For this post, I am going to step back a little and look as someone besides Bonhoeffer for wisdom. This comes from an Italian economist Carlo Cipolla who was a leading expert in the field of human stupidity. He wrote his thoughts in a “tongue in cheek” Will Rogers style. To conserve space, I will only cover three of his laws here. 1. Distraction This … Continue reading Understanding Stupidity #8 – The Three Primary Causes
As far as I am concerned, everyone wears a mask. It is just the way we cope in the world. I have read so many articles in the last few months from those who have autism about wanting to tear off their mask and become their “real” selves. If everybody did that, the world would become totally unhinged and chaos would likely become the norm. … Continue reading Unmasked vs Unhinged.
Just a simple picture for this Saturday. It was taken 13 years ago today at our 21-year homestead. We were surrounded by hundred-year-old oak trees that were home for too many birds and other critters to count. This little guy and his clan made daily trips to the yard feeder. I miss him… Continue reading Simplicity…
I have been having some disappointments here at my retirement community lately. The main one are the dining options. I have a $350 monthly stipend for meals for each month. Until this month, I seldom used over $100 of that amount. When Omicron came on the scene in late January, the eat-in dining room was closed and replaced with a walk-up cafe option. That made … Continue reading RetComLife #29 – Some Disappointments
With this post, I am going to point some blame for our current problems, back to those who are shouting the loudest for change. I am one of them. We see everyone else trying to get attention for their issues, so we think we should too. The trouble with all this piling on is that it is cumulative and making too many people extremely nervous. … Continue reading Piling On…
When I was looking through my photo portfolio for my first post in the category. The one last week on avatars didn’t count 😉. When I came across this one, it immediately captured my attention. But, before I go into the story about it, I need to fill you in on some background stuff. Some years ago, when I started digitizing all the film-developed pictures … Continue reading A Picture is Worth #2 – She Wanted Kids So Badly…
One of the things I enjoy, now that I am a totally “streaming” beast with my Apple TV, is the screen saver that gives me a bird’s-eye view of the world. It was just showing the United Arab Emirates. The massive skyscrapers are spectacular to look at. Then, the thought came to me that all that opulence was made from one source, oil. That is … Continue reading Capitalism Just Might Be The Downfall Of The World.
The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us … Continue reading Understanding Stupidity #7. -Dealing With Slogans, Not A Person
I have been doing a LOT of reading about autism, particularly Aspergers, lately. Thanks to the Medium.com, when I searched for the word “Autism” I got thousands of stories. They kept coming and coming for days at a time. It got to the point that autism stories were the only thing I got when I clicked on The Medium link! I must admit, I read … Continue reading I Can See How It Is Easy to Become Obsessed
Some day, you are going to wake up and realize you’re too old to have any real fun. One of the downsides of being a dreamer almost all of my life is that I spent too much time dreaming and not enough doing. I rationalize that happened due to circumstances, but in some ways that is a cop-out. It was really more of a matter … Continue reading Some Day, You Are Going To Wake Up And…
I have been in my retirement community now for over seven months, but much of me still remains at my homestead. RetComLife is much different from where I had been for a decade. It is more difficult than I imaged to throw off the homestead mindset. Where I was once surrounded by peaceful forests, I am now surrounded by my fellow retirement community citizens. Where … Continue reading RetComLife #28 – Homestead vs Community Mindset
It seems that in the most fundamental way, man is changing. We are losing our humanity. We worry too much that others are trying to defeat us, or to destroy “our” way of life. We think that to survive, we must lash out at the world to keep it the way we want it to be. I think fear is the primary reason for this. … Continue reading The Humanity of Man
When I started blogging fourteen years ago, blogging was a leading-edge technology. It was primarily text with maybe a few images, but since the Internet speeds were less than 1% of what they are now, pictures took a long time to download and therefore seldom used. Since then, blogging has given way to many social media sources such as Vlogging, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Medium, and … Continue reading A Picture Is Worth… #1 -About Avatars
I read a recent article about Judi Dench, who is a famous British actress. In that article, she said The greatest thing of all is to have a sense of humor. And if you’re born with it, at least you’ve got that going for you. I’d be lost without it. Dame Judi Dench That got me to thinking about being able to see the light … Continue reading One Of The Greatest Things Of All…
This is a continuation of my series following Dietrich Bonhoeffer words about his belief that stupidity caused the Nazi era in Germany. I am trying to learn if his experiences mirror what is happening today in the U.S. Up to now, we have learned that you can’t defeat stupidity by reasoning with the person. The only way to make him realize his misguided faith is … Continue reading Understanding Stupidity #6 – Stupidity Of Following The Herd
It’s been almost 22 years since I left the corporate world, but I am still learning things about the current phase of my life, particularly from the book “The Joy Of Not Working”. I really don’t recall the first time I read the book, but I do remember that it greatly helped me on the journey to the best part of my life. It isn’t … Continue reading Lessons To Be Learned, Still…
Here is another Happy Hodgepodge post for you. This one is about a new streaming show I am now thoroughly hooked on. It is on the AcornTV streaming channel and is available for 4 seasons (2015 – 2018). The storylines, at least what I’ve seen, are fantastic. It’s kind of like Doc Martin, except it takes place in New Zealand instead of the UK. Love … Continue reading 800 Words
Since winter is my most devastating season, cabin fever has been very common to me over the years. Because of my type of deafness, snow and ice are my enemy. I have landed in the hospital on numerous occasions with rib fractures and vertebrae compression fractures because of falling on ice. In my prime, I was about 5′ 10″, now due to the above and … Continue reading RetComLife #27 – Cabin Fever
It seems that everyday I get a little more fed up with all the distracting annoyances that are put in my way of seeing my daily news feeds. The advertisements are becoming maddening. On many sites, they pop up over the top of the news article I have chosen to read. Other times, it seems there are more ads than information on my screen. Another … Continue reading About Inkl
I have all my 20,000+ picture portfolio in the Amazon cloud now, and a neat feature of this new, to me, app is that it gives me memory shots from each day from the past. This one was taken twelve years ago today. I do miss all the cardinals from my old homestead. They were a pleasure to watch, espcially when they panicked during snow … Continue reading On This Day – 2010
I don’t mind admitting when I am wrong about something. Many times I jump the gun. The website Medium.com was one of those times. On a previous post, I recommended The Medium as a source for unbiased news, but after using it for a few months now, I have to rescind that recommendation for a couple of reasons: I have found that its algorithm for … Continue reading I Was Wrong…
Have you ever stopped to think about all the great accomplishments in the world are done by strange people? At least, strange by majority standards. If you look at most lists of people who have likely had Asperger’s, you will see the best innovators, thinkers, and accomplishments in the world. It’s time to think about how we are currently trying to cure Aspies so that … Continue reading Strange People Have Done Great Things
Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in … Continue reading Understanding Stupidity #5 – Overcoming Stupidity
I am fascinated with the idea of utopia. It just seems that people ought to be able to live with one another in harmony, instead of constant conflict. That was one of the reasons I am attracted to the words of Jesus. He taught harmony with his command “As God loves you, love each other”. I hate war, and I hate the idea that our … Continue reading Utopia
“ People become stupid when they do not want to understand, where understanding would cause anxiety or guilt feeling, or would endanger an existing neurotic equilibrium. Deitrich Bonhoeffer This is a short quote from Bonhoeffer, but it speaks volumes about stupidity. I like the term Neurotic Equilibrium, it is a shortened way of saying they resist change, any change. I am just one to welcome and even seek … Continue reading Understanding Stupidity #4 -Neurotic Equilibrium
No matter how hard the shell is that people build around themselves, there is always a creamy center. At least that is how some of us view things. Getting to that creamy center is not always easy. Narcissists and autocrats build grenade style shells around themselves, while those who wear their heart on their sleeve hardly have one at all. You could say that those … Continue reading There Is Always A Creamy Center…
I am finding that one of the hardest things about living in my retirement community is learning who is who. I’m not certain, but I think there are about 400 of us living here, and after six months I can maybe put six names to faces. The staff always wear their name tags, so knowing them by name is easy-peasy. I am getting off-topic here … Continue reading RetComLive #26 – Who’s Who??
People don’t know what they want until you tell them. Steve Jobs I don’t know if the quote above is exactly accurate, but it gets the message across. In the corporate world, I invented several software tools, now called apps, for my 300-person engineering R&D team. The money the company saved from just one of those apps paid by my salary for my thirty-year career. … Continue reading People Don’t Know What They Want…
I have been trying to figure out a way to let some of my lesser seen creativity loose here on RJsCorner. My creative urges just never seemed to be quenched. Here is the latest idea. A Picture Is Worth… will be where I take photos from my 20,000+ picture portfolio and give you a story about where I was, what I was thinking, and maybe … Continue reading A Picture Is Worth…
Anomaly is a word that is not frequently used, but I kinda think it needs to be. The definition here is a good one, but I think it can be described a little differently. You might call it “an exception to what is commonly perceived”. An anomaly is not right or wrong, just different. It is just “on the margins” so to speak. I think … Continue reading Disorder or Anomaly?
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