Stupid Opinion #1: That We are All Where We are Meant to Be
There I was innocently sitting on the airplane, letting time pass by watching in-flight entertainment.
On came a well-known Canadian singer.
Good, I thought, here I can see something that a lot of Canadian are finding fun to listen to.
I was soon rolling my eyes.
Over footage of all kinds of different people, Bon Jovi was singing something like "Where you are is exactly where you are meant to be.
" Old, young, in a wheelchair even.
Great, you might say, he values diversity.
Different images came into my mind.
I thought of the same inane words over footage of 800,000 Rwandans being massacred; of 2,000,000 Cambodians being starved and murdered; of 6,000,000 Jews herded to their mass deaths in concentrations camps.
"Wherever you are, that's where you are meant to be.
" It would have been good for the Jews to know that, all 6,000,000 of them, as they were taken to their mass deaths.
**** More? Bon Jovi should have been there to tell his good news to the 1,000,000 or perhaps it was 3,000,000 Armenians slaughtered by Turks.
And then there was Uganda - another milliion or so.
As I don't want to disciminate against any of the horrors, the list can go on and on.
So do Bon Jovi's stupid words, "Wherever you are, is where you are meant to be.
" I start writing.
More images and thoughts come.
Not on more massacres, this time on the killers.
Of course the same - wherever you are is where you are meant to be - goes for the Nazi soldiers massing the Jews into gas chambers, the Hutus butchering the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Turks slaughtering the Armenians.
Darfur, Biafra, Uganda, Stalinist Russia.
"Wherever you are, that's exactly where you are meant to be.
" Who could blame the killers? They're just doing what they're meant to do.
And still the song continues, with close-ups of Bon Jovi gyrating and grinning like an imbecile into the camera.
I think (so easy to come to more images of horror), what about some great shots of towns in Africa with only children and old people.
All those in the middle have died of Aids.
"Wherever you are, is exactly where you are meant to be.
" And how about footage of women being raped, kids being run down by drunk drivers, children dying of cancer, a child abducted from her bedroom, raped and murdered.
Just check with Bon Jovi, "Wherever you are, is exactly where you are meant to be.
" All those images coming into my mind watching Bon Jovi making a totally brainless fool of himself would have spiced up his video.
"Wherever you are, that's where you are meant to be.
" Does that mean Bon Jovi was meant to be in that absolutely mind-bogglingly inane video - that he had no choice? Was he meant to be making a fool of himself? But why would anyone - divine or diabolical, human or nonhuman - do that to Bon Jovi? Why would anyone set up the universe that way? How could it be "meant to be" that Bon Jovi would look like a total idiot in front of all of us poor passengers trapped watching him? Enough.
**** Anyway, add whatever images you like to the video.
And over that show Jon Jovi, looking self-absorbed and extremely stupid, singing his worlds over and over and over - perhaps because if he ever stopped to think, he would know what an idiot he was being.
**** It odes not take much to figure out that I do not agree with Bon Jovi.
But that's not what's central.
**** Point one.
It seems that Bon Jovi is incapable of even the most elementary thinking.
If you open your mind - instead of sealing it off - you would get images like mine, brewing up in response to words that make no sense, in response to a vision of reality that makes no sense.
One can go on.
If you are where you are meant to be, it makes no sense to try to change anything.
You are meant to have no education, to die from a lack of adequate drinking water, to never get a chance in life.
You have a universe with no choice - you are meant to be here or there, pushed or pulled around by cosmic forces.
Why bother trying to make choices? Everything is meant to be.
If things go wrong, don't try to figure out what happened.
Is there something you could have done? Is there some resource that, had it been there, would have helped? Nope.
It was all just meant to be.
**** Point two - and this is the big one.
Bon Jovi is not alone.
His song did not introduce me to his way of thinking.
One might ask, what person in their right mind would say anything like he did? The answer: millions of people do not seem to be in their right mind.
Bon Jovi's un-thinking is widespread.
Millions of people of at least average intelligence utter the same thoughts - and hold onto them adamantly.
There are even New Age people who go further.
They hold that you choose your parents, so that if you are battered, raped, starved, etc.
in childhood, you chose that before birth (to learn some lesson or other).
**** Arggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That brings me to my central question: what makes people so blind, so blinkered, so resistant to taking in reality.
Many of these are caring concerned people, educated people (but then high-ups among the Nazis were also educated, some with Ph.
D.
's).
These people do not think it's okay to go around massacring millions, don't think suffering is unimportant.
But still they believe, ..
..
Wherever you are is where you are meant to be.
And I gnash my teeth.
They are not thinking.
**** I know I have not been using a nice or polite tone.
I know that the way I have been writing is not the best way to reach people.
But sometimes one gets fed up.
I think of all the people who have fought for equal rights - women, people from different races and ethnic groups, gays and lesbians.
At some point one gets fed up being reasonable, using a nice and reasonable tone.
bI don't want to resort to physical violence.
But I stop caring about being nicety-nice, sugar and spice.
Actually, the spice word has jumped out at me.
I think that at some point the sugar burns away and the pepper remains.
I have often made the points I have just made in a more quiet, neutral tone.
But this time, watching Bon Jovi making a fool of himself, I rolled my eyes and (as has also happened at other times) also let not nicety-nice words roll out.
No swear words.
Just words that came from a bit of thinking stated in a heated tone.
**** That brings me to a fork in the road, each leading to a different topic.
The first fork leads to other inane opinions - such as the inane opinion that all opinions are equal.
The other fork leads to quite a different question: are there effective ways of breaking the hold of stupid opinions? I am sure I will get to inane opinion number two.
But first, as for what I've found works best for me, on the one hand, nothing has worked all the time.
On the other hand, some things have at least sometimes worked.
Come to my site for my attempts at: Breaking the Spell of Stupid (making no sense) Opinions.
[http://www.
elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.
com/the-idea-emporium-stupid-opinion-spell-break.
html].
**** One hope: that there will soon be more good thinking, good judging, having a good sense of judgement.
I like it, having a good head on my shoulders.
**** Website: http://elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.
com All my life, creativity has played an enormous part.
The magic of story, music, idea.
In the creativity emporium, there's space for many forms of creativity - yours as well as mine.
One area is on ideas: [http://www.
elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.
com/the-idea-emporium-1.
html] Good thinking, exploration, analysis.
Plus stupid opinions exposed.
**** A central idea: "For humans, an idea is more important than a fact.
" Yet ideas can open our minds as well as close them.
On came a well-known Canadian singer.
Good, I thought, here I can see something that a lot of Canadian are finding fun to listen to.
I was soon rolling my eyes.
Over footage of all kinds of different people, Bon Jovi was singing something like "Where you are is exactly where you are meant to be.
" Old, young, in a wheelchair even.
Great, you might say, he values diversity.
Different images came into my mind.
I thought of the same inane words over footage of 800,000 Rwandans being massacred; of 2,000,000 Cambodians being starved and murdered; of 6,000,000 Jews herded to their mass deaths in concentrations camps.
"Wherever you are, that's where you are meant to be.
" It would have been good for the Jews to know that, all 6,000,000 of them, as they were taken to their mass deaths.
**** More? Bon Jovi should have been there to tell his good news to the 1,000,000 or perhaps it was 3,000,000 Armenians slaughtered by Turks.
And then there was Uganda - another milliion or so.
As I don't want to disciminate against any of the horrors, the list can go on and on.
So do Bon Jovi's stupid words, "Wherever you are, is where you are meant to be.
" I start writing.
More images and thoughts come.
Not on more massacres, this time on the killers.
Of course the same - wherever you are is where you are meant to be - goes for the Nazi soldiers massing the Jews into gas chambers, the Hutus butchering the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Turks slaughtering the Armenians.
Darfur, Biafra, Uganda, Stalinist Russia.
"Wherever you are, that's exactly where you are meant to be.
" Who could blame the killers? They're just doing what they're meant to do.
And still the song continues, with close-ups of Bon Jovi gyrating and grinning like an imbecile into the camera.
I think (so easy to come to more images of horror), what about some great shots of towns in Africa with only children and old people.
All those in the middle have died of Aids.
"Wherever you are, is exactly where you are meant to be.
" And how about footage of women being raped, kids being run down by drunk drivers, children dying of cancer, a child abducted from her bedroom, raped and murdered.
Just check with Bon Jovi, "Wherever you are, is exactly where you are meant to be.
" All those images coming into my mind watching Bon Jovi making a totally brainless fool of himself would have spiced up his video.
"Wherever you are, that's where you are meant to be.
" Does that mean Bon Jovi was meant to be in that absolutely mind-bogglingly inane video - that he had no choice? Was he meant to be making a fool of himself? But why would anyone - divine or diabolical, human or nonhuman - do that to Bon Jovi? Why would anyone set up the universe that way? How could it be "meant to be" that Bon Jovi would look like a total idiot in front of all of us poor passengers trapped watching him? Enough.
**** Anyway, add whatever images you like to the video.
And over that show Jon Jovi, looking self-absorbed and extremely stupid, singing his worlds over and over and over - perhaps because if he ever stopped to think, he would know what an idiot he was being.
**** It odes not take much to figure out that I do not agree with Bon Jovi.
But that's not what's central.
**** Point one.
It seems that Bon Jovi is incapable of even the most elementary thinking.
If you open your mind - instead of sealing it off - you would get images like mine, brewing up in response to words that make no sense, in response to a vision of reality that makes no sense.
One can go on.
If you are where you are meant to be, it makes no sense to try to change anything.
You are meant to have no education, to die from a lack of adequate drinking water, to never get a chance in life.
You have a universe with no choice - you are meant to be here or there, pushed or pulled around by cosmic forces.
Why bother trying to make choices? Everything is meant to be.
If things go wrong, don't try to figure out what happened.
Is there something you could have done? Is there some resource that, had it been there, would have helped? Nope.
It was all just meant to be.
**** Point two - and this is the big one.
Bon Jovi is not alone.
His song did not introduce me to his way of thinking.
One might ask, what person in their right mind would say anything like he did? The answer: millions of people do not seem to be in their right mind.
Bon Jovi's un-thinking is widespread.
Millions of people of at least average intelligence utter the same thoughts - and hold onto them adamantly.
There are even New Age people who go further.
They hold that you choose your parents, so that if you are battered, raped, starved, etc.
in childhood, you chose that before birth (to learn some lesson or other).
**** Arggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That brings me to my central question: what makes people so blind, so blinkered, so resistant to taking in reality.
Many of these are caring concerned people, educated people (but then high-ups among the Nazis were also educated, some with Ph.
D.
's).
These people do not think it's okay to go around massacring millions, don't think suffering is unimportant.
But still they believe, ..
..
Wherever you are is where you are meant to be.
And I gnash my teeth.
They are not thinking.
**** I know I have not been using a nice or polite tone.
I know that the way I have been writing is not the best way to reach people.
But sometimes one gets fed up.
I think of all the people who have fought for equal rights - women, people from different races and ethnic groups, gays and lesbians.
At some point one gets fed up being reasonable, using a nice and reasonable tone.
bI don't want to resort to physical violence.
But I stop caring about being nicety-nice, sugar and spice.
Actually, the spice word has jumped out at me.
I think that at some point the sugar burns away and the pepper remains.
I have often made the points I have just made in a more quiet, neutral tone.
But this time, watching Bon Jovi making a fool of himself, I rolled my eyes and (as has also happened at other times) also let not nicety-nice words roll out.
No swear words.
Just words that came from a bit of thinking stated in a heated tone.
**** That brings me to a fork in the road, each leading to a different topic.
The first fork leads to other inane opinions - such as the inane opinion that all opinions are equal.
The other fork leads to quite a different question: are there effective ways of breaking the hold of stupid opinions? I am sure I will get to inane opinion number two.
But first, as for what I've found works best for me, on the one hand, nothing has worked all the time.
On the other hand, some things have at least sometimes worked.
Come to my site for my attempts at: Breaking the Spell of Stupid (making no sense) Opinions.
[http://www.
elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.
com/the-idea-emporium-stupid-opinion-spell-break.
html].
**** One hope: that there will soon be more good thinking, good judging, having a good sense of judgement.
I like it, having a good head on my shoulders.
**** Website: http://elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.
com All my life, creativity has played an enormous part.
The magic of story, music, idea.
In the creativity emporium, there's space for many forms of creativity - yours as well as mine.
One area is on ideas: [http://www.
elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.
com/the-idea-emporium-1.
html] Good thinking, exploration, analysis.
Plus stupid opinions exposed.
**** A central idea: "For humans, an idea is more important than a fact.
" Yet ideas can open our minds as well as close them.