Dude?
I am old. ; )
These were my favorite form of sport back in the day. That and riding my bike and my skateboard. I got to play little league when I was twelve, I was one of the first girls to play. But that was it.
Times have changed.
Last night I was walking around the baseball field doing laps while Anthony was at his practice. I watched the boys, the coaches, and I thought to myself, 'this is the end of the world and people are playing baseball'...
You need to grow up here in the United States to understand the love we have for baseball. It's a passion. I had all the cards, I always played catch, my dad took me to the batting cages. It was fun.
The founder of Starbucks said there was a need for a place that 'was not work and was not home'--another 'space' to enjoy life, like in Europe.
Sports, for us here in the States, is a place that's 'not school and not home'. You get different friends. You can excel at a sport and develop a whole side of your personality that perhaps if you weren't so hot at academics you would never learn.
I enjoy it, being a sports mom. And as I walked, I remembered all the hours (and dollars!) I have spent on swimming, martial arts, baseball, and basketball. As well as a surf lesson. And buying bicycles of various sizes as Anthony grew up. The skates, his balance isn't so good for it. And the skateboard? I bought him a longboard. He hardly used it. Even though we had all the helmet and pads. We've done the boogie board with the wetsuits which was super fun. And we have sleds and a snowball maker too. We've covered our bases.
One of the things that is different from today, is how the video games have evolved from 'pong' to pretty close representations of the sport. There's basketball, football, soccer (he doesn't play online or in life), even skateboarding. And the skateboarding game has a very strange sub-game that is called, 'The Hall Of Meat'. In that game, you try to destroy yourself on a skateboard and the more broken bones you get the higher the score. It took me a while to get used to that one.
Which brings me to the point of the title. Anthony likes playing Madden football. And on that one, you are matched with a live opponent from anywhere in the globe.
Yesterday was the first time I saw Anthony 'rage quit'. It's when the game is going so awful (he said the computer was giving the 'animation to the other guy even though he didn't do what he was supposed to do'--he just stopped the game! Of course there was cursing and swearing which I didn't want to hear. My point is that this option, to 'rage quit' is a normal part of our culture online.
Rage quit.
F-you! I'm outta here. and BLIP you're gone.
In the course of an hour of play, a lot of people rage quit against Anthony. Usually, he says, if someone outplays him he doesn't mind. As long as the game is fair and they follow the rules. He wanted to quit on someone who was 'boring'--only ran the ball and only wanted to win, didn't do anything 'creative or spectacular'. That's why I was surprised to see him rage quit. He normally doesn't.
It made me think about how TWDNHOBIAH are going to go down. They are fighters. They fight till the end, trying to come up with creative loopholes and shit. However, at some point, when the chips are down, they are going to rage quit and storm off. Who knows what kind of damage they are going to do in their wake?
So, perhaps for those of us who are concerned that this is taking FOREVER, and it is, perhaps it's our team's way of minimizing the damage that could be incurred with a 'rage quit'.
I'm not sure if anyone heard the speech from DJT, with the nine years, thirteen years, even seventeen years'. Those letters of the alphabet are I M Q or 'I'm Q'. I didn't count to double check. But that sure has been downplayed in the media, even the alternative one.
What I'm thinking is this is a soft disclosure, and we are heading towards more interesting things. If you don't know it, a certain 'snake co brah man' is pushing for a silver bullet 11/11/19 meditation. Silver bullets kill vampires right? OMG what's the deal. The trigger I think he calls it. What it means for you is the stars are lining up to an optimal point, and our teams are most certainly going to take advantage of the energy of the full moon. Enough to override any mayhem TWDNHOBIAH may cause as they use the energy of the full moon to do what they want too. It's competition--whose team will win. So not to worry about the competition but to know the energies are UP and anything can happen.
Which brings us to my last point...you know the meme of us eating popcorn and watching the show? I was sickened by the realization with my medical training what that means...when we eat, we go vagal in our sympathetic/parasympathetic tone. It's the opposite of 'fight or flight'. We are in 'rest and ruminate'.
Our captors take advantage of this to program us.
We are not discerning or wary at all when we are eating. We are 'safe'. And, eating is a pleasure which reinforces a behavior, such as watching a movie, going to an event, or watching a TV show.
Furthermore, having us pay for it, also takes down the 'wariness' a lot. If we buy a ticket, or pay for cable or Netflix, we aren't going to scrutinize what is shown to us. We have already bypassed one way to check.
Third, if we grow up with it, and everyone we know does this behavior, and we enjoy ourselves with family and friends, we are going to soak up the messages that are given to us (and reinforce the programming/status quo/politically correct 'narrative') everywhere around us. Then it is going to make us feel safe and secure because they have bypassed the 'trauma' and gone straight to the Stockholm syndrome where we identify with our oppressor.
They are using our own biology and our psychology against us.
It is no different from us knowing what bait to put on our rat traps, or what poisons to use against common garden pests. In all those cases too, the weaknesses of the pest are exploited to help us to exterminate them.
I think I am going to watch the show from my garden. Either from the hammock or the porch swing. And I'm going to enjoy it very much. I don't want to eat the popcorn because that's what I have been conditioned to do. I don't like being conditioned for anything. Yes, I like popcorn very much. But this show is so wonderful I don't want to spoil it. I want to enjoy whatever we eat back Home while it's going on, and to participate and cheer every step of the way.
Very soon I hope it's 'show time'.
Ross smiles, nods and waves, and says, 'I support this statement'.
clap! clap!
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
The Cookies (I don't know where he came up with that one)...Chocolate chip! Baked fresh warm from the oven... (he's giggling). NO POPCORN (he thinks that's funny too). God bless Ross and his sense of humor.
