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Why Cant We Be Friends? Masters of Rationalization, Fish-anasia
‘War’ asks that riveting question way back in 1975 (when sex was still safe and diving was dangerous). Why Can’tWe Be Friends?? My favorite lyricist-philospher Neil Peart answers that rhetorical question in Rushs’ 1981 song ‘Witch Hunt’: Quick to judge, Quick to Anger, But Slow to Understand… Ignorance and Prejudice and Fear Walk Hand In Hand.I love that line so much… it really sums things up! Let’s save Ignoranceand Fearfor now and focus on Prejudice(just a bit of a hot topic right now). Prejudice is not biological, we are not born prejudiced. It is learned! It is passed on to us by our parents and elders, just like it was shoved into their heads. Break the chains and stop the cycle… you are not prejudiced, you were merely taught that you are at a young impressionable age. Differences aren’t a bad thing, they are necessary and good. Embrace them! What a classic song… 40 years later and it seems like we’re less likely than ever to all be friends.Sad! Yet a reminder to you and especially to me; we are only in control and responsible for what’s in each of our hearts!It’s a feel good song though, clicking to listen will probably be the best choice you make today, however: WARNING: the following video graphically depicts humans of all different colors, professions, religions, sexual orientations, shape and gender (often side by side) joyfully singing, outwardly displaying happiness, and enjoying life and each others company. https://youtu.be/W5FfJ89rGPc
Humans do a lot of things very well. Unfortunately not all the things we excel at are ‘good’. It would be intriguing If humans (I shouldn’t speak for the rest of the world)… If Americans were given degrees for their traits and thought processes. For instance let’s take ‘kindness’ as an example. Many of us barely earned a high school diploma, while some of us would have their doctorate in kindness. To clarify; Jessi would have a Masters in ‘kindness’ and I would have a G.E.D. (maybe). It’s pretty interesting to go through a list of traits and thought processes (jealousy, forgiveness, patience, .etc) and grade ourselves out in comparison to others. It seems to me that most traits would have results skewed all over the spectrum. Anger for example; we all know people with short fuses that lose their temper and others that don’t seem to have a mean bone in their body. So, for angry people like me there is a balance of kind people (Jessi). There seems to be one trait (the only one I can think of), so there is at least one thought process that all of us Americans seem really, really good at: We are Masters of Rationalization! I could be way off base here (and please let me know if you think I am). It was a pretty simple thought process that led me to that conclusion, it started with introspection on myself. I’m not speaking of instincts or reactions I’m talking about major choices in life that I contemplated before making and wound up regretting them. Thankfully the list isn’t endless and most of my mental sample size came 30+ years ago! Most of the things I talked myself into doing were the result of extreme rationalization. I was a professional rationalizer… hmmm Jeff that idea is crazy and exciting, although I know it is not right for these 1,2,3,4, maybe 5 reasons. Well, hey, you know, insurance will cover it and nobody is going to get hurt, what the hell!
We all rationalize, right? I guess it’s human nature. We strive for perfection but we are flawed. We have to make everything okay… even if that’s making everything seem okay in our mind. I’ve curtailed my rationalizing immensely just by realizing I’m having to rationalize a thought… probably not a good thought if you have to talk yourself into it! So my thoughts on ‘rationalizing’ started simply with introspection but then carried on to (I have to be careful here because I’m not allowed to talk) politics. Shhhh! Hmmm, let’s just say that while all of us voting on November 3rd will be rationalizing to some degree (hell, we only have 2 choices), some of us should probably look deeper into the rational behind our rationalizations! Alright, I’m pulling my plug… this is a Captain’s Chronicles for God’s sake!
My first introduction to the concept of euthanasia was watching the movie Logan‘s Run (at a far too early age). Does anyone remember the carousel? The thought of killing people off because they were getting old, which in that movie I believe was the age of 40, is kind of crazy. Not so crazy is allowing somebody who is terminal and has limited precious coherent time left on this planet to make a choice to end their life the way they choose. Humans will euthanize all sorts of animals in the name of humanity. Why don’t we do the same for humans? After all humanity has the word human in it. I should do some research, but I believe assisting a suicide is still illegal most everywhere in the United States, anyway. Hopefully that will change and when it does I am ready to start my farewell to this life euthanasia center! "Fish-anasia" is what I’m going to call it! We will weigh you down and strap a big tank on your back and drop you wherever you want to go to be with the fishies. You will breathe Nitrox until your psi gets to around 500 and then we’re just going to dial the percentage of oxygen back until you go to sleep. Who knows I may be our first client! Sounds like a good way to enter through those pearly gates… and if you’re going the other direction at least you’re immersed in water so that should help ease the heat.
Oh yeah, I should probably talk about local diving: Spirograph! Yep, that one word sums it up. Remember that awesome drawing game with the spinning wheels that traced around a frame? ‘Spirograph' pretty much sums up the local scene lately. That’s what my thought was the other day when I pulled up the National Hurricane Center‘s home page… It looked like eight or nine Spirograph wheels dancing around in the Atlantic Ocean! Unfortunately, no recent conditions reports but hopefully that will change in the near future.
Until then Live, Love, Dive -Jeff
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