Where Humor & Satire meet and play

I Don’t Know Sh*t, But Neither Do You — So Pay Attention

You may learn something

In this world of information and access, we are all still ignorant of many things. We all struggle to understand the world and the people around us and based on how things are going nowadays — I really don’t think we’re doing all that good job of it.

But that’s just me. What do I know, really?

I know I’m older than I once was.

I know that emotionally, I’m wound tight and less forgiving.

I know that as a citizen, I sometimes feel like I woke up one morning in a Borat movie and not the United States of America.

I know that I work just as hard as I did 30 years ago, but when I end off for the day and get out my measuring tape to see how far I progressed, I’m frequently in the same place.

These things are self-evident.

And yet facts and experiences that we took for granted as being solid and comforting are beginning to unravel. And what’s replacing them is a little unsettling.

We’ve been enamored with Science and all its possibilities for centuries and have relied on it heavily in providing us with better and longer lives.

And yet for some peculiar reason we are letting go of our hold on reality here, so much so that according to recent polls 40% of Americans believe in Creationism to one degree or another over Evolution.

You know, that life on earth began about 4000 BC and encompasses the whole comings and going of dinosaurs, ancient Egypt, Rome, the Crusades, the Wright brothers, all the way up to the LA Rams winning the Super Bowl.

(That, according to the 2020 Census, would be about 103 million adults, 18 and older. Just a few.)

What’s frustrating is that today, nothing appears sacred. Facts have become subjective and Reality itself depends more on budget, ad campaigns, and marketing than on what actually took place.

The Olympics has been providing us with yet another example of what is, but technically isn’t. A Russian figure skater tested positive for a drug classified as a banned substance but because she was too young to be held accountable, she was allowed to skate in the next event.

Whereas an American athlete was banned from competing in the Tokyo Olympics last summer for smoking weed. Not exactly known for being a “performance-enhancing drug.”

Sound confusing?

So, it’s not that the banned substance wasn’t in the Russian skater’s system, it was. And it wasn’t that they couldn’t prove it was there — they did.

It was that she was simply — according to the rules — too young to know better.

Even if she was old enough to be in the Olympics with other much older athletes and talk in front of cameras about how her grandfather’s heart medication ended up in her bloodstream.

Kind of like how one’s TV, computers, and video games end up in a neighbor’s garage. Funny how shit like that just happens.

We all used to be comfortable with common concepts. Up, was the opposite of Down, Right was the opposite of Wrong and protests were a citizen’s right to express disagreement while armed insurrection was something we did in 1776 to great effect but since then has been frowned upon it, mainly because it isn’t necessary, not in a democracy.

And yet, just the other day, the Republican National Committee voted to censure two of their own; Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL) because they condemned the January 6 riot along with Trump’s involvement with it.

According to the RNC, they were being rebuked because they were involved in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

Ah, discourse. Now I think I get it. So, if someone smashes their Dodge pick-up into a crowd of protesters in My Town, USA — as long as they have a politically themed sticker on their front bumper — they would only be engaging in political discourse?

No seriously, I really don’t know shit. Because what shit looks like keeps changing. What shit represents, hypothetically speaking, keeps taking on a whole new meaning depending on who is saying it.

And the reason you don’t know shit is because what used to be known as shit back in the day and was easy to spot, now looks confusingly similar to the truth.

Shit is now just a smaller word for reality. As in, you don’t know shit, actually means, you are unacquainted with Reality as it really exists.

Not what’s in the media or what talking heads at Fox News keep going on about — but what actually is.

And there are things out there that actually ARE something and not anything else. I know this is a confusing concept, but please pay attention.

Some things, like facts, and what people did or did not do are what actually happened.

Like that driveway out in front of your house — with the pick-up parked on it — is actually there. It’s not, like there. Or sort of there, it’s actually there.

And then there is the all too ubiquitous negative shit, which frequently takes on the properties of anti-matter. In that, it’s there but in a way that’s opposite of what you would normally think was there.

So, shit, can actually not be there in fact, but made to be there, because people are largely unhappy when there’s a vacuum out there. No one likes nothing. Better to have something there, even if it’s the wrong something.

So, others will pretend that shit exists and will talk about it endlessly alone or in groups on television — when in actual fact — you got it — there’s nothing there at all.

Therefore, that most, if not all of us, don’t know shit, is understandable and even forgivable under certain circumstances. But not all.

If you lived in a cave somewhere on an island in the South Pacific, then okay, not knowing shit is understandable.

Or if you were — God forbid — in a coma because of a hazing joke gone bad — and you awoke to Fox News on the TV — again it would be absolutely understandable if you felt like you didn’t know shit.

But if like most of us — you have Wi-Fi and an Internet connection and two opposable thumbs and thus are engaged in social media and other social activities, then the likelihood of you being excused from not knowing shit pretty much goes down to zero.

So, what does this end up meaning?

Well, it means that if we don’t know shit, it’s because we’re not trying hard enough or simply not paying attention.

If the notion that Americans and every other person has the absolute right to determine what does or does not happen to our bodies (see recent vaccine protests), and yet feel compelled to restrict how women exercise this same exact right — then you don’t know shit.

If you see Politicians wearing red or blue ties saying something on Tuesday that absolutely contradicts what they said on Sunday Meet the Press and you believe it is just the normal ebb and flow of intellectualism passing through their bodies — then again you don’t know shit.

Not knowing shit is not now nor has it ever been a factor of political preference, gender, religion, or any other activity.

It’s a matter of shutting down one’s own perceptions. Of not seeing what is actually in front of us, but only images of our recent past that causes us pain.

Of not wanting or needing to confront that we embarked on the wrong path, backed the wrong person, or believed the wrong lie and having to undo all of that is just too much.

So, better to just keep agreeing with what is being said, and maintain a little self-respect.

But truthfully, there is no shame in being wrong. In not having seen the lie until too late. Or in not having caught the mistake until our bank accounts were empty.

We all make mistakes. It is absolutely inevitable if we are not living in that abovementioned Pacific cave.

Life forces mistakes in order for us to get through it. You see it’s all tied in with that thing called Science.

Make too many mistakes and not realize it — extinction. Notice the mistakes, change and be a little humble — survival.

Nothing shameful in being the last woman standing.

WHERE DOES ALL THIS SHIT LEAD US?

Final takeaways

It’s important to remember that there are people around today - claiming that they know shit, when they don’t - who were around 30–40 years ago making the same claim when they actually did.

So, what has changed? The people or the shit in question?

Both.

Shit is not just a collection of facts and realities cast off by millions of people as they progress through life.

Shit is a dynamic living thing, capable of altering not only itself but those who come in close contact with it.

Example: Those thirty-somethings who thought Richard Nixon was a great president despite the obvious mistakes he made, are in many cases, the same people who thought Trump was a viable candidate for the Presidency of the United States.

To say blithely that they don’t know shit is too sophomoric and misses the point entirely. They in fact knew a lot of shit that was readily available back in 1968.

It’s just that the amount of shit that was available for consumption — so to speak — back in 1968 was a mere fraction of the shit that was at hand on the Internet and on social media in 2016.

So, the shit these people waded through back then was less difficult and in fact more truthful, than the shit we have in play in 2022.

As stated, shit is dynamic. It evolves and not always into something better.

In the past, what was accepted as a working ability to detect shit, is today, wholly inadequate. There’s simply too much of it.

Solution

Realizing that shit is all around us. That what was previously thought to be safe to assume was accurate or correct is no longer that way.

It makes for harder reading, talking, and thinking — and there’s no denying that. But the alternative to becoming more aware is being more at Effect.

More the last person to know or able to do something about it.

It’s our choice to change how we think and what we think about or just rely on the prepackaged stuff that’s on the shelves and leave it at that.

What’s at stake? Nothing or everything — again, our call.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz George J. Ziogas Paul Myers MBA Tree Langdon Karen Madej The Secret Aspirant Jenine Bsharah Baines James Knight Stuart Englander Esther George Rebecca Romanelli Adelia Ritchie Sherry McGuinn The Garrulous Glaswegian Salvatore Cagliari Joseph Lieungh Klara Jane Holloway

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