The Objective Eye

This picture has little to do with this post.

There are many dirty, nasty words in the English language but none are so reviled as one word, prejudice. The nasty of it is how people tend to make an unfair assessment as to the character of an individual or group, and how those people act upon that assessment to the detriment of all involved. Prejudice can be a terrible thing, but we all already do it on a regular basis every time we meet someone or encounter a situation. Prejudice is only really a preconceived notion or opinion after all, and we all have opinions. 

This is why the idea that is taught in schools of abolishing prejudice is silly. Don't get me wrong, I understand that when they teach children about prejudice they aren't talking about how little Billy prefers vanilla ice cream over chocolate because he thinks chocolate ice cream looks like poo. No, no, why it's silly is the fact that the problem isn't prejudice itself, the problem is prejudice founded on misinformation, fear, ignorance, or a cocktail composed of all of the above. Though because the above distinction is hardly ever made the general consensus is that you should never prejudice because it's bad, and since it's bad you should feel guilty when you do it. Ok, granted that last part I'm sure isn't what most people drill into a child's brain, but guilt is the general feeling that a healthy child suffers when they do something they have been told is bad, so it's a sad by-product of what we teach children.

Not the Objective Eye.

So from my stand point the focus is on the wrong problem, and so therefore I think the solution is wrong as well. Obviously I must have my own solution, well yes thank you I do. The Objective Eye! Now I'm not speaking of some strange disembodied floating eye that- ummm- floats everywhere, no no. What I am talking about is a skill that mostly everyone lacks, or lacks in degrees. It's the ability to look from outside one's self, apart from emotion, or past experience, and really critique your own actions. 

At first this is far more simple said then done, and when emotions run strong it is even more difficult to do. These emotions can also be tied to a very strong or traumatic past experience which can make the prejudice even stronger. 

Ewwwwww.

A good example is little Billy, convincing him that the chocolate ice cream clearly isn't fecal matter would no doubt be an easy task. Unless of course poor Billy was once tricked into eating actual fecal matter, then I'm sure he still might be rather resist to the idea of eating something that looked rather dookieish.

Now at this point most people would choose to shun the ice cream because it reminds them of some painful childhood memory, but not little Billy. He has the Objective Eye, and below is how he is going to use it to solve his dilemma,

• Billy: I don't want the poop cream.
• OE: Why not?
• Billy: Because it looks like turd.
• OE: Is it turd?
• Billy: It could be.
• OE: Why would you think that?
• Billy: Because that bully Big Turk (just go with it) tricked me into eating dog poop that one time.
• OE: Ok, but is Big Turk giving you the ice cream? 
• Billy: No it's my dad.
• OE: Is he going to give you poop to eat?
• Billy: No but he does make me eat all my vegetables.
• OE: IRRELEVANT! Does he feed you poo?
• Billy: No.
• OE: Then eat it you wimp.
• Billy: Ok.
• Billy: Ewwwww, chocolate ice cream is grosssss.
• OE: Understood, is it poop though?
• Billy: No
• OE: See I told you, nothing to worry about. Now whine until your dad gets you a vanilla cone instead.

In the end using the Objective Eye is just asking where the prejudice is coming from, is it from the rational mind? Or from emotion? 

It's asking why do I feel this way when I think about this prejudice? Is it really justified, or do I simply feel that it is?

The Objective Eye is all about simplification, about shaving away the layers of useless misconceptions, about reexamining the ideas that we already have, and about reigning in overwhelming emotion. It's about building the self discipline to consciously control responses that are largely based out of processes that occur without the knowledge of our conscious self. It's something that we all struggle with, and something that we all need to master.

   

The Many Habits of Succesful Customers

If you are like me, which I believe you are, then going shopping can be quite the traumatic experience. There's the crowds, the piteously evil sales clerks, the uncontrollable crying fits, and a myriad of other unpleasant obstacles waiting for you. Yes shopping is truly terrible, and incites fear in the most stalwart of hearts.

No need to fear though, because I have for several years been working on the inside of the retail world, facing almost certain death or insanity, observing the many habits of successful customers and the habits of the devious "clerk".  My latest incursion into the frightening retail industry has been the particularly perilous "grocery store", which I like to call Dens of Lies (Oh you'll see why).

And for the first time ever I will share these habits with you in the form of easy to understand tips. Get ready to be educated!

Habit Number 1

"I the successful customer am always right, therefore I can ignore all common courtesy and common sense."

Successful customer pictured above.

This is not so much a habit of successful customers more than an outlook, a state of mind if you will, that helps to shield the successful consumer from any harmful realities that will prevent them from getting what they want, when they want it.

It is a outlook that helps the successful customer ignore the screams of the less successful customers as he runs them down in his motorized mobility scooter of death. Or to yell at them because one of their bloody molars managed to lodge itself into his rear tire after he backed up over the poor sod's face, multiple times.

It is an outlook that helps the successful customer see right through the obvious lies of the devious dairy clerk (the most devious of clerks) when he is told that there is no longer anymore Balkan Style 2% yogurt, which is oh so creamy.

It is the outlook that you need to adopt every time you go shopping, lest you die cold and forgotten in the middle of the bulk isle at your local Den of Lies.

Habit Number 2

Never trust a word any clerk says, they have more bananas in the back. In fact they have a whole tree.

They have more in the back.

All clerks are pathological liars, down to the bone, and they can't be trusted. If the successful customer is told there is no more Apple Cinnamon Cheerios in stock, the successful customer will insist that the clerk (that dastardly clerk) should check in the back. If the clerk returns and still refuses to reveal the location of the hidden Cheerios then the successful customer will demand, as gruffly as possible, to see the manager. If the manager proves immovable then the successful customer will move on to Habit Number 4.

Note: During the execution of Habit Number 2 the successful customer will be sure to take up as much time as possible, because along with being horrid liars clerks also never have anything better to do than wait on the successful customer hand and foot.

Habit Number 3

Expect perfection, every time, all the time, especially 15 minutes before the store closes.  

Earlier model of Japanese produce clerk.

It is a little known fact that most grocery store employees are cybernetic organisms, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. As such they should always be accomplishing their tasks in a perfect machine like fashion. If they don't then they are clearly faulty and the successful customer will yell at them to initiate the automatic repair sequence built into each and every single one of those horrid clockwork contraptions.

What is this perfection that we should all expect though? Well it can be quite hard to tell since most of you out there are probably used to shopping at the smaller family grocery stores that utilize cyborgs, a disgusting melding of man and machine, which tend to suffer from many of the foibles of their more squishy side.

To know what perfection is we need to look again to the successful customer. Let's say the successful customer makes his way over to the seafood department and he finds that all of the halibut fillets on display are too large for his consumption because he has trouble pooping or something like that. The successful customer won't just ask the seafood robot to cut one of the pieces smaller, no he'll ask that the automaton cut it to exactly 218.52 grams. If the unfeeling machine refuses the successful customer will notice that the robot is clearly being rebellious, and fearing a machine uprising, will ask for the manager. If the manager concurs with his fellow mechanical abomination then the successful customer will proceed to yell at them both to initiate their repair function, if this fails the successful customer will move to Habit Number 4.

Habit Number 4

Always go shopping well armed, and take no prisoners. 

If nothing else works, the successful customer will pull out all the stops. Pulling out the stops can include but are not limited to,

This is the minimum.

• Throwing a fit like a child
• Threatening to never shop there again
• Using insults against employees, "soulless goddamned machine", and "lobotomized monkey" are good ones
• Writing a firmly worded letter to the CEO, or threatening to do so

And when all that fails the successful customer will actually go shopping well armed and start blowing the shit out of everything in sight.

  

More to come later as I help you be a more successful customer. You're welcome.

Sometimes it is the answer Pt2.

So a few days ago I wove an intricate, though crude, tale of a very real and unfortunate event that took place last Monday. Although I framed the event in a more humorous light the reality was far from funny. The reality was that a group of young miscreants violently assaulted one Casey Heynes and he was forced to defend himself.  This event, as well as every event that has followed it, show a disturbing set of trends in our society. In fact it brought so many to my mind that I have not the time to address them all in one sitting.

Instead of trying to cram it all in I'd like to address these things in a more slow and thoughtful manner, and I want to talk about how this situation relates back to an early post I put up about violence.

First we need to look at the instigator of this sad event, Ritchard Gale. In the video, which was recorded by and no doubt uploaded by one of Ritchard's "friends", we see that the first thing he does is poorly punch Casey right in the mouth. Anyone with no background in the military, martial arts, or self defense of any kind would miss that Ritchard's technique is rather sloppy. They would also miss the fact that it's still quite close to being adequate. That means that little Ritchard is emulating the movement as well as every subsequent movement and attack from someone or somewhere. What is most worrying to me about this is that Ritchard is learning something dangerous, something that is dangerous both to himself and others, and not obviously being taught the consequences.

I watch, you watch, and it's likely that Ritchard watch action movies packed full of explosive violence. Movies where the hero gets beaten bloody, gets back up and beats the villain bloody. Movies where the hero shrugs off repeated powerful blows to the head like he just had bags of cotton balls thrown at him. This is bullshit, which actually might come as a surprise to many people. You cannot strengthen your head like you can strengthen a muscle, and only16 pounds of pressure are required to cause a simple skull fracture (Link contains NSFW images). To put that in perspective, a fall from standing can apply 196 pounds of pressure to the skull, so 16 PSI (pounds per square inch) would be walking into something solid. Based on these facts it is plausible that Ritchard could have killed or crippled Casey with just his fists. Ritchard is lucky, he only has to apologize to Casey for being a little dick weed. Ritchard could have been apologizing to Casey's parents in a courtroom for killing their son instead.

As bad as that sounds though, Casey could have ended up in a courtroom as well. After all he did drop Ritchard down on the concrete like a sack of rotten potatoes. Lucky for everyone involved he managed to drop Ritchard on his side rather than his head, because with the amount of force that Casey applied in his rage he would have certainly killed Ritchard. This story could have been a depressing story of a wasted life rather than the useful parable it is.

Does this mean that young Mr. Heynes should have done things differently by walking away instead? Should he have taken the advice of John Dalgleish, an expert on child welfare, when he said, ""We don't believe that violence is ever the answer. We believe there are other ways that children can manage this." It would be nice if Casey could have managed the situation per Mr. Dalgleish's advice, but unfortunately he couldn't have. A fact that unsurprisingly escapes Mr. Dalgleish who obviously isn't an expert on violent confrontation or self defense. 

That doesn't mean however that Casey couldn't have done things differently, it just means that the peaceful, walk away and ignore the bully technique that most teachers, parents, and every expert like Mr. Dalgleish push couldn't have. When the confrontation is restricted to cat calling and heckling, then such pacifistic techniques can and will work, but once the name calling is upgraded to assault then such methods rarely retain their usefulness. At that point swift action needs to be taken so that injury to the victimized party is limited. 

The problem is that Mr. Dagleish, and most of society desires to teach children that violence is never the answer. They fail to see that violence is simply not the answer in most situations, but that it is very necessary in the worst situations. They also refuse to acknowledge that we need to start teaching our children about violence, and we need to do it in a holistic fashion. It's inadequate just to take them to the local McDojo and expect them to learn about the legal or moral responsibilities involved with the use of violence. We can't also expect them to learn about how to defuse violent situations from school when most of the teaching staff there can't even throw a punch. And we definitely can't expect parents who've grown up in the sterile safety of the suburbs to teach their children about being aware of potential danger in their surroundings. All things that would need to be included in proper self defense education.

Proper self defense education would have given Casey the ability to recognize that the hallway he planned to take that morning was out of view and extremely narrow. Thus allowing him to take a different route, perhaps one through a more public area, and avoid his assailants. Barring that, equipped with the right tools Casey would have known that he didn't need to slam his assailant to the ground but that he could have used his superior strength and his greater mass to simply pin Ritchard to the wall instead. An act that would minimize both his injury as well as Ritchard's. To top it all off proper self defense education would have given Casey the confidence he needed to keep a cool head in the execution of all of the above.

So Casey did in fact have a better set of options, but they didn't involve letting himself be a punching bag, instead they involve a better understanding of the nature of violence.

 

Sometimes it is the answer.

This is young lad in the picture to the left is Casey Heynes. On March 14th of this year Casey was enjoying a beautiful morning in sunny Sydney taking a brisk walk to class. The calm of his day was broken however when he was confronted by a pack of miniature douche bags, which I believe is the technical term for school bullies. Obviously aware of the nature of these young delinquents Casey put his back to the wall (smart) and suffered through their verbal onslaught giving his offenders no quarter. 

Frustrated by Casey's steadfastness, his tormentors decided that they would not settle for a simple rattling, they wanted to shake Casey to the core. They wanted to break him. Little did they know that at the core of this pudgy little man-boy was a heart made of steel and pure unadulterated shit kicking. They had no way to know that inside of MR. Heynes was a chained beast, and not just any beast but something like an amalgam of Fenrir, Cthulu, the Hydra, and possibly every other really cool mythological beast from days of yore. 

And when one of the more brazen little dick bags stepped forward to strike poor Casey in the mouth, Casey left The Beast chained. He showed that he was the master of The Beast, he showed incredible restraint. Unfortunately for all involved his small annoying attacker, who I will now call Yappy Dog, decided to try and step up the pressure. Yappy Dog proceeded to further antagonize young Sir Casey by prancing around like a fop and poorly jabbing his fists at our hero. Concerned for his safety and seeing no end to the half baked assault Casey decided he had enough. He lunged easily through Yappy's offensive, grabbed a hold of Yappy with  a grip of steel, thrust Yappy into the air, and planted him firmly into the concrete like one would plant azaleas if one had a fierce hatred for azaleas. 

Casey had unleashed The Beast, but he did not leave it so for long. Seeing his foe sobbing lightly on the concrete, broken, defeated, and most likely severely injured, Casey took pity and re-leashed the beast. He then walked away.

If you doubt my words that such a man could live in the body of a pudgy 16 year old boy, to you I say a video is worth many words.

           

What binds us together.

When I look out the window of my house at the people walking along, at the trees swaying in the breeze, or a dog watering a nearby swaying tree it easily appears that everything outside of me is not me. They appear entirely separate from me. The tree doesn't sway because of me, the people aren't walking along because I wish them to, and that dog isn't peeing on that tree for my entertainment. Yet whether or not any of us can see it I am quite undeniably linked with all the above mentioned things, as they are linked to me, and to you. 

This is a link that binds all people on our little blue sphere. When you commit  to an action, that sends a pulse over this link, and this pulse can be anything from dropping a piece of litter to smiling to a passing stranger. This pulse becomes magnified as it goes along, and this pulse goes quite the distance as it hops from one link in to the next, snowballing along the way. Each pulse can even travel across the very course of time itself. If you were to trace every pulse created you would probably be able to trace that pulse to each link, each person, at every point in time. Perhaps that pulse would never stop. 

Because it is our actions that create these pulses, we ultimately make our reality, we choose by what we do whether this link brings us together, or binds us in a chain of pain. We decide what the future will bring for every living thing on this planet. We decide it by the largest of actions, like donating millions of dollars to charity;  or to the smallest of actions, such as purchasing a pack of gum from Wal-Mart. 

Every decision we make shapes our world, so maybe it's time to give a little more thought to what we do.

We're all a bit addled PT.1

I bet that you are a fine human being. I'm sure that I would get on with you quite fine were I ever to meet you, or at the very least we would agree that it is best to be civil in our brief exchange with each other. Hell if you were to pay I'm sure we could even stand having a pint or two with each other. 

You as one person, a lone individual, are fantastic.

Unfortunately people, note the plural, are all a bit addled, bonkers, and crazy. They get together and their fear, ignorance, and every other feeling or idea they have becomes contagious.

They allow themselves to be riled up about things not worth getting riled up over; often they allow individuals who aren't as fantastic as you, individuals who are crazy or evil, to get them riled up over those things not worth getting riled up over.

In an effort to stem the tide of this collective insanity I want to drop a bit of my individual rationality into the mix. I want to yell over the din of fearful voices and say, "Enough! Everybody stop, calm down, and think for a second."

This is what I'm going to try yelling over tonight.

The short of it is that Fox News doesn't like a new hyper violent game called Bulletstorm which was released a few weeks back. They trot out a series of "experts" who claim that this game could dramatically harm a developing child, or that this game and many like it can be linked to an increase in rape. Violent video games, movies, and music merely teach children behaviours that they can mimic. Mimicry isn't the concern though according to the "experts", rape is, murder is, and abuse is. How though will any form of violent media turn children into criminals destined to commit the aforementioned acts? If a child becomes violent he is disciplined, and is so disciplined until he understands the offending behaviour is unfit. Good parents will set a proper example of what it means to be a decent human being. Really good parents will sit down with their children and talk about violence they see in various media. So if we can raise our children to not become the things they view in the media then what is the real issue here? It's the fear people have of violence itself and what violence can do to them.

Why fear it though? Violence is not evil, it's not a living being hell bent on turning our world inside out. Violence is merely a tool, a tool of good and evil men alike. Violence is a part of our reality, it's a part of  our very biological make up, and until we evolve further it will be a part of us we can never just sweep under the rug. We shouldn't just try to sweep it under the rug though, we should each endeavour to understand it. The fear that violence provokes in people is fear coming from a lack of understanding of violence.

Let's try an analogy to better frame what I mean by understanding violence. Think of defensive driving, what is it? It is a set of ideas and techniques that teach us to be keenly aware of the road. This awareness helps us to prevent harm to ourselves and prevent or mitigate the damage to offending driver(s) when something unfortunate does occur. Defensive driving in the end does much more for drivers than simply saying that dangerous driving is bad, because the reality is that there will always be bad drivers. Through understanding the task of driving becomes less daunting.

So goes it with violence as well, we can't change the fact that violence is naturally destructive, and we can't change how violence will be used by evil men. What we can change however is how we deal with the destructive effects of violence, and we can change how we deal with violent individuals. If we teach ourselves and our children how violence works, and what the moral and ethical implications of violence are, then we can ensure that when violence is used against us we won't cower in fear. Instead we can ensure that those who misuse the tool of violence are the only ones who suffer from it.

 

Meet Shecky.

This ladies and gentlemen is Shecky...

I don't like Shecky.

It's not because his large bulbous eyes remind me of childhood nightmares as they protrude profusely from his skull. It's not because his droopy, lazy stare reminds me of the hopped up junky that corners me every time I'm downtown to ask me for change. It's not because he's a turtle, in fact I love turtles.

No I don't like Shecky because he is an Easter turtle. A slimy, salmonella ridden usurper to the throne that belongs to the one true figure of Easter, I speak of course of the Easter Bunny.

For so long he has been the undisputed king of Easter, not only the king of Easter but almost a godly figure in Easter lore. Coming to the homes of good little children he hides treats of chocolate eggs; truly blessed chocolate eggs that come from his holy body. Once hidden the children seek out these eggs and upon finding them, they devour them and except the blessings of the Bunny. Then parents go out and buy knock off mystical bunny eggs for the children who were too slow to find any during the sacred Egg Hunt.

But how ladies and gentlemen are those children supposed to do this if we allow Shecky to don the ears and take the Bunny's throne? Where the hell will the eggs come from? Everyone knows that turtles don't lay eggs, it's obvious that they reproduce asexually, I can't tell one turtle apart from another so they obviously must.

Shecky's anatomical inadequacies aside, what do we do when every other animal on the planet wants to play Easter? Who's next? The Easter Wombat? I sure hope not, because wombats are ugly, really, really ugly. It is a very slippery slope, one that could lead to the focus of this most sacred holiday moving off of our beloved Easter Bunny and unto this green little devil known as Shecky.

So as the faithful subjects of the Bunny that we are we must take out our wallets, go to his aid and say,

"No more! Sit down Chinchilla, you don't get a holiday. Unless it involves wonderfully soft coats."

This is my brain all over the walls.

We all have bad days, sometimes when someone asks how the day is going the only response is to bring out our little imaginary gun, cock it, and figuratively blow our brains across the walls. Everyone gets that feeling sometimes, and I am no exception. 

What I do to curb that feeling of relentless despair is think; I think of a problem to solve or the problem I'm having and I work through it, or I think of something funny and giggle to myself while people around me stare at me in bewilderment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

When it doesn't work I get out that little imaginary gun of mine and I use it to smear the contents of my skull across my blog, it's like a little vacation for me. It's my 9mm Vacation, care to join me?