Yes I wrote “pubic” instead of “public”. I ain’t changing it.
I’m a hermit. I don’t go out into public for shit.
Grocery shopping? That’s why god made Amazon.
Gas stations? My car got repossessed. Checkmate Big Oil!
But I went inside a Cracker Barrel today. Probably for the first time in years.
I’m always intrigued by how we equate our freedom with being able to consume products. It’s just one of the many absurdities in modern life.
But my approach to customer service is always purely transactional. I don’t expect to be tugged off. I don’t even expect eye contact.
Customer service is always underpaid and undervalued and I just want to make your job easier because you don’t want to be there as much as I don’t want to be there. It always amazes that there’s jackasses out there that don’t understand this.
So I went into Cracker Barrel to pick up my meal because I refuse to eat with the dirty, filthy masses. It was supposed to be brought out to my car (that got temporarily unposessessed, of course, just so I could pick up this meal) but the check-in app wasn’t working and no one was answering the phone.
So I walked in and some old fart was flirting it up with the 19 year old cashier just trying to pay the bills while his kids were running around and fucking shit up. I said “hey buddy! This is Cracker Barrel! If waitresses wanted you to hit on them then this would be a Denny’s!”. Then I swung my foot into his penis.
I really wish people would learn how to behave in public smh 🤦♂️
“Bob,” I said, “you know us. Just set us free and we won’t cause trouble.”
Sheriff J Robert Oppenheimer locked Mr. Ree and me in jail. He sat behind his desk. He look tired, haggard, and was pounding a whiskey bottle.
“Sorry boys,” he replied. “But we have enough trouble with Dillon B Dickleburg coming into town and buying up all the gold mines. This town is a powder keg.”
“Well shit Bob! You are a man of science. You said that gold was a part of your time travel weapon. Just build another time machine and send us back to our timeline.”
“Like I said, even if I could do that, it’s highly improbable that I can get you back. In fact, it’s definitely impossible with 19th Century technology.”
“Have you even tried? Come on, you were a legend in our timeline. What happened to you?”
“You just don’t understand.”
A ten year old boy then walked into the jailhouse. He went up to Oppenheimer and gave him a hug.
“Who are these men papa?” the boy asked.
“These are just strangers Malachi, now go home to your mother. She’s been looking for you,” he replied.
The boy rushed out of the jailhouse.
“Ohh I get it now,” I said. “You’ve settled down. You traded in your lab coat for a badge.”
Oppenheimer put down the whiskey bottle.
“I arrived in this timeline through the spacetime ripple 15 years before you two showed up,” he said. “I met a woman, we settled down. I now have a son that I’d do anything to protect.”
“I’m just asking for your help,” I replied.
“I killed countless people with those damn nuclear weapons,” Oppenheimer continued. “Not again. I have an opportunity to do it right this time. I’m going to do whatever it takes to protect my family and this community from dangerous people like you.”
“Bob, please,” I said. “We’re not here to cause problems. In fact, if you need assistance handling this Dickleburg fellow, Mr. Ree and I can help.”
“You two have done enough damage.”
There was some commotion outside. I could hear one of the deputies ask “how can I help you Mr. Dickleburg?”
“Ah shit,” Oppenheimer said. He grabbed his shotgun and walked outside. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.
“Mr. Rockwell up in them hills has been chasing us off that land,” I could hear Dickleburg saying.
“I’ll have you know, Mr. Dickleburg, that Mr. Rockwell is the rightful owner of that property. If he wants to chase you away, he’s well within his right,” Oppenheimer said.
“Why sheriff, all I want to do is offer him a business proposition.”
“Now Mr. Dickleburg, I’d advise you to leave that man alone. If you have a message for him, I’ll make sure he receives it.”
I could hear Dickleburg pull out his six shooter. “I own this town Sheriff,” he said. “I am the rightful owner of that property and all the property around it. That means I own you.”
I could hear the clicking of Oppenheimer’s shotgun. “The people of this town are the rightful owners,” he said. “You go back to that company of yours in Helena and you tell them that if they come back, there will be a bloodbath.”
“I’ll be back,” Dickleburg said. Him and his men galloped away on their horses.
Oppenheimer came back into the jailhouse. He took the keys, opened our jail cell, and handed back the 357.
“Men,” he said, “I now pronounce you deputies of Elkhorn, Montana.”
“It’s hard being a gay man in the old west,” Mr. Ree said.
“Word. Wait…you’re gay?” I asked.
“Well I wouldn’t say I’m gay. But I exclusively have sex with men.”
I took a sip of whiskey. My mind was on other things.
We were in Montana. I reckon the year was 1879. Mr. Ree and myself have been stuck out of time, out of place, for the last two years.
Time travel does strange things to a man. For one, it strips you completely naked. Mr. Ree and me were found in San Francisco, ass to ass, behind a brothel on Haight Street when we emerged from the plasma ripple. But it does something else: you realize that everyone, and everything, you’ve ever known is out of reach.
I’ll never see Miriam again. Or my unborn child that I left back in another timeline.
But Mr. Ree maintained hope. “We might as well get filthy fucking rich,” he said. The gold mines in California were stripped by 1879. Resigned to our fate, we travelled to Elkhorn, Montana to start a new life.
As we sat in the local tavern, townsfolk glared at us. One burly man came up to our table.
“We haven’t seen your kind ‘round here before,” he said.
“So?”
“We don’t take kindly to strangers. I reckon y’all better drink your whiskey and ride out before sundown.”
“Why don’t you mind your own business buddy?” I said. “We ain’t bothering you. How about you ride your fat ass back to your table?”
“Them are fightin words.”
“Damn right pal! You don’t want none of this!”
“Now gentlemen,” Mr. Ree interjected, “there’s nothing here that can’t be settled by a good old fashioned duel.”
The burly man nodded. “I’ll see you outside.”
“The fuck are you doing Mr. Ree?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it. You got a Korth 357. You’ll blast his ass into the future,” he replied.
“Ree, this is 1879,” I said, “they don’t make bullets for this gun yet. I gotta conserve my ammo. Besides, wouldn’t I be disrupting the timeline?”
“Nah. According to J Robert Oppenheimer, this is a new timeline, remember? We can do whatever the fuck we want.”
I just shrugged and walked outside. The burly man was standing in the street. The townsfolk all stood around.
“Alright,” I said, “fastest draw wins, or however this bullshit works.”
The burly man opened his duster, exposing his six shooter. “Ready whenever you are,” he said.
We had a stare down. The townsfolk stood around nervously, waiting for the fireworks.
Suddenly he reached for his six shooter. I drew my 357. The sound thundered from my gun, echoing across the town and down through the mountains.
I shot off the burly man’s suspenders. His pants fell down, exposing his ass and penis.
I twirled the 357 and placed it back my holster.
Suddenly a shotgun blast went off. The townsfolk scattered. Out of the shadows appeared a man dressed in black. His spurs jingled as he walked towards us.
“I won’t have this nonsense in my town,” the man in black said.
I recognized the face.
“I’m James,” I said. “And this here is my partner, Mr. Ree.”
“I know who you are,” he replied. “And if you fire that gun again, I’ll shove this shotgun right up your ass.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a threat,” I said.
He stepped a little closer.
Could it be?
“I’m Oppenheimer,” he said. “SHERIFF J. Robert Oppenheimer.”
“I have a gambling problem,” I told my therapist. “I can’t control myself. I’ve been acting manically: I’ll have advantageous, uncharacteristic sex with my wife. I sometimes load a bullet into a revolver and stare down the barrel. I’ll go 90 in a school zone. I’ll straight up snort Adderall. What’s wrong with me doc?”
As we fall further down the technological abyss, bombarded by competing information and ideas, we struggle to make sense of anything.
With an endless stream of movies, television, videos, and literature, we perceive the world through a dramatic prism, unable to grasp that the universe is impartial to our reasoning.
When confronted with this cognitive dissonance, we double down. And the opportunists in the media are all too happy to entertain our delusions.
In a sense, we are living in the “matrix.”
But perhaps this has always been true, even prior to the Internet. Maybe to live in a cultivated society means to live in a “matrix”, and no one wants to admit this.
Because of this, there rises either futile sentiments of cultural superiority, or need to “break free” from the restraints of society. But they’re both fantasies…fantasies that fuel our collective imagination.
Philosophers and theorists have failed to understand this: “the dramatic progression” that underpins our understanding. This is how nationalists can assert dominance, or how Christians and Marxists share an almost identical eschatological worldview despite being seemingly opposed. We view the world through a dramatic lens, and there are bad actors out there that try to entertain it.
All of this lies in our subconscious, and we may not be able to escape it. Being a part of this human collective is what makes us…human. So maybe the real political objective is not more theory, but to take from Sigmund Freud: we need to “sublimate well”.
Some might argue that’s Machiavellian, or utopian, or Orwellian, or naive, or overly optimistic, over pessimistic, liberal, conservative, or whatever.
With the Kantian blockage…or the inability to perceive the universe in its total, final form…it becomes difficult to understand that multiple truths can simultaneously exist.
Or maybe none of it is true.
It doesn’t matter. Stay pissed off if you choose. The universe goes on.
Furthermore, I’m not some postmodern lunatic claiming that real truth doesn’t exist and therefore it’s pointless to speculate on the nature of it.
What I AM saying is that Immanuel Kant was RIGHT. And philosophers from his day onward have been pissed off because of it.
Kant claimed we can’t know things “in themselves”. Meaning we can’t perceive objects and nature in their true form. We can only perceive “phenomena”, or nature though the prism of the human mind. In other words, the human mind is VERY active in shaping our reality.
No one likes this.
And they don’t like it because they know it’s true.
To perceive objects and nature without the human mind would mean to transcend the human mind. OR, ceasing to become human altogether.
As it currently stands, that’s impossible and we run into many metaphysical holes when we try to speculate on that.
Now, that isn’t to say we are “cut off” from external reality. But we are hobbled by our own physical brains. The universe is seemingly infinite, but our brains are finite.
We are like a small hole in the bottom of a beach, where only one grain of sand can pass through at any one moment.
Lame example, I know. But that’s how it feels.
But my larger point is how the Internet affects all of this. Is our logical faculties, rooted in a material brain, designed to handle this shock load?
In our evolutionary development, we developed our facilities to handle immediate needs. Tools and complex communication emerged from this, leading to advanced society and advanced technologies that have seemingly advanced passed our understanding.
I often like to think that art is an unintended byproduct of this development. Literature, drama, paintings, etc. got spat out and reabsorbed back into the machinery. It became an integral part of our language.
Along came the internet and telecommunications where we are bombarded by intellectual work. Now we can’t help but see the archetypal dramatic progression written in the fabric of the universe.
In other words, the internet permits us to live in our own fantasy world….a fantasy that objectively doesn’t exist….it’s a prism on top of a prism.
Are we made to sit behind a computer?
And is it worth tearing the world down because of Jon Gruden’s emails?
I’m easily persuaded because I know that my own understanding is limited and people should be open to new information as it becomes available.
That’s what sensible people SHOULD do.
But that’s heresy in the world of politics. And purity of ideals is currency.
I remember, what felt like a million years ago but was actually last year, when Joe Rogan said he’d vote for Bernie Sanders because he’s been “consistent”, or whatever. In many circles on Twitter, “consistency” became a buzz word and some took it up as a badge of virtue.
I always thought that was odd.
Maybe I’m crazy, but what if you’re consistently WRONG? How is consistency a virtue then?
I dunno. I’ve spent the last month not paying attention to the news and honestly…it paid off. I don’t miss it.
Or I didn’tmiss it.
Unfortunately, like a bad habit, I got sucked back in. And after not looking at the news, or Twitter, or any of that bullshit for a month, the world just looks stupid.
Post 9/11, when the 24/7 news became the hottest show in town, politics slowly began to take the stage as the #1 form of entertainment. That’s pathetic.
This is why your conspiracy theories are absolute trash: because politics is our entertainment, we see the world as an ongoing…totally coherent, totally plotted…drama. There are heroes, and there are villains. The left hand always knows what the right hand is doing….and they’re both plotting against you and people like you. You’re the hero, fighting the good fight on social media. And it’s all a wet fantasy.
Politics is business and business is a boomin.
And when business is boomin, out comes the con artists and cult leaders. Any dickhead with a camera, microphone, and smartphone wants in. And when their lies are exposed, they have to double down.
Is the mass media lying to you? Yes. That’s just business my friend.
Is your paranoid uncle or anarchist roommate on Twitter and Facebook lying to you? You bet. And they’re in it for the love of the game.
If you’re a person with any, and I mean ANY sort of political convictions, you are broadcasting to the world that you are someone that can’t be trusted.
How do I know that?
Your mind is objectively finite and the world doesn’t conform to your narrow parameters. But you will deliberately bend or distort the truth to claim it does.
You’re a terrible person.
What I do find interesting though are the psychological effects of unprecedented technological advancement. That’s the real question no one wants to ask because the answer might mean we’d have to log off for a few days.
I’m just always astounded when people can claim with absolute certainty that they know the truth of the universe. God exists, God doesn’t exist. Capitalism good, capitalism bad. That sort of shit. How can people still hold certainty of correctness during the era of the Internet?
Obviously, not everything on the Internet is true. You have to be adult enough to use your fucking head when you see bullshit. But claiming ignorance of opposing views and facts is getting tiresome.
You have the most important tool ever created by man at your fingertips. So use it wisely, jackass.
Delete all your social media accounts.
Be happy and embrace the fact that you live in a non-homogeneous world. Be open to the challenge and don’t claim CONSPIRACY! when confronted with something you don’t understand or contradicts your narrow view.
The Internet Ruined Everything 