How I feel

Since turning 49 just over a week ago, I seem to have hit a writing slump. That’s not to say, that I was writing anything good up a storm prior to that milestone (for me it is).

I don’t know what it is. I feel great. Better than great actually. I could be 48, or 40 or 27 even. Maybe that’s it. I feel too young and my mind is on other things, younger, reckless things, and writing seems like a chore.

But…

I have been contemplating many things. And no, suicide isn’t one of them.

For instance, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is purring again after nearly two years of upgrades and renovations. Since Sunday, actually. That’s really great. It’s a reflection of everything that’s good about the world.

Elsewhere there’s ISIS, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, the last only recently massacring around 148 students in Kenya. Then there’s Pat Robertson and Deepak Chopra, alternate sides of the same ideologically unstable coin, whose regular mutterings are quite frankly, insane. I pick on mention a few, but all of these represent a side of the world that is not good at all.

And here in South Africa, we have a group of militant students who are of the opinion (or more likely have been manipulated into believing) that defacing and toppling historic statues will change their lot in life. Right about now they’re watching in glee as a statue of Cecil John Rhodes is being removed from a university campus.

But, the LHC is humming softly and I feel good…

A quotidian mess

Facebook appears to be the favoured dumping ground for usually soppy quotes by those who either harbour an agenda to mislead, or who are either too lazy to validate or just plain credulous. In the case of the former, these quotes are often misattributed to celebrated personalities. I have no doubt that Twitter experiences its fair share of quote dumping, but since I’m not a subscriber, I’ll limit myself to what I do see.

The innocuous quotes are reasonably acceptable, but annoying in that they occupy far too much Timeline real estate. The others are sinister and hide religious, political, cultural or other nasty agendas, and when spread around may case serious harm.

Off course there are quotes that are genuinely of a scientific, skeptical and educational nature that are beneficial and if humorous to boot, are quite acceptable. I’m also not averse to the odd salacious quote that exposes religious, political or social douchebaggery.

I can’t say that I’ve come across too many examples of quote mining, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if that sort of thing happens quite frequently in certain Facebook circles, especially those that promote religion and pseudo-science.

I often wonder what my Facebook friends think of me when I don’t like one of those soppy quotes they post. I have actually gotten into arguments when I commented negatively on some of them, so refrain from that sort of thing these days. The religiously inspired ones are particularly annoying. Sometimes in a fit of rage, I will repost them on my own Timeline with a snarky comment, but I try my best to control my ire. When I fail, I do hope it does not do too much damage to my Facebook friends’… er egos.

I am really pleased however that hardly any one of my Facebook friends have posted the unadulterated horse-shit that seems to be the make-up of Deepak Chopra. You could string together any of the words he spews out regularly, in random, and they will seemingly sound profound. I shit you not. Here are some examples:

Perception arises and subsides in cosmic success

The future exists as dimensionless balance

The unexplainable grows through subjective phenomena

Why not amuse yourself some more with this Random Quote Generator of the “enigmatic wisdom” of Deepak Chopra.