WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR DELUSION FROM..?

TACTICAL

I am resuming my summer training schedule as well as studying for class this week.  So there is that.  As far as the vacant position where I work, there has been no news on what is going to be done in regards to staffing .  My goal is to be interviewed for the spot, not to actually WIN the position.  I want to be ‘in the mix’ when it is appropriate, so I figure letting my ambition be known will be a big help down the line in my future with the fitness club.

Had a couple of dates that were... hmm, difficult to process.  They both were fair, and same can be said on the level of attractiveness of the women involved.  One of them was a sister whose vocalizations seemed to be more of an ‘flatland Valley Girl’ than someone who was true to the ‘ethnic’ way of speaking.  The other was a ‘vanilla sister’, whose patois was more suitable for MTV “Cribs” than hanging out with me.  BUT those are superficial observations only and bear no weight in assessing their “general fitness” in being part of my extended social circle.

...as to HOW I am assessing their general fitness...

It is A LOT easier for me to evaluate people the way that I have for most of my adult life, so I am sorry if I seem to objectify a lot more in my descriptions of people and the various relationships and their relative importance to me and my life.  For instance, the whole ‘7 round NFL Draft’ is a ‘thing’ for me that I trust in.  If it makes me seem like a douche, que sera... been called FAR WORSE and it would still reflect more upon the observer than it would me.  With that being said, I would grade them both out at late 2nd-to-early 3rd round choices.  Neither are ‘reaches’ but possibly could contribute to the team as a key backup or situational player.  And that is a good transition as any into the body of my entry.

WHERE’D YOU GET YOUR DELUSION FROM?

I want to start reading FICTION again.  I haven’t really paid that genre of books a lot of attention, certainly not since my early-to-mid 20’s.  Terry McMillan (who has only written ONE BOOK worth reading, IMO) and E. Lyn Harris kind of wrote pulp stuff that while sold well, I thought was a mess of jumbled writing.  Anywho, I had always leaned towards headier, academically-oriented stuff. and I started to read less and less fiction.  Whenever I would read fiction, it was never the kind of ‘make believe’ stuff that I could transpose

myself with the characters in the story, save for Stephen King’s work.  But what I could always do was lose myself within the worlds of the sciences.  Though my passion never burned in the way that would have led me toward a career in statistics, I never really lost my interest in the conspiracy or numbers.

Currently reading a book, “Microtrends”, which dwells on the small groups that eventually coalesce and creates the swells that become the breaking waves of change in society.  In the earliest chapters the author discusses a few of the small trends that has led to the upheaval in relationships with men and women.  Much of what is written is about the things that I picked up on during my “Future Shock” period of large scale predilections about society and the world that I would have to live in.

The links are provided for both books and I invite you to read the descriptions and a few of the reviews of each, especially of Toffler’s work.  When given to the “shoulda, woulda, coulda’s” of life, this is one that I find in the forefront of my visions.  Could I have been the Nate Silver of my era?  I mean, it was not only something that I may have been mentally primed for but maybe even born to do. I mean, what kind of kid is spending their free time trying to digest tomes written by the likes Toffler?  For instance, when I am walking around town, one of the most obvious things to me are the signs of a well-functioning infrastructure, government and civic responsibility, and growth.  Like seeing the “Rainbow Room” upon my first week in the big O, the signs that there was a place for me here, provided that I went out and seized it, were obvious.  And it was not merely some stray and random stab at a desperate hope, as it was as I believe, divine sign of personal destiny that I was able to see.

Before I had to grapple with my condition, trying to explain my reasoning was always difficult for me because many of my sources were the materials that I would read or from news media sources via the radio or television.  And I am sure that I should not have to explain why that was a bedevilment, given the existence of climate change deniers and Tea Bag Republicans!  Anti-intellectualism is not new and the preference for unverifiable rumors and myths has always filled the vacuums created where there is space where intellect and understanding leaves room for speculation.

Back to the book “Microtrends”, as I said, it made the case for certain factors that contributed to the current dilemma in the world of “love and marriage”.  Were I so inclined, I could make the broader case for this being a worldwide issue, certainly in the First- and Emerging World societies, but I am not so there!  But what really got to me is that the related links that have women out there alone and with few traditional options are things that I had confirmed over thirty years ago.  And it is one of the reasons that I have always wondered or people, “where did you get your delusion from?”

Back when none of you knew me save Nebraska, I went through a different kind of introspection,  spurred by becoming a parent with three different women.  It has been humbling to me to have fallen into the social trope of fathering children and not remaining a direct participant in their lives.  And I am mentioning this in hopes of establishing the authenticity of my own self-awareness.  It isn’t like I talk the sh*t I talk without first holding myself to the same of microscope as I do others.

I realized that people had a serious problem with resolving their own individual observations with ‘big picture’ topics when I had a discussion with an amateur boxing trainer while I was in high school.  Because of the demographics in the Metro, I believe he was under the mistaken belief that African-Americans comprised at least 40% of the population in the United States.  No matter how I tried to get him to understand why he was wrong, he could not be dissuaded.  When it comes to relationships between men and women, there is A LOT of this kind of “magical thinking” taking place, creating what I feel is the unnecessary breakdown in communication between the sexes.

Referencing the book Microtrends, it again talks about how women are becoming more empowered, being able to earn wages and access to professions that at the beginning of my lifetime were unheard of.  But I saw that “then” and another thing that I saw was the reluctance to allow the women’s revolution to redefine roles between men and women.  Who's at fault?  Men who reinforce the old order of gender roles and expectations, or women for not understanding the new dynamic between the sexes and accepting the newer definitions and expectations of a “new traditional” relationship?

When it comes to being accepting of the change in how relationships are formed and how responsibility is divided in them, I would postulate that there are two groups that are always going to be among the late adapters... the oppressed and the oppressors, and by that I mean chauvinistic white males and African-American women.  And since I don’t have any interest in dating a redneck, tobacco-chewing NASCAR fan (or braided and tatted-up saggy jeans & LeBron Nike wearers)...

I don’t think that I have a ‘problem’ with African-American women... as much as I have issues with how they weight the traits that they desire in a partner, and their characterizations of men on the whole.  So, where DO you get your delusion from?

The conspiracy of numbers and the illusion of statististics are where many of mine come from.  My illusions are created from the leftover remnants of analysis and prediction.  What kind of sourcing do you do for the things you think that you know as facts, that you believe are true, despite relying solely on subjective faith that what you think that you know, is something that you actually KNOW?

NEXT EPISODE:  A Return To The Microverse..!