Whoops, I kind of flubbed this one. I miscounted how many podcasts I actually needed and how many I had. So, you get one more short. I promise that I really didn’t mean to do this. I guess that proves that my mental clarity is somewhat questionable. But, at least I am home now.
End Your Programming Routine: You don’t get better if you don’t push the limits of your capability. But, even then you don’t improve if you don’t analyze how it went and try to make improvements. I know that there are things that could be better, hopefully you will se that next time.
We are off to the races. It feels strange to say that with this chapter, we are over half way through the book. After months and months with Atlas Shrugged, we are going to finish this whole endeavor in one month. And that includes a summary of the entire book as well.
There is a lot going on in this chapter. It has to be the case because there is less than sixty pages remaining. So, the action has to go pretty quickly. I guess that this is the transition chapter or the beginning of the awakening within Montag.
The chapter began with Montag questioning his happiness. Using natural reckoning, he surmised that if he was unhappy in his position, then maybe doing the opposite would be the solution. The opposite would be instead of living in an artificial fantasyland like wall to wall TVs stroking your ego all day long, read, think and discuss with others to come to a higher understanding. This of course was highly illegal.
Along the progression of the story, Montag seeks self validation, a mentor and then finally proselytizing. I wouldn’t expect anything but trouble from this, but I won’t spoil the story completely. Instead, let’s turn focus on the concepts of the chapter. There are a lot of things I could say about different themes going on but, I think all roads lead to this quote from the character Faber.
“Number one, as I said, quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two.” Depending on what side of the fence that you are on, this is Bradbury’s definition of the value of books (or the danger thereof).
I take it a step further for not just books but media content in general. I suppose at Bradbury’s time, the choices were quite a bit more limited and even dare I say definable. If Fahrenheit 451 were written today, it would have to include podcast, video streaming and movies and TV, etc. I am starting to develop some ideas of my own in my journey with philosophy. But, this is a topic for another day. Right now, I am focused with Bradbury on his stance that the ability to read/watch/listen to what you want is an important tenant of freedom. Since we are discussing Bradbury, I will use the word read to mean any form of media consumption for leisure in this post.
Media can be propaganda and propaganda can be media. So, while I am all for the freedom of choice to consume whatever materials people find interesting and satisfying. we have to be guarded that our choices aren’t ‘shining our own shackles’ if you will. The counter point to this is what people often label as ‘mental masturbation’. I will elaborate more on these two below.
As a recent phenomenon, some people binge watch a show like ‘The Bachelor’. This is an example of what I am referring to as ‘shining your shackles’. I say this because I have never found anything redeeming about the series and I question even the entertainment value of the concept. It remains extremely popular because of lack of depth and even re-enforces a fairy tale delusion. People watching it are proud that they have seen every episode and even pick sides like at WWE style event, meaning it has a scripted outcome and artificial action. There are even oddsmakers in Las Vegas on the whole process.
Like a three ring circus, keeping people dim and entertained is a strategy for manipulation working in concert with advancing more sinister ideals. Sure, the media companies goal is to make money. All the while, attention to any sort of controversial or important subjects are out in the background. People in this circle tend to base decisions on how they feel about something rather than the facts of the situation.
Contrast this to the opposite side, maybe someone more like myself. I am reading all these books like 1984 and Atlas Shrugged for fun. I do end up trying to advance what I see are the values of the books by writing but there is a cliff there. What I am saying is that too much of this self-validation becomes mental masturbation. If all I ever do is read and write on all of the points that I already believe then I am just as guilty of being in la-la land as ‘The Bachelor’ crowd.
I of course believe that reading what you want is important. The zen master is able navigate both sides of the spectrum and really get to meaningful purpose. Some degree of absolute entertainment is fine. Some degree of value based entertainment is fine. Really to make it work effectively, those two groups and concepts have to meet in the middle.
I will go back to the structure of the quote now. For the most part, the leisure portion of the equation is not a question in the United States and in the book. As such, I will ignore that one. Quality information is hit and miss. This is what I was getting to with the propaganda sentence that started this post out. I do think that this is worthy of its own discussion. Suffice to say, we have both quality and non-quality work prevalent in society. And in theory, we have the right to discuss.
Now I know that this is going long but it is worth staying here for a bit. Let us assume that we had quality information about a vaccine discussion. Technically, we have the legal right to discuss pros and cons of such. However, the places of such debate were labelled as ‘Dangerous misinformation’ on social media. I ask you, what is more dangerous having the debate or silencing one side?
I will leave with this, 1938 Germany. Official government policy was to promote and cultivate a master race, read not-Jews, not-central Europeans, you know the list. Dangerous misinformation was to stand otherwise to that policy even though plenty of people secretly didn’t believe it. They had no real safe way to fight back except in the underground at the risk of death.
My grandparents were alive (and adults) at such time. My father was born the year after the war ended. We think that we are so far removed and much more sophisticated to ever go back to such a horrible place. It’s not that society has changed, the level and mechanisms of propaganda has changed. Even our recent ancestors had a better sense of values that we do now. As such, they didn’t tolerate a man calling himself a woman to win every swimming event. That’s OK, there is a new season of ‘The Bachelor’ out. We can deal with this problem another day.
End Your Programming Routine: How do we end our programming when we are strung out on anti-depression pills and zombies in front of the TV? My belief is that we have to do what matters. What that actually looks like and how it is done I suppose is the real solution. I try to bring a mixture of problems like these types of books and then solution like building or fixing or making something. I am not ignoring the problem it is just like the scale is so massive that I can’t do it alone. So I do what I can.
I can tell that I am starting to lose it because everything is starting to get screwed up. My SSL certificate expired and I really can’t deal with it on the road. I am getting things out of order for publishing and producing more podcasts than I actually need. You probably wont see all of this unless you are really paying attention.
My mind is tired. I explain more in today’s episode but right now I feel like my normal life is a lifetime away. Today is about my perspective on how I feel traveling. I know others that love life on the road, but I could just as soon never go on another business trip.
End Your Programming Routine: Just because there are some perks doesn’t mean it is fun (to me anyway). I have to say that I commend those people that work rotating shift work as a career. Maybe it would be different if I did it my whole life but my brain is starting to get foggy. Long days with little rest is starting to wear me down.
“I ain’t got time for this…” for some reason I am getting a security warning when I try to go to my site. I really don’t have the tools for this on the road. Likely, when this is seen I will have solved the problem but when I am writing, it is still real. To top it off, I am mentally beat. Truth be told is I finished the editing for my podcast yesterday but I ran out of time to publish. That means yesterday was empty. So this was yesterday’s podcast.
I really wanted to title this “Mental Masturbation” but I really didn’t want the title permanently on my feed. Not that I am ashamed of it, but I feel like there is a more dignified title out there. Like I said, I am just mentally beat and don’t have the energy for creativity. Heck, I can barely come up with some half-assed content.
End Your Programming Routine: We need to put rubber to the road. Mental masterbation is everything that I mean. On the right side, we like to talk about CNN drones. Well guess what? On the left side is Fox News drones. Both sides live by consuming content without thought. And the real tin hatters just keep coming back for more. Don’t do that, think about what you are reading and consuming. Neither side is right but there is truth in both.
Yes, I am super late today. Let’s just say that I enjoyed my time watching the Super Bowl but not so much the day after. Anyway, I am finally feeling alive again. This isn’t my best work I have congestion and there is a bit of an echo in my recording. I need to try and record in a different location so that I don’t get so much echo. But it is good enough for now.
Today I am talking about books again. It is really me kind of working through my what my Friday book reviews look like long term. I think that they are going to stay pretty much the same this year but I don’t see them going on forever without some tweaks. I haven’t completely made up my mind yet so everything is subject to change of course.
End Your Programming Routine: I won’t steal my podcast thunder but like everything I do, I question the status quo today. I suppose that if I knew the answers to my philosophical questions then I probably wouldn’t have much of an argument. You listen and you tell me if I am off base with what I feel about classics.
If you look at all the lists of books like or books related to or if you liked insert 1984/A Brave New World/Atlas Shrugged, Fahrenheit 451 is on the list. You knew it didn’t you? The fact is, I have been watching the library since I finished 1984 (which was 2021 now) and it just hasn’t been available. Since Covid, the library automatically renews books that have exceeded the due date. I suspect that Fahrenheit 451 is lost.
This is a book that I read as a 16 year old. I remember checking it out from my high school library. It is like reading it all over again because I don’t remember a thing except what the cover looked like and that it was a paperback. While I have technically read it, you can safely assume that I won’t have preconceived notions at this point.
Some of these books, I don’t know if it makes sense to do a chapter by chapter review. Although, it is difficult to determine if you haven’t read or don’t remember the book how to actually approach it. At least this time, it will be what it will be. I am going to examine the concepts of Chapter one.
Let’s first introduce the main character, Guy Montag. Guy is a what is called a fireman. In this day and age, a fireman is someone who burns books. With it is also the house, it’s possessions and sometimes the occupants are burned. What is supposed to happen is that the building is fire resistant and the occupants are arrested which means only the books and flammable possessions are burned.
Guy is married to Mildred. She has clearly drank too much of the Kool-aid. Our first introduction to her is in an overdosed state, zoned out on life by pills and reality with earbuds in. She is the manifestation of the society: programmed by TV and propaganda and depressed as a result.
Guy has a short. platonic relationship with a 17 girl named Clarisse. She seems to be a wild-child in that she no longer attends school and acts as she pleases. While she seems ignorant of the political environment and social norms, it is that same characteristic the leads her to draw her own conclusions in life without the influence of propaganda.
Between Guy’s career, his wife’s mental state and Clarisse’s intuition, is the concept of the chapter. Idle time leads to reading, communicating and thinking, Those activities lead to questioning the status quo. As a result, reading is banned, communicating is limited and thinking is diminished. Those activities have been replaced by the TV. Boy isn’t that the truth.
My kids are in high school. Since I live on Main street and that is also the same street as the high school, I often see a lot of kids walking to and from school either passing by my house or me travelling back and forth to school. The number of kids that I see walking and staring at their phones is incredible. My kids do it too.
Electronics have been around a long time, ninety years since radio was a mainstay in the home. Never has such a device created zombies but before cell phones. The minute that they leave the school, they have to see what they missed on the phone. That takes priority over the environmental factors such as the weather, traffic and life all around them.
Ironically, we live in a time where it is easier than it has ever been to be both informed and to research information. Yet society is becoming dumber and more ignorant than it has ever been. You would likely say that the newspaper is irrelevant. That being said we have less outlets producing journalistic level news stories. In theory, that is non-biased, properly sourced articles written to inform the reader.
That has been replaced by twitter polls, Facebook rumors and TikTok dances. Nextdoor is a pile of garbage that is more concerned with proper parking and home owners association rules than meaningful neighbor interactions. My point with any of this is that we have replaced curated information produced with ethical standards to a free form of mind control. And with that, people are driven into ideological camps never to return, along with their degree of logic, rhetoric and grammar.
We no longer have to worry about idle time. People are blue pilled in the Matrix and they do it to themselves. As soon as they get a chance, they plug themselves back in to the programming. Even to the point that they can’t even walk home without staring at the screen.
End Your Programming Routine: It seems obvious that to end your programming you have stopped doing it to yourself. I think that it is important to realize what is going on around you so that you know you are being programmed. Only then can you make the decision to stop self-inflicted problems. I hope people are not so apathetic as to not care, but I am very suspicious. As with all problems, start with your circle of control, yourself.
Sometimes things occur and we don’t even realize that we play a role in either the outcome or the process. It takes a deep retrospective look into who we really are to understand that. If you think the a 2 million dollar toilet is ridiculous, you might want to take a look at some of your other beliefs.
End Your Programming Routine: The world is not always a pay to play model like we are taught. Sometimes, it is others pay so that we can play. Think about when we vote obligations who’s future might ultimately end up binding into that system as well. I don’t think a 2 million dollar toilet is so bad considering what you are paying for.
That didn’t take long. I put in the work to understand a little bit of Garage Band for iOS. Some things I found easier, while others were chores but I guess that is how things go. One thing travelling can do is leave you with a lot of time to think and that is exactly what I have been doing.
End Your Programming Routine: While I said it once, I will say it again… no promises here. That being the case, in order for me to get to the next level with this I need to do something different. After all, I could have 1000 true fans and not even know it because I have no constant interaction of even a good way to gauge interest. Hopefully this becomes more than talk, don’t expect it tomorrow, like my Garage Band editing.
I always remember this day because it is my brother’s birthday today. He is not going to read this or listen so to stay on topic, I am testing my headphones I got with my phone four years ago (and never used) as my microphone. I think that it came out pretty well.
End Your Programming Routine: As always, you are going to have to tune in to hear what I am really saying. That being said, the direct connection is always the most robust and simplest way of doing things. This is what I am doing as well as always testing new things. Hopefully, I will spend some time working with Garage Band these next couple of weeks as well.
You don’t have to be an Eagles fan or a Chiefs fan or even a football fan to enjoy the Super Bowl. To have a really great experience, I think that you have involve a game time menu. This is really where the rubber meets the road in today’s podcast.
Aside from the main attraction, the sideshow act is all about what I am going to do for the next couple of weeks. Of course, we will all know more as we get there. So let’s see if I stick to my game plan or not.
End Your Programming Routine: If Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl of cooking, then Super Bowl is the Christmas of cooking. It is loud, informal and fun. Don’t be caught ordering crappy pizza or store bought vegetable platters with gelatinous dip. A little more prep and many of these things can be made with little effort and are certainly way more healthy and almost likely taste better. Have fun and enjoy the entire experience.
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