8 April 2013

On Volunteering



Volunteering for three different political parties and one independent candidate in this election has already, if nothing else, reminded me of just how it is I think (and thinking is something you may want to think about doing before you vote, not after). 

What I have done my whole life is try and identify good ideas. Putting good ideas to work is what life is about. Bad ideas are bad for survival, good ideas improve our chances of enjoying life's pleasures and avoiding pain.

For example, many, many years ago I read that global warming ought to result in more extreme weather events - not just slightly warmer overall temperatures. This made sense from what I knew of meteorology. There is a fragile balance to things. Therefore I saved the idea in my brain to see if it would one day be demonstrated to be true or false and bought property high enough above sea level, betting with real money, that my house might one have a better view of the ocean than it does now.

I did not expect to see the results of the enquiry until I was an old boy in his rocking chair.

Sure enough, however, and much, much quicker than I anticipated, our weather around the planet started fucking up like nobody's business. The Greenpeace motherfuckers were right.

What I do then is not memorise a pile of facts and figures about global warming and all that the way some people do. I simply assimilate the knowledge I had been testing (i.e. Looks like we're real fucked now!) and move on to test other ideas.

There is lots such stuff I have put to the test.

Poverty is bad; overaccumulation of weath is bad; whaling is bad; seatbelts are good; war is bad; the Canucks fucking suck, etc. You may not agree with the same conclusions I have come to and that is ok. What is important is I have come to my own conclusions using my own reasoning. That is something we can all do. That is something more of us must do because, like I just said, it looks like we are real fucked now but we are not so fucked we cannot turn shit around - if we want to.

I sure as fuck do.

9 comments:

Your driver said...

Beer, you're the best. We could use a hundred like you down here.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

There's probably a hundred people like me down at your local Irish bar.

Your driver said...

Yeah, but that's what they're doing. Sitting at the fucking bar.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Gotcha. All the good Irish whisky in the world shouldn't prevent a man or woman from engaging their powers of reason and connecting with their community, even if the powerful stuff is consumed immoderately at times.

Your driver said...


All the good union people I know who are also involved in US politics are pretty good drinkers. I think I would have to drink if I was involved in some of that horse shit. That's part of why I resisted when they tried to turn me into a Democratic Party activist. The other reason is the sheer shittyness of most Democratic politicians. We actually have some excellent people involved in politics around here and I try to concentrate on them but when we get up to the level of Washington, they've got their hands out every election and their backs turned to us as soon as they're in power.
By the way. I know that you have not been lured into the time sink of Facebook but from time to time I recommend you to friends, especially Canadian friends. I seem to have converted a couple of them to the gospel according to Beer N. Hockey.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

On the phone with voters, I have already heard, what you have to say about the sometimes purposeful disconnect between voters and politicians. A politician, or party, that cares about people has to overcome politician's and party's natural inclination to regard the people as an enemy once they are elected. If I were one, I would tape this message on every mirror in every room I wake up in - The people are NOT the enemy.

Thanks for the free advertising Jon. Its gotten to be my American readership exceeds my Canadian readers by about 1/3 on a monthly basis. You fuckers still have a ways to go before you overtake my Canadian beer drinking audience but in time you will all be able to do that thing the people of the world love seeing Americans do - being #1, motherfuckers.

RossK said...

New version of 'Song for Jon' comin...Watch for it!

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Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

We will keep our radios tuned to GAZZ-FM.

RossK said...

'Tis up.

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