Taking the Easy Way Out - Humanity At Large

It has been a trend all too familiar for this species of ours: Taking the easy way out.

I just watched one of my favourite YouTube vidoes again. It's the video of JFK speaking at Rice University in September, 1962. It is commonly known as the "We choose to go to the moon" speech.

He references people climbing Mt. Everest, exploring the New World, and parallels it to going to the moon. Essentially, for whatever other reasons may have been present, whenever a great leap in human history has been made, it has been because "we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Now, I'd ask any human being on this planet, including you, dear reader:
"When was the last time you did something because it was hard?"

Assuming you actually HAVE an answer to that question, there are so many follow-ups possible, all revolving around "how long did you stick it out", "what happened in the end", etc. etc.

But I want you to empathise with yourself first, and ask this question:
"Before I did the Hard Thing, had I already attempted and/or discounted all the Easy alternatives?"

I wouldn't be surprised if the answer for every human being is "Yes."

Your dictionary will tell you that there is a word spelt like this "masochist". It's meaning, quite bluntly, is "a person who enjoys pain/suffering/hardship". In the Modern Mediocratic world, I wouldn't surprised if at the first mention of the word "masochism" your mind spun straight to the term "sado-masochism" or "S&M". Reason being: the Mediocracy has overplayed the sex angle so much that sex no longer has a choice but to occupy the forefront of our minds.
This is a sad fact, I know, but since most people are going to relate to it, I'll run with it for a moment.
"Sado-Masochism" consists of two words conjoined with a hyphen, "Sadism" and "Masochism". Respectively, they mean "I like to hurt people" and "I like to be hurt". Obviously, this represents a match made in heaven, at least sexually speaking.
It also represents among those that don't indulge it, a relationship of somewhat extreme behaviour. It's nature is one of pain and joy in another's pain, which would traditionally be considered "evil". "Hell" is another word that comes to mind, since we're talking about traditions. Whatever your personal vision of Hell is, we are all bound to picture a place where pain and suffering and hardship is experienced ceaselessly. I know what my own Hell is. So did Bill and Ted on their Bogus Journey (cue reference to 1980s sci-fi movie binary, about which almost no-one knows these days).

So, I have established that pain/suffering is, in the simplest of terms, Hell; it is just plain evil. If I have lost you up to this point, re-read that last sentence, then carry on with me!

Why, then, should I, you, or any other human being wish to pursue hell?
Why should a species such as ours, hardwired to avoid pain, and consider those that seek it to be evil, wish to undertake any sort of activity that will bring on more pain?

Near the end of Kennedy's Rice University speech in 1962, he makes absolutely no illusions about the fact that the space race will be "the most hazardous and dangerous" undertaking ever in human history.

What would you rather do?

Many people, hands down, are going to answer my rhetorical questions by taking the easy way out. I'm not talking about walking away from my blog here. This time, by "easy way out", I mean in the basest way taking the easiest possible alternative response. And that response is "I don't want to be in danger."

It is understandable. I have my room here in Sydney, you probably have some little hole in the wall that you want to snuggle up in and forget about everything at least once a day. If you haven't got it, you yearn for one.
The simplest and easiest solution is to do nothing at all. Once the base thought is made ("I don't want to be in danger"), the reaction will be to do nothing at all. And be honest with yourself. If you could get away with it, you would probably sit on your arse and do nothing. Not move. Not speak. Exert absolutely no energy or effort whatsoever.

But now, as my point comes into view, I will blow your mind with the first of many simple scientific facts: Even when you are sitting down, "doing nothing", you are still exerting energy!
....take a minute. ....... have you scooped your brains off the walls? yes? OK. Let's continue.

I made a big deal out of that last paragraph for the following reasons.

First of all (and most grandiose): you cannot escape science.
For a very quick reference, Israel, a religiously founded nation with a religious government, subsidises the lives of a certain type of ultra-orthodox Jew. These people essentially do nothing but whatever it is said in the First Testament of the Bible that Jews should do. In terms of Reality, they pay no taxes, don't join the army, and collect monetary benefits for no reason other than being good Jews and existing. Their numbers have grown since Israel's founding, from a mere rounding error in demographics, to TEN PERCENT of the Israeli population.
My point on this brief tidbit? The ultra-orthodox religious lifestyle, with it's easy-to-swallow notions of a Supreme Being telling us all what to do, no matter the "hardship" rituals that they do (without any gain too, I might add), is a life that actively and resolutely ignores science. Their lifestyle is extremely attractive, and their numbers grow. They are now so large that they are a totally useless burden on the Israeli tax system, which, like it or not, is the lifeblood of getting-anything-done.

Science, or in this case ignorance of it, is going to get you.

Even when you sit down, you are using energy! Your blood still pumps, your brain still fires off synapses. Your lungs still respire. And perhaps most relatable: your digestive system still digests.
See where I'm going??
In this sloth fantasy world where you can do absolutely nothing at all, the fantasy will only last as long as your last meal. Eventually, no matter how little you do, you are going to feel HUNGRY.

Most scientists and artists/authors have said on their own accord that HUNGER is the basest urge. Zombie and vampire stories (both teeny-bopper and horrific) spawn from the idea, as do bacterial and viral outbreaks in real science (which, sybiotically, feed and grow most of the zombie and vampire stories!).

So, from doing NOTHING, we are now suddenly HUNGRY.
Well, it's not really 'sudden' per se. I've never really gone from feeling totally full to starving. And if you follow a proper diet, the transition from nourishment to famishment is quite long - maybe 6 hours or so???

And what are YOU going to do, now that you are hungry?
Well, your limbs haven't had time to atrophy yet, so it is only in your mind that you are lethargic and reluctant to move. But that base feeling of hunger isn't going to wait for you.
And just like that, your fantasy world of Doing-Nothing-ness is shattered! ...you have to MOVE to the fridge and grab something to eat.

But, depending on how long you did nothing for, and indeed, how long your mind has fixated on the fantasy (long before you actually grooved your backside into the couch), you probably don't have a job.
And PRESTO! Enter here: all the intricacies and pseudo-sciences of ECONOMICS. I have little time for economics personally, so long story short if your heart and mind weren't into it, you'd have lost your job, your bank account dried up, and your fridge, through no accident of god, is EMPTY!

It would appear, at this point, that your existence now hangs in the balance. And the culprit? You took the easy way out.
Like it or not, now both science AND economics has got you. For the sake of mere existence, You can no longer do Nothing.

Now, read back over the blog-post so far, and get that all in your head again. I see some seeping out your left ear.

.....................................

And away we go again!!!!!

So, "Nothing" isn't an option anymore.

Since humans like to follow the path of least resistance, we'll take the next best option to Nothing. That may be anything, really, depending on how low you are willing to go.

If we stick with the generic human, then we have a person who has no will, no ambition, and no particular desire to go anywhere or do anything.
Lucky for this person, modern Mediocratic Capitalistic society is now tailor-made to this kind of person! To get along these days, the least one needs to do is take a skill-less job, meet credit-card debts half the time, not kill anyone, and watch 24-hour cable news on TV.

Here the paradigm shifts again. And again, it ain't really "sudden". It's been in motion all the time, we just don't notice it. It's like how the Earth revolves on it's axis to bring the sun across the sky. You don't feel the planet slipping out from under you, but thee is ample proof that it IS moving slowly and steadily.

Our generic human has gone from going Nothing, to adapting to the basest mode of survival. humans are social creatures, so unless this generic human talks to someone (even phone-sex hotlines), his brain is going to turn to mush and he'll die again.
To satisfy the need for interaction, these days Mediocracy provides its own substitute: loud-mouthed, rhetoric-filled stand-over men and women on the 24-hour cable news channels.
The emotions conveyed (in a notably brusque and abrupt way) are enough to jump the void between TV studio and viewer, and the generic tv-watching human feels a tiny, little, miniscule jolt of emotion every so often - enough to keep them going until the next one.

But what is really happening at this point?
Well, the generic human being is LISTENING. Again, not Nothing, but something. The base need to interact on any level makes the human listen to the TV. Since "Nothing" can no longer be Done, the human actually finds it easier to listen and follow along with the Lowest-Common-Denominator (LCD) drivel that the TV spits at them.

For easy typing purposes, and in a slight reference to a technological pun, I will now call our generic human an "LCDH" Lowest-Common-Denominator Human.

LCDH starts doing what he is told. LCD information is very easy to ingest, and along with the fast food, which is easy to obtain and eat, the LCD sits in front of the TV, gets fat, and eventually dies of obesity/stomach cancer/heart attack/stroke/whatever-the-hell-else-horrible-disease-is-caused-by-obesity.

AGAIN! existence itself is brought into unacceptable peril. First it was Nothing, then it was the Next-Best-Thing-To-Nothing.

What's an LCDH to do?

I think you can follow my logic here. Eventually, and quickly, the Lowest-Common-Denominator Human finds his own Next-Best-Thing to the Next-Best-Thing, forever approaching DOING-NOTHING, by seeking the EASIEST POSSIBLE WAY OUT. I say "way out" because that is where it inevitably leads! OUT of EXISTENCE.

By seeking the easiest possible thing to do, the human being places a limit on himself, brings down a heavy roller-door, slows down to a crawl, and is eventually eaten alive by the tides of time and science.

I was recently told that in the good old days, about 5000 years ago, early human beings did little more than pick berries and fuck each other senseless in group orgies. Sounds great, except for the fact that sexual beings are also fertile beings, and the original intention for sex was to creat more beings. Eventually, agriculture was invented to meet the demand of all the open, empty mouths, and so on and so forth things develop until today. Had the early humans taken the easy way out, and just fucked each other senseless in group orgies all day long, they would have all died of hunger - the berries and foraging trees would all be gone, and the only known food supplies eaten up. Our species would have died out, and the Earth itself would be a barren wasteland.
So, as good as sex feels, EXISTENCE still trumps it.

See what I did there? I logically concluded that Life and Existence itself is better than Sex! So put that razor blade away!

Bottom line in all of this (for now):

Taking the Easy way out is a guaranteed, sure-fire way to figure out be reminded just how mortal you are. In a Universe that is literally limitless, an intelligent being that takes the easy way out his entire life cuts himself off from it all.
Seeking base pleasures, satisfying only base needs - it all snowballs whenever Reality is injected into the scene. Suddenly (but not really) it seeking the easiest thing to do becomes the Hardest thing to do.
To get the world we live and share today to where it is, other people have sought to do the hard thing at the time. They have sought to climb mountains, cross oceans, and even rocket to the moon. Every step has been intrinsically linked to technological development. With each development, what constitutes an "easy life" changes in fundamental definition.

And where we are today, things are so complex, so much exists, that to stop now would be to give up on our existence itself. Every Damn Step of the Way, we've been told by our own actions that seeking progress and development and improvement for its own good is the only way to go.
If nothing else, it cuts out the hardships and suffering that come from the frequent and regular lapses in concentration, which are of course brought about because it seemed like the easy thing to do.

Personally, I can say that all this means I should try to be the best person that I can be. This involves not settling for bad choices, and not making bad choices more than once. At first realising that I don't know everything about the Universe, and at the same time knowing that I can if I really want to.

Human beings are not built, not evolved, and not supposed to sit around and do nothing. If we do nothing, we will die. If we take the easy way out, we will die.

Right now, in the Mediocratic world of 24-hour TV, pop-music, teen-vampires and all the other LCD factors, we are settling ourselves in for a nice, long winter's nap.
Why do the hard thing? Why go where no-one has gone before? Why climb that mountain, or cross that ocean?

Because Life itself is breathing down our necks, and it is going to abandon us if we sit around for the next eternity.

Why go to Mars or Alpha Centauri? Why develop new energy sources and ways of governing?
Because, just like every step in time before us, one day, sooner than you think, the same sort of crisis that led to agriculture, the steam engine, and nuclear power is going to strike us. Existence will get the better of us. Science, as the natural, passive force around us, will render us obsolete.

There really is no choice in our destruction if we do nothing, just a delay. The real choice exists, as it always has, right NOW! There is NO time like the PRESENT.

"Progress" is the only way forward. (Have you ever read the dictionary??)

I know I'll be trying harder to improve myself. I hope you do too.

From The Tominator.

From New Angles - Japan

In all my harpings to my friends and on this blog, it may seem that I hold a rather sardonic, if not downright negative view of Japan. I say this only because I realise that a lot of the time my writing can come across as exaggerated, not because said viewpoint is true of me.

As a Political Scientist, it is really my duty to take everything with a grain of salt, and to be critical (in a good and analytical way) about things, and the closer a subject is to me, the greater the scope of critical thought I can and will put into it.

So let me share with you a recent development in my critical analysis of the world and the massive shift in thinking it has allowed.

I have been job-hunting, as anyone who reads this blog already knows, and in between the rejections, non-responses, and applications, I find myself with time where I cannot amuse myself the usual way (ie outside entertainment) because it simply costs money that I don't have. But my brain works for free (though I really would like someone to pay me for it).

The "Evolution of Societies" or "Societal Evolution" is the name I have given to the new theory I am toying with. It should be noted that the word is "societal", and not "social", and the reason for the distinction I shall explain later. I promise.

But to the point for today, and where Japan comes into it::

I have identified a chain of evolution that any generic country could feasibly follow. Regardless of culture, language, race, or other such differences, this chain of stages appears to be a natural progression. I am still deciding what the final stage-names will be, but for now, I've been using these: Tribalism, Feudalism, Aristocracism, Preliminary Democratisation, Industrialisation, Capitalism, War, Full Democratisation, Hegemon, De-Industrialisation, Advanced Weaponisation, De-Democratisation, Downfall, (Repeat).

Like I said, I haven't decided the final names, because I want the names of the stages to reflect their relative developments.

The USA, and Western Countries today, would fall somewhere in the Hegemon-DeIndustrialisation stage.

Japan is still in the Feudal stage.

that was a big call, wasn't it??

Now ask yourself why does Tom think Japan is still Feudal?
And then ask yourself why I want to call this think "Societal" Evolution, and not simply "Cultural Evolution". The short and suspenseful answer is "Societal" is vastly more encompassing.

One more question for your alone-time with the lights off: Does a seemingly natural progression ALWAYS unfold the same for everything??

Stay tuned. I am going to flesh this thing out, and I'm going to use this blog to do a lot of it.

And the good news (apart from the coming political critical theorisation), is that this means that Japan can finally be seen as not just a stagnant culture that is whithering and dying, with absolutely not recourse or chance for redemption and revival.
It is now put into a broader context, and successfully related to the rest of humanity, as it bloody-well should be!, and given the opportunity, (regardless of probability) to change and redeem.

This should be good.

Suspense for now.

From The Tominator.