Clear thinking

I read Billy Beck on a semi-regular basis. When I started reading his blog a couple of years ago, after about the dozenth post, I realized he is probably the most rational person I've ever read. Most of his stuff is so high thinking that the average Joe would have no chance of ever understanding it, as he states here,

"you, reading this, right now, were almost certainly never trained to distill anything to essentials."

But then, he outdoes himself. It only got better when I looked at this post.

And again when I read this one, from the same day. The most troubling part about the last one is that I must admit to having had those feelings of despair...about TEN YEARS AGO! It is sad to think that I had reached that same conclusion, and at the age of 24, no less, but at the time, I couldn't have explained why. My intuition was correct, and my thoughts didn't need help as much as clarification. That would come with mileage, as I found out. The ensuing decade (or more)has been a great instructor for me, as I feel that my ideas have been refined, but I digress.

There are those who are stuck in what I would later learn is, in psycho-babble talk, a state of Cognitive Dissonance, a rationalization of high order in which someone convinces themselves that a lie is indeed the truth, and usually immutably so. An absolute, even.

As an extension to Billy Beck's topic, a response in the comments section of QandO, Tom Perkins writes, "I am confident that we will on this current path continue to incentivize the election of people who will happily build hell on earth so they can reign there. If they are in charge, they'll dig it"

I couldn't agree more, unfortunately. I just hope there are a few last vestiges of open-eyed, clear thinkers like Billy around to call "Bullshit" when the burden becomes too great. At that point, the shooting war can commence, and then, all bets are off.

I just hope that it happens soon. I am not getting any younger.