Switching Gears With Madame

Madame and Readers:

Those of you who are trying to keep up with subject changes (so aptly demonstrated by Madame, lol), please see disclaimer that has been at the bottom of the home page since the beginning. :)

From your comments Madame, I see that you have been encountering more than your fair share of “Invincible Ignorance” recently!  You are probably thinking, when encountering repeated instances of that, that Socrates’ dictum about the unexamined life is far too widespread in America!

Our self-polarized culture of willingly ignorant echo chambers means we are making decisions based on not just inaccurate information, but often deliberately manufactured misinformation.  The main “conservative” radio and TV stations have, with occasional exceptions, become mostly a waste of time as a result.  The “liberal” or “progressive” ones typically have more instances of substance, but often enough degenerate into unexamined groupthink and refusal to consider the woeful incompleteness of their positions.  In far too many cases on all fronts, the search for what may be best, or the reasoned consideration of potentially valid points brought up by those not “in the tribe,” are both sacrificed for momentary advantage or avoidance of disadvantage. Which leads to policy stances full of (at best!) all sorts of unexamined and untested weaknesses.  And I say this even though I believe that “blame” for this is not only not equal, but thoroughly mistargeted in the first place because the actual culprits stay mostly hidden.

Even political comedy is increasingly unfunny or even banal.  Notice to The Daily Show: this includes you.

Gear switching with Madame (what a great title phrase!):  I see that you have classily tantalized readers with your passing mention of VS, lol.

Those women who have “given up”:  More than a few will come to be self and group aggrieved (and, incredibly, “shocked”) to find that “their” men have strayed and wandered.  And all the energy and effort they seem thoroughly incapable of or undesirous of exerting now will come out in furious force then.  Lather, don’t rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.  Because far be it for anyone to learn anything from what’s gone on before!

Btw, very clever gear switching of you to relationships and people centric-ness, which is what folks want to talk about, especially when otherwise distracted by the holiday season!  I quite willingly go with the switch, which should give dedicated readers amusement that the Prof is living out the post-election focusless-ness I talked about a year ago! LOL

Madame has brilliantly described the largely self-degenerating vicious concentric circle of American aging, and how that circle ever decreases as the typical American ages.  As you have described on your own page recently, and a bit on our Facebook page, it is too often our unexamined choices to age one way and not another (or others).   Our American culture is a culture in which so very much is tied in to channel choices which are easy but not good for us, and to take away nearly completely many things which could be good for us (the woeful design of many of our cities and transportation systems,  unfortunately, take away many good choices).

As for the tasteless and spiritually deficient pursuit of holiday shopping mania, as well as the overeating, sedentary, and entertainment-diverted combo, those serve notice that Americans should reconsider that unexamined life thing.  Because there are more tipping points than just in one’s wine or beer glass.

Professor’s Log, Supplemental: Although I don’t (and wouldn’t want to, even if the “free” time were available) dedicate extreme amounts of time to training, it was great fun and exhilaration for my son and I to become Rugged Maniacs.  For the reasons why it felt so good in so many ways, please see Madame’s post below, especially paragraph seven!