Bulldozer00's Blog

Based on a recommendation from fellow whack-job W. L. Livingston, I’m currently trying to read “The Theory Of The Leisure Class” by Thorstein Veblen (cool name, eh?). Man, this guy’s a tough read. The vocabulary that Thor(?) uses and his huge paragraphs often cause my CPU to overheat and spew blue smoke, but the self-imposed intellectual torture is worth the pain.

I love exploring the ideas and thoughts of guys like Veblen because they are so far off the beaten path and mind stretching that they cause new, but previously unused synaptic sub-networks to be instantaneously created in my brain. For me, spiritual and intellectual growth is painful but inspiring. The acts of  continuously trying to widen my horizons, destroying old and obsolete mental models, and exposing myself to the ideas of others makes me  feel vibrantly alive.

When you consciously choose to explore and probe weird and non-standard ideas that go against the norm, you’ve got to watch out for yourself. Internalizing and then subsequently espousing your new learnings in public can be detrimental to your health. If people are really set in their ways and you don’t take their feelings into account, you could trigger the fight or flight response in them. In one-on-one exchanges, the blowback that you experience may not be so bad. However, publicizing your new thoughts in a meeting with a group of clanthinkers can cause you considerable external and internal damage.

“Let’s Be Careful Out There”  – Sergeant Esterhaus