Yea, Nothing

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away...

Well, yesterday I finished 25 years as a classroom teacher and to say that I have learned a lot about my job and myself would be an understatement.

What I've learned is as follows:

Idiocracy Wasn't Supposed to be a Documentary

It's actually happening.

Idiocracy...the movie which was made as a comedy is becoming, slowly, the USA that we live in.

If you don't know the movie, it's worth a watch, but a regular guy is put to sleep in a military test for one year, but wakes up quite a bit later than one year.

And when he starts to interact with the USA of that time, he's the smartest man in the country...and he's an average intelligent person.

When it came out, we all laughed at it and thought there is no way this happens, but it is.

And this is how.

We live in echo chambers where we only see, hear, and read anything that agrees with our preconceived notions.

Because this happens, we believe that we are smart, when in actuality, we're not.

Social media has made reading books tedious and boring.

We have every desire and need at our fingertips.

And with ChatGPT and other Artificial Intelligence "stuff" becoming more widely used, it is really becoming "why do we need to know anything?".

Seriously, we don't need to know anything because everything can be looked up, done and accomplished without any talent or...knowledge.

We have people who cannot define what a woman is, when life begins or even believe that the Earth is flat and "smart" people supporting Russia and Hamas. 

And I mean...a lot.

So how does Idiocracy happen then? If we're not there yet?

We will become so reliant on our devices that we will not know anything other than what we know right now and what our algorithms lead us into believing, and then, probably, at some time those devices will fail us and we won't have anything that reminds us of the times before. 

Before we relied on our devices to tell us what to believe.

Before we just believed what someone we thought was smart told us to believe or feel.

Before memes were our source of the news.

Then, we can only hope some regular guy from the past, awakens from his slumber and saves the day.

Sigh.....

Sadness Today

I'm tired...

As you age, more people in your life, it seems, die.

People older that you saw as invincible as well as people your own age...they pass away.

But young people, it's just not supposed to happen.

I have ADHD, I have no doubts.

But I grew up in the 1970's and they just didn't diagnose that unless it was blatantly obvious.

So I have grown up adjusting and surviving.

But it keeps me outraged and upset about what seems everything all the time.

And it's tiring.

It seems that so many things have surrounded me, and are smothering me.

Coaching, teaching, my family life...I'm pushed or smothered and I've learned to compartmentalize and deal and distance myself.

But then an email comes through and one of your more recent students has passed away...18 years old.

I'm tired...

Eclipse of the Heart

On April 8, 2024, we had a solar eclipse.

It was weird because it was the first time I had been in a solar eclipse and in totality.

Totality is when the moon almost blocks out the sun and it gets nighttime dark where you are.

It was fun, interesting, bizarre, emotional, and I got to share it with my kids.

It felt weird because it made me get emotional, I mean, it's a scientific fact that eclipses will happen and have happened, they're not that big of a deal, but...

It made me feel small (in a good way) and I wondered what people a thousand years ago must have felt without the knowledge we have today.

But it has happened, it did happen, and will happen again in the future and it's not some cosmic special event, but it is something that showed the perfection and fine tuning of our world, of our universe, of our lives.

It was beautiful and humbling and if I am old enough again in 20 years, I am going to try and make it to totality again.

 

(above is 3:14 PM in the afternoon, just south of Brownstown Indiana)

Becoming Grandpa Hunter

I have become Gilbert Hunter, my grandfather. 

Grandpa Hunter worked through The Great Depression, survived World War II in Okinawa, then came home and in his final years, he did not recognize the country he grew up in.

Me, too Grandpa...me, too.

I see a country that has been held accountable for its past actions, and that is a good thing, but at some point we went past what was necessary and have become...blinded...or ignorant...or both.

It is funny.

Growing up, I always loved history and saw that there wasn't really anything going on that I remember reading about in the "old days" (I know now that not to be true).

I just never thought that I would live through all of that "old days" history in just a few short years.

From a pandemic (flu vs covid) to civil rights (60's vs. BLM) to blind following of a leader or belief system (Hitler vs. Trump and Hamas). 

I often wondered how such smart people could fall for such nonsense.

But I am seeing it in real time.

Maybe it's me and not everyone else, but...

I wonder what has happened to the country that I grew up in.

Now allow me to yell at these kids on my lawn...

Are We Going Mad or is it Just Me? Probably Just Me.

From my vantage point.

Choosing Jesus is possibly a bad thing, but justifying actual theocracies is ok.

The United States is bad, but countries that deal without 2% of what the USA does is great.

Walls are ok when it has to do with any other country, but not with the USA.

Anti-Israel Jews are heroes, but conservative African Americans are sell outs and black Americans are only allowed to think a certain way.

You can't define a woman, yet we have people in positions of power fighting for women's rights.

The police in the USA are evil, yet you will defend the "moral" police in other countries as part of their culture.

People here fight to keep the freedom we have and that's bad, but you celebrate that women can drive in a foreign country...I mean it is 2024.

Women's sports are good, yet you support it being infiltrated by non-biological women.

I was a pretty hardcore conservative in high school.

Then in my 20's I found some empathy in me and swung to the opposite end to the Left.

Then as I grew in my experiences and then my faith I straddled the middle of the political spectrum.

But what has happened in the last 8 years in something that my most ardent Liberal friends feel like they're being pulled to the middle and that is because the Left is moving even more to the Left.

So Bill Maher, Alan Dershowitz and other traditional Liberals are looking around and agreeing with many "conservatives" on many issues because as the Left moves further left, the center is moving towards them.

I hope for the sake of everyone that we look in the mirror and see what we're doing.

Because it makes little to no sense.

But maybe, just maybe it's because I am aging and..."hey kids! Get off my lawn!"