Aging

I know I have to get older but does it have to happen so slowly? Everyday brings some new aspect of my mind or body which functions a little less effectively than it did the day before. The suspense of seeing what’s gonna break down next is what’s really killing me.

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Everything You Need to Know About Jordan Peterson (and it's not even 500 words)

Jordan Peterson is a professor of Psychology at the University or Toronto and he taught at Harvard, which is the Mount Olympus of academia for people who don’t know much about academia or Mount Olympus. As a professor at the University of Toronto, Peterson felt he was oppressed when he was asked to refer to students who identify as queer or transgender by their preferred pronouns. He threw and enormous academical hissy fit and took his case to the internet where he has found fame and fortune as a right wing guru railing against political correctness. Dr. Peterson’s whole POV is that human beings are capable of doing evil deeds while believing they are doing the right thing. Drawing examples from Nazi Germany and Socialist Russia, he argues adhering to an Ideology - in this case the ideology of political correctness run amuck in his eyes - creates blind spots in personal morality. As a form of security in a chaotic world full of people who believe they are doing good but ...

Solitary Man (and also two other people, I guess)

As a man, I value my alone time; as an academic, solitude is integral to my scholarship; and as a writer, you can’t be in here right now, I’m closing the door and putting a 25lb kettlebell in front of it, I’ll be out in a couple hours, bye! There’s a Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee on which Jerry Seinfeld jokes his first words weren’t “mama” or “dada;’ rather, they were, “leave me alone!” I’ve never agreed with another human being more. When I say, “I want to be left alone,” it’s a cry for help, and the help I need is for you to get lost. It’s a miracle I ever found a partner who understands. Thankfully, my wife values the work I produce in my alone time, so she's as understanding as a person can be when i tell her to scram. My isolation solution has been hampered considerably by the addition of baby. My baby is a brand new person who requires constant attention; more than that, she’s reliant on my wife and me to teach her everything. Since she would not exist on thi...

The American Media and the Rise of American Authoritarianism

Advocates of a free and open American society who cry “Fake News” are right to distrust the media, though their logic for doing so is severely flawed. It’s difficult to blame these people, however, as they are products of a society in which the American media has been misrepresenting reality since its inception. The media over simplifies serious political issues. Due to limited space in publications and limited airtime on networks or cable channels, news outlets are forced to truncate and simplify stories. Long speeches are reduced to two line quotes or 10 second sound bites . Thus, it becomes difficult to provide full context for stories or accurately convey the spirit and experience of an event. In their oversimplified coverage of politicians and serious political issues, the media tends to frame politics as a sport, focusing on the horse race aspects of elections and on keeping score of what bills have the votes to pass rather than focusing o...

Some Practical Advice on Living With Monsters

Ever since becoming a dad, I’ve been grumpier than usual. Some of my negative mood could be attributed to life as a new parent and adjusting to the new responsibilities which come with this new reality. Some of my negative mood could be attributed to the insomnia which, like some Twilight Zone, Monkey's Paw plot twist, comes hand-in-hand with the new workload and stakes of parenting. All your decisions have new weight to them, there’s a human being you have to keep alive and the twist is you get to do it all without sleep. Some of my negative mood could be attributed to the fact we bought a house and had to deal with realtors and lawyers and banks and movers and contractors and the rest of the people whose job it seemed to be to screw us over as we tried to make a home. Some of my negative mood could be attributed to the junk food I ate as a coping mechanism for the aforementioned stresses, which paradoxically made me more anxious then groggier, neither o...

Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dad

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