The past few weeks I've been paying attention to current events...

I'm not about to rant about how the left is evil and stupid, or how the right is evil and greedy. You already have an opinion, and if you don't then perhaps you should get one.

But what does that mean, "getting an opinion"? Wading through an ocean of mud slung from "right" to "left" and "left" to "right". These "wings" appear to be full of people who are somehow convinced that the leaders on the opposite side of the spectrum have no single thought for the good of America. Our mainstream news is all but **completely useless**. I very rarely see a clear article come from them which I cannot, by deeper investigation, find to be grossly misleading. That includes FOX, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, and even BBC and RT, all of them. (...Although, BBC and RT are somewhat more useful when taken in perspective, because they give their own country's spin, which is bound to be different from the U.S. news.).  Even Reddit is difficult to sift through, because many of the opinions are based on what people have seen in the news or on Reddit. I tried getting information directly from "leak" sites, but honestly there's so much there that it's hard to sift through it, and I don't have the attention span for it most of the time. I've looked into Twitter, but that just seems like such a trap. Whenever I feel like I'm getting close to the point where I can "watch Twitter feeds" on a regular basis, I get depressed and frustrated with myself because... because... Twitter is so lame... And so is Vine. They're all just copies of the same damned meta. Facebook, Vine, YouTube, Twitter, etc.; they are all pretty much the exact same thing, only with different limitations. Really, though, is there anything that any of the aforementioned sites can do that Google+ can't do and more? But Google is hardly trustworthy. They talk so loudly about internet freedom and neutrality, but yet they bought up Twitch and are muting old videos which had songs playing in them. They wrote the software that China uses to keep their own people uninformed! Who decided that an uninformed population was good for anyone!? If the people are knowledgeable, then they are able to protect themselves from an evil government, domestic or foreign, and with that protection also comes security in their freedoms. There is absolutely no bad that can come from the truth, only good can come from it -- it's just that initial pain that people are afraid of when they have told too many lies. Telling the truth after a lie is like changing a bandage that's been on for too long. It hurts, but if you don't do it your skin is going to start to stink and eventually rot.

All that to say, getting an opinion is difficult because evil people have manipulated stupid people into thinking that it's better to remain stupid, and to keep as many others stupid as possible. That said, suppose you stumble onto the truth in the midst of the current state of affairs. Well, by knowing the truth you become disillusioned; by understanding the truth, you become trapped in a world where your likelihood of making it better is small; and by telling the truth you offend everyone. The truth doesn't set you free on earth; it sets you free in death.

What's the point, then? If I can't make a difference, why try? Seems like we should all just try hard to get rich, and if we begin to fail, commit suicide. Well, as we can see by simply looking at internet news and listening to the radio, celebrities fall into 2 categories: those who are terribly depressed and show it, and those who are terribly depressed and hide it. Many of the ones who hide it are the pathetic losers on the radio who have this incessant need to continuously write more lyrics about how they're partying hard and doing drugs and having sex. Like they think, "if I say it makes me happy enough times, then maybe I'll be happy". Happiness, in a general sense, is nearly impossible to find by any endeavor on earth. Accept it. It's not a depressing thought, necessarily, it's just a fact. You very likely will never have the opportunity to make a significant positive impact on "the world".

Here's what I've realized in the past few weeks: It's not up to us to make a significant difference on the whole world. Who's idea was it to tell us we could or should change the world? We shouldn't even try. What we should do is change the people around us. Go hug that depressed dude over there. Go buy a meal for that homeless guy, and eat it with him and hear his story. These are small things, from which you might not observe any immediate good. However, if everyone was doing it, then wouldn't the world be great?

I already hear someone saying, "But everyone isn't doing it. Me helping isn't going to change anything, so what's the point?". That kind of thinking is exactly the reason why everyone isn't doing it. Massive change requires individual decisions to do small right independently of the world around them. That means that if you change first, then you're doing your part. You don't have to expect anyone else to change, and you shouldn't. Just change yourself.

Anyway. The reason I started writing this post was to say I've been in a really bad mood lately because of what I've been seeing on the news. If you want to end war, just refuse to fight. Some "leader" out there is telling a bunch of idiots on strings to take up their arms and defend the motherland from the other idiots on strings who are defending the motherland. As if national sovereignty over specific dirt has any real meaning anyway. We're trapped by this idea that currency is a necessity of humanity, and so a government to which taxes are paid is vital to the propagation of human life. Is it? No. It's not. And that's a topic for another post.

"Maybe one day I'll buy a meal for someone and they'll kill me. What a blessing."