Welcome Autumn!
Autumn begins today at 10:49am EDT, 9:49am CDT, 7:49am PDT.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posted by
listener
at
1:00:00 AM
Powered by Blogger. DownRight Blogger Theme v1.4 created by (© 2007) Thur Broeders
Wake up, sleepies! Time to remember that Howard is first.
ReplyDeleteYes, he is.
DeleteI've actually been awake 3-1/2 hours, but with taking care of other things have just now got here. I don't really rush through the morning.
Nice Firsties, Susan! :-)
ReplyDeleteI would love to have been a Sleepy today, but had to get up and open the Library. It was wildly busy, too, but now I'm home with my feet up...while Sweetie has gone to fetch VT*Grand.
Since I have a cold, I might have begged off, but VT*Grand has a cold too (and I believe we got it from the same relative), and her Mom is away all weekend, and her Dad needs a break. So we're taking her overnight as usual.
Tomorrow, most unusually, Sweetie has to leave for an overnight to NJ on business. So I got three movies to watch if the house seems too quiet, and first up is Seven Years in Tibet.
Guess I'm kind'a out of it. At first, listener, I thought the screen reader said the title of your movie was Seven Years in the Bed. Ahem. No doubt a shrink would make all kinds of hay with that one.
DeletePosted this at Jo's, asking here for any additional insight.
ReplyDeleteQuestion everyone: I have a dear friend -- bright, loving, lovely, talented, amazing in almost every way I can think of who seems to be being poisoned by the conspiracy theorists. Anyone have ANY idear what the appeal of that is? I find them totally unappetizing and with links leading to very nasty/hateful places (places that lead within the past century to the Holocaust). I almost wonder if it's not a vitamin or mineral deficiency. Or something just beyond my ken.
I listen to George Noory on a good many nights, and hear it all the time. Haven't been persuaded yet. WHY does it appeal to some minds?
Is it possibly related to *this*? I've had a theory for a long time that allowing/encouraging children to be scared gets them hooked on that adrenaline rush. And they never quite get over it. My parents absolutely forbid/ruled out scary stuff (only kid in my generation who never saw The Thing?), and it seems to have passed me by. I find reality plenty scary enough without deliberately paying someone else to give me an adrenaline high. One of my hospice patients was absolutely *addicted*! Even a car pulling into her drive could get it going. Even when she was expecting someone. . . . She also addicted her dog (whom I got to live with after, ack!). What the hell IS it?
Puddle, I don't know what the appeal is. Hadn't thought of Horror movies, books etc. being related, though it may fill the same or a similar void in the person.
DeletePerhaps both hate mongering and sustained consumption of Horror fill some sort of need or dificiency, indicate stunted development in some vital area of the brain. The more fully developed person might enjoy being scared in the sense of Suspense,where the less developped might enjoy slasher movies. Problem is, I don't have the foggiest notion how to treat this deficiency, how to encourage people to develop and evolve.
The need to have someone to hate seems so deep seated. And, you know, it's very hard to let go of hatred, even when you want to. Hatred gives you a purpose, a solid foundation. Letting go of it leaves you feeling lost. So, if you don't want to let go of it, no persuasion will work. It's so much easier to hate than to love. Love means coming out of yourself, actually having to work to think about the other person or group, to see them. Hate lets you sit safely inside yourself.
What I don't understand, what is the scariest part, is what you said at the beginning. Sometimes these people seem to be nice, kind, fun, even loving. The duel nature, split personality is unsettling to say the least.
I can think of two reasons why conspiracy theories might appeal. The first is that if either the world or your own life are not what you think it ought to be, it can be comforting to blame it on the Masons or the Rosicrucians, or the Jews, or the Bavarian Illuminati, or the black helicopters, or whatever. That means there's nothing you can do about it.
DeleteThe other, which I suspect is more powerful, is that if you've figured out what is really going on that makes you smarter than the poor fools who just accept things as they are.
Oh, did I mention the Big Banks?
DeleteI have no idea, but some people seem to need to feel like a victim. I have a relative who is quite sure the government wants to spy on him. He wouldn't let his wife get a laptop until last year and they still have the same rotary-dial hard-wired to the wall telephone. He has an unlisted number. He listens to political radio all day long. He's retired, lives far out in the country and has very little contact with others. Well, it's his life and his choice.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem is that he ruins every family gathering by incessant ranting, getting all worked up and red-faced. Nobody else can get a word in edgewise. He's incensed because I'm not all exercised about it too, but he never DOES anything. No political activity, no activism, just ranting. There is absolutely nothing in his life that would interest the government. Nothing. It would be like watching paint dry.
Not entirely his life. What about his wife? Does she share his outlook?
DeleteI'd love to have an old fashioned rotary phone. Have to give up my land line altogether. Did I tell you guys? After some fifteen years, all of a sudden there's some problem with my phone line. Dad got it traced out as far as my bedroom, but couldn't follow it up to the third floor. Since I spend most of my time on the third floor, it's kind of pointless having a line I can't use up here. So, reluctantly, I've decided to cancel the line. Don't want to do it, but it is the sensible thing. Will now rely exclusively on the iPhone. It's probably just as well that the decision was essentially made for me; otherwise I'd have dragged it out indefinitely. *sigh* It's just that I like a real phone, with a receiver I can get a good, firm grip on. Oh well, progress marches on, I suppose.
As far as I'm concerned his wife wins the "saint" classification. They have no children, have been together about 33 years and she has put up with far more shiz from him than I ever would. She does get away often on trips with sisters and mom and such, and she still works full-time, so she's not with him every minute. I still don't know how she does it (or why, frankly).
DeleteShe's not so much into the hate as the fear. She really doesn't see who's sponsoring it. Just that something big and bad seems to be happening.
ReplyDeleteAnd Susan, my SIL, the teabagger, has been paranoid nearly as long as I've known her. She'd only eat her *own* food at family parties because everyone was trying to poison her. . . . Genes? Hormones? Bad wiring? Hell if I know. Gotta give it to my brother: they're coming up on forty years of marriage, and he hasn't bolted yet, despite believing virtually nothing of what she does.
She's Tanner's grandmother, and was a *fierce* advocate for him, and a patient nurse when needed. I just don't know.
I don't know either. As they say, you can pick your friends, but not your family.
DeleteThere was a wonderful article some years ago, just after Princess Diana's death, written by Brother Curtis Almquist, an Episcopal monk. He spoke of the fervor and sorrow of the people of England and the world, at Diana's death. He wasn't commenting on the natural sadness we feel when someone of note has passed. He was remarking on the zeal with which people lined the streets and left flowers and burst into tears, etc.. I wish I had the article here before me, but he was basically saying that sometimes people take their own energy and hopes and lay them onto another person, and in so doing they never quite own their own energy and hope. This is a vicious paraphrase and he said it so gently and tenderly. But I think there is a similarity here. I think that in addition to having been bit harmed as children, those who follow the ways of hate, derision and division are doing so because someone else has modeled these views and it's someone whom they think has the power that they don't feel inside themselves. Paranoia itself is actually easier to understand: it's mental illness.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I know people who are wonderful parents, and who had wonderful parents, who were brought up to believe that Democrats are more or less Bogeymen and that people who disagree with what their Mama and Daddy taught them are just plain not to be trusted.
If it's any comfort (and I think it ought to be) I have friends who were brought up in the Bible Belt, who also brought their children up in the Bible Belt, and home schooled them...and not only do their children disagree with the style of politics and church that their loving parents brought them up to believe, but their loving parents applaud them thinking for themselves. Interestingly, the parents are not activist, but the kids are.
DeleteHang on tight, Cat, there's a big line of storms coming through your area very soon.
ReplyDelete