John Wise

Far too many people I encounter in person or on various electronic platforms are wanting to believe that much of their reality is fake. Reality, even when manipulated by propaganda, is still your reality regardless if you believe your filter of perception allows you to peer behind the veneer of the sham. It’s not a fake reality; it is your interpretation of the time you are living in, but that doesn’t disqualify its legitimacy. The news may be weaponized to accomplish a certain goal, but so was our education, and from the first time we entered school, we were exposed to a program that was nudging us into a particular paradigm, just like the media are pushing certain agendas too. Your parents might have taught you about a tradition of holidays and religious observations they believed was best for their child’s 3-year-old mind, while others might see this brand of indoctrination as fake. None of this is wrong, though, as it’s the basis of culture that the people of a shared land have certain ideas in common. Just because humanity might still be collectively ignorant doesn’t make our culture fake or evil, but it does leave a lot of room for improvement.

Your clothes portray an image of a style that can be used to create influence or make oneself appealing in finding a mate. Those clothes don’t represent the body underneath or the mind inside your head, so in some respect, they represent a fake version of the person. A car cannot reflect the character you have or give an example of how you’ll raise children, though many will use the appeal of the car’s styling to insinuate that it somehow tells others what type of person they are. This is posturing behind a brand, tire type, and the vehicle’s color that has nothing to do with this person. It is a facade, an act of camouflage; it is fakery masquerading as meaning. The same goes for team loyalty: nobody gets more credibility because they stand behind their local sports franchise. They are being used as tools to generate lots of income for local taxes, team owners, players, marketers, clothing and shoe manufacturers. For your loyalty, you’ll be invited to join the chant of celebration and feel good about yourself and your deep connection to a favorite player. I posit that this pride is a fake manufactured commercial exercise used to grease the wheels of commerce.

We dress ourselves in the words of television; we play in the worlds of Pacman and zombies while often eschewing books. We dress in provocation in order to drag our mating rituals into the grocery store, and we pull in every bit of conspiracy nonsense to arm us in our fight against boredom when we sit down with people at dinner or in the bar so we have something that draws attention to our sad lives. We cultivate this inanity for years, becoming caricatures of reasonable people, and then blame science, truth, and facts for being hostile to our deranged view of the world. When people live in a cartoon world formed by Walter White and Clay Morrow or play in a universe with Alex Mason and then turn to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity with a dessert of Honey Boo Boo and the Kardashians before exclaiming they own some kind of insight on deciphering the larger picture of reality, I’m left aghast that we are supposed to take any of this seriously.

When we as a nation run out of artifice to decorate ourselves with, we turn to intellectual cultural cannibalism. Through all the banality and anger we consume, we intuitively understand there’s nothing deeper to explore inside our own souls, and so we must find a new enemy. We are making ourselves the enemy; we are the other, the foreigner; we become the hated opposition; we are daring to be sociopaths. From the very shores of America, we are finding an adversary as we flail about trying to establish another bogeyman. The United States tried to maintain this type of conflict in our war against communism and leftists for 50 years after World War II. When that strategy lost its fangs, we turned against the Muslims. As that ran its course, we started throwing all manner of things at the wall to see what would stick. Hillary is the problem, George Soros is the evilest, DACA recipients and the invading horde of Mexicans are the root cause of all of our problems; wait, it’s the Mainstream Media Elites with Fake News, or is it Obamagate? Maybe the enemy is hiding in the swamp of Washington D.C., or could it be the radicals of Antifa? Ah, COVID-19 is our new global enemy, or could it be aliens from another universe, so we’d better get building a Space Force for future combat? No, no, no, the Deep State, er, um, I mean the Jews, or is it Jeff Bezos ripping off the Post Office that’s the problem? I know, it all started with fake moon landings, vaccines that poisoned us, and the Liberal University System, right? This week, let’s blame #BlackLivesMatter, and next week if COVID gets out of hand, let’s blame infected Antifa agents working for Soros and Hillary for infiltrating a political rally in Tulsa during the fake “Plandemic.”

Our enemies are NOT any of these external fake issues; our enemy is nobody else but ourselves. This dwelling in the swamp of ignorance so we may be titillated by our own superior “knowledge” of being part of the enlightened who see the real truth as a caustic elixir causing madness in society, hungry for hate. “Somebody or something else outside of me is responsible for my unhappiness and fear; there’s no way that it could be the way I’m choosing to see reality,” could be a popular refrain.

This sad and tragic juncture where humanity stands after having invented the greatest means of knowledge distribution ever created must be attributed to the hangover wrought from our diet of spoonfed nonsense that a previous generation seemingly needed. Intellectual junk food is not a viable alternative to a rigorous diet of the exploration of the knowledge that’s been shared by our ancestors and contemporaries who’ve made the investment in trying to understand the complexities of how things work.

At war now with ourselves and those in our proximity, we become social justice warriors railing against systems of intelligence instead of fighting the real enemy called greed and deep financial power. Maybe, just maybe, the artifice of control is starting to crack, but populism aligned with anti-intellectualism will lead to a kind of flash mob rule where the angriest faction takes control of a corner or a neighborhood. Humanity has always required leaders, mentors, teachers, mothers, fathers, or shamans to help guide the group. Headless and mindless, we become a school of fish swimming in circles, waiting for the sharks to feast on those at the periphery. We are starting to act like herring, and I’m afraid that the group dynamic propagated by temporary fads led by influencers hungry to move on to the next popular subject is only adding to the rounding up of others wanting to join a larger school to amplify the strength of herd stupidity.

I’m not saying that individuals coming together to foment change is a bad thing; it is the ONLY thing that can break the chains of subservience to economic, social, educational, law enforcement, and other unfair means of control. Protest is the best way for a populace to exercise its own power to build new structures. The caveat is that it is still up to the individual and, subsequently, mentors of all forms to make it imperative for the person to pick up the mantle of learning. Critical thinking and cooperation have carried us Americans far, but still, there is much room for us to do better.

On another fast this week, day three, as a matter of fact. No, it is not a water fast; it’s the modified fasting diet called Prolon. I’ve done it before with great results in helping normalize my blood glucose and lose weight. But there’s a small problem.

By the time I finish the fast I’m dreaming about what my first culinary indulgence is going to be. As a matter of fact, I’m deeply craving it once I figure out what it’ll be. This is when my efforts are about to go off the rails, and what I have accomplished is tossed to the side. While I’m down over 20 pounds since I started these fasts, I should be down another 18 except I keep bouncing back like a yo-yo. The exhilarating thrill of food exploration following the fast has me diving into a path where my stomach needs a little bit of everything in order to find satiety. This unhealthy mentality that somehow a magic combination of particular food choices is going to satisfy having been deprived for so long is a serious bout of idiocy. So, this time, I’m doing things a little bit differently.

I’m going to try being conscientious about my choices, and just as I have very limited choices on this week of fasting, I hope I’ll be able to restrict myself to a fixed diet where I have to stick to what’s on the plan instead of giving into what I desire and following the spontaneity script I know so well. I’ll employ the same thinking that gets me through the week, where my caloric intake is restricted to about 800 calories a day, which comes mainly from two 8oz portions of soup.

I’ve worked out a meal plan for the first 19 days of what Caroline and I will be eating following this fast. Well, Caroline will continue skipping breakfasts five days a week as she’s been doing her own fast regimen of not eating for 18 hours and then getting lunch and dinner between 12:00 and 6:00 p.m. She makes an exception on weekends when I make a scrambled egg fry with whatever random things I can toss in to clear stuff out of the fridge. While it’s taken me a long time to come around to portion control, I’m finally able to satisfy myself with a 6-8oz piece of meat instead of the 16-28oz behemoth steaks I was eating 20 years ago. I’ve also mostly given up eating on a large plate as when it’s mostly empty, I feel cheated, so we now use 8-inch plates or a bowl that holds about eight fluid ounces worth of food.

I believe this is only now possible after becoming so accustomed to eating at home, as we have for the last 95 days. While we could return to restaurants, I do not want to be in an enclosed space with others who might be sick with COVID and not know it yet. Another effect of this self-isolation is that we appreciate the amount of money we are saving from not eating out 2 or 3 times a week. For example on a typical day for breakfast, my granola and soy milk costs $2.00. Lunch of pork chops and butternut squash costs around $4.00 per person. Dinner can cost between $3.50 each for Corona beans with chermoula to about $7.00 each for spaghetti squash with arrabbiata sauce and some ground beef. We’ll spend around $50 for two dishes from a nearby Italian place with iced teas and tip or maybe only $40 at a Mexican joint, but if we were spending $120 a week on three meals at restaurants, well, that’s about what we’d spend on 30 meals at home. The value equation of convenience and indulgence grows increasingly more difficult to convince me that eating out is any kind of bargain at all. Finally, me being a numbers guy, if we have a net savings of about $90 a week by not eating out, that’s nearly $5,000 a year we can use on hobbies and travel.

Why is any of this rather mundane subject being posted here on my blog anyway? I needed to make this note to myself, so my focus was tasked today with not only making this meal plan but also trying to sear into my mind that this will be part of trying to get below 200 pounds; I’m only about 18 pounds away. I tend to remember things better after committing them to paper, be it the electronic or dead trees type. There’s another reason, too: someday in the future, as some A.I. is looking back at our entry into the digital age, there just might be some nuggets of perspective that will help others understand a few more details of who we were.

Image credit: quickmeme.com

We passed our 90th day in self-isolation with no end in sight. A month ago, the resolve of many a U.S. Governor waned under the pressure that orders to stay at home were likely unconstitutional and that people were having too difficult a time being cooped up, so the dogs of viral warfare were unleashed. Exactly one month ago, I wrote here on my blog that after 60 days, Arizona had 12,674 cases of people infected with COVID-19, and now, 30 days later, we have reached 34,600 cases, an increase of 21,986 people. Deaths from the virus have nearly doubled in this intervening month, having climbed from 624 to 1,189.

This year, we’ve learned about the “Karens.” My mother was named Karen and was a Karen before she died. She wasn’t always a Karen, but with a couple of years left in Obama’s presidency and her feasting on conspiracy and propaganda, she moved from being the noun Karen to the adjective Karen. When Trump was elected, she started to weaponize this trait, and if she were alive today, I’m certain my toxic mother, who was not a Karen in the 1970s through the 1990s, would be a coughing, bludgeoning tool of Kareness I would want to sacrifice on the pyre of needed change. COVID-Karen’s have become a thing as white, privileged women have taken to flaunting their indignation that others are even wearing masks. This type of Karen is pissed that anyone wants to control their right to be in public and go about their life regardless of some fakey “plandemic” that has been orchestrated to control the sheeple on the Global Elite’s behalf.

For nearly three weeks since the death of George Floyd, the police have been using rubber bullets to de-escalate the tension that is a response to their brutality. They are using tear gas and flashbangs for crowd control. They set up a phalanx of stormtroopers dressed for battle to keep the peace. Yet these actions appear to be nothing more than the demand for submission.

To be an American this year requires you to give up your will to survive and accept the need to live or maybe die with COVID-19. You must be considerate and make room for a generation of heartless citizens who only see their own needs and their will to exercise the immediacy of rights to satisfy their wants. And you must submit to the authority of the state with its right to decide on your life and death if you become a nuisance. To think, this is all in an effort to bring us around to normal.

What is normal? Our normal is being more concerned about our stuff than our lives. How many times have I heard someone explaining their gun ownership with the exclamation that if someone were to break into their home, they’d kill that person trying to steal their stuff? Most burglaries occur when the homeowner is NOT there. How many times a year do we hear about a homeowner killing someone while committing the crime of breaking and entering? During our mass shootings, there are always those people who brag that had they been there, “The shooter would have been wasted after I emptied my 9mm in his dumb ass.” For the most part, I hear those who are going to protect their stuff, and that is what’s at the heart of gun ownership as far as I’m concerned. We are more tightly connected to our things than we are to our own lives. I think this might be a generational concern as our recent demonstrations are putting on display that there is now a large part of America that cares more about life than the shit they amassed. While those on the sidelines are more concerned about looted and destroyed stuff than the lives that are at stake.

Maybe these 90+ days that reasonable people are taking seriously are offering them the opportunity to be reflective and take inventory of what’s really important. To the generation that was born towards the end of World War II, debt, homes, boats, cars, guns, TVs, and more stuff represented the pinnacle of having attained the American dream. For a new generation burdened with crippling debt, who can’t afford homeownership, don’t want a car that will contribute to harming the environment, don’t watch TV, and know that their possession of a gun will be the license for the police to shoot them, we are witnessing the clash of cultures where “Old” America is giving way to “New” America. Except, “Old-thinking” America hates blacks, gays, trans people, immigrants, environmental protection, electric cars, debt forgiveness, and health care for those not sacrificing for it, and they are not alone as they’ve already poisoned enough of their children that we have a young intolerant generation of people who think just like the old-fashioned idiots afraid of change.

Is it that simple to only be a generational gap, or is there something larger at work? I’m sensing that the shift is one where the driving force behind American life had been in the exercise of economic liberties and that the movement of the civil liberties activities during the 60s now needs a full embrace. The people of that generation planted the seed, but their parents’ influence on what it meant to be an American was so ingrained that soon after the Civil Rights Bill was signed, the war had been won, and things normalized. Fifty years later, life is now too expensive to participate in for many young people who cannot afford health insurance, renting an apartment on their own, vacation, transportation, and even new clothes. Look at the generation on the street today; they often shop at Dollar Stores and the Salvation Army, use bicycles, go on staycations, and turn to alternative health, as traditional healthcare can only saddle them with more debt. So what does a disenfranchised American have to look forward to in this age they can’t afford to participate in? At a minimum, they need their civil liberties, and they need them now. The idea that there’s a price to pay if you are gay, trans, black, Hispanic, hipster, or counter-culturalist is a tragedy in a country that brags so loudly about being the melting pot when, for many, that’s a farce.

I posit that the powers-that-be are in some small way, or maybe they are fully aware of this cultural shift and recognize that by shutting down our economy, they nearly showed their empty hand that the economic game can be put on pause while the civil responsibility to one another was placed front and center. Were the 60 days of Pandora’s Box being open enough to wake the realization that money is simply something noted as a ledger entry and that during a global health crisis things could change in an instant?

The genie is being shoved back into its bottle, and it is only with the continued efforts of demonstrators that the much-needed social change can happen. Lucky for those of us desiring these changes that, the police are using more brutality to try to win the hearts and minds of constituents who want to see a return to their ideas of racist order. Lucky for us that, governors are opening their states to more death, sickness, and pain, as suffering is the harbinger of more change. Lucky us that the government, big media, and extremist pundits are still spewing disinformation as it will help evolve decentralized citizen-based initiatives that will either marginalize or totally disenfranchise the hate machine. Unlucky us that this will disrupt our comfort but that’s the price required to be paid when change couldn’t be embraced by a controlling culture lost in their own blind greed.

I expect that in another 30 days, I’ll be updating my blog with news about our self-isolation, but other than that, I have no idea what direction our rudderless country is currently going.