There’s an evil force at work slowing down my posting. I started writing this yesterday morning. I got interrupted and didn’t even save what I had. I then forgot to get back to it. I got ready to start writing this morning, my phone rang, and I took a meeting with Deni. Notice the self-important, up-to-date usage, “took a meeting.” The effect might be lessened by pointing it out. We joked about it during the call. It was the very typical-for-me, call for a specific purpose that goes all over the place because we enjoy each other’s company. I don’t get to see people in person, so this is how I feed my social needs. Yesterday I took a StreamYard meeting with Rob and Grant Peeples while simultaneously having a zoom meeting with Rob. He was teaching me how to use StreamYard. No matter how meta and weird that comes across in words, it’s weirder and more meta when you do it. On my Zoom screen I was seeing Rob’s StreamYard screen, while I had my own StreamYard stream open in another tab. I’m becoming a music professional, and just like too many musicians and presenters, I don’t get paid. Professional is more aspirational than descriptive.
I also talked to Carey and his girlfriend Barbara for the first time in too long. We have unusual discussions. We spent a long time discussing the long-forgotten film, The Fifth Element and seeing how many words of the language of the Great Race we could remember. To this day when we call each other we answer with a-peeple-eye. That means hello. Neither one of us thinks that was a good movie. We saw it because it starred Milla Jovovich who we had seen live singing. I saw her live a number of times. She is known as a model and singer but for one album she was a great singer/songwriter.
None of that is where I started writing yesterday, that all came after I started writing. So where did I start? On breakfast. The way to a Gordon’s heart is through his stomach. I made French toast with chocolate chip brioche I got at Aldi. I usually by the sliced which is more convenient and larger, but they were out, so I bought a loaf. Sure, I had to cut it into smaller but thicker pieces, but it came out even better. It was the grand slam breakfast with scrambled eggs and Taylor ham. The world might be falling apart but I had a great breakfast and that still counts; it counts ever more.
I have only 20 minutes until my next meeting. That means I will have to once again put off what I wanted to write about. I suspect I’ll never get to it as more and more of the details are fading from my memory. So little is left I’m going to try and squeeze it in here. It started as my reaction to all the virtue-signaling I see on Facebook. My reaction changed as I thought about it. It’s hard for me to decry virtue-signaling when this is what my Facebook profile picture and cover photo look like.
The thing about virtue-signaling is, that it works. It’s not that it signals that I’m a good person, it’s that it signals, this is the social norm. When people see this all around them instead of thinking, “that’s out there,” Or “I afraid of the backlash if I do it,” they worry about appearing apathetic if they don’t. So, they do it, and this progresses until it becomes the social norm. Is that hypocrisy? Perhaps, but it’s hypocrisy that does good. Most people want others to think they are good people, so they will do things that make them look like good people to others. Whether or not they efforts are sincere they are still doing the good thing. It gets better than that. People don’t want to think of themselves as hypocrites so eventually they feigned belief becomes sincere. This doesn’t mean you should go around saying, look how great I am! Well, it’s fine for you to say, “Look how great Gordon is.” But it would be wrong of me to say it. Like everything else people can go to far, but I’m not going to call anyone on it. Just don’t let your virtue signaling come in the form of hectoring others, or even lecturing others.
I’m back from this afternoon’s meeting. I should start working on those postcards, but my brain isn’t there just yet. I’ll do at least ten tonight.
Wise Madness 