Banal Hemorrhage

Version 2: Hustle: Whenever I make the mistake of logging into LinkedIn, all I find are regurgitations of regurgitations of regurgitations. You'll find  posts titled "Don't fire your staff to success", and they get 10,000 likes and a few hundred 'amen's. "Your staff are people, too" 7,000 thinky faces and a few 'interesting take' comments.  Am I callous? Tired? Bored? Apathetic? Yes,  and I still I don't believe that every combination of uplifting words deserves such an enthusiastic response. Part of the problem is that everything in this current world is about churning content. You're incentivized with more followers and more opportunities the more you post stuff. Regardless of the stuff. Requotes, retweets, your opinion on an opinion on an opinion. This system makes even your most interesting contact sound like Stuart Smalley .  One time, I went with a good friend to one of these A-type events, like a Lollapalooza but only for peop

I don't believe in karma in the spiritual sense of the word (I know, shocking!). I don't think that there's a tally of the good and bad you've done. I definitely don't believe in the more stripped down, colloquial view that if you do good you definitely get good back. There's no definite in this random world of ours.  What I do believe, is quite simple. If you do a good deed, the world has a +1 good deed. If you take a crap on society, the world has a +1 crap. The more crap in the world the more chance of getting crapped on. That should be good enough for people to do good things and avoid bad things, but nooooo. We need to have a set of invisible white-washed beings and multiple lives and heaven and hell and an invisible tally system to keep us in line.   I'm no saint. I've done things that in retrospect make me angry at myself. I've posted bile on the internet, I've taken people for granted, I've listened to and let gossip flourish, all whi

What is it about these times? Almost everyone I talk to is considering some type of career move or has recently made a move for something different. Is it my cohort? (Genx), my age group (forties) or the world at large (Earth)? Is this what they called midlife crisis, or are we starting to look for meaning in work? 'Good luck finding significance in work', say the boomers. I have a feeling many boomers just enjoyed work as away to escape their spouses. Some, probably did it for the acquisitive power.  The desire to own things and keep up with an invisible rival seem to be a trend of post war generations, not mine*.  So far, I've found that the jobs that would fill my soul more would not fill my pockets enough to retire early and travel around comfortably. And the jobs that would fill my pockets seem like they have personal space issues. I'm currently ok with my job but it sucks out all the social energy I have to give. Management is a vampire for sure.  My wife and I fa

  Sleeping Beauty, First of Her Name , Thorn of the Briars, Aurora of the Disneys. What a problematic tale this can be.  In the very, very initial telling of this story, the princess is straight up sexually assaulted and gives birth to children. The children suckle her fingers which removes the curse.  Of course, she marries her aggressor, to make it even more traumatic.  There's a pre-Disney version without even a kiss. In this version the prince just falls in love with the sleeping princess in the bed which wakes her, and they have a "meaningful conversation." Obviously this would not cut it in later versions, people wanted the non-consensual smooch.  While it has kind of problematic origins, one of the most important lessons of this story is simple: Make sure you invite crotchety, reclusive ladies to your parties. Can you believe this is all because a fairy, witch, or whatever was irked for not being invited to a party? Jeesh talk about a harsh punishment! One time, in

  I have a treasonous resting face. Whatever is going through my brain at any period will be transmitted 100% to the face continuously, non-stop. Whether it is joy, sadness, confusion or blankness... you'll get it all. It's problematic. This week in the office we found that a mouse had been caught by one of those sticky pad traps. I hate those traps and I've removed them from the floor, but this one was replaced by a janitor. The poor little guy was stuck in there and we were told to put it in the trash. I did, because it was the morning and I wanted to have my team get on with their work. Talk about the Stanley Milgram effect. If facilities would've told me to kill it I may have. Later on, my conscience woke up. I went back to the trash, jumped in, took the guy and cut as much of the trap as I could. He was left with some cardboard shoes and a big section of cardboard in his back. Looked a bit like an origami turtle. I saw him wander off and I had two thoughts. One p

These two have been flirting with each other since day one! Sure the Joker technically murders Batman's first protégé in some universes, but that just screams of attention-seeking. Many times they've pondered that they wouldn't live without each other, so why not make it official? Who's your dream fictional 'ship'? For internet beginners, that's just relationshipping, putting characters  romantically together in ways the authors may or may not have intended. Don't google it though, it's a direct line to the internet's darkest corners! You may be wondering if Firefly's Kaylee and Malcom would've made a good pair and you end up with Eeyore getting railed by Tigger within like nanoseconds. Extra Panel: