I am not now, nor have I ever been, a follower of the herd.
From the time I was little, I didn\’t fit in with \”cool\” kids. I was picked on and bullied, but was always smart enough to know getting punched in the face wouldn\’t feel good. So I never got in a fight.
I did what I wanted to do. I got a job at the mall food court when I was 14 years-old because I wanted to earn money. Two years later I had saved enough to buy a TRS-80 computer at Radio Shack.
My father was an architect and he would offer me opportunities to work on location at various construction jobs. Whether it was working with a plumber, a builder or pool construction, not a single one of these jobs lasted more than one day. I hated them. If I didn\’t want to do it, I didn\’t do it. But the jobs I found that I DID want to do… well, I did them. And I did them well.
From being a radio DJ to starting my own business (which has persisted for 25 years now), I always marched to the beat of my own drum.
My personal faith in God goes against the grain of the mainstream. I\’m 100% Jewish by heritage and claim a belief in Jesus Christ. That makes me a minority amongst a minority. I didn\’t design it that way. It just is what it is. And I\’m not going to change my view because it\’s unpopular or because others don\’t understand.
My positions on politics go against the mainstream. I have lost friends (well, so-called friends) because I voted for Donald Trump. And I would do it again. Others\’ inability to understand why isn\’t my problem. It\’s theirs. (By the way, I don\’t consider myself a Republican).
I haven\’t just lost friends. I\’ve been subjected to all kinds of vile name-calling from people I assumed were intelligent and reasonable. Be careful what you assume about others. If there\’s one thing I\’ve learned is that pack-followers are not necessarily deep thinkers. They are extremely protective of the status quo (commonly known as living in a bubble) and see those who think different as a threat to their worldview. I\’m not going to change my view because of these bullies.
I know enough to know the media is lying to me. Every day. Without fail. And it\’s not just one network. It\’s all of them. Journalism is an art best kept alive only by independent journalists now.
I also know enough to recognize the cancerous toxicity of \”cancel culture\”. People participating in such mob mentality activities are the greatest examples of sheep you will find. Shouting down others because of something they said or think, whether a recent tweet or from something said or done decades ago, puts on display the sad vacuum so many of us have in our souls. Unjustified outrage is just another way of screaming to the world \”Look at me! Look at me!\”, covered with a thin layer of self-righteousness. Those people may be fooling themselves, but they aren\’t fooling me. I should know… I\’ve done it in the past.
The reason you see me question so many things is because questioning is a pathway to knowledge. It assumes that I don\’t have all the answers. And it assumes the very same of the so-called \”experts\”. Nonsense. They may be more qualified in a specific field, but \”they\” are still just human beings.
Knowledge is not the end game. The greatest pursuit is WISDOM. Knowledge means you have access to data.
But wisdom is knowing what to do with that data. I\’ll take wisdom any day… every day. I know plenty of people with libraries of knowledge. Yet some of them exhibit a incomprehensible foolishness. Don\’t mistake knowledge for wisdom.
Here\’s the problem. Human beings are not only fallible by nature, but another flaw is that humans carry with them their own motives. And those motives are not always philanthropic. If we have learned one thing from human nature it\’s just the dark side of the human soul is the other side of the light side. We all have the ability to be selfish and self-serving. (Yes, me too.)
So what\’s the point of this rambling?
It\’s my blog. I don\’t need to have a point.
And perhaps that\’s the point.
I will be who I am. If I\’m not your cup of tea, so be it. No one is making you stick around. Don\’t be self-important and tell me how you think I am wrong. Go write on your own wall and rant. I\’m really not interested in having a one-way conversation with people who will insist I see things their way.
On the other hand, I\’ll never turn from a conversation with someone who is a seeker… who is truly curious… who is seeking to understand. Just don\’t expect me to have all the answers.
But do expect me to not be a sheep. I will question everything. I will not believe what I am told just because everyone else is eating it up. I will assume that most people mean well, but evil also exists. And it does not mean well.
How to end this post? Maybe it doesn\’t end. Maybe this is just the beginning of a whole new conversation…
Feel free to share your thoughts below.