I Know... It's Weird For Me, Too or Make America Weird Again!

"The report of my death was an exaggeration." - Mark Twain

Hello World! It's been awhile... according to Facebook, over eight years and five months since my last posting.

A lot has happened in my life in the last eight years since many of you last heard from (or about) me. I fully expect that some of you will have no idea who I am. That's okay, we should be friends anyway.

I moved away from my second home, Athens, OH in 2011 to take a sales job with Global Government Education Solutions in Fletcher, OH. Thankfully, Erin was more than willing to come with me and in 2014 we got married. In 2015, our son, Patrick, was born and we bought our first home (great year!) Our baby girl, Rosie, was just born six months ago. And that's pretty much the gist of what I've been up to this whole time – starting a career, starting a family and making some babies. I've got some good tales from the last few years that I will be sharing with everyone, like how I became a "master" animal trapper over this past summer, but today I want to go into my own personal struggle with "reality".

I turned my back on the Facebook years ago because it was causing me real life problems. I won't go into the exact causes but I often think about this new virtual reality versus the actual reality that we all find ourselves in. Reality for many of us is a shared experience based mainly on our location in the world, but we can now pick and choose what our reality is thanks to these new virtual lives. Actual reality is fully entwined with our virtual reality now. My job is done in a cubicle, on a computer. I never actually touch the product I sell or meet my clients in person. I do most of my reading online, although I still tell everyone that I prefer reading an actual book over reading on a tablet. Reading on or staring too long at a screen really hurts my eyes. There are obvious benefits to all of this virtual reality – efficiency, convenience, instant gratification. But there are also some harsh effects on our real-life reality.

We no longer get our information from the same sources, which can be a great thing if these sources possess honesty, trustworthiness and integrity. Diversity in opinions is one of the bedrock fundamentals of American life. Back in the day when you only had a handful of news broadcasts on the radio or TV, you didn't have the option to believe what they were telling you was the truth or if something truly happened or not, you just did. Did they fake the moon landing? I don't take it out of the realm of possibility, but no I don't think they did. Most debate would be around why or how something happened and how we can move forward from this point for the better. There was no question that JFK, MLK Jr., RFK, John Lennon were all assassinated. But now we have large swaths of people who can try to deny that current events even happened.

Sandy Hook is one of the worst tragedies in our nation's history. And there are still folks who believe this is some elaborate hoax to try and take their guns away or put us all into FEMA camps. That these were paid "actors". It's extremely sad to me that anyone would try to manipulate what actually happened on that day to further their agenda of spreading fear to increase their own personal gain (looking at you Alex Jones). Nobody with a fear-based mentality wants to discuss mental health or the out of control gun lobby in this country. It's a non-starter with a lot of people to broach the issue of gun control. The events in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Rancho Tehama did not have to happen. If proper actions were taken by the Air Force (in the case of Sutherland Springs) and the local jurisdictions of Rancho Tehama, these events would likely not have happened at all because these two individuals would have been prevented from acquiring or possessing these deadly weapons.

Do I think we should ban all gun sales in this country? From a very personal stand point, I do. Keep what you currently have, but no more. I'm not a gun person, I don't get a thrill from shooting guns, it frightens me. My wife does enjoy guns, do I think any less of her because of that? Absolutely not, it's just not my thing. I also don't want to take away any of the rights of folks who responsibly enjoy their weapons.

"But the 2nd amendment!?" Well, actually, read it again because the main purpose is to have a well-regulated militia built from individual citizens possessing their own firearms. For those of you not history inclined, the American Revolution was fought by the citizenry in the form of these local militias – we had no standing army. But now that we do, in my opinion, we no longer need these "militias".

"But what if want to overthrow our government!?" I'm going to tell you right now, that will never happen. We have the most powerful military in the world. No matter what weapons the people in this country have, our government can wipe us out before we even know it. Drones, lasers, nuclear warheads, tanks, jet fighters. Folks in their camouflage hunting gear don't stand a chance against the body armored soldiers of our military. And news flash! Moneyed interest has already taken over! We have allowed sociopath corporations to run our everyday lives. We've allowed special interest to overthrow our government of citizens governing other citizens. Our politicians are now beholden to the puppet masters with all of the money.

I understand that my views are not what everyone else shares, nor do I want to force my views on anyone else or force them to give their guns back or anything like that. I know many responsible gun owners, they are good people and have various good reasons for owning their weapons (protection, sport shooting, hunting). But I have a problem with folks who won't even open their minds to actual solutions to our various problems. Many people are quick to point the finger at who to blame and vilify but there is no discussion of hard solutions to our many problems.

We can stick our fingers in our ears, bury our heads in the sand, cry "FAKE NEWS!" When confronted with events or ideas or words that run counter to what our world view is. To block out the harsh truths of reality. We can sit anonymously behind our computers and rant and rave about who is to blame for all of our ills (here's a secret – it's only yourself to blame). We convince each other that we are being taken advantage of by these politicians, or corporations, or this person or that person. But it's us that allows it to happen.

A lot has changed in the last ten years, some of it good, some of it absolutely terrible. The rise of the internet and social network has forever changed the way we lead our lives. Personally, I feel it necessary to rejoin this virtual social life so I can have more of a real life again. How ironic is that? It's strange how interdependent these two realities are now. Sure, we can live completely off the grid and not have any online presence, but you are really limiting your qualify of life that way, at least in my opinion. There are physiological benefits to social networking and Facebook was built to prey on some of these psychological triggers. I strongly urge every Facebook user to read Sean Parker's (Facebook's founding president) comments about this on Axios.

If you have not heard about Axios, you need to start paying attention to media organizations like this – these will be the standard bearers of truth and excellency in reporting in our new reality. They are breaking big stories and I have never heard of them before this spring. Look at their web page, does it look any different than WaPo, USA Today, Breitbart, Daily Caller, The Blaze, NYT, Wall Street Journal? Can you see the difference? Extremely minimal advertising, I've never seen more than one on a page and it's usually set off in the margin. No loud video advertising pop-ups, your browser doesn't go into convulsions because it's trying to load all of those annoying ads – all of these other organizations are trying to sell you something else other than what they are reporting on. That's why they can editorialize to their heart's content – it's about page views for them (not across the board, I do still believe in journalistic integrity but many of these organizations are run by corporations that feed voraciously on profits). Writers these other organizations feature don't even have to believe in the garbage their spewing, as long as it gets thousands of page views and pads their bottom line.

Okay, putting my soap box away for the time being. I've got a lot more on my mind, but that's enough for today. The point of this whole post was to state I am resurrecting my digital life but I dared to peer down a rabbit hole or two – sorry about that. Have a good one.
-@papanate