Notes From Gordon 250110: Tales of The Observer

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TONE: serious, insightful, marginally profound

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Tales of the Observer

My dear friend, Nailgun, writes of my most recent posting: “Thanks for the uplifting note… sorta feels like sticking a needle in my eye…”

Now I feel bad. Truly. I did not mean to cause consternation. Mild ennui perhaps, but not consternation!

But I have an excuse. Please allow me to explain.

I confess that I once was an active member of our culture. I attended church every Sunday, I joined the Boy Scouts, I watched TV, I even ate TV dinners.

And then, something happened…

Reality started to creep into my peripheral vision. No matter how hard I tried to ignore reality, I found myself stepping back, farther and farther, until I could see the extent of it all.

And—reluctantly, I must confess—I became an Observer.

Allow me to emphasize that to be an Observer is not to feel special or superior to others in any way.

Truly, there is no ego involved, no pessimism and no judgment.

You simply see things as they are—without resistance or denial.

For example, someone might call themselves an American. Why? Because you were born on the land mass called America? Because you are compelled to pay taxes to the bosses running America?

Someone might call themselves a Republican. Why? Because you like to join sophomoric mind control movements designed to herd the gullible and the undiscerning?

Someone might call themselves a Christian. Why? Because your parents were Christians? What about the other 2,000 religions? Have you tried any of them yet?

It’s not easy being an Observer. For one, you see things that others do not. Or at least not from the same perspective.

A friend might lament that they lost money in the recent stock market crash.

You open your mouth, and before you can stop yourself, you say, “What did you think was going to happen? It’s the very nature of investor sentiment cyclicality that compels severely overbought markets to retrace to their mean performance.”

You were merely attempting to bring some reality to the situation. Too late! There goes another friend who now thinks you’re just a smart-a**.

Like the android, Data, on the old Star Trek TV series who had no humor circuits, you find yourself lacking social filters.

A couple of beers and you might say, “Too bad about the coming population crash, but at least we’ll all have a little more breathing room!”

Comments like these to do not endear you to others. Sadly, you notice that people back away slowly. You aren’t invited to the next neighborhood barbecue.

But what are you to do? Stop observing? Sigh.

So let me close with a note of positivity.

Whether we like it or not, everything is exactly as it should be. If it were otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. We’d be in one of those other alternate universes instead.

The fact that we are here means that, from an existential perspective, everything is A-OK.

So just sit back and enjoy the show.

GP