Bureaucracy VI

Take this, bureaucracy!

"Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves richer - except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion. There was, as Squealer never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand.

Stupidity

Every single day, human stupidity amazes me anew. There is truly no end to it.

Einstein comes to mind:


"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
--Albert Einstein

Success

There is something seriously wrong with our definition of success. I think it is the cause of a great many problems in our society.

Some definitions:
1. The gaining of fame or prosperity;
2. The attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.

“It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
-- John Steinbeck

Be kind, be generous, be open, be honest, be understanding and feeling, and fail in this wretched society. Goodness is not rewarded. 

Uniqueness

Not only is everyone unique, but everyone becomes more unique the longer they live.

Bukowski, My Hero

"The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidates who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go."

Anticipation is its own reward

“A relationship is the price you pay for the anticipation of it.”
--Robert Sapolsky

Indiscriminate punishment

Make one serious mistake, in the eyes of the law, and it’s all over. It is of no consequence how you have lived your life, whether you have lived it in the service of others, of God, if you engaged in volunteer work every week, or if you were always there for a friend in need. It doesn’t matter if you helped old ladies cross the street, if you prayed from dusk till dawn (especially not this), or if you worked with crippled children out of the good of your heart. It is of no consequence if you loved, or if you made numerous sacrifices to raise children. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been wronged or if you’ve been betrayed at every turn. None of it matters if in a flash of rage you take a life. You will be a common criminal that must pay with all the rest of them. Society does not reward doing good. It only indiscriminately punishes crimes that can be measured in physical trauma or currency.

Fathers

Your father teaches you at least one thing, even if it's just never to be like him.

Reality

It is amazing and frightening, the things we are willing to believe in, the substances we are willing to imbibe, the activities we are willing to engage in, just to distract ourselves and flee from the reality that scares us more than we are willing to admit.

But this does not pertain to you, of course.

Self-assurance

O, the lengths we will go to to protect our façade of self-assurance, to hide our fear... Anything not to show weakness to the countless vultures of our world that would feast upon our flesh if given half a chance.

Pain below the surface

It is not such a difficult thing to see the pain just below the surface of every person you know better than superficially. The only reason it is not evident in every single person you lay your eyes on is because the mask the whole world wears shields the wearer from casually inquisitive gazes.

Life experience

Even just a year of life experience can make such a difference... Respect your elders. Except when they do nothing but watch TV all day. Then, pity them.

Bullshit

Love

After blessed, obsessive, blinding, anaesthetic, helpless infatuation, choose how to proceed. Love is a choice.

Tell me more

The masses listen to those who have first proven themselves doing something entirely non-related to what they have to say.