Cavalcade

Cavalcade: (n) a formal procession of people walking, on horseback, or riding in vehicles.

I often rebuke my brain for always trying to turn something into a philosophical quagmire instead of just eyeballing what is set before it, and
accepting the image for just what it is.

I like parades–I do.

But for some damn reason, my brain starts thinking too much.

Am I letting the parade pass me by? Am I merely in the gallery watching the participants stream along?

First of all–I don’t like to stand for much of anything. Never have. I will always find a seat. Matter of fact, if you give me a bucket of chicken and a chair, you could march two or three parades by me.

There is a cavalcade–an ongoing flow moving down the highway. Someone is in charge of that parade. There is a person who knows where it begins and where it ends. At least I think so.

But as life streams by us, is there anybody in charge?

Does anybody really know what they’re doing?

Is there a Parade Planner?

You see? There I go again.

My brain will not leave well enough alone. Sometimes I punish my mind by watching episodes of “I Love Lucy,” which couldn’t possibly have any other meaning than foolish 1950’s television.

Other times, I just listen to the news … which seems equally as vacuous.

 

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Anti-intellectual

dictionary with letter A

Anti-intellectual (n): a person who scorns intellectuals and their views and methods.

I ain’t sure, but I just may be one. Darn tootin’.

Can there be anything more annoying than someone who claims to be an intellectual, or on the other hand, some other varmint who insists “they’re just country.”

It all revolves around this nasty-dastardly deed of feeling the need to be right.

I would never call myself an intellectual, but I would never make fun of progress or science just to prove that I’m “one of the people.”

I often wonder, as I view my society, if we have all just gone crazy–and the process was so subtle that no one picked up on the nuance.

After all, the things we now accept as common sense tend to avoid any reasonable commonality and reject the need to be sensible.

I will tell you this–you will never get anywhere with anyone by insisting that you’re an intellectual. The goal of the whole room at that point will be to find the chinks in your armor and insert a spear deep into your self-righteous breast.

Likewise, you don’t gain the appeal of anyone who has an IQ above 75 by insisting that you eschew new discoveries, revelations which contradict the fables and lifestyle choices that you promote as old-fashioned, apple-pie American thinking.

Of the profiles afforded in the human experience–those being rock, cement and sponge–I choose to be a sponge.

I do not want to stand on the rock of mere intellectual pursuit, portraying myself as an agnostic, self-involved pursuer of education.

On the other hand, I don’t want to have a brain that’s cemented with superstition, fear, religion and political nonsense, and pass around another bucket of chicken with my equally stubborn brethren.

I am a sponge.

  • I do not fear science because God made it.
  • I am not afraid of the turmoil of nature because they are in the chemistry of our world to protect us and simultaneously teach us how things work.
  • And I do not deny the existence of God because I’m perfectly unwilling to believe that the whole system of the Universe is run on chance and chaos.

I do not care if I’m in the minority. I happen to know that minorities fare very well in the historical account.

As it turns out, I am not anti-intellectual nor pro-homespun. I want to absorb what’s true because I need to be free.

And rumor has it that truth is the only mechanism that delivers freedom. 

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