Musical Chairs

"Just believe in yourself."
Remember how often you used to hear that as a kid?
This was back when adults encouraged children.
"Believe in yourself and you can become a zoologist."
Teachers, parents...the woman who rented you your movies.
They'd all say it.
And they'd even say it to the kid who was obviously going to become a felon.
Two reasons:
1) Because it's what a decent person should say to a child.
And 2) It's just sound, grounded advice. 
Even the TV would say it between cartoons.
Days gone by.
Now no one of authority tells children to believe in themselves, or anything else.
And what's worse is that we've all stopped doing it as well.
Now we believe in the ourselves that others perceive.
Anyone who thinks I don't know what I'm talking about, ask yourself this:
How frequently do you check your Facebook account?
How pleasant is it when someone comments on your status?
Exactly.
As I was saying.
Focusing on the you that's in other people's heads is a much more dangerous alternative.
Let that manifest for long enough and then you believe in the fake version of yourself also.
Last phase is trying to live up to an iteration of you that you had little to do with inventing in the first place.
That's where a lot of us are currently
(And I'm not saying I'm not involved in this dance).
This is why you find yourself reading information like:
FINISHED LAUNDRY!! GOING TO THE MALL!!!
Who gives a shit?
We all do laundry.
We all have our own lists to complete before supper time
(This dance I'm not a part of, I'll admit. I have no priorities).
Another message that we used to hear as kids?
"Just be yourself."
Is that what you're doing today?

I know. I know.
I know what you're thinking.
And I'm on your side.
I liked the blog more when it talked about me getting drunk, too.
This post was supposed to be about how we don't need religion any more than deer do.
Maybe tomorrow.
 
By the way, the number of exclamation points doesn't make the event more interesting.
It's always one.
It doesn't matter how exciting or outrageous the sentence is.
If Obama was assassinated by Big Bird, that's one exclamation point.
OBAMA HEADLESS! BIG BIRD ONLY SUSPECT!
The people who need to know this aren't reading my blog, but I wish they were.

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