"to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day in and day out, to make you into everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle that's ever been fought, and never stop fighting."

~ e e cummings

some quotes will be repeated... especially during times when I need reminding... and these are those times, what with a creeping malaise attaching itself to my every breath and the world of humans seeming so eager and willing to help it along... I want to see the glass as half full... I want to see the positivity in everything... and I do, however I wonder if my perception is skewed or if there really is less positivity in our collective consciousness than there has been before today... that is how it feels to me... and I wonder how much of that comes from within and how much of that comes from out there...

are you satisfied with a culture that is based on snap judgments and instant gratification?... is that really where your meaning can be found?...

take VARB, for instance... you open a window, click a number, you've judged someone... the sum of their life is reduced to a number one to ten... we look at the number and decide if the person is worth our time...

so I ask you, VARB clickers, how much time before you click the number?... do you even let the site open?... do you glance at the window and click without scrolling?... do you read more than a few lines?... more than a single entry?... how do you judge a blog?...

do you choose a number based on visual design?... on ease of navigation?... on content?... on other criteria?... do you even think about it?...

how much thought or serious concern do you put into the number you click?... really... do you justify your rating with any thought at all?...

while ego always likes the higher numbers because ego is shallow and stupid, it doesn't matter to me what number you assign to me, your judgment speaks more about you (and means more to you) than it does me... I've seen my VARB as high as 7 and as low as 4 so far and as most things in this life, it's meaningless without the why...

the irony is that those who are really into clicking VARB, judging by numbers, are a skewed lot and not a representative sampling of the population... those who feel a need to judge others have a different personality and perspective than those who are content enjoying life without imposing their judgments on others... critics and those who enjoy finding flaws, expressing criticism, and viewing things from a perspective that seeks to find something negative to say about anything are not in the same mind space as those who do not...

one is a closed mind, a mind into control and based much more on fear than love... one is an open mind, a mind into pleasure and based much more on love than fear...

but this is something that the closed mind can rarely comprehend because it is closed to such possibilities and a defensive instinct to argue against any idea that might be different than what it perceives as right prevents learning...

discussion becomes moot, as does this thought...

numbers, for me, are fun... life, for me, is fun... writing, for me, is fun...

blind judgments, for me, are stupid... as I look at our culture, from an online community perspective or from a larger humanity perspective, I see way too much stupidity... I see people judging and hating and condemning and even killing total strangers based on fears they were taught, based on information they were told that they never verified, and too often, based on misunderstanding and outright lies...

In 1958 there were zero pop song titles with the word "hate" in the title versus 44 titles that contained the word "love". "Hate" showed up twice in 1963 and remained an unpopular word in song titles. The popularity of 'love' hit an all time high in 1968, 90 titles spoke of 'love'. It's popularity has steadily declined since than, so that 2004 saw only 20 'love' song titles vs. 3 'hate' song titles.

This trivia was gathered using the song title word comparison tool at the Top 40 Database...

if I found this on your site please let me know so I can credit you and than you for doing the research... if you, as I, believe that popular music reflects the human consciousness as well as any measure we have, then you see the trend...

I believe human emotion and consciousness follows an ebb and flow pattern a bit like the tides and wave particles... perhaps because fear is so deeply engrained in our consciousness and personalities by instinct and education on all levels, and because fear is a most powerful anti-love force (perhaps the most powerful), the pendulum of collective human consciousness swings back and forth between fear and love...

so my sense that love is in a downward trend in my lifetime may not be merely my paranoid or depressed perspective... the chicken may lay the egg, but the egg produces the chicken... I'll believe that the growth of the oppressive fear-based culture has more to do with my withering hopes than the way I see things, but that does not relieve me of any responsibility for my perspective or for what I do about it...

I escape into words... I ramble on and on about this or that, referencing anything, external or internal, that might amuse or add flavor or insight or depth or meaning to the words... this process amuses me, distracts me, satisfies me... it is something I can do in a relative vacuum, all by myself, independent of anyone or anything outside of some method to record words and even without that, I can do it in my head... that is how I survive solitary time even though I ache to share, to be shared, to love and be loved...

words are my sanctuary, my hobby, my therapy, my mindless diversion... writing is my passion, my home, my friend... so are numbers...

to imagine that this could be summed up in a number is ludicrous and sad, but like most sad choices humans make, for positivity to survive I find a way to seem amusement in the sorrow... I can pretend the contest, no matter how skewed and arbitrary, has meaning (I'm good at delusions of grandeur, in case you haven't noticed)... I can sell the contest as a meaningful activity, even as a way of showing love... click number ten for me if you love me... I could take it quite seriously as I do many games...

but after all the games, the truth remains...

way too many people miss out on so much of the beauty and wonder and fun and excitement and real worth in this life by accepting superficial judgments (often not even their own) and assigning false value to most everything...

are you one of them?...