If Failure is Not an Option......

Some of the clichés with which we try to motivate others (and ourselves) are downright lame. If “failure is not an option,” then neither is success. An option is selectable. If failure is not an option, you cannot select it. You then default to success, so success is no longer an option either.

There are other moronic platitudes. How about “Only the good die young”? Is that because people only get to be such SOBs in their old age? It takes time to develop evil? And then there’s “Good things come to those who wait.” …..so why not procrastinate? The fact is that sometimes if you don’t act now, you’ll react later.  There! I just composed a new one.

And there’s this piece of wisdom: “It is what it is.”  No kidding!  Or how about “Follow your bliss”?  Maybe mine is heroin. Maybe we should lead our bliss.  And here’s one that fosters failure: “Go with the flow.” No need to lead. No reason why you should make a positive difference. Just be a dead fish and go with the flow. Especially "if failure is not an option."

Things not going well? Then “just think about how much worse other people have it.” Yeah. It should cheer you up to dwell on other people’s misery.

Some Thoughts on Europe

I usually wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes quite refreshed after only 4 hours sleep. Then I try to return to sleep by listening to talk radio or YouTube tracks that would normally lull me to sleep in the evening, only to find that they engage my attention. Eventually I decide to stop wasting time and come to my desk. So here I am right now while the city sleeps.

Austria had an election recently. The new Chancellor is barely 31 years old. Must be a bright kid with connections. He is the people’s answer to the Muslim issue. People want to feel safe again.

The EU is putting pressure on nations such as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to embrace the reckless immigration policy.  To me, this is industrialists looking for cheap labor. Their rarified neighborhoods aren’t affected of course.

I suspect that the EU will lose its war against its own states. The EU is not the nation it tries to be. When Hungarians spit at the mention of Romania and when Macron meeting Merkel is not a meeting of provinces, but a meeting of sovereign states, there is not nation of Europe. A nation shares a fate.  Europe does not.

The EU is an outgrowth of an American idea, by the way. It was a condition of the Marshall Plan that a union of sorts be formed. Hence the European Coal and Steel Community that became the Common Market, antecedent to the EU.

Blog Update

Here are the most viewed posts on this blog since it began a year ago:

The Man Vs. Iran
Rich Parasites
How the Fight Started, Part 4
Does the World Need More of You?
Canada: Kill the Jews Before They Get Islamophobia...

Over this past month, the most hits have been from Russia, followed by the USA, Canada, and Mexico.  There have been viewers from several other nations these past 4 weeks, but #4 (Mexico) has had 4 times the hits as #5 (Germany), so you can see that the preponderance of readership has been from the Big Four.  I don’t recall there ever being hits by anyone in Africa or South America. I guess it makes sense since I don’t write in Spanish, Portuguese, Berber, Arabic, Igbo, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, and Yoruba. Once I am done my latest academic studies, I may decide to study Spanish. At least enough to ask for the restroom, strawberry shortcake, or pumpkin pie. Or to be able to complain about a fly in my soup and to comprehend the reply to the effect that there can’t be because they were all used in the raisin bread. And if I get to know anyone well enough, I’d like to be able to describe my personality traits en español…..you know, those things my doctor calls symptoms.