Last Words... of 2023.

I read something recently that struck home. It's that contemporary happiness is just a contrivance of marketing, that we're fed endless loops of advertising bullshit which encourages us to buy things which consequently fire the hormones that sigh "happiness" into our ears after clicking the "purchase" button. Nothing more.

But happiness is like a dependency on a drug for which you develop a tolerance. Unhappy? Buy stuff. Unhappy? Buy stuff. Still unhappy? Buy more stuff.

Instead, the writer postulated, we should go for contentment, not happiness, as contentment can be maintained almost indefinitely without adversity.

So ignore the hype and go for contentment, I say, just not the kind of contentment that says "I don't need to pay attention to my leaders. I'm good."

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With the above in mind, I remind myself often these days how lucky I am to live in such an age, even if the marriage of money and politics has reached stage four levels.

Regardless, I often ponder how fortunate, in fact, I am to exist at all once I factor in all the random cosmic and chemical elements that eventually led to me. Or you. Or all of life on Earth, or even Earth itself. It's not near enough to say we're lucky to be here. The odds of you being you, here, at this moment in space-time, is so ridiculously vast a number I doubt it be conceived by even the most powerful computer. Ever.

Yes, the lives we lead are constantly shaded by responsibility and stress but it's still a gift of immeasurable value.

Here's wishing one and all a somewhat happy but largely contented 2024.

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Ahhh, September of 2023. What else occurred during your brief temporal reign:

Pennsylvania ends state funding of anti-abortion counseling centers
Texas anti-porn law violates free speech
Trump election fraud trial to be live-streamed on Youtube.
Democrats now the majority in the FCC
The IRS plans to target 1600 millionaires.
Mitt Romney announces plan to leave the Senate.
Fox News sued by shareholders for being lying twats.
U.S. auto workers go on strike.
Pennsylvania institutes automatic voter registration.
President Joe Biden creates the Climate Corps.
NASA astronaut returns after spending record 371 days in space.
Writer's Guild ends 148-day strike.
New York suffers rainiest September in 100 years.
GOP plays chicken with the debt again and lose.
President Biden releases list of ten drugs now subject to price negotiations.