Even since leaving "traditional" social media a few years ago I find that I am a lot more productive just generally speaking. I no longer waste time getting into debates with strangers and I no longer scroll for ages in order to achieve nothing in the hours that it takes to do so. The only thing I really miss out on is some events that I don't end up knowing about and also, funny and interesting things that some of my friends would post like memes.
Thankfully, 9-Gag has got me covered for the most part on the meme side of things and it is really the only social media that I even pay any attention to.
Unfortunately 9-Gag has become a center for political propaganda lately as well and hunting for funny or inspiring stuff isn't all that easy. In the 9000 or so things that I looked at I would say at least half of them are about US politics, the Russia / Ukraine conflict, and transgenders in sports. I have no interest in hearing other people's opinions about any of these things. I did find a few inspiring and funny memes in the past few weeks and now I would like to share them with you.
I'm not seriously old or anything but I am in my 40's. I have somehow managed in all of that time to never get married, not have kids, and also not have any silly financial obligations other than students loans that due to the complete unwillingness of the loan holders to accommodate the fact that I live overseas, I have defaulted on and have no intention of ever paying them. That's another story though.
This meme hits me in the "yeah that's me!" feels because as I get into the back 9 of life I find that I break easier, I am slower whenever I try to do most anything, but yet I still live the life of a person in their 20's for the most part. I have no intention of ever getting old, and most of the people that live the expat life end up the same way.
Sticking with the topic of old people, this meme reminds me of when I was a teen and seriously started to get into metal - like the really hard stuff. Adults at that time would assume that this music was a sign of violence or satanism and one day I actually came home to find my parents digging through my CD collection and reading the lyrics. I tried to explain to them that I don't take the lyrics seriously, and if they were to listen to most of the bands I was really into, you can't really understand what is being said anyway. The "Satanic" bands that I did listen to like Deicide and Slayer.... I don't believe that any of those guys are actually Satanic - I think it is all a gimmick and it is one that has worked for a lot of metal bands over the years.
This was a meme until I accidentally over-cropped it. The title was simply "do you know anyone that ever had a setup like this? If you do, you are old." Well not only did I know someone, I was someone that had a setup like this and they were kind of the only option we had at the time for a good sound system. They were also remarkably expensive if you got all of the components. When I think about the amount of money that I spent on my Pioneer setup I want to kick myself for it. It was easily thousands of dollars and in the end when the industry changed, none of these gigantic components were worth anything at all. I suppose the same could be said for the hundreds of CD's and prior to that, cassettes that I accumulated over the years.
This one is funny to me because I will admit that I have a borderline problematic drinking problem. I would say that I am a functioning alcoholic. I drink nearly every day and it's hard to believe that when I was in high school and for the first year or so of college, I really didn't care for alcohol or being drunk (or high.) Well that all went out the window around the age of 19 for me.
These days, it is virtually impossible for me to go out for a "few drinks." It always ends up being a slobberknocker and my only real option to avoid that is to just avoid basically everyone that I know. It would probably benefit me immensely if I were to quit drinking but if I did that, I honestly don't know what I would do with all my time.
I am very lucky and fortunate to have accidentally developed a skill that allows me to not have a full time employer or an office that I have to report to. Most people do still have traditional jobs though and out of all of the people that I know that do have jobs like that, virtually all of them loathe going to work. I think that most jobs are soul crushing and for the 7 years or so that I spent in the professional world, the last 2 of them I was routinely late, would take really long lunches, and would disappear some days and just not come back. I basically was trying to get fired. It might surprise you how difficult it is to get fired from a government job though and eventually I resigned and moved away to Thailand. It seemed like a huge gamble and perhaps a big mistake at the time but as it turns out it was probably the best move I ever made in my life.
For the most part I believe that traditional 4-year colleges are a waste of time and money. I know that I wish I hadn't gone because I used nearly none of the things that was part of my coursework in university. I think the only thing I ever did get any use out of was a speech class and some class that I took regarding spreadsheets.
However, there were a couple of professors that really stuck out in my mind and I still remember them to this day. One of these people was Dr. Cal Christian and he taught a number of accounting classes. Now can you imagine an accounting class being interesting? Well neither could I until I met Dr. Christian. I absolutely loved going to his classes and so did everyone else. He is one of those rare individuals out there that is exceptionally good at what they do because later accounting classes that I took were devastatingly boring. I would imagine that most accounting classes are. Dr. Christian went on to get some serious accolades for his excellence and although I have not kept in touch with him, I am sure he is inspiring people to this day.
Well, I hope some of those resonated with you as well because they made me laugh, made me think, and made me happy. I'll end these things like I normally do, with a picture of my baby girl Nadi.
