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Support Bacteria – It’s the Only Culture Some People Have

Posted on by D. Parker

1funny778The occasional broken heart (some courtesy of good-for-nothing teen heart-throbs leering suggestively from glossy magazine covers), the enforced cleaning of my room, scrapped knees and elbows, the tedium of school, bullying, losses…still, I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a time where we knew little.

Sure, pesky facts sometimes showed up, but we were quick to scare them away and defiantly let our ‘ignorance is bliss’ flag fly!

Of course, I knew horrible things had happened and were happening, but for inexplicable reasons (I blame chocolate and kittens), I seemed to believe things would get better.

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I don’t know, maybe it was growing up in a small town, but even with all my extensive sci-fi reading and viewing I could never have imagined this strange new world I would someday live in where Donald Trump could be President of the United States; someone would list their dog as a job reference; Kardashians are deities; people fawn and argue on social media over food while many don’t have any food at all; we would still believe governments and corporations who regularly and flagrantly lie to and cheat us…where fiction is fact and fantasy masquerades as reality.

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The news, entertainment, internet, politics, business, sports, relationships – it’s like we’re watching The Tudors or The Borgias and the only thing that has changed are the outfits…and the quality of the acting. Lies, intrigues, shifting alliances, hypocrisy, machinations, double standards (like when someone does whatever they want, but when someone else does the same thing or less, they’re outraged, shocked, appalled – insert Fox Newsworthy propaganda rhetoric here).

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Tired of the daily circus, I eagerly plopped down on my couch, green tea in hand, sore feet on the exercise ball (hey, it has to be good for something) to distract myself from the distractions and marvel at Colin Firth’s magnificence in Magic in the Moonlight.

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But alas, I found the movie full of philosophical questions about the meaning of life. Sigh. Is nothing sacred? While enjoying the witty banter, I also had to think about whether this is all there is. This day-to-day, this cycle of life, the collective cultures, religions, the systems and wealth of knowledge obtained from human history and common experiences…Or is there more? A higher power, a divine plan, magic, a metaphysical world beyond the rational. Are there plans or is it all spontaneous and just happening as it’s happening? Perhaps I should have just revisited the pastoral peace of Pride and Prejudice, but then, I’d probably wonder again whether I would really like Mr. Darcy if I met him, or think he was a rich, pompous jerk.

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My brain was awash with questions…and green tea. Do we need illusions or even delusions to survive and then more and more as stress levels build?
Is that why the world is looking more like the final days of an empire?
It might also explain why pop culture has become an avant-garde-Spanx-clad-Salvador-Dali-painting-on-Viagra.

Oh well, off to Outwit, Outlast and Outplay another day.

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Author:

Very me

109 thoughts on “Support Bacteria – It’s the Only Culture Some People Have”

  1. I’m so cynical these days that I know politicians are lying the moment I see them opening their mouths. Trouble is I now apply my distrust to everything I see expecting them to tell me lies.I saw an episode of homes under the hammer and saw a couple pay £110 for a property and found myself wondering how much they’d really paid even though I’d seen it with my own eyes.
    I now have lying eyes.
    xxx Huge Hugs Donna xxx

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    1. I think it’s difficult not to become jaded when more and more people seem to be able to justify lying as a common practice, even in day-t-day life. I’ll go with the X-Files ‘I Want To Believe’, but most days it feels more like ‘Trust No One’. I take everything with a pinch of salt and then am sometimes delighted when people are honest and authentic. 🙂
      Hope you are feeling better, David and honestly hope you have a lovely day. 🙂
      Massive hugs!!! 🙂

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      1. You are a gorgeous person Donna and a delight to know.Maybe I’m not as jaded as I thought I was and I’m now a tad less cynical about life.
        xxx Humongous Hugs xxx

  2. Haha, do you think Dali would agree? Thank you for letting me look at Colin Firth awhile over coffee.

    I take pop culture in small doses. I pick at what interests me then drift back to somewhere around 1948.It was not a perfect time either, but the war was over and men were men, and I like knowing that, knowing who we are and where we are going, with some purpose.

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    1. I don’t know, but I’m sure he’d have something to say about it. 😉
      You’re welcome, he’s always a lovely treat. 🙂
      I agree and my doses seem to be getting more selective by the day. 😉

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  3. Your title made me laugh. Don’t fret – soon enough we will be colonizing Mars and spreading our culture across the stars. Sure it will still be the same sorry excuse for culture (or even worse – because Idiocracy showed we can always be worse), but at least we will be intergalactic planetary!

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  4. I think each generation feels this way: in turmoil. And, as a human (as a being who is essentially a finite cog in what is probably an infinite machine) you get the sense–or I have, as I’ve aged–that I’m just passing through and that nothing is fundamentally ‘new’ to us as a species: not wonder, not lust, not wanderlust, not disillusion, not despair, not hate, not greed, and not, best of all, love or tolerance/kindness. I’m reasonably sure our parents said, ‘look at that crap kids are listening to/doing today’ when it was us in the 1970s or ’80s or ’90s. Freddie Mercury and Cyndi Lauper and Madonna and Metallica and Kurt & Courtney (et al) were our Kardashians, in a way. Anyway, I loved reading this post and, as to American politics, I say “let him [Trump] run” because, clownish & idiotic though he is, he will enable the triumph of (one hopes) a truly progressive candidate like Bernie Sanders.

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    1. I actually don’t mind some of the pop culture, ie. I tend to like music, movies, TV, books from all generations, and I wish I could write it off as easily as that, as turmoil, turmoil is natural and can actually push society forward in a positive way, it’s the disconnect and the apathy that worry me.
      We here in Canada know that candidates that seem impossible can end up running your country (into the ground) for years and years.
      Thank you kindly for taking the time to drop by, I hope this day is good to you. 🙂

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      1. I get ya, there. I think apathy might seem worse now than in the past because there are simply more people on earth to be apathetic. I hope, anyway! Yep, a word to the wise; I shouldn’t count the Donald out, for sure, as I remember that many of us Americans used to say we’d move to your lovely Canada should Dubya make it into office (which he did, twice!). However, it sounds like you and I are of the same mind–and I think that many Americans are beginning to ‘get it’–that corporations are most definitely not people [if they were, many should be in jail for life] and we need to be more skeptical and less apathetic with regard to not just government and politicians. I find I’m less tolerant of some of the media today than you, however. For instance, the “old” music [every genre] will always be better than a majority of today’s stuff! 😉 As to books, movies, television, and other pop culture forms, I am more open-minded.

      2. Our lovely Canada isn’t what it used to be, sadly. 😉
        A majority yes, but there was bad music in every generation and good and awesome, for me, at least. 🙂
        I was thinking people were getting it, but then I wonder, on a whole, are we?

  5. Dear Donna — shine on as you outwit and outplay! :star: :star: :star:
    You sound a lot like the way I’ve been lately, wondering if this is really all there is (reminds me of some old sad show tune that i was too young to remember… can’t think of more than that one line). But you and your words, shine light on the day.
    Oh, and “an avant-garde-Spanx-clad-Salvador-Dali-painting-on-Viagra.” that’s your best yet! Love it. Mega hugs!

    Reply

    1. Thank you Teagan!!! You as well, sweetie. 🙂
      As I read this I was thinking of Pinky & The Brain where Brain always asked Pinky, “Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” and Pinky would come up with some bizarre answer like, “I think so Brain, but burlap chafes me so” or “I think so, Brain, but I dunno, Kevin Costner with a British accent” or “I think so Brain, but if they called them McSad Meals no one would buy them” or “Umm, I think so, Brain, but what if the chicken won’t wear the nylons?” (those probably aren’t exact quotes, it’s been awhile since I watched them). OK, I’m rambling, but I think we are pondering the same things. 😉
      I was having a weird day…that line probably explains how weird. 😉
      Hope this weekend is kind to you, Teagan, dare I hope we’re going to meet at the station tomorrow for another installment in your awesome serial – I’m still picturing people as their purple ape dopplegangers. 😉
      Megahugs!!! 🙂

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      1. You’re too kind. And you made me smile again with picturing people as their purple ape dopplegangers! I actually thought about you saying that yesterday. This was/is my Friday to work, so I haven’t had the spare day for writing/decorating the episode… It might not be up until Sunday. But knowing you’ll be there makes me want to write it. 😀

      2. I feel the same way, Teagan. So sorry you were attacked by the migraine varmints, I understand completely and will be waiting faithfully by the station until you feel better. 🙂
        Take care, sweetie, now go banish those critters! 🙂 Megahugs!

  9. The only thing I can conclude about Donald Trump’s popularity is that many people are really proud of being stupid and think it was a right given to them by the founding fathers, the Constitution and God and by golly, they’re going to exercise that right. It’s the only thing that makes sense. But then I live in a Dali-on-viagra world most of the time. Great post!

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    2. The Donald is like that curmudgeon of an uncle at the family reunion who, after having drowned his “social niceties filter” by going three shots past his two drink limit, wants everyone to know how things truly are but can’t really remember so he finds it necessary to make up a few facts along the way. Sort of like a train wreck, entertaining in a macabre kind of way.

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      1. If the world wasn’t so topsy-turvy that people like him (if there’s actually anyone really like him is debatable) could run the world, it would be funny.

  10. You’ve mentioned Dr. Who, Collin Firth AND Pinky and the Brain all in one post! I’m in awe. Good job. As for the nonsense that passes as news and culture in our world, I’ve recently adopted the words of [I think] Amy Poehler who said: “Ignore the ignorant.” Seems to be working for me, feeling better all the time. Out of touch, but happier. 😉

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    1. Thank you kindly for the reblog, Ian. 🙂
      I’m playing catch up today too, but I’m afraid it’s rather catching up with me. 😉
      Hope this weekend is a good one. 🙂

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  14. Brilliant!!! I agree with you completely. I do feel like we are in an empire which is in the process of collapsing. Things have just become ridiculous. I have stopped watching or looking at the “news”. Love the title of this post!!!!!

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      1. WordPress is playing it’s mind games again. Thank you and I as well. I’m glad we found each other in this giant virtual haystack!

  17. I would have “liked” this post for the title alone. But the post is excellent and uniquely you.

    As for “Trumpy”…I’m more scared of his comb-over than I am of him. I have to stop my hands from picking up a comb and a can of lacquer and trying it on me. Oh the horror…

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  23. “It might also explain why pop culture has become an avant-garde-Spanx-clad-Salvador-Dali-painting-on-Viagra.”

    Um, quote of the day right there. Maybe week or millenium.

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  24. Avant garde spanx clad Salvador Dali painting? Awesome! Probably the best description I’ve ever heard of our current pop culture zeitgeist. And you know what? I love that our culture is a crazy circus. It keeps things entertaining.

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