Chocolate or Vanilla

by The Philosophical Fish

I’ve been a bit depressed lately. Enough so that I feel I’ve lost my voice in a way. I usually journal extensively and my photos are generally a medium for my thoughts in some metaphorical manner. But lately I’ve been uninspired because the world has been so disheartening.

It seems that the world is just in a constant spiral into self absorption, self entitlement, and failure to accept the most basic responsibility for decency. Everyone wants something, expects something, but don’t want to be put out, even the tiniest bit, to acheive what we think we deserve. We wave our arms around and accomplish little, while people doing even less stand back and criticize.

Recently we wandered through Lonsdale Quay and I stopped at the candy counter. All of the colourful confections caught my eye and made me raise my lens. But, as so often happens to me when I look through the lens, they also seemed like analogies for events or circumstances. I suppose it’s just a case of the things rattling around in the back of my mind popping to the front when some random object seems suddenly relevant in a metaphorical sense.

The candy apples with their sticky sweet outer coating, ready to suck the fillings out of some unsuspecting teeth, seemed like an analogy for the sticky discussions following every mass shooting south of the border.

The candy corn an analogy for artificial nature of the trite and useless responses to every gun related loss of innocent life.

The killings in Las Vegas seem to be just another manifestation of a festering disease that society seems to have contracted. “The world owes me everything, I owe the world nothing. I am right and everyone should see that, my opinions should be respected simply because I have them.”…and so on.

No, the world owes you nothing.

You may be wrong, and that’s ok, or at least it should be ok.

We mire ouselves in a muddy mire filled with “us and them” and seem to think that simply because we might look differently or think differently, then our differences must divide us.

How screwed up is it that people can’t see how wonderfully interesting it is to think differently? How messed up is it that people think different opinions somehow means personal invalidation? People have become so bloody sensitive to abslutely everything that we take being wrong as a personal insult instead of as an opportunity to learn something new and maybe change our position on a topic.

Life would be pretty terrible if we all thought the same, at least I think so. If we all thought the same we wouldn’t ever strive to learn new things, to expand our experiences, to better the world and our place within it. None of that would be of interest because we’d all be so pleased that we agreed on anything and there would have to be mass consensus before we advanced, even a little bit, because advancement would mean dissent. How awful would that world be!

No one has yet come up with a rationale for the killings in Las Vegas, and maybe we will never know why a man carted a large number of lethal weapons into a room high up in a hotel and took aim at a music festival filled with people wanting nothing more than to enjoy an evening filled with entertainment.

People jumped to the inital conclusion that it was a radical terrorist. But it wasn’t, it was a homegrown lunatic. There is no ISIS to blame, no terrorist cell to point at, no immigration laws to shake at the opposition.

People will rush out to buy more guns to protect themselves with, never seeing the ridiculousness of their actions. The easy access to guns is what puts them all at risk in the first place, but their idiotic and sacrosanct Second Amendment is perceived as more important than the lives of innocent people.

These are the same people that see the world in black and white, them and us, with or against.

I will never understand how the US Congress can continue to allow innocent people to die because they are unwilling to make any real changes that will save lives. They wring their hands and say that change is impossible (it isn’t), that criminals will always find guns (probably, but why make is so easy for them?), that it is wrong to infringe upon the rights of the people (Didn’t the innocent victims have a right to safety?).

Life’s not so simple or straightforward, and it makes me sad that there are people that reduce things to chocolate or vanilla. Why can’t they accept that both are equally wonderful and respect them for their unique attributes?

I can’t make heads or tails of people who think it is a right to own guns that are designed to kill people. Sure, have your hunting rifle (and keep it locked in a gun cabinet), but no one needs an AK-47 in their closet…no one.

Things are upside down when it is a God-given right (that’s laughable to me on so many levels) to have a gun designed to kill humans, but health care is a privilege.

It depresses me when I look to the south and listen to the empty platitudes, the useless “thoughts and prayers”, and bear witness to the continued inaction against something that can be fixed, if only there was the will to do so.

I wish that those who feel so attached to their guns could see themselves through the same lens that the rest of the world sees them through.

But the Vegas killings are now behind us, the dialogue has slowed, and we all wait, hoping it won’t happen but knowing it will, for the next mass shooting, sadly knowing that again nothing will change, but always hoping something will.

It’s all so depressing.

Or maybe it’s just the rain talking…..

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29 comments

karenalbaniapineda October 7, 2017 - 5:53 pm

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blavandmaster October 8, 2017 - 8:02 am

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Majorimi October 9, 2017 - 5:15 am

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Marne Birch October 20, 2017 - 5:25 pm

Nope…been feeling the same way….just so sad about everything.

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Marne Birch October 20, 2017 - 5:32 pm

And I can’t even blame the weather…it’s been gorgeous here.

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Paige Ackerman October 20, 2017 - 5:40 pm

The rains have arrived here, with a vengeance. ?️ It definitely hasn’t helped my state of mind these days.

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Christine Saruyama October 20, 2017 - 5:28 pm

https://www.facebook.com/cacao70/posts/1505966979485636
Sounds like you need more chocolate ❤ Free chocolate is even better

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Dave Ducharme October 20, 2017 - 5:30 pm

I just watched the new Patton Oswalt special, Annihilation, and he kind of touched on that nerve too. He spoke about how he’s occasionally felt like maybe he was the one who died and not his wife because it’s felt a lot lately like being stuck in a hellish world of chaos similar enough to the one before her death (pre-Trump POTUS) but with horrible details like Nazi resurgence, rabid bigotry, and no discernible control from institutions we once relied upon.

It’s getting harder for those of us with clinical depression and anxiety to find that silver lining. Heck, even the meds that keep my keel a little closer to even are so expensive that they induce anxiety while helping to curb it.

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Dave Ducharme October 20, 2017 - 6:05 pm

That said, it was a great special with a fair share of LoLs.

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Paige Ackerman October 20, 2017 - 5:39 pm

Well, I’m not sure if I’m glad or sad that I’m not alone in this….

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Christine Saruyama October 20, 2017 - 5:43 pm

I’d be right there with you but for once the weather has been great in Toronto. It’s been sunny with highs of 19 all week. 23 tomorrow . I’m not looking forward to coming back to the damn rain and depressing muggy city for winter

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Hans Pannerup Rasmussen October 20, 2017 - 6:00 pm

I would say to that that you should look at the people that you surround yourself with, the love and support that is available. The world moves, some things you fight, some things you accept. Not the most complete answer, far from it, but I always find the base things help the most when I get my annual melancholy’s.

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marcoverch October 20, 2017 - 6:41 pm

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marcoverch October 20, 2017 - 6:41 pm

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marcoverch October 20, 2017 - 6:41 pm

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Anne Todgham October 20, 2017 - 7:11 pm

This post is reminding me to make some cottage cheese muffins following your recipe – yum!

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Paige Ackerman October 20, 2017 - 7:12 pm

I just picked up some cottage cheese the other day for the same reason 🙂

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Paige Ackerman October 20, 2017 - 7:12 pm

An excellent plan for this rainy afternoon!

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Anne Todgham October 20, 2017 - 7:12 pm

So I’m coming to Vancouver to learn a technique at UBC. We should find a time to get together.

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Paige Ackerman October 20, 2017 - 7:13 pm

Absolutely!

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Anne Todgham October 20, 2017 - 7:13 pm

Will PM with details.

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Anina Hansen October 21, 2017 - 3:43 am

Big reason I’ve escaped to cabin by the sea.
Chopped firewood, walked in the woods and met lovely people while out. Trying to live where life makes more sense.
Please keep writing Paige, you have an amazing gift of putting into words what so many can’t. ❤️

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quiltsdp October 21, 2017 - 6:28 pm

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Cindy's Here October 21, 2017 - 11:57 pm

They do look tempting
Seen in
117 pictures in 2017

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xTexAnne October 22, 2017 - 2:47 am

Love candy corn! pure sugar!
Seen and enjoyed in
117 pictures in 2017

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xTexAnne October 22, 2017 - 2:47 am

Yummy!
Seen and enjoyed in
117 pictures in 2017

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xTexAnne October 22, 2017 - 2:47 am

Seen and enjoyed in
117 pictures in 2017

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Dar October 23, 2017 - 11:14 pm

Paige,

My thoughts and feelings have been very close to yours. I am very disillusioned at the state of global affairs, particularly since the the recent election south of the border. The Vegas shootings are very close to home for me, a friend’s son was caught up in the mayhem and chaos, and he was shot twice. He survived, thankfully, but there are going to be long lasting repurcusions for our friend’s son and the trauma the entire family sustained.

I do not understand the allure of the gun culture in the US and I never will. I get that it is a constitutional amendment, but it was written 241 years ago, when all guns were single shot and there really wasn’t a regular military to protect the US and they relied on a civilian militia. I do not think the US founding fathers could have envisioned assault rifles and the continued destruction that would ensue from it. I am tired of hearing the statement “Now is not the time to have the discussion or gun debate.” You would think after Sandy Hook and the needless murders of little kids someone would have finally tried to start the discussion, but apparently not. They are happy with the gun status quo and continued destruction of their fellow citizens through mass shootings and daily gun violence. It is utterly ridiculous and the madness needs to stop, I just wish they could see this chaos through a different lens. I happened upon the new NRA ad it was terrifying, the spokeswoman was uttering an angry diatribe that adds to the hate speak and divisiveness in the US. It is a terrifying spiral the US is on in all realms of domestic status and foreign policy. We are on the brink of something disastrous and it is going to have world implications and I think it is going to get terrifyingly worse before it gets better.

My usual optimism and hope has suffered greatly since last fall, I’m at a loss on how to regain my hope for the future. The grey rainy months aren’t helping my somber mood, I’m actually insulating myself from watching news from the US, I can no longer cope with the daily trainwreck that is going on. So you are not alone in your thoughts and feelings. Hang in, it’s all we can do.

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Chris-Creations February 23, 2018 - 12:31 pm

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