The Super Bowl® is essentially winter’s 4th of July. I’d say it’s the high point of the season (sorry, Christmas!) The only real difference is that after July 4, the rest of the summer zips by in a flash and after the Super Bowl you’re like three weeks away from the 2nd most boring month of the year. If football isn’t your thing, maybe it’ll help to think of it as Indoor Fourth of July. Wait - don’t light any fireworks.
How do you feel about watching the person you know best make some fundamental changes about themselves?
I’ll tell you how; weird.
You can say it depends on what they’re changing to/from, but that won’t make the weird go away. It will only add an element of positivity or negativity to the change. The common denominator is still going to be the weirdness. It probably won’t last forever but you’ll definitely face it. For better or worse, you’re losing part of the person you knew.
We're all adults here, right? Or at least our versions of adult? We're all enlightened and fully aligned with the live-and-let-live ethos, right? Okay good. Let's all take it easy. This is just a thought experiment so no I haven’t covered every base. Just understand I'm not attacking anyone here.
I do this little disclaimer because with certain topics, people have become trained to get defensive about them. They go into Advocacy Mode and everyone just wants to argue and I'm not here for that end of it. I'm viewing this subject from a mechanical perspective, not a moral one. Maybe not so fun for most, but since when have I ever been fun?
I think the world has pretty well neared critical mass in terms of population and I'm thinking that the human instinct to procreate might be beginning to shift.
Since about forever, sex drive has kept our species on the planet. It's an instinct. If it were something that humans could procrastinate about, we would, which means it would never get done. There would be so few of us. If instinct were not driving the train, the train would never leave the station.
But it does seem procreation is on the decline and not just because heterosexual couples aren't getting it done. We have an increasingly large number of people who have genders and sexualities that don't fit traditional definitions. Here I am again saying that this doesn't upset me in any way. It seems homosexuality is on the rise - probably at its peak. Gender and sexuality roles are being redefined all over the place and we're pretty far away from the nuclear family model of the 1950's, and not just because we're more enlightened - it's also a result of sheer numbers. We have the proverbial thousand monkeys sitting at a thousand typewriters right now inventing every possible combo, which is great, but current evolution says that only one combo can procreate.
I'm going to stop here again to say I have zero judgement about any of the moral stuff involved here. Admittedly what I’m getting at is a lot less romantic than the idea of sexuality and gender identity being some sort of immutable essence. What I'm wondering is, could all this be a biological, evolutionary response to our environment? I know it might seem insulting to think so but you need to accept the idea that the mind or soul is just something invented by the brain and the brain is controlled by physiology like anything else. Almost a sacrilegious thought but not exactly unreasonable.
Armed with that thought I wonder if there's some kind of shift happening inside our brains that dulls our need to procreate. Like the birds instinctual need to fly south in the winter, maybe when we look around and see how many of us there are, there's a subconscious shift that happens in our little pea brains, too. Our whole existence on this planet is owed to the instinct to procreate. If aliens were able to come here and rewire us all to just forget about that, then all they'd have to do is wait it out and the planet would be theirs. THAT'S SUPER CLEAN!
Okay - maybe a little bit beside the point there but I do wonder if there's some sort of human mechanism that responds to overpopulation and if we might be experiencing it right this very moment. People are much more willing to accept the idea that we could develop webbed feet or hands, or that lactose intolerance is an evolutionary sign that we should leave cows alone, but if evolution touches the mind or identity... [exploding head emoji]
All right don't worry about it. These were just some ideas. Sorry for the interruption. Back to taking sides on the issue everyone! Sorry I just called us all monkeys with pea brains.
Yesterday's event I think summed up my life pretty well. This is the kind of thing that happens to me all the time and it dawned on me that this most recent example was the archetype.
I haven't had popcorn in a few years. Not really my thing, but a couple weeks ago I tried some that I found in the grocery store snack aisle. Might have been the best popcorn I've ever had just by texture alone. It was mushroom popcorn, which pops into a round ball and the hull seems more tooth-friendly to me. It's also kind of... tender? It really brought into focus the complete chaos that is butterfly popcorn, which is what most of us make at home. I think mushroom needs a lot more heat to pop. Stay tuned after the jump for my Winter Popcorn Jambalaya Mix that is just perfect for those cool wintry days where all you want to do is wrap up in a blanket with a good book and have sexual intercourse with it.
I first found this popcorn at a store not near my home town, but it's a common brand so I figured most any store would have it. I went out to my local grocery store. They do carry the brand, but not the flavor I wanted. I tried several other stores, drug stores, and mom and pops (do those still exist?) in my area. None of them had it.
They had Pepper Jack, Sea Salt Carmel Cheddar, Maple Cheddar, Sharp Cheddar, Fiery Cheddar, but not the flavor I had first tried and wanted. This might beg questions such as - what is so unique about my needs? How picky am I? What flavor is it that I wanted?
Butter.
That's it - my New Year's Resolution is to finally indulge over the holidays. Every year this same feeling rolls around at this same time. I think back on all the fun that people have had since Halloween, and I feel some regret that I didn't partake. Now the revelry is all over and here I sit with no such joy to reflect on. The sugar cookies, the rum punch or whatever it is people drink at parties. The desserts and main courses drenched in gravy and/or butter. The pecan logs and ribbon candy and rum balls and turkey legs and nogs and such. One of these years I should ingest all of the things that make the season so bright, so when the New Year comes, I can feel the same grand sense of accomplishment and satisfaction all the Who's down in Whoville enjoy at the end of the holiday season. It must be a great time and today must be a terrific day to reflect on all the choices you made that made you so happy. Yes, that must be it. Because it certainly isn't the day to wallow in the regret you just spent the last two months so eagerly manufacturing.
Cheers and here's to an even more festive end to 2026!
