On the Quality of My Friends...

Welcome, again, to another edition of whatever the fuck I want. I have given things some thought and decided that this post is going to be about the quality and caliber of those individuals I am privileged to call friends.

I have spent the past sixteen or seventeen years collecting the group of friends I have now. I have people from all walks of life, as well as, more than a few of the way stations of my journey.

There are terribly few things held in common by all of these people. The first and most obvious one, of course, is that they are friends with me. The second - and this is probably why they are friends with me in the first place - is that they are each highly opinionated and tend to spend time and energy learning about those things that they feel strongly enough about to have an opinion on. (First person to give me shit about ending a sentence with a preposition gets a kick in the face. Just sayin'.) They are generally well educated - or at least well informed - and if I ask them for an opinion, they will usually be willing to share their thoughts on whatever topic is up for discussion.

With this in mind, I boldly returned to my blog (which you are reading now, in case you were confused or had forgotten where you were), and immediately set out to initiate a discussion that I thought had merit and that I hoped would spark plenty of comments and thought provoking anecdotes from these opinionated and occasionally brilliant friends of mine.

Sadly, I had forgotten to take into account the third thing held in common by most of my friends which is that most of them are also obstinate assholes.

To be clear, I wouldn't have them any other way and I do not mean that as a necessarily negative thing. Their obstinance has led to many wonderful conversations, devious arguments, and a host of wonderful memories that I wouldn't trade for anything.

However, it does mean that my recent post flopped in a fairly spectacular and genuinely disappointing way. By no means is this their fault. Truthfully, I probably shot myself in the foot when I asked the question of several friends a week or so earlier, when the idea had first occurred to me. Having already shared their opinions with me privately, they no doubt thought they had nothing more to add to the conversation.

No, the fault was mine and I will try to avoid similar pitfalls going forward. At some point I will revisit that post once I have a more involved audience in the hopes of succeeding in my original goal. Hell, I will probably just brush it up and re-post pretty much the same thing. Chances are, by then, I will have a different set of readers anyway. Actually, if all goes well I will have the same, but expanded, set of readers.

At this point, I am going to take a short break to share something that is painfully inappropriate and unrelated that just wants to rattle around in my brainpan a little bit.

Please note that I do not condone, practice, or in any other way approve of abusive behavior in relationships. Something about the very inappropriateness of this overreaction and situation tickles something I can't quite put my finger on.

 Also, I would credit the picture to it's creator but I haven't got a fucking clue who it is so if it is someone you know, please thank them for me and give me their name so I can update this. 

So here we are, at the end of what I had intended to say. I will sum up here simply by repeating that the strange and wonderful qualities shared by my friends are things I cherish deeply, and I want to thank each and every one of you assholes for supporting me in this endeavor. Talk at you soon!

We're All Gonna Get in a Fight!...

So, the main reason I came back here is because I sometimes have things to say that I think are worth sharing. Hopefully you think so too or you would probably not be here. I try to keep things entertaining and engaging but I haven't seen nearly enough folks commenting so we are going to try something different.

The other day I was listening to the radio and a song said something along the lines of "I'll die for you..." and I got to thinking a little bit. What if that doesn't mean everything we think it does? What if that was the absolute worst possible option? Personally, I am not sure I would like the idea of someone else dying for me.

And so I sent out some messages to various friends asking this question and now I shall pose it to you...

Would you contribute more value to someone willing to die for you, or to someone willing to kill for you?

And even more importantly, why?

Now, there are a few thoughts and thinking points I want to bring up here before I ask for everyone to share their thoughts.

First, does the nature of the individual weigh into the value? For instance, is it worth more for an obsessively moral person to be willing to kill for you as opposed to someone who might feel less remorse over the act? Is there more weight to a self-important egotist willing to lay down their lives for you as opposed to someone more self sacrificing? Is there a sliding scale where the answer varies depending on who the person is?

Secondly, I want to be clear that I am referring to someone who is actively putting themselves in harms way, not someone who is killing themselves on an alter to prove their love. We aren't talking about suicide pacts or anything.

Finally, do circumstances matter? Does it matter if someone is taking out a threat or just generally putting themselves or others at risk?

Now to the rules...

(I told you in my last post there would be rules. I am a man of my word.)

1. "Just because," is not an answer. If you are of the opinion that there is a correct answer to our quandary, share your justification. Explain why you believe as you do.

2. There is no correct or incorrect answer. I encourage you to debate various answers but nobody is allowed to attack someone else for their opinion or for their reasoning.

3. No repeating yourself. If you feel the same way as someone else, you are welcome to voice your agreement but if you have come to the final point in your argument, you are not allowed to repeat yourself in a louder, firmer voice in the hopes of persuasion through repetition.

4. Circumstances are allowed to change perception. If someone points out a different circumstance where you feel like your answer would change, that is fine. Please explain what it is about the circumstance that is influencing the swap and whether the swap is for that instance only or if you are recanting your previous opinion .

I think that more or less covers it. If something else comes up that requires additional rules or moderation, I will let you know. In the meantime, weigh in people! I am hardily curious how this one will turn out.

For those who may not recognize him, this is a picture of Marvin Gaye back in 1973. For those of you who may not understand the reference or why in the world I would choose to include his picture here, "Let's get it on!"

One additional note: I want to see as many thoughts and opinions as possible so invite your friends to join in! It may be only a theoretical question but I somehow think it may have more meaning than, "How do you like your eggs?" It may only be a start but I think most of us could benefit from getting to know a little more about our friends and neighbors.

And So Things Take a Turn...

Alright, I had decided a while ago to abandon this blog in favor of starting up a new one.

Away I went to begin a new series of long winded commentaries, this time focusing on positivity and growth!

Fuck.
That.
Shit.

As it turns out, for all that my attitude has improved to where I try to maintain a positive outlook, my demeanor is still dour and, frankly, I have more fun speaking in this voice. If I am not having fun with the writing, how can I expect you to have fun with the reading?

And so I return to the wild tundras of my youth and, more importantly, I return to "Sometimes I Think..."

 This picture has nothing to do with anything other than my wanting to have some sort of icon to flash about when I announced having a new post up.

I think the goal this time around is to be thought provoking, engaging and, above all, entertaining. I
still want this to be a forum of sorts so please, share your thoughts and comments. Pretty much anything goes and on the posts where I decide there are rules, I will let you know what they are. (You will see what I mean when I post the next one. Hopefully it will garner some manner of reaction.)

Just a reminder for any returning readers, and a warning for any late comers: My blog, my opinions. I don't represent any other individuals or organizations. I am here as a means of performance so if you don't care for something I have to say, feel free to get the fuck out. Or better yet, say so. Use reason to persuade me. Call me a douchebag and go off and pout in a corner somewhere. I don't give a shit. Just do something!

When it comes right down to it, I do have thoughts and opinions and if I have chosen to share them here, it is because I think they have merit and are worth sharing. If you disagree with me, by all means, attempt to sway me to your point of view. I am not a fickle man but if I am wrong or misinformed, you have a duty to bring it to my attention and the attention of everyone else who may be here nodding their heads in agreement with me. For fuck's sake, do something, say something... Just get off your ass and have a bloody damned thought.

Initially, I had intended this post to be a simple announcement of my intention to return to posting on this blog. As it turns out I actually have a few things to say so if you are still here, keep reading.

I am tired of this bullshit, passive aggressive nonsense. Facebook, (which I secretly loathe and use primarily as a means to announce when I am making a post here in an effort to gather an audience,) is full of people posting about their favorite political candidate and why the opposing personality is the wrong choice. (And I don't give a fuck if that last sentence was a run-on or that this one began with a conjunction. (School House Rocks FTW!)) More to the point, it is full of idiots following along without checking for themselves and without doing the research to make an informed decision of their own. people just swallowing whatever they are told and parroting it back. It is as if whoever has the loudest voice is the one who will be believed!

Actually, maybe there is something to that after all...

What I mean is, remember when I said before that anything goes? I lied. keep your political views to yourself and off my comments unless they are expressly invited. That shit makes me angry and I have put a lot of work into not being angry all the time.

I don't give a shit if you are a democrat or a republican. I don' think there has been a good choice in my lifetime and I despair of there ever being one. Of course I think one evil is the lesser of the choices available to me but that is my lookout and if I have to leave the country because shit has gone just too damned far, that is my concern as well. There will be NO politics on this blog. Unless I change my mind and then, may whatever gods you pray to have mercy on your soul. There will, however, be plenty of discussion on philosophy and possibly even spiritualism or religion.

If I misspell something, let me know so I can correct it. If my grammar is off, blow it out your ass. I will speak here the way I damned well want to speak to make my voice show as I intend for it to. Deal with it.

/sigh

I don't want to say anymore here right now so I am not going to. I will be back soon with an attempt to breath some thought into some of you. Watch for it!

(Traditionally I have ended these posts with some kind of a quote. I haven't decided yet whether to resume that practice so for now, we can consider this a place holder.)

A Tearful Goodbye...

Probably this isn't really a terrible surprise to to most of you but I have fallen out of the habit of making blog posts.

Well, with a grand whopping total of one (1) blog posted in the entirety of 2011, I am afraid it is time to pronounce the last rights and declare this blog of mine well and truly dead. I will invite each of you to take a moment of silence or say a short prayer or do whatever else it may be that will allow you to put your poor bereaved heart to rest before I carry on.

Here is an lovely and entertaining video my roommate shared with me recently. Lets all quietly enjoy the beauty and joy it contains as we wait for everyone to pull themselves back together.

Alright. Now that we've all gotten that out of our systems...

I want everyone to know that writing for you all was a wonderful experience and I learned a good deal about how to write with my very own voice. Such a lesson is good and necessary and I plan to carry it with me into the future.

With all of that having been said, I am starting a new blog! (Had you going for a minute there, didn't I?)

What it really comes down to is that I have grown and changed enough over the past year and change that I feel funny continuing here. I will be keeping some of the things I have picked up here and altering others to better fit my current frame of mind.

And so, without further ado, I invite each and every one of you to join me at "I Was Just Thinking...". (See how it kinda just alters the theme a little? I hope everyone enjoys it!) I am planning on getting to work on it right away so join me for fun times and leave comments to your heart's contents!

Could we see when and where we are to meet again, we would be more tender when we bid our friends goodbye.
-Ouida-