Goofus and Gallant

Somewhere along the way, in a Highlights magazine ... I got lost. 

Was it people pleasing? Was it the 'Goofus & Galant'.
Goofus bosses his friends, Gallant asks, "What do you want to do next?"
Goofus takes the last apple, Gallant shares his orange.

Torn between selfishness, self-appeasement, self-sabatoge (the hiding for the choices), and self-sacrifice - there was, in the end, a loss of the concept of self.
The need to live one's life, to embrace the dark side, the good in you and survive is one toxic soup of confusion.
 "Ball of confusion", that's what the world is today, hey-hey. 
We wear so many masks, we don't even know, through the drugs, alcohol, food, parties, obligations, work and church - who we actualy stand to be, or what we stand for.

What came before me?

Realize that WW I, WW II the 60's the 70s ... we're all the periods of chaos, assasinations ... and I was born (or grew up) thereafter - in maybe the longest stretch of peacetime, its hard to imagine the macroeconomics of chaos in the World affected my trajectory.
We had cheap gas, cheap milk and foods (subsidized with Farmer subsidies), cheap money, cheap houses - there were good retirement plans, people cared for each other (some), and cars and plane rides were easy to obtain.
There was a "War on Drugs", and the US was also allowing more drugs to be normalized and legalized along the way. The opiate of the masses, was opium and weed. Alcohol was consumed en masse, Colleges a proving ground for how much you could hold.
Where the "normals", had breakfast cereals, pop-tarts, Saturday morning cartoons, Big Wheels, banana seats ... the list of indulgences go on and on - but what we didn't have, what fell apart. Family.
We had fatherless homes, or step-parent homes. The Brady bunch prepared us for the new normal. The Partridge family, single parent band said "you can rock on", Courtship of Eddie's father, ... the list goes on. T.V. reflecting our family breakdown(s). If Goofus came from a broken home,

Gallant surely had a mom and dad who cared for him, and taught him to be wonderful and kind. I didn't have that. I must be goofus now. I was dealt the Christian tool of forgiveness. If you are being an angry human, no worries - just confess to the Lord. It was o.k. to be goofus, Jesus saves. Jesus loves the Goofus', and prostitutes and sinners. You don't have to be Gallant - with "Get out of Hell Free cards, from Jesus". Why bother? Fuck you Gallant, idiot. So with Highlights I could be intellectualizing the way forward. With Mad magazine I could further mock and parody reality.

Our brains, hijacked, and lost - in intellectualizing, and not feeling - made Gallant the epitome of stupid and bossing and taking the way forward. Looks like it works for Trump, that Goofus became President. Remember when your mom told you you could be anyone you want to be? We hated the good guy, the Peanut farmer - no second term. We love the fuck up, the Goofus - MAGA! We were in the greatest, post Vietnam era then. Peacetime, home ownership, expansion and the world was great, until that Goofus, Nixon, took away the reserve currency. The empire starting it's 60+ year declined, chronicaled my life. Ford fell all time, and was just a Nixon substitute V.P., Carter was the populus answer to high gas prices, a populus peanut-farmer-from-Georgia-turned-President, Reagan showed up from a Western movie set, Clinton showed that sex and power do mix (I found Monica beautiful) and allowed all men to think that's o.k., he'll escape impeachment, 9/11 and Geo Bush Jr. showed that we can just make up weapons of mass destruction, Obama our savior, did get Healthcare done, and aged 20 years in 8, then Trump, Biden, Trump brings us to ...

The brink of World War III
The robots, the AI, the fear mongering, the Data Centers, the gas climbing, the global warming, the water shortages, the drought and El Nina's ... the Covid, China's rise - after we were warned that Nixon visting China would  'wake the sleeping bear - with his historic visit', now their kicking our ass.

Being captivated by trying to understand whay I, personally, would want to be Gallant, as a virtue, - got tainted - just a bit by the de-evolution of America and its leaders in general. At least in my twenties, I saw (and heard) of my impending demise walking into the "worse" job market, by the time I get out of college in 1984 the country has seen. Didn't happen.  The country flourished.
Computer science did for me, and I blazed my trail. At 63, fat, dumb (from legalized weed), in poor health, I've outlived the early American's that blazed this trail, some of them damn upright Gallants, probably died chopping wood and using a donkey to plant crops here in Oregon, at 43. I realize that there isn't a right way - there is your way.

Trapped, mentally -  between goofus and gallant, I've lived completely a farse. Neither being taken as a good guy, or a bad guy, and that my friends, has me in tears, a bit at 63 that being true to myself was never a mode of operation, I had to be this or that, good or bad, repenting or giving to others, selflessly.
A carefully orchestrated farse, by design.   The artful dodger.

So, I missed a lot in this diatribe, including Folk music.
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young... if you have kids, "Teach your children well".
Don't subscribe them to Highlights magazine. And for God's sake: Stay together (for them), and pray for the better, prosperous future as we enter a dark period, once again.

Lyrics:
You, who are on the road Must have a code that you can live by
And so, become yourself
Because the past, is just a goodbye
Teach, your children well
Your father's hell, did slowly go by

And feed, them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by

[Bridge] Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you

And you of tender years (Can you hear and do you care?)
Can't know the fears (And can you see?)
That your elders grew by (We must be free)
And so please help (To teach your children)
Them with your youth (What you believe in)
They seek the truth (Make a world)
Before they can die (That we can live in)
Teach, your parents well
Their children's hell, will slowly go by
And feed, them on your dreams
The one they picks, the one you'll know by


September 22, 2026

Sunday jam - easy listening, new music (& some old music)

Death to Ego

 The band Suicidal Tendencies have this song, with a catchy hook lyric
"Got to kill Captain Stupid", and another lyric that resonates:
"If Your Life Sucks, you suck"

So this post is about the Ego, and I'm reading Ryan Holiday's "Ego is the Enemy",
and correlated these two things, the song and the Ego.

At first I thought Cap'n Stupid was drugs, or being 'stupid' on substances,
likely because I was

Now I can relate it more to my ego's need to smother and control, everything.

What comes of that?

Resentment of others towards you,
more Ego inflation,
blather,
droning on<

pointlessness.

Then  you feel bad, about yourself - for trying.  Damn, ego, you're good.
You can offput everyone, and externalize anything.

Gotta kill Cap'n Stupid.

Why Ego Death is Therapeutic

Healing

The path to wellness
is riddled with potholes

just when you think
you're free
from the troubles
life dealt to trigger you

you're triggered again

Like a healing tripwire

Your body knows.

But what part?

The nervous system,
the microbiome
recesses of your cranium?

Or did you stub your big toe?

No matter,
it will heal, long before you.

Endless quest,
for the holy grail of being whole, again.

Like you were
as a kid.

Discernment

The ability to judge well.  Not to be a judge, but to use sound judgement.   

The bible talks about it in Romans 12:1-2 mostly that you can determine, distinguish and know what is the will of god. Not that you should die (although it could happen) for Christ, but that you should live for him.

That your daily discernment is to do what is good, and know.

How many times do we put aside good judgement.  Why.   The ego, our peers - rebellion?

What is the lack of discernment, when you are a child, you know right from wrong; and do it anyway/.

"What the devil has gotten into you?"

Seems discernment, referenced many times in the bible is about doing what you know is right.

Think about the character of those you know do what is right, that set aside their egos, their need for self-aggrandizement ... that will go as to far as "fall on the perverbial sword" for their convictions.

Rare, isn't it?

As I get older, and my habits, my shortcomings and my powers seem to be subsiding it is clear to me the feelings of making yourself happier, and more whole on a daily basis come down to one thing:
discernment.

Escaping Life in a Bubble

 I've existed in a bubble that I wholly created. It wasn't transient, like soap bubbles blow out of a bubble ring from a bottle.    This bubble was made of thicker material similar to an exercise ball.
Tough enough that inside of it feels like being trapped in a swimming pool, underwater, with a cover on the pool holding you under.  Gasping for breath, but sucking in water you're unable to claw through and save yourself.  That kind of material surrounds me.

Is it the intellectual naivety, the propoganda ... the wisdom of things I can Google faster than you?

We are trapped by information.  Surrounded by it.   Worse, it can interrupt us.   Yes, our computer like minds, meant to multi-task like an operating system are now set so that almost anything we sign up for, join, shop at or date can cause an interrupt of whatever thread of execution we're on ... and gain our immediate attention via our cell phones.    The information runs us.

Translate this into relationships and humans are doomed.    The stereotypical gender roles have been redefined and mashed into many re-interpretations of self.   Woman in masculine frame, Man in feminine frame and these are just our tendencies and likes, when it comes to our actual love partners well, I can't really put a number on the permuations nor understand LBGTQRSTUVWXYZ ... we'll run out of alphabet trying to un-bubble the confusion over the sexes.   It's literally turned into war.

Joe Jackson famously sang, in "Real Men"  lyrics '... if there's war between the sexes then there'll be no people left'.  I don't know, I see families, I see the young ones popping out, the husbands with their beards and wives and kids ... and it seems procreation is alive.   I think it's the bubble that ensues, that thick layer of information, that familiarity ... the knowing of all of your significant other's glitches, faults, gnits, nags, dirty laundry and some secrets that kills it.   It takes these people that start out with good intention and eventually over the course of a relationship just brings it to its knees.

There you pray, begging for a different relationship paradigm.   You have fights about it, make up, try new things and still ... the lifeblood has been sucked dry.  And you go on.  And you age.  And the world spins some more revolutions.   The world with us sucked to the edge of it by gravity, the biggest spinning bubble, our lives a microcosm of a spinning bubble.

Inside of here we feel safe, but we're insulated from everything.   So much insulation, we feel nothing.

Facts are meaningless, lies pointless and the information, the news, events and things occuring are transient.  Blips.  Doesn't matter if its the biggest event of your life, a SuperBowl, a school shooting they are blips.  Nothing stays.  Photos, digital, gone.  Music, services, gone when you stop paying.

You work, for exceedingly high priced and expensive shit (house, car, groceries) and get no reward or pleasure, you just bail and bail and bail the debt like water in a sinking boat.  Toys don't matter, Amazon shit doesn't matter, candy, roses, fine meals ... all meaningless.   Your time to fund this inglorious lifestyle is wasted.  Indentured servant to the banks and government you are a wage slave.

Escaping this bubble?    You get a knife, cut out an escape hatch and let air in so you can breathe, first.
Next you have to go against every norm that keeps you in a rut of information overload and debt, and live like a recluse. Freeballing and spitballing in the now, the present, every day.  I mean, don't avoid other people entirely, they are fun to learn from just don't allow the toxicity of some of the people seep in and start manufacturing another layer of bubble material.

People's opinions and coercive nature tend to sway our thoughts too easily, as does the news, any Internet article, any YouTube video ... they are all throwing information at a wall to see what sticks.
And it's gumming up your head.   The key is to take Life with a grain of salt (I know very cliche) but it is true, you needn't worry that you are needing any of this information.

Live your life, approach people with care and listen to your intuition.  Wake yourself up and out of the bubble.

Support ticket

 I've been in the IT industry nearly 40 years, seems surreal that I saw the first IBM PC's in the early 80's. It makes me feel like father time of computing.

There was something very satisfying about the click of the OEM IBM keyboards, they hit different.

I put in a support ticket to Microsoft for apparently Lenovo 'bricked' my system when they put a new motherboard in, and BitLocker was enabled on the hard drive.

I was able to 'nuke-and-pave' (an affectiionate term, meaning 'blow it all away and re-install the Operatoing System), just as well, I downgraded to Windows 10 (instead of 11) because much of the software and drivers I need were avails on Windows 10 (or easier to come by).

So in 25 years of Microsoft Support, pretty much 10 priority support calls, I've used a handful (maybe 3 or 4) out of 250.  And of those, I probably beat the answer ... myself, by grinding it out.

That's the awy it is in tech, when you're driven and good.