State of the Nation Pt:1

The one key component that almost all politicians glaze over without any consideration: the home. If you can teach your children the benefit of taking care of themselves and being a contributing member of society, they WILL ALMOST NEVER LEARN. There are a few inconsistencies, situations in which the child had a great opportunity to do NOTHING with their life. Us, for example. I very well could be in a lee county jail for drugs like 60% of everyone that we grew up with, and if you weren’t born with your entrepreneurial spirit and independence (not to mention inhuman work ethic), you would could have become the greatest Lehigh Special of all. For those who were not born with it, there needs to be less of a safety net, and more of a support system. Children need to learn to stand on their own, and work, for Odin’s sake. Seriously. I hate listening to kids (and adults, for that matter) these days. They don’t care. The entitlement that they believe that everything that they want, they deserve, regardless of whether they worked for it or not. Even worse, is those who are beaten down by their surroundings, their family, dragged down by their peers, and never learn to believe in themselves. They spend their entire lives just barely surviving and waiting to die. It makes me sick, and it makes me want to cry.

-jack

I know just enough to know that I don’t know shit.

In twenty six years, I have found that though smarter than many of my peers, I still don’t know a damned thing. There are entire worlds of knowledge, and disciplines of thought that I will never even hear about in my lifetime. There are songs from genres that I will never hear, books authored by people from countries that I will never be able to find on a map. There are approximately 6.7 billion (with a fucking capital goddamn “B”) people on this planet. I will meet, maybe- one hundred thousand, to pull a number out of my ass, but that is 1/60,000!!

Keep all of that in your bean for a second; with all of that knowledge, and wisdom, and experience- much predating modern memory by thousands of years, what exactly gives anyone the gall to say that their religion is the one true Way?

Do you know? I’ll wait…

…

Nothing? Really? Huh. You don’t say… Here’s where I make it about me again. For some background, I was raised in a Christian household. My mother is a Jehovah’s Witness, and much of the rest of my family is either non-practicing or Agnostic. I hold on to my Judeo-Christian beliefs at the core, but I realize that there were religions LONG before mine, and even though I pray to Yahweh, I don’t ignore similarities between the nine biggest religions on Earth (link)- not only do they share messages, many of them have the same figures at the core!

If you couldn’t tell before now, I am not the best representative for any religion. I drink, I used to do drugs, I profane, and I don’t really care about how others see me. I don’t attend any particular place of worship, either. I had one last bad experience, so I am wary. More on that later. I don’t want to be the guy who plays the pious man in public, but is a heathen in private. I am always honest about my faults and failings. It’s painful, but the other option is being a discredit to my faith. No reason to lie.

What really bugs the hell out of me is when people try to do the holier-than-thou, but is just as much of a secular bastard as I am. If you are hellbound, on Monday, don’t bother being heavenly on Sunday. Own it. I just hate to hear people talk about love and acceptance and kindness… as long as you are a member of their religion, or their church, or on the particular board at the church, or worship on the right nights. Honestly, truthfully, and with my entire heart…

Fuck you.

-jack