My opinion on Quora is still out. I got on a ridiculous Trump supporter (is there any other kind?) and his ridiculous question, which I've copied and pasted below. As a result I was warned by Quora's somewhat ridiculous admins to cease and desist.
I'm not sure I will. This isn't a time for civility. It's time for revolution. It's time to kick ass and take names.
Quora, ultimately, and as a result, may ban me.
Oh, well. Like all social media websites, it doesn't offer community or authenticity as its primary features, but addiction, herd-think, and an almost profane kowtowing to immaturity and suburbanism. It likes to think of itself as unique and an outlier, but it very much isn't, except perhaps in the negative direction.
In the meantime, I'll post my answers here, because I value you, my readers, and because I took the damn time to write those responses, so they should be worthy of my own blog!
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Question: Why was there so much news and investigation of Trump campaign and Russian collusion when there was never any evidence of such collusion?
My answer: Ah, ignorance. It’s what’s for breakfast!
I don’t know where you get your “news” from, but it’s obviously from sources best left in the propaganda territory.
There has been, and continues to be, mounting evidence of collusion. It goes back at least a year now, possibly more. It doesn’t even take elementary school-level research skills to find this out. You don’t want to admit that, because you’ve got your head in the Republican sand. Pull it out. Now.
Trump and his campaign are likely guilty of obstruction of justice, campaign finance laws being broken, treason, and espionage. Deal with it: your Fuhrer is a waste of space and an existential threat to the planet.
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Question: When is it “high time” to get serious about life?
My answer: Assuming you didn’t quote high time in order to make some pathetic, unfunny drug reference joke, the time to get serious about life is the very moment you realize—as in fully and genuinely realize—just how blessed you are to be alive. Until that time, you are a pile of useless consuming the planet’s rapidly dwindling resources and giving nothing worth a damn back.
If you heard that—“It’s high time you got serious about your life!”—from a nagging parent and have blown it off for whatever reason, realize that while the examples of their own lives may be offensive, ludicrous, or both, their message in this case is spot-on. Gild the pill if you must and take it.
Or not.
Because most people—as in ninety-nine out of every hundred—do not get serious about life at any time during theirs. If you choose not to be serious, take heart: you’ll be like almost everybody else on the planet!
Oh, many may be dour and unsmiling, and approach their days grimly and humorlessly.
That isn’t what I’m talking about.
True seriousness is full of humor and light.
True seriousness isn’t about consumption, but appreciation.
True seriousness rejects coghood and suburbanism.
True seriousness is at core creative, playful, mission- and service-oriented, and, above all, loving.
Why wouldn’t it be “high time” to learn the art of embodying it in your own life?
Get on it!
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Question: What can we do as American citizens to reassure people in other countries that we are not at all like Donald Trump?
My answer: Well, the most obvious thing is this: a strong majority did not vote for him. Many independent pundits have called it a landslide.
The numbers do not lie.
But Trump does. And did. And will tomorrow. And the day after that, and the one after that.
He cheated his way into the White House with the help of a vile Russian government and its bald-headed, puny excuse for a leader. He does not belong there. He did not win that office fairly.
Sane people around the world see this. And those are the only ones who matter.
America’s true president is Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s how I refer to her in all conversations that steer into political waters. It’s why I continue to wear, and will continue to wear, my safety pin. It’s why I volunteer for the local Democratic Party. And it’s why I stand up to fascism everywhere I see it.
Trump’s disapproval rating is closing in on an all-time high. He is now under investigation for obstructing justice. He is a sexual predator, a con man, a Hitler-loving pile of despotic orange goo, and a compulsive liar. His comeuppance will be epic, and all sane folks around the world will celebrate when it descends upon his wrinkled orange pimple-skull like an asteroid.
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Question: How can I change my boring life?
My answer: You judge your life as boring. How pitiful.
I once taught young men from the Sudan. I believe they were known as “Lost Boys.” To survive the genocide going on there, they fled into the desert, their families slaughtered, and tried to survive. Many were hunted down, raped, and killed. The ones I taught managed to escape.
They drank their own urine when they got thirsty. They cannibalized their fallen friends when they got hungry enough.
Every single one of them were amazing beacons of goodness, energy, joy, and motivation. They attacked their studies with gusto. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t contrived. It wasn’t manufactured.
And they weren’t bored.
I asked one who was named Madal (I may not have written his name correctly; it’s been a number of years now) why he didn’t get bored like so many of his classmates. He looked astonished and answered, “Boredom? With all this bounty? With all this opportunity? Why should I get bored?”
You see, you’re likely bored because you take for massive granted the blessings of your life. You’re likely privileged—you’ve never had to face even a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the hell those young men faced—and you feel life owes you something; it owes you excitement and whatnot.
It owes you nothing.
You want to change your “boring” life? Get off your ass, ditch your privileged perspective, and learn to appreciate the overwhelming blessings you have. Realize, in short, that you owe life.
Get going. Right friggin’ now.
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Question: How are you going to change the world?
My answer: I don’t need to do anything. My existence at every moment changes the world, just as it does for you and everyone else.
But I assume you are asking the question in an inspirational sense, not a phenomenological one.
In that case, what I do is write. I edit. I illustrate. I create fractals. I publish. I also take care of many species of birds that visit my feeders every day. I take care of the little home I keep with my partner. I pray and meditate, and work hard at being a decent human being.
Fame isn’t required to change the world. Wealth isn’t either. Often—probably most times—change on a grand Scale is a mile wide and an inch deep. It doesn’t do much, but it certainly enriches those responsible.
Change on the micro scale can, and often does, do much more. It’s an inch wide and a Mile Deep, and rarely enriches the changemakers responsible.
So the question is: Which would you prefer?
Change on a macro scale that is a mile wide and a mile deep is rare. Think Christianity or the printing press, nuclear weapons or the Internet.
Most of us who seek to be changemakers work on the micro scale. But even if our efforts are a millimeter wide and no more deep, does that mean they are worthless? I would argue absolutely not.
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Question: Why is "being yourself" so difficult?
My answer: Because who you are is always in relation with other people and things, and both, along with you, are always changing. You, other people, animals, mountains, rivers, the rain, the air you breathe, even every second you exist are in a constant state of disequilibrium. “Being yourself” in such a reality would therefore necessarily be very difficult. It is.
The you that is you is undefinable and continuous. There isn’t a “you” particle. You are a process, a verb. That thread runs through your entire biological existence, birth to death.
“Being yourself” in this society is an added difficulty. Social and peer pressures are constant and undeniable. Fighting them—and you should, at least those that pull you towards a materialist, suburban, corporatist unexistence—is tiresome, tedious, fatiguing, and relentless. Giving that fight up means ceding part or all of you to someone else. You become a cog, a consumer—the state of unbeing for the vast majority of the human species.
“Being yourself” requires solitude, grace, peace, courage, meditation, patience, respect, tremendous inner strength, a sense of humor, and self-esteem. Every one of those is difficult to practice or achieve.
Good luck, and fight the good fight!
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Thank you for reading!
