When the World Silences the Spark: How Bright Children Learn to Dim Their Own Light

I was once a gregarious, energetic, endlessly curious child — the kind teachers remembered and parents sighed over. I talked too much, moved too fast, and always seemed to have a new idea or a new way of doing things. In hindsight, it was textbook ADHD mixed with natural extroversion: enthusiasm without brakes. 

But instead of being understood, I was punished. The spanking, the scolding, the “Why can’t you just sit still?” slowly replaced my laughter with caution. I learned that quiet meant safety. That shrinking meant acceptance. Over time, the outgoing child I’d been became watchful, inward, and guarded.

Years later, I saw a version of that same story unfold again — not identical, but painfully familiar — and I began to wonder: is there a name for when life beats the extroversion out of us?

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The Extrovert Who Learned to Hide

There is no neat diagnostic label for it, but psychologists have names for its pieces.

• Learned Introversion — when an expressive, outgoing temperament is punished or shamed into silence, a person adapts by suppressing their natural impulses.

• Protective Withdrawal — when social interaction becomes associated with risk, the mind builds a buffer of isolation.

• Attachment Avoidance — when trust is repeatedly betrayed, affection and openness start to feel unsafe.

• Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria — often linked to ADHD, where even minor criticism triggers intense shame or fear of rejection.

Together, these become something like trauma-induced adaptive introversion: a quieting of the spirit not because the person is truly introverted, but because the world made loudness painful.

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The Mask That Becomes a Personality

This transformation isn’t a conscious choice. It’s survival. The child who once burst with joy learns to scan the room for danger before speaking. The teen who used to lead the pack learns to sit at the edge and observe. Eventually, even as an adult, the “mask” of restraint feels safer than authenticity.

What’s most tragic is that this adaptive quiet is often praised — “You’ve matured,” they’ll say, or “You’re finally calm.” But it isn’t calm; it’s containment. It’s the cost of growing up misunderstood.

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The Ripple Through Generations

Without realizing it, cycles repeat. One generation’s punishment becomes the next generation’s silence. A once-gregarious parent may raise a child who mirrors their early energy, only to see that same light dim after emotional or social injury. The parent recognizes it — the same adaptive withdrawal they once lived — and feels powerless to reverse it.

Yet, as healing shows us, the spark never really dies. It waits for safety. For laughter that doesn’t carry consequences. For people who listen before judging.

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The Hidden Pain in “Difficult” Children

We often talk about difficult kids as if their behavior is defiance. But what if it’s a cry for engagement? For understanding? Punishing a high-energy or sensitive child for being themselves doesn’t build discipline — it builds fear. The cost isn’t just behavioral compliance; it’s emotional contraction. We lose the artists, inventors, and compassionate leaders who might have been, if only they’d been nurtured instead of subdued.

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A Call for Compassion

If you recognize this story — in yourself, your child, or someone you love — understand this: introversion born of fear is not true introversion. It’s a wound wearing patience as armor.
The world needs its exuberant, messy, creative souls — not just the quiet survivors who learned to adapt.

Listen to the children who can’t stop talking. Protect the ones who dream too loudly. See the restless ones not as problems to be fixed, but as energies to be guided.

Because sometimes, all it takes to save a spirit is to stop punishing its brightness.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Synesthesia and Schizophrenia: Forty Years Later — What Science Finally Found

In 1983–84, as an undergraduate psychology student, I wrote a paper that stunned my seminar professor and left my classmates speechless. It proposed something no one in the room had heard before: that schizophrenia might be better understood through the filter of synesthesia — and, conversely, that studying synesthesia might illuminate the mysteries of schizophrenia. I wrote about this in a previous blog: How My Synesthesia–Schizophrenia Paper Anticipated Modern Research

At the time, both conditions were poorly understood. Schizophrenia research was dominated by dopamine models and behaviorist frameworks; synesthesia was still treated as a curiosity, something that existed more in the world of art than neuroscience. The two were rarely, if ever, mentioned in the same breath. My argument, presented in that seminar room, was that both conditions shared something deeper: atypical neural cross-activation, altered sensory integration, and the potential to reveal how the human brain constructs reality itself.

My professor told me afterward that psychologists spend their entire careers searching for a course of study, and that I had found one as an undergraduate. I didn’t realize until much later how true that was. For decades, my paper sat quietly — later made available online and now on Amazon as On Psychology: With an Illustration in Psychopathology via Synesthesia and Schizophrenia. And now, nearly forty years later, I’m seeing the very connections I outlined then begin to appear in neuroscience journals.

Also, on Academia.com.

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Where Science Has Caught Up

1. Shared Genetic Susceptibility

In 2023, a Nature Translational Psychiatry twin and genome study found evidence of overlapping genetic and environmental factors between synesthesia and schizophrenia. The researchers stopped short of claiming causation but noted that both conditions may involve similar neurodevelopmental pathways. This echoes what I speculated decades ago — that these two seemingly opposite phenomena might stem from the same underlying architecture of perception.

2. Perceptual Gains and Losses

A 2021 study in Schizophrenia Bulletin compared synesthetes, schizophrenia patients, and neurotypical controls. The findings were striking: synesthetes showed enhanced top-down perception — strong, consistent sensory expectations — while individuals with schizophrenia displayed weakened top-down control and an overreliance on raw sensory input. One could think of synesthesia as perception enriched, and schizophrenia as perception unmoored. This dynamic, between structured and chaotic perceptual worlds, was exactly the kind of comparative insight I argued could advance our understanding of both.

3. Psychosis-Proneness and Cross-Modal Experience

In 2016, a Psychiatry Research study observed that people high in psychosis-proneness reported more synesthetic or pseudo-synesthetic experiences. These experiences were not pathological, but they blurred the line between creative and psychotic perception. This supports the idea that cross-modal sensory connections exist on a continuum — and that what we call pathology may, in some cases, be an intensified form of ordinary human variation.

4. Epidemiological Correlation

The Genetics of Synesthesia Project at the University of Edinburgh found an elevated rate of schizophrenia among people with grapheme-color synesthesia. While it’s not a causal link, it reinforces that these conditions may share predispositions — like overlapping circuitry or neurotransmitter sensitivity — rather than existing as unrelated anomalies.

5. Integrative Models of Perception

More recently, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (2022) proposed a circular inference model suggesting that hallucinations and synesthesia might arise from similar predictive coding mechanisms — how the brain balances sensory input with expectation. In essence, when that balance tips too far in either direction, the world either becomes too tightly bound (synesthesia) or too unstable (schizophrenia).

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What It Means (and Doesn’t)

These findings don’t mean synesthesia causes schizophrenia, or that one leads to the other. That was never my contention. Rather, they support the notion that both emerge from the same underlying human machinery — perceptual integration, neural connectivity, and the brain’s delicate dance between sensation and interpretation. One condition stabilizes meaning where there might be none; the other unravels meaning where there should be structure. Studying both together allows us to see the architecture of consciousness from two opposing angles.

When I first wrote about this, I described the two as mirrors — each reflecting an extreme of perceptual experience. Modern neuroscience, in its own language, is now describing that same mirror: a shared substrate, expressed through different outcomes of connectivity and control.

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Why It Matters

Understanding these parallels could reshape how we view not just mental illness, but creativity and perception itself. The continuum from ordinary imagination to artistic synesthesia to pathological hallucination may not be a divide at all, but a spectrum of how the brain constructs reality. This perspective challenges the way we draw lines between health and disorder, or between creative brilliance and madness.

For psychology, it’s an invitation to reexamine how perception becomes meaning. For neuroscience, it’s a map of how small shifts in feedback loops can tip the mind between clarity and chaos. And for me — it’s a kind of closure. 

That stunned silence in my senior seminar on abnormal psychology in 1984 has finally found its echo in today’s research journals. I just wish I could have gotten it out there decades sooner.

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References

1. Powers, A.R. et al. (2021). Perceptual gains and losses in synesthesia and schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 47(3):722–731.

2. Banissy, M.J. et al. (2023). Genetic and environmental contributions to the link between synesthesia and psychiatric traits. Translational Psychiatry 13(1).

3. van Leeuwen, T.M. et al. (2016). Synesthetic experiences and psychosis proneness: shared perceptual styles. Psychiatry Research, 238:293–300.

4. University of Edinburgh, Genetics of Synesthesia Project (2020). Schizophrenia and Synaesthesia.

5. Bouvet, L. et al. (2022). From hallucinations to synaesthesia: a circular inference model of perception. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 139:104735.

6. Murdock, J.Z. (1984). On Psychology: With an Illustration in Psychopathology via Synesthesia and Schizophrenia; with Some Notes on Field Theory, Albert’s Mind, and the Status Quo: The Necessity of Contextualism in Psychology. LgN Productions (reissued together in 2012, also on Academia.com).

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

When Private Pain Becomes Public Violence: Why Outward Harm Is Worse...and What We Must Do About It

There’s a terrible, uncomfortable truth I want to put plainly: a life ended by suicide is a devastating personal tragedy. A life ended because someone decided to kill strangers is a social catastrophe. To say one is “worse” than the other is not a denial of pain; it’s a practical, legal, and moral distinction that matters for how we respond.

If you’re angry, good. This is an angry subject. But anger without precision is useless. So let’s be precise.

Two different crimes: one inward, one outward

When someone kills themselves, the immediate victim is that person. The ripples — grief, questions, trauma — are enormous and long-lasting. But the act does not directly take other people’s lives or violate others’ bodily autonomy.

When someone murders others, especially in a mass attack, the first and primary victims are other human beings whose lives were stolen. The act turns private despair into a public assault. It terrorizes communities, rewrites daily life (schools lock down, public gatherings shrink, fear becomes routine), and produces political fallout that corrodes trust. The moral culpability is different: murder is an intentional imposition of harm on innocents. Suicide is typically an expression of unbearable suffering, often accompanied by impaired judgment or illness.

This difference matters. It is not callous to note it — it is necessary.

If you or anyone reading this is in crisis, call or text 988 (U.S.) or your local emergency number immediately. If someone is an immediate threat to others, call 911.

The measurable harms of externalized violence

Consider the ways outward-directed violence multiplies harm:

• Multiple victims. One shooter can kill scores; one suicider, tragically, usually kills themselves and devastates a limited circle.
• Public terror. Mass murder changes how a society functions. Parents are scared to send kids to school; congregations hesitate to gather; events get canceled. That fear is a social cost beyond the immediate death toll.
• Copycat contagion. Spectacular violence inspires imitators. The media spectacle of killers, the manifestos, the notoriety: all provide a script for those seeking to be seen.
• Moral and legal culpability. Murder is a deliberate violation of others’ rights. We rightly punish and isolate those who take others’ lives. Suicide, by contrast, is treated as a health crisis demanding treatment, not punishment.
• Political weaponization. Mass killings are seized by actors across the spectrum to score points, justify draconian proposals, or deflect responsibility — all while the immediate victims are dead.

Those differences mean preventing mass violence saves more lives, preserves public safety, and protects the social fabric in ways suicide prevention — while equally vital — does not directly accomplish.

How private despair gets turned outward

The path from “I’m in pain” to “I will kill others” is not automatic. Most people who are suicidal never harm someone else. But a toxic cultural ecosystem makes outward violence thinkable for a dangerous few:

1. The fame economy. Notoriety is now a way to be certain you’ll be remembered. For someone desperate to matter, the calculus changes: die quietly and be mourned by dozens; kill publicly and be known by millions.

2. Easy access to lethal means. Guns convert momentary rage or despair into mass harm in seconds. Means matter; they’re the difference between an isolated tragedy and an atrocity.

3. Online radicalization. Forums and channels can normalize and glamourize violence, framing it as revenge, a solution, or a message.

4. Broken social ties. Isolation, shame, and the loss of community reduce the restraints that bind people to others; if you feel nobody counts, it’s easier to imagine harming strangers.

5. Contagion via reporting. Sensationalized coverage that names killers, recites manifestos, and circulates images functions as an indirect recruiting pamphlet.

That is the ecosystem we need to disrupt.

The hard, practical priorities (not moralizing platitudes)

You can recognize that outward violence is worse without wishing suicide upon anyone. The policy and cultural priorities that follow are practical: prevent other people from dying and keep communities safe — while also expanding compassionate help for those in distress.

1. Deny fame to killers. Media outlets and platforms must adopt consistent reporting norms: avoid naming the killer in headlines, refuse to publish manifestos in full, minimize sensational imagery, and center victims and survivors. Fame fuels imitation.

2. Limit access to lethal means. Policies that promote safe storage, permit temporary removal of firearms in crises (extreme-risk or “red flag” laws), and impose waiting periods save lives. Means restriction is the single most consistently effective suicide-prevention tool — and it’s the most direct way to prevent mass harm.

3. Expand crisis response and follow-up care. 24/7 mobile crisis teams, non-police emergency responses for mental-health crises, and guaranteed follow-up after any suicide attempt or violent threat turn acute moments into opportunities for treatment instead of escalation.

4. Interrupt radicalization. Platforms and community organizations must actively counter content that praises or instructs violence, and provide credible exit paths for those flirting with extremist scripts.

5. Restore civic ties and accountability. Schools, unions, workplaces, faith communities, neighborhood groups — all rebuild the social “seatbelts” that make people care about the consequences of harming others.

6. Enforce responsible journalism. Professional standards must emphasize preventing contagion. Journalists have an ethical duty: inform, but do not become the megaphone that broadcasts a killer’s manifesto.

7. Research and evaluation. Invest in studies that tell us what interventions work at scale: crisis teams, hospital follow-up, media practices, storage laws. Fund the data; use it.

The moral frame we should hold

Saying murder is worse is not a callous ranking. It is a recognition of rights: every person has a right not to be killed by someone else. It is a policy imperative: stopping outward violence prevents multiple deaths and preserves public life. It is a moral claim that says: when suffering exists, the first duty of a society is to stop people from harming others while also saving the stricken.

We can do both. We must.

If you believe, as I do, that outward violence is a categorical escalation — and therefore objectively worse in its social, legal, and moral consequences — then you should support steps that prevent that escalation: deny fame to killers, make lethal means harder to access in moments of crisis, fund crisis care that reaches the isolated and angry, and hold platforms and media accountable for how they amplify violence.

That is not mercy for killers; it is protection for the rest of us. And it is mercy for the person in crisis too — because the only thing worse than a life ended unnecessarily is a life that ends by taking others with it.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Escape the Madness: Hunter S. Thompson’s Blueprint for a Saner America

Hope you had a great Fourth! Hunter liked big booms, too.

Enter Hunter S. Thompson: the gonzo journalist who viewed America through a lens of unvarnished truth and irreverent wit. As we gather to honor liberty, Thompson’s fearless critiques and raw visions remind us that sanity isn’t retreat—it’s resistance. In embracing his rivalry against complacency and corruption, we may yet forge a path back to clarity, courage, and civic renewal. 

“Create a place for people to live like human beings, instead of slaves to some bullshit concept of progress that is driving us all mad.”
– Hunter S. Thompson

"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
—Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson didn’t believe in subtlety. He came at truth with a cattle prod and a bottle of Wild Turkey. When he said "progress is driving us mad," he wasn’t just yelling into the ether. He was diagnosing a national psychosis—a cultural sickness that spreads every time we confuse technological advancement with human evolution, and confuse GDP with happiness.

He wasn’t just a writer. He was a high-velocity cultural molotov in a Hawaiian shirt. Hunter S. Thompson tore through American life like a peyote-fueled hurricane, dragging along a ragtag orbit of fellow misfits and madmen—Jack Nicholson, who once mistook a peacock mating call for an attack; Bill Murray, who nearly drowned playing Thompson in a film; Harry Dean Stanton, who could smoke a cigarette like it was a religious ritual; Matt Dillon, John Cusack, Johnny Depp—all drawn to the myth and magnetism of the man who made truth explode through fiction. 

These weren’t just drinking buddies. They were part of a living, howling critique of a country that had traded humanity for hustle. And in one of his clearest moments of blistering sanity, Thompson said: “Create a place for people to live like human beings…” 

So the question is—what would that even look like? If we took Hunter seriously—and why the hell wouldn’t we?—how could we build a world worth living in without going down the same road of sanitized corporate dystopia?

Let’s step into that Gonzo future…

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🧠 Work Isn’t Your Religion, Man

First things first: We stop worshiping work.

America has treated burnout like a badge of honor and silence as loyalty. In Thompson’s world, that’s horse shit.

We’d see:

• A 4-day workweek that doesn’t make you poorer.

• Jobs that pay living wages and let you leave your soul intact.

• Time for art, madness, sex, books, hammocks, and fishing. Not always in that order.

You are not your job. Unless your job involves psychedelics, writing death threats to Nixon, or chasing bats in the Nevada desert, in which case—carry on.

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🧩 Schools That Teach You to Think, Not Obey

Thompson knew the system wanted cogs, not revolutionaries. That’s why education should be designed to piss off tyrants, not train compliance drones.

Imagine schools where:

• Philosophy matters more than test scores.

• Civics is about how to throw a proper Molotov cocktail of reform—not just memorize the Bill of Rights.

• Kids learn how power really works, who owns what, and why most of the textbooks lie.

Teach the young to question authority and back it up with facts—or at least very persuasive profanity.

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🌳 Nature and Madness Are Old Friends

The Doctor of Journalism spent his best days deep in the Colorado woods or streaking across desert highways. Nature wasn't decoration to him. It was the last honest place left.

So we build:

• Cities with gardens, trees, green roofs, and no-fuss communes with goats.

• Zoning that prioritizes parks, not parking lots.

• Clean water, breathable air, and laws that say a river has the right not to be poisoned for profit.

He didn’t trust people who didn’t go outside. Neither should you.

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🛠️ Tech That Serves Humanity, Not Addicts It

Hunter typed on a typewriter, even in the '90s, and faxed his final manuscripts. Not out of nostalgia—but because he saw the digital monster coming. One that would reduce reality into scrollable hell.

If we’re serious:

• We ditch surveillance capitalism and build tools with ethics baked in.

• We fund public tech the same way we fund libraries.

• We ask not what’s next, but why the hell we need it.

We don’t need another app. We need sanity.

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🤝 Democracy, Not Corporatocracy

In Thompson’s America, politicians were “greedy little beasts in Gucci loafers.” If they were bought, they were outed. If they lied, they were mocked. And if they trampled democracy, they were chased with a pen, a shotgun, or both.

A functional future includes:

• Local co-ops instead of Wall Street overlords.

• Participatory budgeting, not black-box bureaucracy.

• Campaigns that don’t cost more than most national economies.

And yes—voters who are angry enough to show up, shout loud, and read the damn policy proposals.

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🕊️ Mental Health Isn’t a Punchline

Let’s be clear: Hunter S. Thompson wasn’t “crazy.” He was attuned—just not to the same frequency as most of us. The system made him wild because the system was insane.

In a better world:

• We treat trauma with compassion, not punishment.

• Addiction isn’t criminalized—it’s addressed.

• Therapy isn’t a luxury for the rich, it’s standard operating procedure.

The goal isn’t conformity—it’s coherence. We can all go a little mad… just not alone.

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🥃 Final Shot of Wild Turkey

If Hunter S. Thompson were alive today, he’d likely deliver a scathing, gonzo-style dispatch on Donald Trump—casting him as a grotesque beast rising from America’s underbelly, the kind of character Thompson once vividly inhabited in his coverage of Nixon: “a dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character,” the sort of monster who “speaks for the Werewolf in us” 

He’d see Trumpism not as normal populism, but as the product of an “ethic of total retaliation”—a cultural impulse born from alienation and resentment by those “left behind” in the new America. And in Thompson’s world, sympathy for institutional rules or reasoned debate would be irrelevant; what matters is the spectacle: chaos, outrage, emotional theater. It’s not policy—it’s performance art for the politically wounded.

Thompson would likely riff on Trump’s rallies as grotesque carnivals—part political theater, part horror show—filled with racism, conspiracy, and absurd bravado. He’d mock the worshipful crowds, compare it to a freak‑circus or a junkie revival meeting, and frame it all as proof that “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” 

And Thompson’s most famous line—that in a world of thieves, the only unforgivable sin is stupidity—would be prime ammunition for him. He’d apply it to Trump, his enablers, and perhaps even his base, suggesting their only real failure is an unwillingness to see the absurdity for what it is.

In short:

• Trump = Nixon turned up to eleven: a malignant parody of power.

• Trumpism = retaliation masquerading as populism.

• Voters and enablers = a carnival of resentment, willing to embrace chaos as victory.

• Pointless to engage with the delusion—I’d report the darker truth.

Basically, a Hunter S. Thompson take on Trump would be raw, irreverent, surreal—and deeply skeptical of any notion that the 21st‑century carnival of American politics could be redeemed without first tearing it down and exposing the rot.

Hunter S. Thompson was many things: genius, outlaw, satirist, pain in the ass. But he wasn’t wrong.

He saw the freight train of modernity barreling toward us and tried to warn us—between lines of cocaine and literary brilliance—that maybe, just maybe, progress without a soul is no progress at all.

“Buy the ticket. Take the ride.”

But maybe build a better ride next time, yeah?

"Freedom is something that dies unless it’s used." —Hunter S. Thompson

A final meme in honor of celebrating in general and in Hunter's at times maniacal forms of it...  

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

Attention Interrupted: The Psychological and Cultural Impact of Ad-Saturated Streaming

I'd like to explore the psychological effects and conditioning caused by the constant interruptions of ads in streaming shows. Ads are everywhere, and while they make content free to view, what toll is this taking on our individual psyches and our human condition? How does it affect our experiences, and what impact does it have, both personally and socially?

This is a deep and timely topic, and you're definitely not alone in feeling the psychological toll of the ad-saturated world we’re living in—especially with the rise of streaming platforms that used to promise “ad-free” experiences, now reverting back to traditional TV-like ad models.

Let’s break it down in terms of psychological effects, conditioning, and the impact on human experience:

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🧠 Psychological Effects of Constant Ad Interruptions

1. Fragmented Attention / Cognitive Fatigue
   Our brains aren’t wired for constant interruption. Ads break narrative flow, pulling us out of immersion and forcing attention-switching, which leads to:

   • Reduced emotional engagement with content

   • Increased mental fatigue

   • Weaker memory of storylines or plot arcs

2. Anxiety & Restlessness
   Constantly breaking the rhythm of a show introduces low-level stress. Even if we don’t consciously notice it, we’re experiencing:

   • A cycle of anticipation and frustration

   • Interrupted dopamine release (reward cycles from storytelling)

3. Loss of Flow State
   Flow states—those immersive mental zones we get into while watching gripping content—are extremely fragile. Ads kill them, reducing our ability to experience media in a truly meaningful way.

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🔁 Conditioning & Behavioral Effects

1. Shortened Attention Spans
   We are being conditioned to expect interruptions, which feeds into a broader cultural phenomenon of shortened attention spans. We become less patient, more distractible.

2. Normalization of Commodification
   We’re increasingly trained to accept that every moment of our lives is a chance for someone to sell us something. This can:

   • Undermine authenticity

   • Devalue non-commercial experiences

3. Impulse Buying Triggers
   Ads are precision-crafted to hijack our attention and emotions, often using psychological triggers to incite instant gratification behavior, leading to:

   • Overconsumption

   • Discontent with what we have

   • Chronic dissatisfaction

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🎭 How It Destroys the Viewing Experience

1. Narrative Disruption
   A well-structured scene builds tension, emotion, and payoff. Ads crash through like a drunk at a wedding. This undermines:

   • The emotional arc of characters

   • The viewer’s sense of time and momentum

   • Artistic intention of the creators

2. Desensitization
   When every intense scene is followed by a cheery detergent ad, it blunts our emotional sensitivity. Over time, this can reduce our ability to connect empathetically with stories and people.

3. Commercial Creep into Aesthetics
   Shows are increasingly written with ad breaks in mind, like early-TV cliffhanger pacing. This affects:

   • Storytelling structure

   • Creative risk-taking

   • Originality

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🧍 Impact on the Human Condition

1. Erosion of Stillness and Contemplation
   Constant noise and advertising make it harder for us to just be—to sit with our thoughts, absorb complex ideas, or reflect emotionally.

2. Identity Shaping Through Consumerism
   Ads tell us who we should be—constantly. Over time, our sense of self becomes entangled with brands, lifestyle messaging, and curated ideals.

3. Addiction to Distraction
   When ads frustrate us, we reach for our phones, skip around, multitask. We’re trained into a loop of distraction, and eventually, peace becomes uncomfortable.

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💡 So What Can Be Done?

• Push for better regulation of digital advertising (especially volume, placement, and targeting).

• Support platforms that uphold ad-free experiences or have minimal, non-intrusive ad models.

• Create media mindfully—awareness of this dynamic can inform more intentional consumption or storytelling choices.

• Talk about it—as we’re doing. Cultural awareness is the first step toward resisting the normalization of interruption and commercial manipulation.

The rise of constant advertisements, especially in streaming platforms, is setting us on a path toward significant cultural and individual shifts. Here’s where this might lead:

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🌍 As a Culture:

1. Normalization of Fragmented Attention
   Our collective ability to focus and engage deeply with content could erode over time. Constant interruptions may become normalized, making it harder to cultivate patience and critical thinking. A generation raised on ad-driven content might become more prone to short bursts of attention, negatively affecting deeper intellectual engagement and creativity.

2. Hyper-Consumerism and Materialism
   Ads increasingly shape our desires, pushing us to want more—whether it’s products, experiences, or lifestyles. This could further entrench a consumer-driven society where self-worth is tied to acquisition. As brands gain more cultural influence, there may be less space for non-commercial, authentic expressions of identity.

3. Diminishing Empathy and Emotional Connection
   The constant bombardment of emotional cues from advertisements may lead to a desensitization to the real, human emotions conveyed through storytelling. We might become less empathetic, not only in entertainment but also in real-world interactions.

4. Cultural Homogenization
   Ads often promote a narrow set of ideals, beauty standards, and lifestyles, potentially stifling diversity. Over time, this could reduce cultural variation, pushing society toward more homogenized, branded identities that overlook individual nuances and local cultures.

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🧑 As Individuals:

1. Decreased Mental Well-Being
   Constant interruptions and the pressure to be constantly "on" or entertained can heighten anxiety and reduce mental clarity. The struggle to tune out or focus amidst an ad-driven environment could lead to burnout, mental exhaustion, or feelings of inadequacy. The barrage of perfect lives portrayed in ads can exacerbate self-esteem issues.

2. Loss of Meaningful Engagement
   The constant distraction makes it more difficult to form genuine emotional connections to content, people, and experiences. If we can’t immerse ourselves in a story or an activity without being yanked out by an ad, it’s harder to experience life fully. This can result in an increasingly passive existence, where instant gratification becomes the norm, and delayed satisfaction or reflection is lost.

3. Increased Desire for Instant Gratification
   As we become conditioned to constant rewards (like the quick fix ads provide), the ability to delay gratification may suffer. We might increasingly struggle with long-term goals, favoring short-term pleasures over deeper fulfillment, which could lead to more impulsive decisions in both personal and financial spheres.

4. Addiction to Digital Devices
   As we get used to ads triggering our impulses, we might find ourselves turning to our devices more often, seeking that quick stimulation or trying to skip ads. Over time, this can lead to compulsive behaviors, a sense of emptiness when not “connected,” and less time spent in reflective, meaningful moments.

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🛑 Where It Could Lead:

• Cultural Impact: We might see a society that’s increasingly distracted, addicted to consumption, and less capable of deep reflection. Creativity, empathy, and individuality could take a backseat to the pressure to conform to the constant commercial messages we’re bombarded with.

• Individual Impact: People may become more discontent, as a constant flow of advertising makes us increasingly dissatisfied with what we have and who we are. A loss of focus, mental fatigue, and more superficial relationships could reduce our quality of life, pushing us toward more passive, less authentic experiences.

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It’s possible that we may reach a tipping point where the desire for uninterrupted, meaningful content becomes so overwhelming that we push for change—either through better ad models, platforms that value user experience over revenue, or a shift in how we approach media consumption. The future could see a growing cultural push toward reclaiming our attention, both as individuals and as a society.

Compild with aid of ChatGPT

Defund Police or Republicans?

Defund the police? Well, not really. BUT, it' makes the point and that's what was needed. Let me see if I can briefly break this down.

"The Power Of Good Trouble", said Congressman John Lewis.
"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind," said Mahatma Gandhi.

First, another relevant and informed perspective:

Atlanta Mayor Worries U.S. is Headed on “Course For Disaster

Maybe it's the Republican Party who needs defunding?

First off...

Let's say Trump loses the 2020 election. The next four years will be a nightmare of trying to fix all the damage Trump and the GOP have accomplished. This disaster formerly known as the conservative Republican President Donald Trump.

Giving them the delicious opportunity, while Trump whines in his Twitter background, to claim how defective the new President and Democrats are at running things. Running GOP broken things. Donald Trump broken things. For the first time in US history, the world pity's America.  It is easy to destroy, but hard to build and so leaves one open for ridicule and abuse. A Republican mainstay.

As Bernard-Henri Levy said:: "Be wary of Trump."

What did electing Donald Trump president do to America?
For the first time, a conspiracist holds the highest office in the country!
Among so many other travesties and ensuing disasters?

It legitimized a faux successful "businessman", a mentally ill individual.
It legitimized his and others' lies.
It legitimized conspiracies.
It legitimized mental ill-health.

Something set up by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

THAT is not a conspiracy, but a matter of record when Reagan shut down mental institutions. Cut funding for mental health issues. Dumped it all on police leaving so many mentally ill walking the streets, homeless, jailed, and imprisoned.

America has always been a little "buggy". American historian Richard J. Hofstadter labeled it, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Apparently, "Psychological projection is essential to the paranoid style of U.S. politics."

Just look at America today. QAnon? A conspiracy factory of people feeling a lack of control, needing to feel smarter than others. Even if they are not. Just like Donald Trump, their nearly religious leader for many of them.

Not to mention the multitude of political "time bombs" left for the new administration in many and varied ways. Even going beyond the political to literally damaging American families, the middle class and citizens directly, all because that is not the Republicans care or purview. Money is.

All while Dems painfully struggle to make things functional once again. In some cases, struggling against situations that are not even possible to fix. Mainly because as "Defund the Police" indicates, fixes aren't possible and restructuring is necessary. A reorientation to priorities and beliefs is required.

All while the GOP continues to harass and obfuscate, stall and do whatever they can, and did before, as with Obamacare when it began, to challenge and break and refuse to see things work at every turn and opportunity. As long as it is not Republicans running things. Rather than work hand in hand as it should be, and get things done.

Because it's not about the American people with the GOP, or with Donald Trump.

It's about power. About perception of the fragile reality of their reality-altered base.

Now...

Pres. Reagan first defunded social services and our mental health institutions to the point of breaking our nation, dumping that and other services...and REDISTRIBUTING them elsewhere. As with the police, jails, and prisons. Overwhelming them to the point of dysfunction. Damage. And deaths.

Speaking of Pres. Reagan...this: The Reagan Foundation has asked the Trump campaign to completely distance themselves from Ronald Reagan.

I know, right? Pretty much says it all.

To be fair, many of our mental institutions were already broken in the 60s, 70s and 80s. But that was reason to revamp, revision and rebuild. Instead, Reagan gave up and did more damage than anyone else back then.

In typical conservative Republican style austerity thinking, what Reagan did brought us to here, today in having not breaking further, but entirely eliminating some resources, rather than rebuilding them, rebuilding our mental health services and other too many other social services.

All because these "social services" are what? Socialist? Give me a break. That's just sheer ignorance, misunderstanding the meaning of...words. Words used to conflate, distract, obfuscate and reorient for political purposes. And Greed. A central conservative Republican tenet. They ARE the party of business, and more so, big business.

Yes, police need all the money they have and more.

But also... they need their methodologies completely reworked. Many of their current, forced services need to be broken down, replaced, redistributed to those departments in government who need to control them. So they can actually be functional, and useful to American citizens.

What this all means IS a breaking down and rebuilding, reorienting, redistributing in order to be functional, to actually do the jobs they are mandated to do. To bring back services to those who can do functionally them. With all the new information from these past decades, as we really have learned so very much.

Not simply to reopen those services, to let ignorant lawmakers decide how they should function. But to turn power over to those who actually know what they are doing. As with healthcare where insurance companies, legislators have so long tried to manage them. To dictate a doctor's intimate knowledge of a client and their needed medical services. When only the doctor can do that, along with the client, whom we used to designate as "patient".

But no, God no, that would cost money! Yes, service, functional, productive high quality services to save money in the long run, does cost money...now! We have to stop this short sighted, short term thinking so apparent in Republican efforts.

We have learned much these past decades about things the average American citizen, simply has not. And so many lawmakers are too average in their minds and efforts, beliefs and ideologies. Yes, even those from Harvard. Because too many, have taken a good education, and turned it against America. Ted Cruz comes to mind.

People are judging things now on very old information they have, information that has seeped into their minds from the mainstream. The grapevine. Or information they got from very ignorant or divisive, if not partisan articles from their political bubble, in the media or on the internet leading those laypeople to think they actually know something. When surely they do not.

With all the access to information we have today, what we see are people with a vast amount of information, and a very shallow degree of knowledge. Yes, you can talk to a completely stranger, or a person living on the street and they may know about a lot of things. But drill deeper and you find they know very little about each subject, or how it connects to other subjects.

Brief aside: some of those street people if you talk to them, are actually more aware and knowledgeable than many of our lawmakers. To be sure there are many who are uneducated, mentally disabled, if not just stupid. But believe it or not, you can find that in the US Congress today, too. Just listen to them talk on TV sometime. Or listen to "Pres." Donald Trump. Or listen to his niece and clinical psychologist, Mary Trump, or read her book about was a stupid inept disaster her uncle Donald Trump is!

Seriously, Donald Trump has no place in the White House. I have argued before, he never even should have been invited to the White House, let alone given our highest office in America. I mean, come on! Were voters high or something?

America's' biggest problem? Aside from Trump and his political party?

A lack of funding for necessary programs and a lack of understanding them. We need an end to Democrats trying to fix a system broken so much so by Republicans, trying to fix what isn't broken, but simply incorrect, or unnecessary. Or non-existent.

Mostly Republican legislators seem to have no idea what America really needs. It is why they stall actually doing anything so often.

We need to stop trying to fix what cannot be fixed. To rebuild what we truly need. Not by eliminating it but by wisely and effectively rebuilding an infrastructure to PROTECT and SERVE all. Not just some, American citizens. Not just the few rich and powerful.

We just cannot seem to fix our problems. Or maybe we just don't want to? Because we keep trying to fix what was purposely broken and long ago purposefully set on a destructive path. We are now watching ourselves self-destruct. And why? There is no good reason for it.

We need to see where the is the case, and then...dismantle it. And build it again as if for the first time.

But there is more to all this...how? Protest is one. Voting is another. But voting hasn't been working so well for America of late. So? Then what? Well? We're seeing it all around us today. the #MeToo movement kind of started the momentum. Then "BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) kicked things for good reason, into high gear. That began a world wide action as this kind of abuse was happening world wide.

The authoritarian pandemic has encircled the globe. Frighteningly, voters around the world have elected strongmen, authoritarians. But some countries pushed back. France for one. The UK got a smarter Donald Trump clone in Boris Johnson.

Russia in the meantime is having a great time abusing our our media and government. The UK government. The EU government. Working toward the destruction of western democracies. China is fighting for it's own form of global economic domination. Iran, along with Russia and China continue to attack our elections.

But maybe now, just perhaps, we've finally seeing the worm turn. Something, is happening. And like a cornered wounded animal. the authoritarians are fighting back, lashing out, knowing perhaps, that they are on the way out. And good riddance to them. They have hurt us ENOUGH!

But, it is not in our American nature to stand idly by and be beaten while we peacefully protest. It is against our sensibilities to stand and be beaten. Not without reacting to show our displeasure, our anger at injustice, to automatically defend ourselves.

Yet, we need to evoke "The Power of Good Trouble", as the sadly so recently late Congressman John Lewis had said.

Still, it is not in our American nature to stand idly by like Blacks in the South in the 1950s and 60s knowing what would happen if there were reactions other than peace to their abuse in protesting abuse.

It is not in our American nature to stand idly by like emancipation protesters in India who walked with Gandhi, while being beaten and shot, murdered in our own streets. Streets that we have paid for. Beaten and killed by our own police, who we have paid for. Knowing that if we struck back, entire protests would be slaughtered as they would have been and at least once were, by the British army. By "their" government. Which was never really "their" government.

Yet, time and again peaceful protests around the world have won. But through much pain and death. And are Americans willing and able for that? Going to war, dying with a weapon in your hand, having the opportunity to fight back is one thing. To stand idly by as you are beat into the ground, to survive with permanent damage or be murdered on the spot in order to horrify the country and the world at large, is quite another thing entirely.

I get that. We have a problem with authority. And yet, the conservative side of America who has always had a problem with authority suddenly under this Trump administration, seems strangely quiet about all that. Now they are angry at those rebuking authority. Once paranoid and angered by the potential of the government's "jack booted thugs" coming for them, now those are their guys?

Are we winning now? These protests? As this illiberal, authoritarian criminal president turns all against us and claims votes from our pain and righteous protesting?

ARE we winning? Or is this a stalemate? How can we break through the wall to overwhelm the other side? Sometimes a stalemate is a win. Sometimes it is a breathing moment, where you can turn the tide and in the end, win the day.

Are we winning the day? Surely, the 2020 election results will prove that one way or another.

The enemy now is our own delusional backward priorities as so well exemplified in too many of our laws. In the bigoted and ignorant attitudes of far too many American citizens. In our overtaken government, surely in these past four years. Overtaken by despicably illiberal Republican abuse for forty years now. And  surely now by this conservative mental defect of a Republican president, this Donald Trump administration.

FIGHT BACK, does not mean to fight back any more than "defund the police" actually means to defund the police. In that vein, we also need to defund this broken zombie, Republican party. A party that disdains the average American citizen, but is in a never ending honeymoon with the wealthy and powerful, with corporations, big business, industry, and the military industrial complex. The corporate/ military/ industrial complex.

Authoritarians like Trump grin as they use ever-bigger violence against protesters violence. After all, they have the entire government on their side and too many laws. Along with far too much power in the presidency. Power that even Republicans have complained about for years now that has gotten only worse.

As the world watches our pain and self-destruction in abject horror.

We all need to wake up.

Including those violent protesting who think they have already woken up but have fallen into a pattern of taking one step forward and being pushed three steps back.

We need to re-evoke "The Power of Good Trouble". And deal with it until we succeed. 

It is Past Time to Recognize Religion as Myth Worship

Society, especially so-called polite society, rules the day in allowing theists to pretend their reality is real. Isn't it finally time to call religion mythology and its worship of it characters myth worship?

That being said, regarding mass shootings of religious groups... that is not how you evolve beyond something. You cannot do it from outside. You do not have hate for others in order to evoke social evolution. That, is a sign you are on the wrong track.

We have a leadership in America right now in Donald Trump, that is nationalist and ignorant, greedy for power and wealth and evoking more ignorance. Denying science and reality and telling lies daily from our highest office which is inflaming the foolish and the mentally and emotionally and even socially, damaged in our society. Stop it. Americans should not kill Americans. The American government, should not kill Americans. Really, we should not be killing anyone, unless it is to stop them from killing or harming others.

You Need To Consider The Possibility Your Religion Is Mythology

Still, there is a groundswell rising against religions in the world.

And we're seeing dysfunctional reactions within them against one another. Mostly based in the three desert religions of the Middle East. It's not really being noticed for what it is and is building in the so-called "First World" countries. And why is that?

Also, those Theists who support religion and do notice this are totally misunderstanding what is happening.

I don't believe anyone (certainly not me or anyone I know) are really against people exploring their spiritual beliefs, their religion, per se, or even wanting to end it tomorrow. This is still America, still a free country, regardless of the illiberal actions of some in power at this time.

Hopefully, with our attention and efforts, we will be putting an end to that very soon in 2020 and ending the conservative and Trump delusional form of governing.

However, there are still and always some obvious downsides to religion. Such as extremism. And religion's biggest travesty, "cherry picking" among their beliefs in order to fit them more closely into reality, sanity and logic.

Those who ignorantly profess their "faith" incorrectly and inaccurately enable their religions to continue and evolve when they should have died off centuries ago. It also enables those abusing others for their own misguided religions fundamentalism.

Those who are attacking such groups as transgenders, calling them child molesters, or ridiculously and ignorantly equating trans or gays with bestiality, when the reality is quite different and they are really quite normal, just different than the "norm".

If there's such a thing. When really it's about majorities and minorities. And where so often we see those types who call out others as degenerates, being charged with many of those same offenses themselves and so being outed as the hypocrites they were, to begin with. Typically all for reasons of position, power and wealth.

Kids More Likely To Be Molested At Church Than In Transgender Bathrooms

What this growing irritation is leading eventually to is a reaction against all those who are so-called believers. If they can simply follow their religion and keep their mouths shut, I don't think anyone would care to bother with actions against them in any way.

But when one considers all the bad actions and ill will that has been built around theism in recent times, what else could one expect? Pushing their beliefs into others faces, into our government, is illiberal and incorrect and even criminal. Certainly unconstitutional.

Those who say their religion requires them to do certain things, to get involved, to sway non-believer's beliefs in aggressive fashions, is just asking for a reaction against themselves, and others like them.

And then you have people like Donald Trump as POTUS who use religion in a morally reprehensible fashion for purely political purposes and lying, claiming he is a religious individual, which his only religion us capitalism and even beyond that to kleptocratic and oligarchical actions.

If you take this kind of behavior to its obvious conclusions, it's death for the future of religious institutions overall. To be sure it will take time. To be sure they may never really completely die off in a kind of half-life form of degeneration. Where they will halve in power and membership seemingly forever, but never quite go completely away.

Because religion is a symptom of the human mind, the human brain, and human evolution. It is a form of thought that should fade away as humankind evolves to the next stage and the ones after that. There are some beliefs that are more functional that some of the major religions today. Better than the ridiculous ones we hear of so often in the likes of Mormonism, Christian sects, Muslim sects, and even Jewish sects. As well as corporate thought style beliefs like Scientology.

Buddhism for one, the Buddha Dharma is far more functional that most if not all other "religions". While not a religion itself, but more of what we need in a mental discipline. I am not selling it as an answer. To be sure it too has fallen to the damages of the human reconstruction in ignoring its original teaches and adding nonsense to them down through the millennia so it too is viewed as more of another ridiculous religion.

The one saving grace is what Gautama (Siddhartha) Buddha Himself said, and you typically don't see in any religion, is to trust your instincts and if you're being taught something stupid, simply don't believe it. I dropped religion when I was younger, for sanity and reason themselves:

"In the time of the Gautama Buddha, many holy teachers and priests also wandered from village to village offering their teachings and principles to anyone who would listen. How can we differentiate an authentic teacher from a charlatan? According to tradition, Siddhartha Gautama offered the answer on one of his many journeys:
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
– Gautama Buddha

In what other "religion" would you come across koans or one such as:

“If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”– Linji

Humankind seems to wish for Magic, rather than Reality. It needs buffers to the daily grind and abuse of living. I learned of ancient Asian philosophies in grade school Isshinryu Karate classes in that Okinawan martial arts and philosophical system.

Through my life, I found one similarity after another to that. I found some similarities in the Catholicism I was raised with and abandoned by 9th grade. I became well read in philosophy from the Greeks to the ancients in India and China and Japan. I found people who grew up in Buddhist countries seemed the most oriented toward Buddhism as a religion. Which to me was reversed to what it was intended to be.

I found that the Catholic teachings appeared to have a basis in Buddhism. At university for my degree in psychology, I found many of the beliefs in that discipline to be very Buddhist in nature. At least the most functional forms. I learned about humankind's relationship to ritual and repetition. And I studied phenomenology and began to see how religion had gone awry.

How through anthropology and philosophy, sociology and psychology, it became clear where we began and how we evolved.

Religion is not the end, but the beginning, sadly. As when one learns how to walk, one changes and drops that methodology when one learns how to run, ride a bike and fly a jet or a spacecraft. And yet we hang onto the old ways out of fear. Out of conservatism. Out of ignorance. An ignorance we no longer need to cloak ourselves in.

We just need to be brave, learn the better ways and move into the future along with our overall inevitable development.

Still some, especially the conservative mind, holds onto it as if life depends on it. And it thoroughly does not. We may never evolve fully into our potential if we cannot finally let it go.

On the one hand, while they want to expand their ranks while religion is in this current phase of dying off. They aren't considering the reasons for religion's warnings because it's been discussed as a part of their theologies and epistemologies simply because they've been persecuted in the past.

Humankind and society have tried again and again to purge themselves of religious, but have failed repeatedly because they needed a replacement. A modern and functional form of mind management. It will happen, but it is like fighting an addict's cravings for what they are so used to, what they are indoctrinated into from childhood, to need.

While the individual may need something in daily life, society at large obviously does not. And we're seeing the dysfunctionality of it all over the world today.

One wonders perhaps why anyone would want to persecute someone else because of their beliefs until you have had to deal with someone being really and truly religiously annoying on continual and daily basis. Those who flaunt their mythology in the face of reality and against reality.

While religion will surely not end once and for all anytime soon, and while we do need to allow people their freedom in their choices, the rest of us should not have to suffer through living within their delusions around our society. It is a kind of reversed abuse. To be sure, enjoy your religion, just allow us the benefit of enjoying not enjoying it.

We can and should at least all agree that others are worshipping their chosen myths from the past, and then go on our way. Undisturbed and unperturbed by those theists who still wish to continue with this internal mental standing bicycle of a mentality spinning its wheels and going nowhere. Certainly not progressing into the future of the continued evolution of humankind.

Mass killings: Prayer fixes all? Probably not.

Mass killings are horrible. Especially when children are involved.

But let's look at another thing briefly, so is war. This has been happening to those parents in war zones. It's currently going on. Children are dying around the world, not just in America. We are not that special; children are. So if you don't like your kids being killed, or American kids being killed, think about those parents around the world whose children are dead and dying because of war; because of Syrian's bombs, Palestinian's, Israeli's, and American's bombs.

Now about American mass murderers....

We NEED GUN CONTROL! Right? That will fix everything. It will keep guns out of the hands of  murderers and criminals! Right?

Well, not exactly.

We have guns. That's just how it is. We should look at gun control some, but it's not a solution. The guns aren't killing people. You've heard this before: People, are killing people. Did you know that in Switzerland every other citizen owns a gun and their murder rates with guns are extremely low. In 2002 Swiss murders by firearms, 67, in America that year, 9369. So, it's not just about firearms existing. Something about the people, their attitude, is different.

I've helped teach hunter's safety courses before. I own guns. But I've always wondered, how come you need training and testing to get a drivers license, but not to get a gun? How is it you can study and pass a driver's test and then you get to drive around a 2,000 lb killing machine, but you can buy a gun and in zero to three days or a week, put a comparable concept of a 2,000 lbs killing machine in your pocket and carry it around.

Then if and whenever you choose, you can expose it and spew out death repeatedly and quickly. And according to the New York Times, the average weight of an American car now is 4,000 pounds. Likewise, the assault rifle is becoming more common around America, yet the handgun kills more than anything else, and daily on the streets of cities like New York and Chicago and others. So in a way, assault rifles have gotten a bad rep through a few horrific incidences.

Yet acquiring a gun requires absolutely no accountability, no training, no conscientious building of skill or respect to own one?

Consider in this latest mass murder in Connecticut, how could gun control have stopped this? The killer didn't even own a gun but had three which he took from his mother, after first killing her. That went right around gun control, effectively, making it useless; in fact, a moot point.

Gun control and politics are not the answer. The issue is much bigger than that. But no one wants to face it. But I'm going to face it here and now, for you.

From Masculinity and Mass Violence The ‘Intimate Enemy’ We Refuse to Name, By ELIZABETH DRESCHER:

"Race and religion are certainly root similarities among Timothy McVeigh, Jared Loughner, Anders Breivik, James Holmes, Wade Michael Page, and Thomas Caffall—all white, all Christian."

Someone on my FB page the other day said that the whole problem is not enough prayer. Really? How many times has prayer kept a murderer from killing? Very, VERY seldom. Frequently, I would suspect, it gets you laughed at, just before they kill you.

From What’s the common denominator for mass murderers? White, Male, Christian, or Crazy: answer may surprise you:

"Prayer has nothing to do with fixing this. After all, many killers have religious, even more so, strict religious roots. From an article, Drescher’s [see quote/URL at top] conclusion is: “by and large the common denominator in mass killing is gender; the intimate enemy [the killer] is almost always a man. Drescher rightly points out that a major player in the hegemony of the masculine is religion, which in the case of American Society means ”

And this:

“We cannot begin to address the culture of violence that is literally exploding all around us without acknowledging that “manning up” in American culture too often involves actions aimed at the subordination of others—women, children, nature—to the will of a man who, it is assumed, embodies the will of God. These often religiously informed, institutionalized, and naturalized versions of masculinity play no small part in the continuum of violence that moves from the domestic sphere to the public arena.

"As gender scholar Raewyn Connell has noted: “There are many causes of violence, including dispossession, poverty, greed, nationalism, racism, and other forms of inequality, bigotry and desire. Gender dynamics are by no means the whole story. Yet given the concentration of weapons and the practices of violence among men, gender patterns appear to be strategic. Masculinities are the forms in which many dynamics of violence take shape.”

Interesting, right?

So what is needed? Less strict religious upbringings, perhaps less prayer, not more, is needed. More attention to raising children to grow up as adults with reasonable self control and reasonable self discipline, positive masculine attitudes for boys and positive self image for both boys and girls.

I would like to say one thing about the President's comments this weekend in using the power of his office to "do something". Pres. Bush, after 9/11, wanted to "do something". So we went to warn with Iraq, an inappropriate reaction to an action by terrorists whom he was actually at odds with. I don't know what the President has in mind at this time, I doubt even he does at this time, but I do hope whatever action he takes, it is appropriate to the situation. Because the office of the President these past ten years or so, and our government in general, hasn't so much been appropriate, in their actions.

Like with "cutting" and "self abuse" behaviors, we have been raising our kids not to have outlets, so they internalize, self abuse. Then when they get tired of abusing themselves, they may lash out. When they lash out, be careful. You may be next.

We have learned not to raise our kids as our parents raised us. How to cut off certain behaviors  that today's parents had done as children. We have effectively frustrated our children and taken away their ability in some cases, maybe in many cases, to simply be children. To get into trouble, to learn by experience, to make mistakes and grow from them. They need to "act out" to release, to be heard. We need to pay attention to them, to give them appropriate releases in order to grow emotionally healthy.

In the end, gun control will not solve this problem. Having healthy Americans however, will. There will always be the individual who walks into a place and kills randomly. Sometimes, people are just crazy. But we're seeing too much of this for that to explain this. We need to reevaluate our own behaviors. We need more good mental health, positive role models. Consider how screwed up our Congress is? Kids see and hear about this. People need to stop being nuts, selfish, greedy, and start acting like mature and most importantly, intelligent, responsible adults, to give our kids a way to see how they should act.

We need to strengthen our population, our mental health, our societal health. Then we will stop seeing all this insanity. It goes into our culture, our corporations, our government. This issue is so big, no one is seeing it, and so no one thinks it can be fixed. But it can. Just not over night. And we need to start, now.

Look at your child(ren). Consider how you are raising them. Look to yourself. Because in the end, it's not just the other parents who raised a crazy kid, it's not just gun control that will fix this situation, it's not just someone else who is responsible. In the end, we are all responsible.

Also, there is another side to this we really need to consider. Watch this video of Dr. Michael Welner talks to the ladies of The View about mental illness as it relates to the Newtown, Connecticut shooting.