BranBucket

As much as I want to say this isn't true, I really can't.

Some people who are utterly tech ignorant and unwilling to actively parent their children might feel better about handing their kid a device so they don't have to deal with them.

However, this is primarily the end game of both targeted advertising and those who want wholesale surveillance of the population (who are often the same people). Tying the whole of your online presence to your unique offline identity.

Same.

If I'm going faster than other traffic and already over the limit by a decent amount, I'll move over once the middle lane is clear, but I'm not speeding up just because you're impatient.

In fact, I'll slow down just a wee bit.

I give no fucks.

But, the caveat to that is that I don't loiter in the passing lane at ten under the limit. It's the passing lane. I'm there because, you know, I'm passing people and not because I think I need to do 95 mph in a lifted truck just to assert my dominance over the morning commute.

I can see it, I think if you filled the undercard with some of the more obnoxious MAGA influencers and manosphere dorks you'd have a bankable concept here.

I'm listening...

It would take forever though.

Neither has the stamina to choke the other out, and both would be wheezing after a few punches. After two minutes we'd be forced to sit through ages of them limply clawing at one another's adams apples and throwing limp-wristed, weightless punches in the general direction of each other's groin until random chance decides the winner via myocardial infarction.

Back when the anti-5G hysteria was at it's peak, I wanted to sell cheap latex paint mixed with iron filings as a "high tech" coating that would prevent the 5G radiation from entering your home through the windows at the low, low price of $119 a gallon. (It also conveniently marked which houses the folks selling knives, magazines, and vacuums should visit.)

Sucks having a conscience sometimes.

I recall reading an anecdote from a track and field coach who said his discus throwers got better performance when he asked them to throw about 70% as hard as they could on a full strength throw. I wonder how that would fit into this model, because rather than probability, it's more about not letting your brain get in it's own way when executing a technique.

He can promise that it won't help because the people he's paid to put in power will refuse to act on it.

Shit, we could make life better for a lot of people if we just distributed the federal revenue we have now differently, but that requires not bowing down to the agendas of billionaire donors.

My wife listens to audiobooks out loud when she's alone and has left a more than few playing absent mindedly. Most of them seem to do pretty well in terms of both variety of acts and how they're described. But there are only so many euphemisms that manage to straddle the line between overly dry and patently rediculous.

She did have one book where the author over used the word cock enough that I swear the VA reading it was pronouncing it differently each time just to keep things interesting. It was kinda like: my Cock, MY cock, my coCK, my COCK, mY Cockkkk... my? cock? for a solid five minutes.

You can make your own meaning, an act that is also inherently meaningless but often satisfying, or you can just relax and enjoy the things that are enjoyable.

I used to try and explain it in more detail, but I've failed to get the point across often enough that I wonder if it really can be explained. I think people just have to sit down and think about it until it snaps into focus for them.

To some degree, what is important, enjoyable, and satisfying to each of us is determined by something immutable, but if we apply ourselves many of us can examine, reason, and then understand things to a degree that we have broad control over what we let matter to us.

Focusing on what we choose to let matter to us is key to living without meaning. But we must also embrace the other parts of life, because without them, the things we believe matter most would lose their meaning.

Without the contrast of suffering, we would struggle to understand joy. I think that's the hardest thing to accept for most.

"Things will get better when we bring about God's kingdom on Earth", etc. etc. yadda, yadda.