What I Learned In 2011

As a human being I owe it to myself to learn as much as I can before I leave this plane.  I constantly observe everything around me every day, from the stupidity of current events to the ridiculousness of what happens every day at work to the smallest changes in my dog’s behavioral patterns.  Sometimes I get just as stupid as everything else and take time at the end of the year to evaluate what I’ve learned the preceding twelve months as we leap to the next flipping of the annual calendar.

What I’ve learned in 2011 in a nutshell:

The weather patterns that affect the Earth are changing.

I don’t know if all the craziness with the weather is because of global warming or we humans have pissed off the weather gods, but something seriously wacky is going on with the weather these days.  Around the world we’re seeing “natural disasters” that are weather related and they’re  occurring more often and with more severity than ever before.  In Japan, America’s heartland, Indonesia, seems like everywhere, nature is flipping out and of course there’s nothing we can do to stop it.  Chunks of glaciers are falling into the sea, tornadoes are wiping out entire towns and other earth factors such as earthquakes are reminding us that we’re just a species and we really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

Politics is still politics.

Another race for the American presidency, more stupid things from people’s past come to light, and the further confirmation that no one is perfect, no one will ever be perfect, and if you believe otherwise, then your head is planted either deeply in the sand or squarely up your ass.

I don’t fit in to corporate America.

I actually stopped trying to achieve the impossible several years ago, but sometimes I get a little crazy and put my toe in the water to see if there would ever be a chance of me fitting into the mainstream at work.  It’ll never happen because it’s too depressing.  Why should I toe the corporate line when the corporation views me simply as overhead and doesn’t give a crap about me?  I’m a dime a dozen, my opinion doesn’t matter (even though I’m considered senior level at what I do) and management pacifies me to keep my mouth shut.  I’m very good at what I do but management doesn’t care to hear my opinions on how to improve things or how to keep the ship from sinking.  I’m just a Gilligan surrounded by a bunch of know-it-all Skippers who insist on running the Minnow ashore on some uncharted island.  Except where we’re going, there is no Ginger or Mary Ann.

Teach a man to fish and he’ll steal your television set.

In this country we invest a lot in our people.  It’s America’s way to give people a second chance.  We gave O.J. Simpson a second chance at letting him do something that put his useless ass in prison.  We give convicted drunk drivers multiple chances at killing people on the road before we finally take their drivers license away.  We give convicted sexual predators the chance to get out of jail and rape again.  Even homeless broadcasters, discovered on a nationally broadcast morning show, get a second chance to screw their lives up again and show us all that we’re stupid for believing in second chances.  We follow the stupidity of such second chance abusers as Lindsay Lohan as entertainment because she’s so stupid a judge can’t handle her and then Playboy charges you to see her naked in a magazine.  She has used the greatness of this country for her own good and it’s our fault – she didn’t deserve a second chance but for some reason, we all gave her one.

Money for nothing and this chick’s a sleaze.

Anyone who follows the mundane stupidity that is Kim Kardashian deserves to contract a disease that targets the genitals and spreads to the brain eventually rendering one even more useless than following Kim Kardashian in the first place.  This waste of skin is making all kinds of money off people who have no life.  I would rather watch mold or blisters form on my own penis than see a glimpse of this piece of trash that continues to rape the American landscape of its dignity.

Cell phones, text messages, Facebook bullying and the lost children of the future.

We have lost our children.  They have drowned in the sea of cell phones, text messaging, Facebook and anything else that keeps them from having real relationships with real people.  I feel closer to the junk mail I still receive in my mailbox by the street than I do my own kid.  Kids don’t want to “go to the mall” anymore.  Now they want to “go to the cell phone” or “go to the Facebook page” or “go to the drive my car with the cell phone as my primary concentration so I can kill other people on the road while texting and not paying attention to what I’m doing because I’m a stupid idiot”.  Kids still suck, but now they suck for so many more reasons and will continue to suck well past 2012.

Status quo – dogs are still Gods of this Earth.

I actually learned this a long time ago but it’s refreshing to have it reaffirmed each and every year.  Line up a human being, a cat, a dog, a chimpanzee, a politician, a sports or movie celebrity, a priest, a NASCAR driver, a porn star, Lindsay Lohan or even Tom Brady, the overrated quarterback of the New England Patriots, and evaluate them all on any given criteria that we humans find desirable.  The dog wins every time, hands down.  Don’t bother wasting your time with everyone or everything else.  A dog is and will forever be the best choice as a friend, companion, defender, champion of champions, and anything else you need them to be except if you’re some sort of twisted psychopath that wants one for something other than something viewed as normal.

I learned more than just these things in 2011 but for now I’d like to keep a positive outlook for the upcoming 2012 and ponder what I’ll learn in the coming year.  Every year something seems to happen that teaches us that we are far from the apex of being a people that knows everything.  I can’t wait to see what the next scandal is or who the next celebrity will be that goes down in a ball of flames.  The great thing is that no one has to write the script – the idiots write it themselves.

Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for reading!

Posted by KDawg on December 31, 2011

https://kbunge.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/what-i-learned-in-2011/