The Wussification of Our Children

So the other day, my youngest daughter, who was 4 years old at the time, asked me "Daddy?  Can we watch Star Wars?"

My pride outweighs any witty caption.

My chest swelled with pride, and I lovingly pulled the blu-ray from it's sheathe and slid it into the player.  My daughter giggled with excitement as the icon 20th Century Fox played it's fanfare, and then went deathly quiet for those 2 seconds letting your heart flutter in anticipation.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, and then....  POW!  The trumpets sounded, John Williams masterpiece over whelmed the room from my speakers, and the Star Wars logo flared upon my screen!  We both cheered at the sheer awesomeness of the moment.  A warm tingly shiver ran down my spine as the yellow words scrolled across the screen, and I explained to my daughter, that the film was actually called Star Wars, not a "A New Hope", but we should enjoy it for what it is.  There would be time for arguments of the validity of Han shooting first at another time.

This was one of those moments in life which should be treasured for all time.

As the Imperial Star Destroyer roared across the screen, I held my daughter tight in an embrace...  Storm Troopers shot rebels, droids ran through lasers, Darth entered, ominously yet grandly and then choked the captain of Leia's cruiser.  The droids jumped into the escape pod, and those stupid imperial officers decided not to shoot it.  (If they had, the whole series would have been solved.  Emperor wins.)  As I pointed this out to my daughter, I noticed she wasn't nearly as excited as she was 5 minutes ago...  In fact she looked downright bored.

She looked at me and said...  "Daddy! I wanted to watch ANGRY BIRDS STAR WARS!  Let's watch 'Finding Nemo' instead."

This is not the Star Wars you are looking for.

I thought unhappily to myself, that marketing wins again as I switched off the 70's epic tale, for Disney's cute fish for the millionth time.  If nothing else, it makes a good story.  I decided to tell my folks the tale of disappointment and shame, but as I launched into my diatribe of how today's children don't appreciate anything that can't be launched as a dollar app, I stopped and looked at their faces.  They were looking at me in complete disbelief and disappointment.

"You let our 4 year old granddaughter watch Star Wars?"

Darth Vader is now the second worst father of all time.

I stopped to consider...  There's a lot of killing, violence, and pure evilness in Star Wars.  Not to mention incest and worst of all Jar Jar Binks...  I was a bad dad.  How could I expose my poor sweet innocent child to this.

Hold on a second though...  When Star Wars came out in 1977, I was 3 maybe 4 at best.  My parents took me to see it 8 times!  (Mind you, I think I slept through it most of the time.)  When I pointed this out to my parents, they were taken aback.  Indeed they had corrupted me with the evil film, and I turned out...  Well, I can't say normal, but my shrink thinks I'm getting better.

You do monitor your kids don't you?!?

It got me to thinking though, why do we shelter our children so much?  Society in general tells us that our kids are precious snowflakes which must be protected at all costs.  We put them in helmets when they ride their bikes, we diligently monitor everything they watch, their friends, their teachers, their very lives!  We as parents know that if you let your child experience life in any non sheltered way, you are subject to arrest.  In fact, this mom was arrested and incarcerated for 18 hours for the crime of letting her kids play outside, while she was supervising them!  Keep your kids inside parents, exposure to fresh air and sun is punishable.  They might get a sunburn.  

But why on earth do we think our kids our so damn fragile?  Why do we believe they will be mentally scarred for life if they are scared by anything worse than their own shadow.  We let our children believe that the universe is rainbows and lollipops, and that bad things only happen to bad people.  Any semblance of freedom will surely lead to their abduction, or worse, to them hurting their feelings and becoming an antisocial member of society!

Yeah Matt, we heard this before.
I'm lazy already.

Now what most of you are thinking right now is that I'm going to launch on one of my diatribes on how the latest generation are also bunch of wussies like I have on more than a few blogs before. This however goes beyond that. It's not just the latest generation which has been wussified, it is our entire society. The kids, the parents, the grandparents, everyone.  (Please note that I am Canadian, and write ethnocentrically.  If this blog does not apply, feel free to read a different blog, featuring BOOBS!)

YOU STOLE THE COOKIES FROM THE COOKIE JAR!
WHO ME?
YES YOU!
COULDN'T BE!
<STAB>

A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that back in Roman times they used bring the whole whole family on down to the local arena to enjoy some good man on man slaughter for entertainment. It wasn't all fighting though... there was exotic animals for the kids. You know like lions and tigers eating slaves for snacks. Good old fashioned family entertainment. I'm pretty sure that all of Rome didn't turn out to be serial killers. I'm also pretty sure that they didn't all become nonfunctional members of society unable to maintain meaningful daily routine. As a matter of fact, they became a dominant player in the world, and were able to create, conquer, and make a name for themselves as one of the most important civilizations of all time.

A game of skill and finesse...

But that's not fair, you might argue. You can't compare our society to theirs. They were barbaric butchers, bludgeoning their way through life. Where we live, we wouldn't stand for that. We are civilized people who abhor violence, where they celebrated conquering their neighbours. Canadians exist peacefully with the world, and have a human rights record which is unmatched. Democracy exists to give everyone the right to their say, where they lived under a system of tyranny, in which killing was the only means of survival.  Our entertainment is a of a more civilized ilk.

It is very true that while our societies differ considerably, the fact remains that through out history there are numerous examples of kids being exposed to things that would make toughest of the adults in our society horrified. In Athens, the birth place of democracy, relationships between grown men and young boys were common. Their neighbours in Sparta taught their kids to be able to fight or die at ages where we won't let our kids hold a butter knife. All over the world, killing people was like pay-per-view entertainment.  France and their guillotine, Witch burnings in Salem.  Even right here in Hamilton less than two hundred years ago, taking the kids to see a drawing and quartering was considered a nice picnic atmosphere.  (Read about the Bloody Assize)

Tee hee hee, Ass Size....

The truth is all societies have to adapt their attitudes around their needs. If your civilization in constantly under the threat of being attacked ruthlessly by their enemies, then it behooves it to introduce their youth to violence at an early age. This allows them to more effectively defend themselves and survive, and even dominate other societies.  Our schools teach us how to learn things which are fun, but ultimately useless.  (Except math of course, I still use that, mostly to help my kids with their homework.)

We learned about dinosaurs,
They learned how to kill a man three ways with a paperclip.

We find this barbaric because we haven't grown up having to deal with self-defense. Morals are dictated but societal needs, and not by anything else. That's why kids in history have been treated like the adults we are today.  That's also why adults today act like the youth of history.  Kids, like all humans can adapt to their societies needs, and what's more can do so more pliably than most adults can.

So the answer is this... We treat our kids like precious snowflakes because we don't need to make them grow up. It's not their fault if they turn into wussies who can't fail at anything because they haven't been taught how. It's ours. Competition has become a bad word,  and self esteem seems to be the only thing that matters. We raised our kids this way, because in turn it was the way we were raised. We live in a safe society where we don't fear being attacked daily because the government protects us. As such we don't feel the need to have to defend ourselves.

I'm gonna learn how to virtually kill people
and yell racial and homophobic slurs when I virtually die.

Having said that, we have to remember however, that as sensitive as we think our kids are, (comparatively speaking, they are...)  Kids are also lot stronger than we give them credit for. What's more, they will find ways to express themselves that we don't understand. (Pokeman comes to mind).  Best we take control and give the a little bit of non-child Friendly entertainment before they are old enough to control us, and turn our old age homes into a life like simulation of Grand Theft Auto, wheelchair wars.


Of course, if you can't handle it, you can always use these. 

These ARE the droids you're looking for.

Now if you'll pardon me, I have to go console my daughter...  She's crying because the barracuda killed Nemo's mom and then ate all his baby brother's and sisters.

Some things I learned

Hello all...  I've missed you!  I know it's been a while since I've put anything up, and I promise you it's not because I haven't wanted to.  Sometimes life gets in the way, and sometimes I'm just too lazy. 

I am approaching my 39th birthday in a few days and feeling my age a little.  I expect that when I turn 93, I might read this and laugh at the young whippersnapper who has the gall to say that 39 is old.  But as is the case with everyone, the age you are makes up 100% of your life, and thus, seems like a lifetime.  In theory it is middle age.  I'm OK with that.  I will only have one 39th birthday, and I look forward to becoming a crotchety old man...

Secret to long life?  A steady diet of whiskey and whores!

We as a society don't tend to value the elderly as we should.  We also forget that they have tend to have more life experience, awesome rambling stories, strange smells, and they may have kicked more ass in one can of whoop than our namby pamby asses could ever hope to.  They didn't have all the life easy making technology we had.  I mean, I called out the Millennium generation for being a bunch of snot nosed brats.  Grandpa survived polio pandemics, lead and asbestos paint, wall street crashes, and disco.  He also punched Nazi's for fun. Think about that next time you bitch how hard done by you are because your smartphone is a little slow looking stuff up.

So while I know I can't offer you as much as grandpa could have, he's not here, and probably wouldn't know what to do with a blog if I slowly and painfully explained to him how social media connects the world, and how to put his outdated racist thoughts out there for everyone to read.  Also, I kinda hope that if he could work the internet that he'd be surfing porn instead.  He deserves it.

So instead, I am going to offer you somethings that I've learned in my 39 years on this planet.

1.  A lot of things I know are obvious.

I'm no genius.  There are many who are way smarter than me, and I don't pretend to be an absolute expert on anything.  Many things I will talk about you may already know.  I figure I've probably never had an original thought in my life.  The observations I've made have been made by others, and probably they've drawn the same conclusions that I have.  I guess the only thing that I might be able to do is to enlighten you what my perspective is on things that are obvious.  So you may not learn any new facts by reading my blog, but if you do, then I guess I should be happy.  I'm just saying, don't expect any new revelations from reading this.  If anything maybe you can walk away with a new way of looking what you already know, and if you do, then I guess than I did a good job.

2.  Boobs are great!

Sorry, I lost my train of thought.

What's that I said about obvious again?  There's just something about boobs.  They are truly a wonderful thing.  Not only do they look great, feed the young, help perpetuate the species by attracting men to women, look great, are fun to play with and to have played with, drive the economy by their natural advertising qualities, and given bras something to do more than just hold coconuts; they may be one of the soul reasons humans have evolved into the dominant species on the earth. 

Of course the biological reason for the boob is for mothers to feed their young.  If breast feeding propaganda is to be believed, this helps create a bond between mother and child.  That coupled with the fact that somewhere deep in men's psyche they are attracted to boobs because they are trying re-capture that bond and are drawn to women in a way that creates a family unit.  The family unit is stronger than the individual person as multiple people who are connected by love work as a team. and have more strengths.  Those teams dominating individuals have taught us that the group is stronger than the individual, and thus groups of families are stronger than one family.  Following this train of thought, by maintaining groups of humans together who have common interests, we've made cities, and countries, and essentially civilization.  (Opposable thumbs help as well.)  So the next time you are sitting back in your home enjoying a beer, instead of being eaten by a bear....  Thank boobs.

Thanks Boobs!

3.  Truth is a matter of perspective.

Sorry, the boobs picture was way better.

There is such a thing as "The Truth".  It is an absolute.  It is the way things are, completely and unquestionably right.  It has no morals, no reason, and no accountability.  It is just the way things are, period.  (Was that 'period' necessary?)

We all observe the truth every moment of our conscious lives.  (Probably the unconscious parts of our lives as well.  I can't say.)  We observe it through all our senses.  We take it, process it, interpret it, and it becomes our reality.

The issue of perspective comes from the fact that all humans are different and unique.  Everyone has a different biological make up, and even those with similar DNA has been shaped by different life experiences.  As such no two peoples interpretation of the truth are the same.  So while the absolute truth is unwavering, everyone observes it differently based on their perspective, so everyone's personal truth is biased to themselves, and we can NEVER know 'The Truth' even though it exists.

Anyway, my point is this...  The next time you are talking to someone who you are sure is completely wrong and a moron, or someone who seems really smart, but has ideas which are completely misguided, remember they see the same truth as you.  Their life experiences and genetic makeup has just given them a different perspective on the exact same thing that you have seen.  In fact maybe your the moron, because what you 'know' is absolutely wrong.  Take some time and listen to everyone's perspective no matter how skewed it is from your own.  You'll add to your own experience, and create a more well rounded personal vision of truth.

(Just a quick note, I have my songs on shuffle right now, and I have learned something new.  Britney Spears' 'Oops I Did It Again's ending and Skid Row's 'Eighteen and Life to Go's beginning mixes extremely well into each other.  It's almost scary.)

4.  Britney Spears - Sebastian Bach from Skid Row

Might be the same person, I'm not sure.

5.  No one can make you happy but you.

Bad skit, good life lesson.

 I find that most people are always looking for the next thing in their lives, and they forget to enjoy what they have.  We look to things, people, events, TV, Movies, books, and all other external stimuli to make them happy.  I'm not immune from this either.  Most of the pursuits in my life are based on finding things to give me pleasure.  (This includes selfish interests such as video games and technology, and selfless things like family and doing things for friends.)  Even things I hate doing are generally done to give myself the means to put myself in a position where I will get gratification.

It doesn't matter however what you do, what you have, who your with, or where you are, (or any combination the previous statements.), YOU are always going to be there.  You don't have a choice in the matter.  You simply can't escape that you are stuck with yourself.  No matter what you do to try and escape yourself, the best you can do is maybe alter your ego's perception of yourself.  

So you might as well like yourself.  Learn to find happiness just being you, and then no matter what you do, at least you'll have yourself to keep you happy.  People who have learned this lesson can be more happy with nothing than those who try and fill their emptiness with other things.  

People also tend to like people who like themselves.  When I was young I tried to be what I thought people wanted me to be.  Generally it made me unhappy, and wasn't effective.  I then learned that I can be a total goofball spastic geek who is true to myself, and people responded to me much better.  Maybe I just attracted other spastic geeks, but if that's the case, I'd much rather hang out with them, then all the 'cool' people in the world.  (Did I just call all my friends spastic geeks?  Maybe.  I don't see that as a negative.)

6.  Everyone is Evil.

I am going to feed on your soul for fun.

I truly believe that we all have super dark thoughts.  Thoughts that are not morally correct.  Thoughts that are not politically correct.  Thoughts that we could get arrested for if we were to admit them to anyone. I believe that pregidous is natural, and inherent in all life.  Morality is a question of perspective and societies perceived 'right' way of doing things.  While most of us live by that code, most of us also disagree with a lot of it.

While I don't think I would ever murder anyone, I can't say that it hasn't seriously crossed my mind that it might be an appropriate thing to do.  Not even for any good reason.  There are many completely inappropriate racist jokes which I happen to find hilarious.  I think that recycling is a waste of time, and that we only do it to make ourselves feel better about horrible treatment of nature in the first place.  I sometimes think that homeless people are a blight on society, and should be dealt with harshly.  I think that the sex trade has a place in our society, and is way more empowering to the workers than anyone will ever admit.  I believe that Rebecca Black's 'Friday' is actually a pretty good representation of modern pop culture and should be appreciated as art.

What's more I think that the majority of people agree with me on some of these points and probably a whole bunch more that I can't admit here.  However as these subjects are taboo, they can't be mentioned to anyone ever, for fear of judgment and retribution for not having clean thoughts.  Even those who have an opposite perspective to yours, they still have thoughts that are just as taboo as yours.  

It's comforting to know that there are others who think the same evil thoughts you do.  Even if they never admit it.  It's natural to think evil thoughts.  Just draw the line at acting out on the ones which cross your own personal line of morality.

6.  I talk way too much...

My last lecture.

My friends with ADD tell me that my stories are way too long.  They're a bunch of jerks.  They'll never know I wrote that, so I don't feel bad.  My friends with normal attention spans tell me my stories are too long.  They're probably right.  I appreciate them all.  I don't listen to them mind you, but at least they are nice people.  My friends who have hyper attentiveness tell me my stories are right, and ask for more detail.  They are masochists, and I love them all.  

I love to give detail, and will go on to the Nth degree about everything if given the chance.  Sometimes you need to know when to shut up.

My Dirty Fantasies

So I am always curious about what brings people to my blog. It's a most curious thing. I obviously get a bunch of hits when I first post a blog. Mostly from my friends who follow my facebook and twitter. (And the 3 people that follow me on Google+.) I can also see stats on when, where, and what search brought them to my blog. The searches interest me the most, because it gives me a good idea about what interests people enough to have them click on some strangers musings.

This picture is unrelated, but probably will increase
my blog hits by about 7 times.

So what are the most searched for things you ask? Well, you probably aren't asking this, but I'm going to tell you anyway. "Record Player" and "Surfing Unicorn" are number one and number two respectively. Both are from my blog "More Controversial Stuff From My Brain". The third is "Joel Higgins" ("Legend of Immortal Joel Higgins") and fourth is "Atheist vs. Christian" ("Atheists and Other Beliefs") Which by the way are my number two and one viewed blog both getting about 1.5 hits a day. My first ever blog (Blogging) has only 45 hits, and I don't expect it to ever get any more. It is kind of lame with no awesome pictures like the one shown here. Also, on an unrelated note. I do have one search of "skydiving loser" which brought someone to my page. Never have I brought up skydiving in all my ramblings although I probably have mentioned the word loser. I don't understand Google searches sometimes.

Check out my Movember pictures
if you really want to see a narcissist.

The other thing that I have found to the people I have talked to about my blog is that they are most likely to read my blog if it has an interesting title. I am sure this is why "Obamacare Isn't That Bad" despite being one of my personally funnier blogs and why "Language May be Offensive to Some" got 100 hits in a day. This may be why you clicked on this link, because My Dirty Fantasies sounds kind of sexy, and why you are probably disappointed that I've so far only done a lot of self promoting links.

What can I say, I'm a little narcissistic. The truth of the matter is this, this August for some reason I can't fathom, my blog has gotten over 100 hits more than any other month, despite only having one post. So since I have my personal best, I figure I might as well shoot the moon, and try and post something that should get a bunch of hits because it's sexy, fun, and mostly has a great picture of boobs on it. And lets face it who doesn't love boobs. Boobs boobs boobs! The more times I say it, the more likely it is to come up in your search engine. Hmmm... I wonder if there are any other websites that relate to boobs. I doubt it. The Internet is sooooo prudish!

Okay, well enough of the shameless self promotion. You came to hear my fantasies, and as promised you will hear them. (At least the few of you who actually read this far with out getting sick of the above prattling...

Nothing says sexy like Houndini's magic tricks...

I hate to say it, but my fantasies aren't exactly "50 Shades of Gray". In fact I've never read it, nor do I have the desire to. I understand the basic premise, and while I am sure this craze of "Mommy Porn" may be a band wagon worth hopping on, I probably won't be anytime soon. What does interest my more is the psychology of the dominant/submissive relationship mentioned in the book (at least I am told), and what draws people into these roles. Do people actually want be beaten and humiliated for fun? Do they hate their lives that much, or have so much guilt over past events that the only way they can feel better is to be on the receiving end of a restrained beating? Do others find the only way to feed their ego is to be punisher? Do they feel so powerless in their public life, that the only way to even things out is to reverse that role?

I'm sure there is way more to it than that, but my fantasy is less about experiencing that, but more about understanding it. In fact about understanding everything that people do. A colleague of mine last week admitted to me in a casual conversation that he had a copy of "Mein Kempf". Realizing what he had implied seconds later, he immediately tried to justify why he had a copy. He explained it was because he wanted to see what a mad man had been thinking and that all dictators should be scrutinized. He needed not justify himself, as I completely understand that feeling.

STEAMROLLER!!!!

If I had to make the proverbial genie wish, I think that I would wish to know and understand everything. Everything from the minds of the evil, religion, science, and the most mind boggling of all, women. Having thought about this, I do understand that if I were to have this wish come true that I would probably be confined to a mental institution shortly thereafter, as to know the absolute truth, and then try to survive in a world laden with lies would do nothing short of drive someone crazy. Still to know everything without doubt, without hesitation, without any sort of candy coating would truly be my number one fantasy.

The writers fantasy has me looking disheveled, and smoking a pipe.

The other major fantasy I have is to get paid for writing. This blog is a lot of fun and all, but it would be sweet to make money for it. I'm not about to give up a good career and put my family at risk or anything on the whim of a pipe dream, but I really do enjoy writing, so if I could get paid a wage that I could survive on, that would be my on my fantasy list.  In fact, I think all you freeloaders should stop reading my blog for free, and start sending me quarters.  (Email me at mattclaus74@gmail.com if you'd like to send me a quarter.)  Other fantasy careers include, baseball player that hits only home runs, hockey goalie who break dances whilst saving every puck, professional vacation go-er on-er, Joel Higgins' personal assistant, and guy that gets paid to surf YouTube.  If anyone wants to offer me any of the above jobs, please email the above.

My final fantasy is to have this picture stolen and made into a best selling t-shirt...

Number 1 image on Google for Surfing Unicorn!!!

That's right, I created it, and people keep searching for it.  I don't have nearly the ambition to do anything with this.  Sure I stole the image of the wave and the unicorn, but I put it together and added rainbows.  I would absolutely and positively stoked if someone put this on a t-shirt, and sold it.  I don't need credit, I don't need money.  All I need to know is that someone loved it enough to do it, and someone else thought it was good enough to buy.  I tell you what, if anyone wants it, send me an email, and I'll make it at cost.

Oh yeah, one more wish for a fantasy....

BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!  BOOBS!

Be careful what you wish for....