Sidekicks and shovels

I always admired people who have that skill of political correctness, the ones who are diplomatically applaudable, journalist jargon like “allegations, insinuations, apparent referrals” – it’s all so fantastic because I lack all of those skills. Spades are spades and I call them so. The world has become so sensitive that even fantasy superheroes are affected. Every white superhero has a black sidekick for political correctness and democracy’s sake –Bob in The Incredibles, Ironman, GI Joe, they slipped up with Batman and Robin but when Robin makes his 21^st century appearance aside those bat wings…mark my words! Is it great or have the sidekicks rather than supported or taken over the hero, simply just booted the show altogether?

It admirable, it’s a wonderful rainbow world, but it’s also a terribly oversensitive one.  This culture of political correctness has turned society into a fearful one rather than one that celebrates freedom and expression. Always do or say the correct thing because you don’t want to offend anyone, and worse, the “be correct” because “what if one day in the future”… So many things are based far too much now on fear, of the future, of others, of ostracisation, that we have become ridiculous in terms of boxing things into categories in which everything must fit – and if it doesn’t, it’s just politically incorrect. (If you’re dumb but not hearing impaired…well that’s a purely rude insensitive insult)

Have we killed creativity in our quest for equality? Have we bred a different form of sheep? Sheep all the same? I was horrified that Lady Gaga was named one of Forbes most top influential women! According to them, her techno pop monodromes have revived pop culture. She has large followings all over the world, people imitating her dressing, her image, but not her work, because there is non of the to reenact. She is not creative. Her two stylists invented her look, and all she has been able to do is replicate that look every day, even on “casual” strolls to do some shopping. Sure she’s great at selling herself in this way. But why does she have such a following? She is false, almost mute, there is nothing inspirational about her, nothing new that she hasn’t tried to copycat from artists of the past, and all she has painstakingly tried to reinvent from musical history has failed – none of it succeeded as revivals or reinventions of ‘life’. In most of her music videos she is involved in killing someone. Sadly all this reflects to me is how dead she is as a persona, an ‘artist’ and an inspiration. What has become of us that we can’t even identify this anymore? That we embrace the death of creativity and call it genius.

It’s time to leave the past behind us, I respect that sentiment. So I shall henceforth call spades … shovels.

inspirational

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while DARING GREATLY so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919Twenty-Sixth President of the United States

Great expectations post script

John Malkovich in Burn After Reading

"I know you, you're the guy from the gym."

"Im not here representing our guys"

"Oh yes, I know very well what you present. You represent the idiocy of today."

"I don’t represent that either"

"Oh yeh, you're the guy at the gym when I ask about that moronic women..."

"She's not a moron"

"You're in league with that moronic women, you're part of a league of morons."

"No no"

"Oh yes, you see you're one of the morons I've been fighting my whole life, my whole f….n life. But guess what, today I win." POW

Great expectations

Great Expectations

“Morning, how are you?” I say

“Fine thank you and yourself?”

“Good thanks, what seems to be the problem today?” I ask

….blank stare…

“Is anything bothering you or are you just here for a check-up?” I reattempt.

…blank stare…

“Do you speak English?” I ask, hoping they will shake their heads or reply ‘No’, my impatience would be appeased.

“Yes yes I do.” Followed by blank stare.

And then I get to wondering, is it me? Am I a bad conversationalist? Is my accent weird? Do I speak too fast? WHY is there a communication barrier when asking the SIMPLEST things?

I’m not an animation fan, however sometimes one finds such surprising hidden wisdom in these little characters. I’m speaking specifically of  Bob Parr, the father in The Incredibles, whose wife is fighting with him because he refuses to attend his son’s graduation from the 3^rd grade. “Its psychotic,” he says, “they keep finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity”.

Mediocrity. It surrounds us, engulfs us and slowly it feels as though it is taking over the world. A performance artist like Lady Gaga can spew out an Ace of Base copycat song with five words in it about some dude name Alejandro, and is heralded a genius. The English language has become so diversified that in your own country you cannot communicate with someone of the same first or second language, because they no speaka de English you speak?! Do I just have great expectations or has mediocrity lowered its standards and an IQ of 60-70 is now regarded as the normal, socially acceptable level of existence.

It cannot be. I can’t simply accept that as is. Perhaps a narcissistic approach is best, God tests all of us in different ways, and my test is not a short transient one. It dealing with stupid people everyday in this bigger picture of the world… patience, understanding, and basically stupid people skills are probably my test – and I’m not going to be rewarded by heaven anytime soon because I’m failing. Perhaps it is the fault of geniuses like Albert Einstein and entrepreneurs like Bill gates – both of whom were apparently pathetic at mathematics – so the world feels they don’t need numbers. Sure we have calculators, who needs to learn algebraic equations? The very inventors of algebra, Arabs, have become lazy, ignorant and blissfully wealthy in their baths of oil. Sheep – we’re such sheep, well if Einstein didn’t need mathematics…yes but he had an IQ of 150! Bill Gates got lucky, he had a good idea and he had dedication and hard work.  The point is that a subject like mathematics teaches logical thinking. No, you will not need to remember the rules of functions or trigonometry to help you attain your dreams, but you learn logic from it all, and that is what EVERYONE is lacking! Logic, simple basic thinking to efficiently complete the most basic of tasks, would enhance communication tremendously.

Or perhaps I’m naive. Where have all the logical people gone? Some are the rulers behind Hollywood’s celebutant fascination amusing themselves as they place and replace their puppets for a worldwide sheep audience. The rest, the rest perhaps have adopted Ayn Rand’s John Galt, and gone into hiding to create for themselves the ideal world of logic, functionality, efficiency, happiness that the sheep of this world must have no part it…well at least not yet!

 I was always more of a Howard Roark fan though. He somehow found the balance of selfishness, to manage to coexist with the rest of the world’s inhabitants and not be so affected by it all. Perhaps that’s the way. Not to give mediocrity so much attention though we are forced to deal with it daily, indifference. It’s not easy! Plan B, if this is proves all too ideal… we can always ask Atlas to please shrug again – a new chaos may be refreshing.