drop a book where it is convenient and I find myself seeding the growth of yet another horrible mess.

So the question would be...how much would I pay for someone to do my housework, if any? The answer is that I probably wouldn't. Well...that or minimum wage. Then again, if one considers that I would never want to work for a minimum wage, it is illogical to expect me to do housework professionally. What happens, then, to those poor domestic helpers and engineers? Clearly, they are under-appreciated! If anything, they should at least be paid a significant portion of the opportunity cost of working professionally. And don't get me started on childcare...