The world is all about competition
Getting old ain’t easy, even though all you have to do is keep Breathing. As you age, that’s easier said than done. The things you did when you were younger don’t come as easy for you when you’re in the late autumn or the winter of life.
You’ll realize how hard it is to go that “full ten rounds” like you could when you were younger. To tell you the truth, it gets kind of scary. If you’re a guy like me, you might take comfort in the fact that even though it’s difficult to do what was once easy, you’re still quick enough to make those first three rounds seem like an eternity for your competition.
You know that’s what it’s all about, right? Competition! You have to wear down your opponents before they wear you down. I know the empty rhetoric about cooperation, but it ain’t about that. If it was, we’d all be hostages to mediocrity.
Some people might be content with that, but is that really living? I figure that’s: merely existing. That’s when people are just “doin’ time,” and that’ll get tedious really quick. In the Realm of the Mediocre, there’s an imposed equality, or “sameness” to all those there, but who in the “heck” wants to live in a world like that?
People are different. As a society we strive to create equal opportunity, but it’s a mistake to say all people are equal. They just aren’t. Even identical twins aren’t equal. You can’t blame that on society. You have to blame that on God.
Writers; the proverbial “know it alls,” definitely aren’t equal. Their words might be the same, but they put them together in such a way as to make different points. One-Trick Ponies make the same point, by putting together words in a different way.
I was amazed to learn that a One-Trick Pony claims to have said the same thing over a thousand different times in the 缅北禁地. After finding “perspective” he modified his embellished claim to 600. Regardless, it’s an impressive exercise in writing, but one hell of a chore to read. It’s kind of like reading all 26 chapters of the phone book twenty-three times.
Chapter A makes the same point as Chapter M, but Chapter X is the shortest so far. “X” the 24th letter of the alphabet, keeps on growing. Pharmaceutical companies are responsible for that. Haven’t you wondered: “who came up with the name ‘Xarelto’ for that new drug developed to do whatever it does?”
They’re expensive and spelled in such a way no one else can: spell, pronounce, or afford them. Forget about phonetics! The letters used don’t match the sounds they’re supposed to make. To make the manipulation complete, pharmaceutical companies buy the rights to use particular songs in their commercials. The chorus: “Oh, Oh, Oh. It’s Magic,” becomes “Oh, Oh, ‘Oh. Ozempic.'”
Talk about “brain graffiti?” That little ditty might keep floating around in your head for days. If only they’d invent some pill to shake that haunt outta your head and cure: “the heartbreak of over-advertising.”
They do it, because that’s what it’s all about. Competition! They got to get you to buy their stuff, rather than the other guy’s. The product’s secondary. Sales are always first.
That’s the nature of the beast. Everything’s a business. Medicine; like auto mechanics, is a business. It all boils down to that “bottom line.” We get what our health-care will pay for and if we want what we can’t get, we might buy placebos on the chance of getting some hope.
“Hope” is a pretty big deal. Do you have any idea how much has been spent in the purchase of hope? I don’t, but I bet it’s a lot. I don’t know if it’s a good investment, but I know it’s a necessary one. The alternative to hope is “despair.”
Nobody wants to be “In the Pits of Despair.”
Politics and religion are definitely in the business of selling hope. Some might claim to have come up with a whole new idea how to achieve it and they’ll compete with the other guys to sell it to you.
Let the buyer beware!”
In the history of history, what’s really new? Don’t they just re-package the same old thing in a new box to make it more “eye-catching” than it was the last time it failed? Socialism is “Communism Lite.” They tried to sell it to “Baby-Boomers” in the 1960s and 70s, with the anti-Vietnam War movement. Now they’re trying to sell it to “millennials” under the guise of global warming, or cooling. They aren’t even sure which, so they’ve settled for climate change.
Comedians like Karl (Groucho) Marx and Frederick (Marty) Engels wrote their situation comedy in the form of a manifesto, but it takes you outta the competition. Bureaucrats play the game for you. There’s no: if, ands, or buts about it. “It ain’t about you. You’re about it.”,
Writing op-eds, you’ll recognize who and what your competition is. I compete with my equal in the hope that you’ll “get it.”
“I compete with myself!”
John Lucas is a resident of Vanderbilt.