July 2013 - Revolutionary Misfit

The great Louis C.K. does this outrageous and thought-provoking routine where he presents authoritative (or settled) propositions and then he contrasts them with “but maybe” scenarios that question their validity. The ones he uses are mostly absurd (and borderline offensive), but the overall point is a good one.

We should question authority….

Following along the lines of Louis, I will submit some other seemingly settled propositions that could be questioned…

1. Of course citizens should pledge allegiance to a flag…BUT MAYBE doing so means saying it’s OK for one nation on earth to be responsible for the most mayhem (in terms of death and destruction) of any nation that ever existed (be it Russia, Germany or even the U.S.A.)?

2. Of course we should “support the military” (as every aspiring politician will quickly remind us)…BUT MAYBE doing so means giving approval to an institution whose primary goal is to teach young mean and women how to kill and blow things up?

3. Of course capitalism is the best economic and social system, BUT MAYBE it is also the one that is most responsible for the growing income gap between the richest and poorest that threatens social order throughout the globe?

4. Of course the “American Dream” is something every young adult should aspire to, BUT MAYBE it means that doing so equates to spending the majority of your time on earth in pursuit of a higher level of consumption…one that the planet simply can no longer sustain?

There are some posts that are easy for me to hit the “publish” key.

This ain’t one of them.

I have watched with rapt amazement as the Arab Spring begins to unravel and unfold into the Arab Winter of Discontent in Egypt. But one thing that all the upheavals in the Middle East have taught us is that authority can and will be questioned. Because every human has the right to do so. It might mean torture or even death to do so, but you still can. And sometimes, should.

Here’s a tweetable for ya…

All authority elevated by man above men is questionable and should be questioned, and to the extent it deems itself not, then all the more.

A recurring characteristic in my writing that I have noticed is my penchant for the ellipsis, or dangling period…see, there it is. I will refer to it as “my three dots.” Why do I do that? And does anyone really care?

Probably not, but I will try to cook up an explanation anyway. Could be a couple of things. First, it might be a substitute for the exclamation point. That is, that one period is simply insufficient to complete the point…I need three (oops, did it again). Or, it might be that I want the point made in the sentence to lead the reader down the path to enlightenment. I don’t want the thought to end too abruptly…so I let it linger on into infinitude (or at least for the length of those three ubiquitous dots).

Okay, actually I don’t really mean it to be any of those things. I like to think of myself as a deep thinker, but not that deep. It more represents poor grammatical habits and the inability I have to actually complete the sentence (or anything else I tend to try to start and finish in life).

So, this morning I thought I would once and for all put some emphasis and meaning, a personal trademark, behind those three annoying dots. Doing so also has the benefit of helping me think of how to add some consistency and cohesion into these rambling posts that for the last 5 years have been about everything and nothing (much like a Seinfeld episode).

So Dot 1 will henceforth represent people. After all, this blog has a lot to say about them. Sometimes not too flattering. Nevertheless, I do believe that people are important, especially since I happen to be one of them. Much more so than the stuff we tend to elevate above them.

People are important, especially since I happen to be one of them. Much more so than the stuff we tend to elevate above them.

Dot 2, planet. This Costa Rica Guy is really into sustainability, which I have arrogantly defined for myself as managing our impacts so as to facilitate ecological endurance. It is my belief that centuries of non-sustainable thinking and acting has put the first dot in jeopardy of being erased.

Centuries of non-sustainable thinking and acting has put the first dot in jeopardy of being erased.

And finally Dot 3 represents the universe (or universal glue). On some level that I could never hope to completely fathom, we are all bound together by this thing we refer to as the Universe. I can best symbolize it by a blue dot, which is what you would see if you looked down upon us from space and it also the color I see when I look up on a clear day from my humble home here in Perez Zeledon, Costa Rica.

On some level that I could never hope to completely fathom, we are all bound together by this thing we refer to as the Universe.

So, there, I have finally imbued some logical meaning for both me and my readers behind my three dots. Maybe now they will be less annoying and more thought-provoking…

Questionable Authority

My Three Dots

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