History

History:

Is for Books, Not Travel

By Corey W. Harland

Hello, and welcome to "Weekend Rants"—my Friday through Sunday series where I will continue writing satire while I do otherwise useful things like living life or letting an algorithm do my thinking for me. If you caught my recent piece The Ghost in the Cockpit, you already know my thoughts on this: we have officially entered the golden age of human absolute zero. Welcome back to the passenger seat.

I've always allowed my kids a mild amount of video games, and I was an early adopter of tech both before and after the divorce. However, I still kept traditional warnings around. You know the ones—the very valuable, though usually credibility-wavered, pieces of advice handed down by parents who didn't know any better. Like: "Don’t stare too close to the screen or your eyes will burn out."

That phrase wouldn’t even make sense to a kid today. It’s both too literal and, for the other half, not literal enough. They understand tech strangely. They aren’t scared of ghost stories or warnings that don’t make logical sense. And to be completely honest, that’s the only kind of warning any kid ever actually minded. Because they don't buy the boogeyman anymore, I established the "don't question me" rule early on. But before enforcing it, I always researched exactly why my child shouldn't do something outside of my own raw opinion.

Yet alas, I do not have them 24/7. When they return to my neck of the woods, some of the things my kids complain about are just silly. Like, y'all are on the phone waaaay too much. I hope y'all still do most of your work in real textbooks in class—though as I exposed in Educate 'Em All, expecting corporate software infrastructure to safely raise our kids is a losing battle.

I will never understand someone thinking my limited time with them will or will not overshadow the rest of the noise. Because yes, it will—however, only as they digest it. Things like manners are entirely cultural. And if Americans haven’t figured out how to mess with someone’s culture and attempt to psychologically derail them by now, then no one has been paying attention to the history books.

Basically, people freely shame others and become ashamed so easily today that most folks have no actual spine. They've flipped and flopped sides of their own viewpoints because they never took the time to digest the information before grabbing hold of another person's sail. When I was younger, I was perhaps "sway-able". But sway me once, and I'm setting sail on my own tides.

We need to start letting go of the past. I like my cars, my whatever's, but one day their idea will have shifted, hopefully into something better while holding onto the core thought. Until then, we should be enjoying the exact place in the world we are right now instead of trying to travel backward.

When I was a kid in school back in the 90s, the environment debate was two-sided. There were the people who wanted their traditional cars, and the ones who wanted them for a time until we could reach levels of innovation. Well, that nuance is gone. Both of those sides are completely dead. Today, one side doesn't care if we burn it all, and the other side doesn't care if we burn the world down trying to save it.

I don't hear too many people wishing to ride in a horse and buggy as a daily commute now that we have the automobile. But with The Jetsons hitting its official 64th anniversary this week—and barrelling toward its 65th next year—I would much rather have a flying 'Rari over one on wheels or hoofs.

My older two sons—one will talk, and the other has the capabilities. And man, I miss it so much when they're gone. I had them playing Trading Card Games pretty early. Because of it, the older two can really handle a full, direct conversation with a peer or an adult incredibly well. They can stay strictly on task, and then seamlessly switch right over to "bs mode."

I’m very proud of my sons. All four of them actually have that gift. They all play TCG now, and every single one of them has whooped up on someone my age or better at least once. The only time they really talk is when they're playing, but to me, it's the best kind of talk. I can see their gears turning, and I just enjoy how much effort they are putting into life. Seeing them locked into the present makes me realize I really couldn't imagine being a kid today.

Which brings me to a millennial bash piece I've been wanting to run. We completely forget to look at ourselves as the literal parents of this era, and we don't act like it while we reap the rewards. Half of our generation is running right back to ma and pa, drinking directly from the boomer teat, while the rest try to find a way to keep fixing things while being entirely reckless about their actions.

Own up to it. You cannot eliminate nature. If you are a millennial, look at the upcoming elections: 90% of the millennial generation is now at least 35 years old and legally eligible to run for President of the United States under the Constitution. So, yeah. Quit looking to the off-the-gridders and the far-left modernists for answers. Start just listening to them bastards for their actual worth.

And what is up with these local campaign ads? How are bash-and-dash campaigns the only thing still running on the airwaves? All these local ads on the radio make me want to vomit. The words they use to support their stances are toxic—even if I happen to agree with the core policy, I cannot support the delivery because it is outright unprofessional. And the logic? Oh, my gee willikers.

Take the daylight savings debate, for instance. I saw an article tracking the 19 states that have passed laws to permanently oust the biannual time change. Federal law under the Uniform Time Act allows states to opt-out of DST entirely (like Arizona), but it completely bans them from locking into permanent Daylight Saving Time without Congress stepping in. Yet, the politicians keep screaming into the microphone instead of doing the actual legislative work.

Basically, the States did their part. The legislation should be instant. The act of preventing it from getting locked in—that's the fight. Y'all State Reps please quit letting Congress fight their fights against you before we've even been heard. If there is anything the American public can do, let us know. And no, mindlessly voting and fillable data analytics is not my idea of being informed.

My stance will always be this: I will always offer what I have to offer, and it will always come from a point of walking the center line.

I usually just surf the net and talk to AI—it's therapeutic enough. I play TCG, listen to music, sometimes sing along, or mindlessly pick up a guitar. I watch physical DVDs because high-speed internet is not easy to come by in my neck of the woods, though I've once drank the drips of the big city's succulent modernist juices. I cannot easily go out and talk to "Grandmother Willow," but I can still enjoy all the colors of the wind just fine right here.

History is for books, not travel. We belong exactly where our boots are planted.

If this kept you from scrolling on by, please consider letting your automated bot leave a "heart" and subscribe for more weekend perspectives. Next week, we are diving right back into the digital abyss with "American Dream: Beta Test", as well as "The Cost of Institutional Panic: Why "Feeling Threatened" Is No Excuse for a Breakdown in Proffessional Duty", and more to see what else is breaking our collective sanity.