Opinion Re-think the things you value

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
[source] [archive]

20251202_131.jpg
It wasn't until these last few years that I've really been re-thinking about the things in my life that I value and if any of it's worth anything at all. Sometimes I like to imagine that if I were to someday become a father, what things I would like to pass on and share with my children. It wasn't that long ago when I would have imagined passing down my hobbies and interests in computers, science fiction, and video games, but I've reconsidered these things in retrospect because I don't see very many positive values in any of it.

I'll admit that I don't have a complete picture of the world in how things came to be or where things are headed, but much of what I've garnered as treasures thru my life were accumulated knick-knacks and litter from an artificial material culture defined by marketing trends and propaganda. Video games and computers were cool because I knew of nothing else as engaging and entertaining - it was all I had, and so I adopted them. I liked cartoons, comic books, toys, and other things growing up too, but to think any of this as having a value I should share with my hypothetical family would be pitifully laughable because I see nothing in these things that could ever sustain a life of peace, joy, and love. It's actually embarrassing to me now to think that any of these hyper consumerist pastimes and activities were once something I identified with.

This isn't something I usually write about, but I saw a video recently suggested by YouTube in their recommended sidebar which caught my attention. The title was "How Did We Get Here?" I try to stay away from doom and gloom stuff on the internet because I believe it's made to capitalize off of disenfranchised people seeking to vicariously project their personal faults and failings onto an imperfect world rather than fix anything in themselves. I skipped thru most of it because I wanted to hear their conclusion, which I made into the following snippet because I think it highlights a particular compromising sentiment among people that have good-intentions but are burried so deep under a consumer culture blinded by distractions they don't even yet realize.


Click here for source

Comic books, arcade games, Chuck-E-Cheese, and Ninja Turtles; what's the value in holding onto these things? This nostalgic notion isn't just a counter culture protest to prevailing trends, it's yet further more demoralization among a society that's completely lost its vision. While some people choose to wallow on trash in the streets, which is highlighted in the beginning of the original video, wallowing on trash in your mind isn't that so different. You have to go all the way in removing yourself and your family, if you have one, from these worldly influences and to tell them why instead of lying about it. Holding on to childish memories as if to say "things were once good but now they're not, I keep you in this bubble for your own good" isn't going to help anyone. At best, it would just rewind the time a few decades back for a moment of bliss before shortly picking back up with a grim reality.

There's nothing of this world that'll preserve you or your family. If you want to return to something, then return to the roots of family and start from there. Aim higher for real and honest relationships rooted in unconditional love for one another. What's needed right now isn't more freedom of expression, but a revival of faith and family. Look out for one another and give lasting gifts that won't spoil or errode away.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Date: 2025-12-02
 
I never cease to be amazed at people spending major dinero on huge storage lockers as a permanent fix for having too much stuff. Just simply get rid of your useless shit, when you fucking die your kids will simply load up the contents of your lockers and sheds into a dumpster and have it hauled to the dump. That's what ultimately happened to my grandparents house when they died, we loaded all their junk into a truck and hauled it to the landfill. I've been whittling down all the shit I've accumulated over 50 years of life, and I found that most stuff is literal garbage. I have some mementos with sentimental but not monetary value. In my will I gave all my personal possessions to Stanford University. I never attended there but I'm a fan of the rail baron who founded it and I admire some of the tech innovations that came out of there. Just having three undergrads in anthropology digging through my junk while saying "holy fuck, this guy was a fucking weirdo! Why are we wasting our time digging through some schizo's shed in the asshole of California?" would be a final shitpost to be lol'd at.
Your grandparents should have bought better shit.
My father bought enough military uniforms and medals to fill a museum, and that shit goes up in value faster than gold
 
All of the beautiful fields that dotted my summer drives are being ripped up for ugly storage units and bughive apartments nobody can afford. I cannot understand why anybody would want to pay money to not have something in the house. Donate it or dump it.
Quoted post makes me think of this song:


I went back to Ohio, but my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle by a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio had been replaced by shopping malls
And music filled the air from Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls
I said, hey, ho, where'd ya go, Ohio?


Rush Limbaugh's use of My City Was Gone gave it a bad rep among lots of people, but nobody actually listens to, much less thinks about, the lyrics.

PL: the wide open fields of my youth are now McTrashMansions for people who have just enough money to imagine a ginormous shitbox of a house designed by a talentless architect and built by illegal shitskins to be an Italian palazzo. Fortunately, I left that town after high school.
 
PL: the wide open fields of my youth are now McTrashMansions for people who have just enough money to imagine a ginormous shitbox of a house designed by a talentless architect and built by illegal shitskins to be an Italian palazzo. Fortunately, I left that town after high school
Ironically, the first of the Big Businesses common in box store malls to reach us was Home Depot where there was only a single gas station and open plains. If you build it, the beaners will come.
 
Back
Top Bottom