An Epidemic of Happiness

(This is a speech I wrote for Toastmaster’s)

A pestilence has swept the land.  A plague spreads freely among us.  It is an infestation on an enormous scale, and no one’s doing anything about stopping it.  In fact, quite the opposite is true; more and more people every day are encouraging the spread of this awful scourge and actually want to be infected.

What is this awful affliction run rampant?  It is happiness.  Yes, happiness.  Gradually over the last few years a kind of “happiness industry” has sprung up and has become ubiquitous: and by that, I mean it’s everywhere.  Where is this happiness industry manifesting in our lives, and how is it affecting us?  Let’s explore this just a little, shall we?

More on greed . . .

Last post I mentioned greed as one of the factors contributing to our downward spiral; I’d like to expand on that a little. If you had $30 billion, and you were asked  to give $15 billion to good causes, you’d have $15 billion left.  Could you get by on that? How much is enough? This has been a huge topic of conversation among people I know.  Would we be having this conversation if we had $30 billion?  Who knows. However, here are a few things, related to this topic, that I see unfolding in our world:

Hmmm . . . it’s jan 1 . . . not destroyed yet that I know of

I’m a bit tired, maybe, but not destroyed.  I’m looking out the window.  Not too much destroyed out there. Of course this morning I hear that it’s not til December that the world will end.  Now I’ve got a whole year to be nervous. That should give us time, though, to raise the global temperature even higher, and continue the global economy’s downward spiral through greed, denial, short-term thinking, and–say it with me–stupidity. When we call someone a “dodo” we imply that they are stupid.  Dodos went extinct. Therefore dodos are widely believed to become extinct because they were stupid. It is obvious that we as a specie are stupid.  We poison our own home.  We shoot at each other. We invent an idea called “money” out of thin air and then allow 1% of us to have most all of it. This stuff which has no real existence. Yet the having and not having of this made-up stuff has real-life consequences. There’s a gap in my understanding here, between “made-up stuff monopolized by 1%” and “real-life consequences”.  Help me out!  Explain what happens in between!

This is the part where writers writing things like this say, “But there is small cause for hope.”  These writers get us all worked up, then throw us a bone of hope, so we relax again. I believe these writers are in the employ of the 1%. Well I am not. Hope is overrated and delusional. Hope is also a made-up idea; it mainly serves as an excuse to ignore what’s right in front of our faces since “hope” will soothe us into waiting til the bad stuff just goes away.  Give up hope. Open your eyes. It’s a start.

Happy new year.

It’s Almost 2012–Have We Been Destroyed Yet?

How can we stay cheerful in the face of impending doom? Shrug our shoulders, say, “Oh well,” and then just get on with our day? Or run around really fast trying to do all the things on our bucket list? Or hurry up and make a bucket list?

Eat the good stuff. It’s good.

Here’s something kinda weird.  I’ve read a gazillion times lately that certain foods are really good for you and certain other foods are really bad for you.  For example, blueberries = good; french fries = bad.  Blueberries keep me from becoming demented.  French fries kill my ass.  I LIKE BOTH.  So why would I choose french fries over blueberries?  This makes no sense.  Consider:

• Blueberries are readily available (where I live)
• French fries take effort and gasoline to get to
• To “make” blueberries at home: wash and eat
• To “make” french fries at home: bake or deep fry (time, cost, unhealthy with the frying)

You can see where this is going.  Okay, blueberries are expensive. Indeed they are. But imagine this: you’ve gone and got demented.  Cuz you’ve eaten french fries instead of blueberries (even though you like both–yes, Virginia, I am going to belabor this point).  They invent a time machine.  One use only, and it costs $250,000.00 to use.  You can see where this is going.  Would having bought blueberries equal the cost (and trepidation) of getting in that time machine?  Put more simply, is NOT going demented worth the price of blueberries?

I’m not saying never eat french fries (although here, safely ensconced between parenthese, I am saying it: never eat french fries).  All things in moderation.  The point I want to make is that if you try enough foods that are good for you you’re bound to find some you like.  EAT THEM.  Bye for now.

Fried Calamari and Beer

I didn’t used to think about food as much as I do now.  My sister and I used to make fun of my dad because at breakfast he’d be planning dinner, and the whole day had to be structured around strictly adhered-to mealtimes.  Breakfast at 8, lunch at noon, dinner at 6.  No exceptions.

There were things I enjoyed eating when I was young (my grandmother’s fried chicken!), but mostly I ate to survive.  Now I’m thinking my dad was on to something.  For me eating has become somewhat of a contact sport–the food contacts my mouth and I eat it.  I almost always win.  It isn’t pretty when I lose.  And the older I get the more I want the food to be good.  I don’t consider myself a foodie, I just like good food.  I’m not a great cook, just okay.  And I don’t know much about wine.  I buy wine if I like the picture on the label and if the price is hovering around $10 or so in Safeway.  So far I’ve had good wine that had these pictures on the label:  a kangaroo, a human footprint, a fire-breathing bear, a medieval knight on a horse, three ravens following each other around in a circle, a kind of abstract watercolor vaguely reminiscent of Willem de Kooning–the list goes on.

Free Will or Total Determinism? You Decide!

The question of whether or not we have free will is of central concern to me, and should be to you too.  For example, say you’re sitting next to a doughnut.  A really good one.  And you’re kinda hungry.  But in the back of your mind you’re thinking, “Well, doughnuts aren’t that healthy.  I probably shouldn’t eat it.”  Then of course you eat the doughnut, and maybe you’re even giving some thought as to how you could arrange to sit next to a doughnut again as soon as possible.

If you do not believe that we have free will, you’re off the hook.  You were forced to eat the doughnut as a result of a series of “causes” stretching back to infinity.  And that’s a long way, even longer than a mile.  I know, because I measured it.  A short summary of this causal chain might read as follows: (1) you were born; (2) you grew up (and in 5th grade had that awkward first crush); (3) you went to college; (4) you got a pointless job; (5) one day you skipped breakfast because you were already late to your pointless job; (6) since you ran up a flight of stairs to get to your office at your pointless job because you were late, you sat down in a chair to catch your breath; (7) there, in the chair  next to you, was the aforementioned doughnut; (8) you ate it.