I’m going to rant about WordPress now.

You might want to skip over this.

If you have a reader community – then the key is the to make the reader easy to use without a great deal of involvement on my part.

But wordpress has created all of these layers. I scroll down the reader, I read the first 3 sentences and then I have to click. Then in more than 50% of the cases, I’m going to have click AGAIN to go to their website to read the rest of the post. And then… if the post was a reblog, I may have to click AGAIN to get the original post to get to finish the damn post.

I’ll be honest, you have to be PRETTY compelling to get me to click over to your website. If you have not already established yourself in my mind as someone who interests me, I’m NOT going to click to your site.

What BAFFLES ME is why require the click to the site?

What also baffles me is why I can’t set my blog to show my entire post on the front page of the reader. Its obviously possible because randomly you see it happen, its even happened to me but I don’t know why. Is it just WordPress being random?

And also, why can’t I find my own posts sometimes on the reader? I post, I get a star or comment and yet – I don’t see it on the reader? Why the hell not?

Does that mean I’m not seeing all the posts of the people I follow? Because if so, that really pisses me off. I want to decide for myself who to read and not read. I don’t want the Reader deciding.

Happy Valentines Day

humansofnewyork:

“My wife passed away last January. We’d been married for 62 years. You caught me at a time when I’ve been thinking a lot about love because I’m reading Shakespeare’s sonnets. The definition of love is elusive, which is why we write about it endlessly. Even Shakespeare couldn’t touch it. All the greatest love stories just seem to be about physical attraction. Romeo and Juliet didn’t know ifthey liked the same books or movies. It was just physical. After 62 years, it becomes something different entirely. My wife used to say: ‘We are one.’ And believe me, she was not the type of person to overstate something. Now that she’s gone, I realize how right she was. So much of our lives were linked. We were very physical and affectionate. But we also shared every ritual of our life. I miss her every time I leave a movie and can’t ask for her opinion. Or every time I go to a restaurant and can’t give her a taste of my chicken. I miss her most at night. We got in bed together at the same time every night.”

Spoilsport, Me.

I don’t like practical jokes. I never get the humor when its played on me, I never end up laughing after the initial scare, inconvenience or pain. I get angry and I stay angry.

But it is bad form not to accept the joke played on you with grace, so I keep the long term anger inside and let my tormentors enjoy their laugh, with culturally appropriate grace.

But I don’t understand the point. Why is it wonderfully funny to scare the crap out of someone, make their life harder or more painful? It’s not a surprise to anyone but the victim, but still the jokers laugh hysterically.

Taken apart, a practical joke is just cruel. But we don’t call it cruel, because we have decided it wasn’t done with evil intent. It was done to be funny. Why isn’t it considered evil to do a mean thing to someone that you like, just so you can laugh? I don’t know.

I think the laughter is what gives people the free pass. We are OK with a lot of crappy things if people laugh. There’s a whole bit that Conan O’Brian does with somebody in his office where he’s basically a dick. And we laugh, so its OK. If it wasn’t funny, then we would think that Conan is a dick.

But I think Conan is being a dick in any case. Just like I think people who pull practical jokes are often being dicks. But our culture thinks, hey its OK that they were a dick to that person because its funny.

There is a whole subculture on the internet of ADULT people who run elaborate phone pranks on people. They get together and swap stories and ideas. Things like calling a person and pretending to be from Verizon Customer Service and trying to get someone who tweeted an angry complaint down. They end up berating the tweeter. Its beyond my understanding. Why would you basically call to annoy and upset another human that you don’t eve know. As a JOKE.

I wonder if the practical joke is the evil part of our brain, that each of us carries around, finding a harmless way to get some exercise.

I know I’m not alone in hating the practical joke, but I am in the minority. I’m also in the even smaller minority of people who think that being a dick to entertain yourself or other people is a terrible way to live your life.

cranky kid

Not many people convert to nonbeliever.

Hero4thought wrote a very interesting post about the differences between believers and nonbelievers. And it got me thinking about why rejecting the idea of a deity is so hard, despite there being no real concrete reason to accept that one exists.

Having been a born again christian and finally wandering my way to nonbeliever, I think people choose religion because it’s comfort.

Its the comfort of feeling like something large and important is somehow going to make it all work out in the end. There’s a plan, life is not just pointless.

Its the comfort that you can reach out in fear to something stronger than you. This feels very important when your life is spiraling out of control.

Its the comfort that you at least pray to the deity in charge when there is nothing you can do. This beats the crap out of sitting helpless next to a hospital bed.

Its the comfort of simple answers and directions instead of complex variable and vague options. Its easy to understand the directions in religious text – do this, don’t do that, this is how things work… Compare that to philosophy, physics and evolution.

Its the comfort of being part of a defined group that shares your values and ideas. Very few groups provide the cohesive structure and support that religions offer. Its nice to belong.

Its the comfort of not having to think about a thing because the answer has already been provided for you and you are not encouraged to think, just reference the answer. And to be honest, our entire school system is supporting this habit.

Its the comfort of having your existence continue even after death. It took me a while to get used to the idea that I would no longer exist. Even the knowledge that I wouldn’t be aware of my nonexistence didn’t stop me from feeling uncomfortable about it.

Humans prefer comfort and simplicity. Nonbelief is not a big fluffy mental comforter, it will occasionally makes me feel like I am naked and alone and confused. ea1e3a3d5af24ed64b409c82a9f78f82

It also makes me feel like I have discovered new lands, seen new wonders, stood up in maelstrom of uncontrollable forces and not just survived it, but learned its nature and rode it to new places. Being a nonbeliever mostly makes me feel stronger than the believer.

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7mx8i

I am going to remind myself of this constantly for the coming weeks.

Job Interview! – Weekly Smile

I have had a rather bad few weeks. My current job has become somewhat untenable due to their choice of insurance.

Which is to say, my anger at their choice of insurance. They have chosen to use minimum required insurance. Until this, I had decent insurance through the Marketplace. The upshot is that they are saving money by taking it out of my pocket.

This is untenable for me financially in the long term. I don’t make much money and will end up in a spiralling debt if I keep the job and try to continue to keep up with my health issues.

So I’m looking for a job. Which is a cesspool of anxiety for me. I have imploded from it. But this morning I got an interview scheduled with a company. This is a huge step. Its a terrifying step. But its a grand brave step and I did it.

And it also means that despite all the things my brain keeps saying to me, I do at least have sufficient qualifications to be called in for an interview.

And it means that I’m helping myself in a situation that feels so overwhelming to me. That’s a special feature of depression and anxiety, they distort situations so that you feel like normal steps to help yourself are impossible. And my brain has been working overtime on that feature. But this interview is like a lifeline. I may not get the job but existence of an interview provides tangible evidence that there is a way out of my situation. One interview means its possible that other interviews can happen. And that eventually I can get a better job.

So I’m smiling about the path, the lifeline that is symbolized by this job interview. There is a way out. I just have to keep running down the path and remember it.

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I used to have a Blind Deaf Dog

A friend of mine dubbed her the “Helen Keller Dog”. Molly was born deaf and with progressively bad eyesight. In the last years of her life she was probably entirely blind. 029

This is of course where you sigh, feel bad, look at me like I’m the the Mother Teresa of Pets. I’m not. And she would have had no idea why you feel bad. She didn’t.

For the most part, she cheerfully bounded through life, banging into furniture, falling down steps and and poking her eyes on low hanging branches. You see she thought that was how life worked. It would never occur to her that it worked in any other way. Happily, she couldn’t even see other animals navigating through life without mishaps.

Life was not always glorious for her. She didn’t always get along well with other dogs. I think because dogs use visual cues when meeting. She never learned those cues and so didn’t present her intentions quite right . She certainly couldn’t read them in others. Because sight was of such limited support to her, anything visual would have small meaning as a filter for her view of the world. Touch was a huge thing to her.

Because she had repeated bad encounters with other dogs reading her wrong, she became tense and easily over reacted to a touch she thought might turn violent with another dog.

She was the easiest dog I ever owned. She was an Australian Shepherd. A small one. I guess people call them mini. Aussies are SMART dogs. They also want to please you. It took two times MAX to teach her a behavior. She knew that different people used different signals for behaviors. She responded to all of them. All of them were touches.

She loved touch. She wanted to hug and be hugged. She had a bit of a habit of climbing half onto your lap for a cuddle. She also liked to put her paws in your hands when she greeted you. But she NEVER did that to my mother, who was fragile and had skin like paper. She always just nosed her under the hand for attention or nosed her knee in greeting.

I used to leave the door open so the cat could come in and out when I was gardening. She would NOT leave the house unless I invited her to.

On the other hand – she was an absolute nightmare about getting her nails cut or being held down in any fashion at all. I don’t know what happened to her before I rescued her, but it was awful. But… as much as she would struggle and flail in fear, she would NEVER growl or snap. She was always ultimately kind and gentle to people, even at the vets office.

In the end, she and I worked out a barely tolerable system for brushing her and doing her nails, but we both were frustrated and upset at the end of each session.

She was the best dog I ever had. Its frustrating having a dog that can’t hear. More so than one that can’t see. Because we communicate so much through our voice. I talk to my animals a lot. I talked constantly to her even though she couldn’t hear me.

Molly was good. She bounded through life oblivious of obstacles, cheerful and loyal. I didn’t deserve her.

Would you want to live forever?

I have asked this question to quite a number of people.

But surprisingly few people want to live forever. And even those who say they would, (like me) hedge the idea by saying “just a long time” or “if I can choose when I die.” But most people flat out don’t want to live forever.

What I find interesting about this is that most religions are based on the concept of eternal life. Life forever. And western religions seem to espouse the fact that you will be you during the eternity, maybe not bodily, but essential you will exist. Reincarnation doesn’t do that. It gives you a clean memory and you get a fresh start. Although, eventually I think you end up in an eternal heaven of some kind. But not western religions. You are stuck with yourself – forever.

I always assumed that eternal life was one of the features that drew believers into fold. But upon consideration, I suppose its probably the blissful eternity that draws people who are currently living in misery.

Still, to me, bliss forever seems less appealing than dealing with the messiness of life here on earth. Yeah, we struggle in the mire of our weaknesses, but we triumph in the shining moments. Eternal Bliss is ultimately eternal sameness. Nothing is different. Uniformity of everything. I think… NOT for me.

I think the change is what life is. I don’t want eternal sameness. I want the winding road of struggle and triumph. Of laughter and tears. Of smooth and rough. I like the chaos. I like the complexity. Bliss is Beige for Ever.

This lifetime’s miseries are not sufficient to appreciate an eternity of bliss. Surely after a couple hundred years we will forget what misery is. And then its just boredom for billions and billions of years.

No, I would prefer to live a very long life and choose my time for death. And then it will just be over. No more me. No more awareness. No more.

Too bad its not a choice.

My 35 Year Trip to Non Believer

I call myself a non-believer, but I suppose technically I’m agnostic. I don’t deny the utter possibility of some universe creator, but have concluded that if one exists its beyond my capacity to understand or interact with it on any meaningful level. And its interest in me would likely amount to my interest in Amoeba. So for daily life, I don’t think there is any god.

I wasn’t always in this place. I was not taught about God by my parents. My grandma took me to church when I visited her and when she visited us, but beyond that my parents left me to explore the question on my own.

When I was 16 I became a born again Christian. I accepted Christ because it was such a beautiful idea. A God who loves me just as I am, who doesn’t care about the fact that I’m messed up. I read the bible through and through. I went to bible study and bible camps and joined Campus Crusade when I went to college.

In college my path was a bit erratic. I was easily enticed to the sinful life of drinking and wild parties and sex. But ultimately I settled back into a spiritual life, kept the belief and in my senior year I wanted to be a missionary to Russia. (back then Russia was considered Godless because of communism.) I was turned down for a mission trip to Russia with Campus Crusade because I was fat. Its a silly story, but suffice to say it was a blow that caused me to reconsider.

At that point I looked more closely at organized churches and was sickened by the hypocrisy. There is an undercurrent of competition to be “holier than thou” in spirit filled churches. How many people did you bring to Christ? How many bible studies do you participate in? How many do you lead? What sorts of mission work have you done? The prayers in church are not for the benefit of god, they are for the benefit of the congregation or the gathered group – to show everyone how pious the person praying out loud is. I could go on, but it was nauseating for me.

I still believed in God. I just did not think the church was the best way to have a relationship with him. I continued to read the bible and pray. But once away from the church, my mind was free to look more closely at the bible and at what I thought of God. And I found that I really didn’t think the bible was literal. It really wasn’t possible. It must be more metaphorical.

Then I met a man who practiced Hinduism. He explained karma and dharma. And while reincarnation seemed somewhat odd to me, I couldn’t help but see that at least the concepts of karma were reflective of real world physical laws. Cause and Effect. As opposed the eternal life insurance policy sold by Christian churches. I started reading about Buddhism and Taoism. I was quite enchanted with Taoism, but I never embraced any of them as a practical philosophy or religion.

As time went on, I left behind the bible. It wasn’t a sudden epiphany. It was a slow wandering of ideas and thoughts about what we know about God. It seemed wholly unlikely that God was described by any book created by man.

It seemed more likely that God was reflected in his creation. And if that was so, it was pretty clear that God was very fond of action leads to consequence. After all, it was already built into the world we lived in. So – it was very unlikely that the Christ Insurance Policy was God.

Nor did I think Hell existed. To what purpose? I couldn’t find one in anything I saw, so no Hell. Heaven? Unlikely for the same reasons. If anything, reincarnation might be possible, but there certainly wasn’t much reason for that either.

After more thought wandering it became clear that what I believed was of no relevance at all. Any being who created the universe was a much more complex being than I could possibly fathom on any level. Such a being would have no interest in whether or not I knew of its existence, much less whether I worshiped it. No, my belief would be irrelevant.

Since, my belief would be irrelevant, I was able to let go of all the fragile threads that held me to the idea of God. He either exists or he doesn’t. There is no evidence that he does. Since I have already established that its irrelevant whether I believe, I live my life as though God doesn’t exist.

So, now I don’t believe. In fact I try not to believe anything, which is why I usually identify as a non-believer. Belief is a thing we have to defend. Ideas are things we develop and change when new more compelling information is brought forward. I try to keep myself to ideas.

What of my purpose? What of my morality? I think who I am is defined by me. I think living a life based on critical thinking and on creativity is my path. Knowledge is one of the most worthwhile goals of my life. Its my thing. Its not yours. What you think is how you define you.

My morality is based on my own internal compass. Its not nearly as strict as religion or government.

I don’t think any sexual action that is consensual and non-detrimental to either party is bad.
I think hurting anyone, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or financially is bad.
I think all people have the right to freedom, happiness and the best health that science can offer.
I think people have a right to choose their own death.
I think all of the above is oversimplified and should be weighed in the complexity of the individual situation.

Well, I guess I won’t go on, but you will note that while I am sinful as defined by most religions, I am not amoral. I don’t consider anarchy and murder and hate to be acceptable. I think compassion and kindness are the most noble things a human can be.

I am not evangelical in my thoughts. I share them if someone wants to have an open learning discussion, but not if someone wants to try and convert my viewpoint to theirs. I really don’t care what anyone else thinks or believes.

If you are a religious person, that is fine with me. I used to be and I remember how much it helped me at that point in my life, how much solace I got from it.

I do, however, have a problem when anyone tries to make their religion into laws, or tries to make it part of public school curriculum, or tries to limit the rights and freedoms of any person. That I will fight.

We need to change the social structure

of what it is acceptable for women to say.

Do you know how cultural standards get put into place? Our monkey brains just process what is happening around us and without even thinking about it we learn and accept what the role of everyone is. We absorb a lot of that stuff on TV, in movies, on the internet and of course in observing the interactions around us. We mimick each other and these roles for people just get drilled deeper and deeper into our heads. And we never even think about it.

I was raised by a bitch. I say this with love and someday I will share my mother and her strength with you. But while it wasn’t always enjoyable it taught me several things.

If you don’t like something Don’t Put Up With It.

But you see that isn’t the acceptable role for women. If you won’t put up with it, you are labeled a bitch. Not putting up with it doesn’t fit the social role of women today.

Women are consistently reinforced in roles that are submissive and told that we are connectors, cultivators, supporters and that we make everyone FEEL better. That is what we are told our strength is. Go to a diversity leadership seminar – that’s what they will say.

Do you know WHY we have to create such elaborate processes for sexual harassment? Because the ENTIRE rest of society is putting women in the role of ‘shut up and just accept it.’ Because the society has told men that its OK to treat a woman as an object to be touched or casually sexualized. That’s their role.

Imagine if society was different. What if the role that women fill included an immediate response of “get your hands off me and keep them off.” or “Don’t talk like that to me again.” Today, a man saying that does not feel incongruous. A woman doing it is a bitch.

Imagine if women didn’t feel even slightly odd or worried about marching into HR and creating a report that could get someone fired because there was no predisposition that suggested that this was NOT the role of connector and a supporter. What if there wasn’t even a whiff of possibility of her own culpability in just being a woman who was present at the time of the incident of her own harassment?

If we changed the acceptable role of women and men – we would stop A LOT of this Creeper behavior in its tracks. Most of it rolls along because men get no immediate resistance. Because women have been socialized to internally cringe, find socially acceptable ways to avoid, to wait until its many layers beyond disgusting to even consider filing a complaint.

The numberless times that women don’t even do more than half laugh and create an awkward pause when some idiot says something creepy is perpetuating the problem, teaching creepers that their ridiculous behavior is normal. And the reason that we do that is because society has taught us to shut up and not make waves. And breaking out of a socialized role is deeply hard. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the particular path of that woman’s life which may add even more barriers to her resistance.

Its a self perpetuating cycle.

Well, I for one, intend to just be the fucking bitch. The rest of the world can just get used to it. Its awkward, its uncomfortable and its unfair. But creepers… fuck em. I’m taking them down as I see them. No prisoners.

Maybe by next generation my bitchiness can be the norm. And no one will think women are being a bitch because they don’t accept it when their boss calls them darling, their coworker asks if they plan to get laid tonight and the guy at the bar tries to give an unwanted massage.

Maybe because its normal to call a man on his creeper behavior we will have fewer creepers in the following generation.

I have a dream of no creepy.