Nothing Is True (Anymore)

 Information Age or the Age of Anxiety?

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny — the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}: Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible." -Arthur C. Clarke

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

I've written about truth before. 

{So where are all the links?}

Links? What links, Dana?

{Do you think that your memory problems might be the result of some form of dementia?} 

I hope not, but what are you...

{You've looked into this. The Goog loves links, the more links you post to something that has something to do with truth, the better the chance the Goog will offer up your column when some "user" out there in cyberspace types in the word truth or a phrase that includes the word truth.}

Oh that, no I remember that. I just don't care anymore. I think there's something wrong with your memory. I've made it clear that company policy is to only link to stuff that is absolutely necessary and fundamentally purely factual.

You know what? Company policy has just changed, right this second. Going forward the only things I'm linking to are my charming personal glossary and things I think a given gentlereader might be interested in checking out. 

No more linking to stuff that's common knowledge (or should be in my semi-humble opinion)...

{Snob.}

 

...or that can be investigated by a given gentlereader if they're truly interested. Until relatively recently, the world has gotten by with information delivered via the dead trees format. No links.

My biggest fan reads my stuff on paper, doesn't own a computer, and uses his cell phone as a phone. He's led a decent life, is enjoying his retirement, and compared to the average H. sapien these days is quite well adjusted thank you very much. 

{But this is the Information Age! Links link information to information that links to...}

Yup, and that's why nothing is true anymore. Sister Mary McGillicuddy taught me (60 years ago!) that mankind's personkind's collective wisdom lags far behind personkind's technical achievements. 

{Hoo-boy. Here we go. Let the ranting at clouds commence!}

Abasabalutely! But let us remain relatively calm, and logical, and not forget to smile. 

Permit me to sum up the point I was trying to make, in one form or another, in all of the columns I wrote about truth that I'm not linking to: All truth is provisional but that doesn't mean truth can't be true enough.

That is to say, a well-adjusted, fully mature H. sapien should cultivate pragmatism (but with an open mind) right up to the very day he/she/they are deleted. Everything we know is true is potentially subject to changes, major or minor — but what works, works.

As I write this the sun has not come up yet, but it will shortly. I know that it will rise in the east and several hours from now will set in the west. 

I take this for granted even though I know that however unlikely it might be, some maladjusted, nihilistic teenagers from an ancient space-faring species could pass through our solar system today on a joyride in a stolen spaceship and decide to extinguish our sun for the sheer fun of it.  

{You're nuts... But that would explain why we seem to be alone in the universe.}

My Mum told me that technically anything is possible but many things are highly unlikely.

I also know that the sun doesn't actually rise or set, that this is an illusion created by the fact the Earth (which is round, by the way) orbits the Sun. But until 1543 this illusion was considered common sense. it took another century or so before most people knew it wasn't. 

And we still say sunrise and sunset — close enough.

 

"Given that Twitter [X] serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy." -Elon Musk 

Failing to adhere to free speech principles does fundamentally undermine democracy, but Twitter, or X if you prefer, is not the de facto public town square.

The town square metaphor Mr. Musk uses refers to any sort of public meeting in which the locals get together to hash things out. (Hey, Dana, here's a link to a Wikipedia entry about the Norman Rockwell painting illustrating free speech that many of us geezers and geezerettes carry around in our heads).

{What about that ancient Luddite you print your columns out for?}

Fear not, no link is necessary.

A real public square, or more likely something akin to a public meeting of the Hooterville School Board, is a radically different venue/experience than Musk's concept of a virtual public square. The planet Earth doesn't have a public square, not even a virtual one.

When the Hooterville School Board holds a meeting the members of the board have been chosen by the citizens of Hooterville. Everyone knows who they are and where they live. Any given citizen who attends is an easily identified Homo sapien, especially that pain in arse Mr... never mind.

Anything that anyone says and/or claims is witnessed and verifiable (or debunkable), and minutes are kept.

Most of social media, and much of the worldwide web of all knowledge, consists of anonymous people (or bots, or trolls, or troll farms, or my-truthers, or hackers, or hustlers, etc.) tossing Uh-huhs! or Nuh-uhs! at each other.

Everything is true, and nothing is true.

{So what do we...}

Same as always, the best you can, one day at a time. Take a deep breath, and then take another, and then do what needs to be done. I find watching sunrises and sunsets helpful.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the site everyone still calls Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publicly flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).  

Why Old Men Cry (Part Two)

CC0 Public Domain

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny — the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}: Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice." {Um... shouldn't that be updated to their choice?} -Dave Berry

Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

This is going to be a relatively short one, my dear gentlereaders. I'm busy dashing through the snow (Hootervile got its first real snowfall recently, ain't global warming cool!) this week trying to get ready for Christmas. As usual, it snuck up on me when I was busy doing other things.

{I call bonkercockie, you're not a dasher...}

Or Dancer? Or Dunder, or Blixem?

{Say what?}

Dunder and Blixem had their names changed to Donner and Blitzen when they passed through Ellis Island.

{Right... Anyway, when people repeatedly ask you, "Well, are ya ready for Christmas!?!" don't you automatically respond with "Yup, that's why God made gift cards."

Also, I've noticed that all sorts of events that normal people regard as important have a way of sneaking up on you because you don't take them seriously anymore... and snuck is not a word, by the way.} 

Yup, that's why God made gift cards, you can't go wrong with $20 bills, and snuck's been an acceptable irregular verb conjunction for so long that sneaked sounds wrong, by the way.

{Twenty dollar bills! That explains why...}

We must all do our part to roll back transitory inflation. Now if you don't mind, I have a part two to attend to.

Part one can be found here. But if you're dashing today, here's a quick summation. 

My Overflowing Cistern hypothesis, reduced to its most simplistic explanation, maintains that many men who've been "sucking it up" all their lives reach a point when all the tears they haven't shed over the years start spilling out, often at inopportune times. 

This is why old men cry, but this is a vast oversimplification, there's a bunch of devils thriving in the details that I didn't go into in part one.  

Most old men nowadays are Boomers. However, current geezers that were early Boomers are less likely to suffer from overflowing tear cisterns as they are less likely to have been influenced by the rise of widespread feminism in the late 1960s.

Men were told they don't have to be such hard cases. They should be "in touch with their feelings" and their "inner child" and that it's okay for men to cry. That's the kind of man a modern, liberated woman wants. 

[Younger gentlereaders please note: I speak of the Stone Age. In the 60s and 70s, LGBs came into their own and Ts were making a bit of a splash, but Q+++++++++++++ers were still maintaining a very low profile. If ya didn't know better you might think that the Ts, and all the others that came (and are still coming) after actually constitute a rather small segment of society who are currently enjoying a radically oversized moment. But I drift...] 

Many of my fellow heterosexual, male, mid to late Boomers and I embraced this notion enthusiastically. You don't have to be a badass, or cool, or rich, or pretty (or fake any/all of those things) to have lots of sex, maybe even find an excellent wife — just be more sensitive, and cry occasionally? Where do I sign?

More sex and permission to relax the stiff upper lip. Cool.

Ruh Roh, Raggy, we have a problem. We should've realized it wasn't going to be that easy. It's okay to cry, dude, except for when it ain't, which, as it turns out, is most of the time. 

Without going into detail, I'll stipulate that at least some, and in some cases, a lot of the radical change that rocked traditional Western culture, beginning in about 1965, was necessary and inevitable. But in my dotage, I've come to certain conclusions that aren't currently fashionable. 

Heterosexual male and female H. sapiens are in many respects quite different creatures and in most respects are the same as they ever were (I won't presume to speak for the Ls, the Gs, and the Bs). 

It's now okay for men to cry in front of other men or women. But the only thing that's really changed is that the contexts have broadened, slightly. A man may shed a tear, maybe two, in emotional situations deemed appropriate to bring a tear, maybe two, to the eyes of most men. 

Completely losing it over something deemed sufficiently appropriate like the death of a spouse or worse, a child is fine, in fact, recommended, but should be done in private if at all possible because if it lasts bystander sympathy quickly morphs into uncomfortable, then embarrassment, and eventually, contempt. 

{That's cold!}

That's realistic, but it's all about context. 

For example, Jordan Peterson getting choked up for a minute (but not losing it and maintaining his dignity) while giving everything he has in a public lecture, or even in interviews when he's asked what it's like being known for psychologically salvaging souls from the woke mind virus who have been known to stand in line to thank him, is perfectly acceptable to many... 

But not his ideological enemies who have been known to attack, smear, and sneer at him for it. Even certain woke public intellectuals, like the woke womyn who man the desk of The View, have been known to be less than charitable to men who cry in public. 

     Ladies of The View Mock Weeper of the House...For His...Teary Interview

Being an evil, oppressive patriarch ain't easy, it's enough to make you cry. And thinking about how much more sex I would've had way back when if I had been more bad boy, less nice guy makes me weep.  

{I thought this was supposed to be a "short one."}

Garrulous: given to prosy, rambling, or tedious loquacity (Merriam-Webster)

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).  

Why Old Men Cry (Part One)

  

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny — the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}: Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples." -Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Dear Stickies and gentlereaders,

I am, officially speaking, a member of the (in?)famous Baby Boom generation, people born between 1946 and 1964. Have you ever wondered who decided on those dates? Or the dates that bracket the Ds.O.B. of other generations? 

I consulted the worldwide web of all knowledge and the very first hit returned revealed that the rumors aren't true. There is not an obscure department — buried so deeply in the Census Bureau and staffed by bureaucrats that are the otherwise unemployable relatives of powerful Senators and Congresspersons who rarely bother to actually come to work — where this sort of thing is decided. 

Pewtrusts.org: "...through a somewhat haphazard process a consensus slowly develops in the media and popular parlance." 

Are you aware that people born in the "early 2010s" aren't Zoomers, they're Generation Alpha? Have we started over? Why wasn't I told?

{Are you wondering what this has to do with why geezers cry?}   

That's easy. A fundamental tenet of my Overflowing Cistern hypothesis includes the age of the Geezer in question, more on that in a minute.   

I recently saw an interview in which Jordan Peterson (Boomer) was asked why he cries regularly, and in public, which reminded me of former Speaker of the House John Boehner (Boomer, Red Tribe) who was regularly attacked by members and supporters of both tribes for being a lacrimaniac. 

{What's a lacrimaniac?}   

Well, technically, there's no such word as best I can tell. 

{Ah, you're making up words again.}

But in my defense, lacrimation (the secretion of tears) is a word so it follows logically that... 

Anyway, I thought the responsible thing to do, before proposing my hypothesis, was to have the research department investigate if there might be a scientific consensus; does old dudes crying have anything to do with the physiology or psychology of old dudes?

Answer, no. There are myriad opinions floating around, but no consensus. The guys couldn't even find an unimpeachable meta-study that'll be debunked at a later date.  

Therefore, for your consideration, permit me to present the Overflowing Cistern hypothesis. 

A cistern, if you're unaware, is according to Wikipedia, "...a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water."

The word waterproof is important in that in this context refers to the fact that although there's a way for water (or tears) to get in it's supposed to stay there. 

{Permit me to cut to the chase to save us all some time, big boys don't cry, right? You're cistern thingy is an obvious metaphor. At some point, the cistern all the old dudes have funneled their tears into over the years starts overflowing, right? Next thing you know a given geezer is crying at both appropriate and inappropriate times, Bohener was famous for crying about all sorts of stuff and...}

Thanks for your help, Dana. Permit me to return a compliment you have paid me on occasion, you too have a keen eye for the obvious. However, there are devils lurking in the details. 

First of all, the reason this missive began with a fascinating and informative digression about where generational names and dates come from is because I came across this information when I was researching the three sub-generations of Boomers, a phenomenon neither widely known nor discussed.

These subdivisions are important to my Overflowing Cistern hypothesis and I was searching for the approximate date Sub-2 ended and Sub-3 took over.

{Hoo-boy. Here we go again.}

Remain calm, it's really quite simple. Sub-1s are the early Boomers, and were as much influenced by the previous two generations (the Greatest Generation, 1901-27, and the Silent one, 1928-45) as they are by Sub-2 and Sub-3 Boomers. 

{Fascinating.}

Right? I was trying to determine at what point during the rise of the Sub-2s (when Boomers started tossing out the tot with the Jacuzzi water) the big boys don't cry ethos morphed into the big boys should be more gentle, sensitive, and not hide their feelings ethos that the feminists convinced us would get us laid more often (which unfortunately turned out to be B.S.). 

{Oh my dog! you can't...}

That's a subject for an entirely different column I'm highly qualified to write because I confess I bought it -- hook, line, and sinker. But unfortunately, the rest of this column, for reasons not interesting enough to bother you with, will be published next week. Think of it as a cliffhanger, but in compensation... 

Update: as to the ongoing tempest in a teapot that is the Ohio legislature's stumble-bumbling-fumbling attempt to legalize weed, Ohio's five-foot-tall governor is upset.

While our state senate quickly passed a law overriding the citizen's initiative we morons recently voted for (yeah, they can do that) the house (and senate) left town to begin a month-long break for Christmas without taking any action. 

Fun facts: Our legislators have to scrape by on only $70,000 a year, but "leadership" positions pay a little better. According to ZipRecruiter, the average Ohio working stiff makes $47,000 a year. As for what the mean wage is, which I would guess is closer to 40k based on my 38 years of living here in paradise, I couldn't find it on the worldwide web of all knowledge. 

Also, according to Open the Books, Ohio has 164,821 state employees whose wages add up to $9,517,773,573.09 a year.

Anyways... It's occurred to the governor (Mike DeWine, multi-millionaire and full-time politician since 1976) that since the initiative remains in effect till our betters fix it for us it's now legal to smoke weed in Ohio but there's no place to legally buy it so people will be risking their lives by buying it on the "black market" (and not paying the 10% sin tax, which Mr. DeWine would prefer to be as much as 18%).

All over Ohio people who would never even dream of buying weed when it was illegal to smoke it for fear of paying the $100 fine if they got caught are roaming the streets in search of a connection. 

{You're making that up!}

Not the $100 fine part, that's actually all that happens. But I must also confess that our governor is at least 5 foot 6, a solid 140 pounds, and pretty sharp for a geezer pushing 80 and who doesn't cry, not in public anyway.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).