Sometimes the stupidity in the world really irritates me. I genuinely believe that everyone has the right to their own opinion and that if everyone thought the same thing then the world would be a pretty boring place. For every yin there needs to be a yang, such is the way of things. I try to understand where people are coming from but it really gets on my nerves when people have such a cognitive dissonance about things, and have no interest in the how or why of the issue or learning anything about it so they can have an informed opinion, they simply state that black is white and that’s all there is to it. No matter how many times or in what way you show that black is in fact not white, white is white and black is black, they simply reply louder BLACK IS WHITE over and over again until you just throw up your hands and give up. There is an attitude that they are proud of their ignorance and anything that disagrees with their point of view is biased and that if you are an informed citizen and have educated yourself on the issues instead of just repeating the words of someone else then you are an elitist, like being educated is a bad thing. I just don’t understand it and it is just draining to me.
I think the internet age has done a lot to lower the level of dialogue in this country to a point where it is almost impossible to have a civilized discussion about anything anymore. It used to be you could talk with someone that disagreed with you on an issue and state your points and listen to theirs and in the end maybe not change any minds but at least you would come out of with an understanding of the other person and why they think they way that they do. The internet has destroyed any dialogue that doesn’t include things like STFU FAG and other name calling and it seems to have spilled over into the real world with people doing and saying things that they could never have gotten away with in years past. The interweb is great in a lot of ways but too much of it makes you stupid. I already dumped my blackberry and it’s 24/7 connection (I don’t miss it) and I came pretty close to deleting my facebook account as well. I didn’t do it… yet… I do enjoy the connection to people that I rarely see in real life but looking at that and the internet in general too much makes a person into a dumbass.
In response to this I have decided to embark on a quest that I have been meaning to do for a while now. I am going to attempt to read the top 100 books of all time before I reach my 35th birthday in an effort to broaden my horizons a little more and be on the internet a lot less. That is roughly one a week for the next two years. What books to read? Who decides what the top 100 books are? I’ve decided to use this Newsweek list which was assembled from a bunch of other top 100 lists to make a super list. I’ll replace a few titles here and there because some of them are larger collections of multiple books and I want to stick to single books for this. Some of them I have already read but I might reread them if I don’t really remember them. I might even do a review of them when I complete them. I read 1984 a couple weeks ago so I’ve only got 99 more to go! I enjoyed that one quite a bit actually, it took the whole black is white, things are the way I say they are and not what you know them to be thing to the absolute extreme.
Other than that not much going on, got an A in my class again, next one starts in a couple weeks, two more years until I graduate at this rate. Wish it was sooner. I like the two month schedule of the accelerated classes, its just long enough so you get something out of it but it isn’t so long that it feels never ending. Jessica is back on at the park full time again. Good for the money, not so good for seeing each other. Tomorrow the circus is in town in Hickman! It’s just a little podunk one but I’ve never been to the circus so I’m excited even if Jess tries to poop on my fun. I’ll bring the fancy camera and get some pictures.