Greetings!
And welcome to your Fuzzy Friday Open Thread with your ever-lovin' cuddley-wuddley host, Marko.
I'm just sitting here in front of the ol' computer monitor this evening, clacking away at the plastic keyboard, thinking I need some music to listen to--
Hmm, I left that CD around here somewhere...
I find that when I'm listening to music while trying to write something I do better if I choose something instrumental. There's a part of my brain that wants to take over my fingers and force them to type any lyrics I'm hearing.
Even more entertaining is my tendency to type to the beat.
That gets me in all sorts of trouble.
There's a whole flood of subjects that I'd like to write about and perhaps the best method of presenting them would be to not worry about any one subject carrying the whole diary.
I'd like for there to be a theme to all of the blithering though.
How about "Fear"?
I remember listening to an album of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner doing their "2000 Year Old Man" routine. The 2000 Year Old Man character claimed in that routine that everything stems from fear. Shaking hands was a way to check to see if someone was holding a rock or a sharp stick. Marriages started with one person asking someone else to look behind them for danger.
"For how long?"
"Forever, we're married."
And I'm afraid that I didn't find the main part of the routine about fear. It's buried deep in long videos in unofficial channels... But I did find a video of Brooks and Reiner performing a live bit from their routine which didn't make it onto the "2000 Year Old Man" album.
If you're still not afraid, step right over the decoratively whorled, ginger hairball.
I wonder about how people become afraid of things and why they let themselves be afraid of things and if they deny that they're afraid of the things they're afraid of and if that denial might be from a fear of fear...
And then Franklin D. Roosevelt swats me upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper and I wake up in a cold sweat, shaking.
Time for a cup of cocoa and a bit of introspection of how my own fears are stunting my growth.
Being afraid takes so much energy. What a drain-- what a waste.
I confronted an old friend on Facebook about a bit of paranoid conspiracy theory he was peddling. I posted a link to a site that has dedicated a great deal of effort to thoroughly debunk all the ignorant nonsense. Maybe he read some of it. Maybe he learned that there is a world outside of the bubble. He did jokingly wish me a happy birthday as his "anti-conspiracy theorist". Still friends. I was afraid that I might have lost him...
And yeah, I did celebrate a birthday this week. Should be having some of the family over tomorrow to split a cheesecake I'm baking in the morning. The actual day itself was nice enough, weather was lovely and I managed a bike ride with Mrs. the Werelynx. Unfortunately, #2 Son came home from school that day looking a bit green. He had a sore throat and a fever. Took him in to see his doctor yesterday and it looks like strep. Good ol' penicillin for the lad and something to keep his temp down.
He seems a bit stronger today. It's going to be a long week with him home from school while he finishes taking the antibiotics.
So here I sit and clack. I've begun to limit my wandering around Daily Kos more as I've watched some subjects devolve into fearful yelping. When the fear kicks in-- logic takes a vacation. Like that friend of mine going off the rails... he'd only learned one side of the arguments. He was living in an informational bubble bloated with sources that only confirmed the conspiracy.
I see a lot of fear of Muslims lately. I encountered it at a friend's birthday party a couple of weeks ago. People who don't know any Muslims are easy prey for all the ignorant fear-mongering going on. I'm not the gentlest educator to the xenophobic masses, but I do what I can. I wonder if folks in anti-Muslim bubbles ever manage to hear about the Muslim scholars and leaders condemning the terrorists.
I like to remind people that when I was a kid the face of Islam in America was worn by Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
I thought we were over this already.
Much of this makes me wonder about my own inner battles against my own ignorant opinions that have or might develop into fears. What bubbles am I blowing? Am I letting myself be trapped inside of bubbles that I'm not even aware of?
What little bubbles of fear are smothering me?
Anybody got a pin?