I, Napoleon

21 Replies to “I, Napoleon”

1. So if I really, truly, believe that Conservatives are supposed to vote on election day, and that communists, fascists, greenies, NDPers and Liberals (yes the groups overlap, so what?) are supposed to vote the day after that because it’s for the greater good does this precedent mean that Elections Canada can’t prosecute me? Because I really, really, believe it?

2. What’s the problem? “Sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (=Alice)

   Is it just my imagination or is there way more mental illness than ever before? Maybe it’s contagious. Or maybe we’ve just moved the definition of “crazy” a few standard deviations to the left and right on the normal distribution to encompass it. Okay, yes we’ve done that. But is it contagious?

   1. As long as no one bothers me … But just look at tattoos. People permanently colour themselves with ink that displays something they might only like for a moment or a few months or for a few years. I don’t personally care either way but for some its definitely mental illness or low self-esteem and of course for many its monkey see monkey do. Used to be criminals, sailors and bikers…now some 50 year old dweeb who wants to hang with the cool kids is all tatted up. Yikes.

      1. Just the other day, I was in the hospital and, in the ward where I was being attended to, one of the staff, someone young enough to be my granddaughter, had tattoos all over her arms. And, no, I didn’t think that it added to her looks.

         Now imagine what things will be like 50 or so years in the future. Seniors homes will be filled with residents sporting all manner of absurd skin decorations. (“Grandma, how come you have all that on your arms?”)

         1. At the beach. “Hey Grandma, why do you have this fancy writing on the small of your back?”

         2. Perhaps I am wrong … but I suspect few of these “Illustrated People” will live long enough for the rest home. More likely to die from gunshot wounds, or tragic double-wide fires.

            1. It seems the only people who haven’t decided to decorate themselves are members of my generation. Just about every millennial I’ve met has a tattoo of some sort and I’ve encountered a number of women a generation younger than me similarly festooned.

               It escapes me as to why they would do that to themselves. Have they such poor self-images and are so lacking in self-confidence that they need to have themselves tattooed in order to “fit in”? Do they feel themselves so ordinary and average that they believe they need to establish some unique individual identity?

   2. Is it just my imagination or is there way more mental illness than ever before?

      I don’t think that there’s necessarily more mental illness. Instead, conditions which used to be private are now shamelessly on public display.

      I remember a popular phrase from the late 1960s/early ’70s: let it all hang out. Nowadays, it’s been taken to an absurd level with discretion having been tossed out the window.

   3. I work in the emergency services field….I posed a similar question to a coworker. His reply: There aren’t more crazy people, it’s just that we’ve just told them it’s okay to be crazy. Translation: people now call 911 for any and all mental health issues.

3. There are two sexes. That’s how we procreate. I finished reading The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins in the winter. There is a couple pages max about hermaphrodites but … reality is difficult for some as it constantly reminds us all that we’re just little specks in the grand scheme. That said, the Group ID proponents don’t value the individual and all that makes them special and unique because its not sex, skin colour, race or religion.

4. More mental illness these days? Good question. To some degree, I think so. You see all the mental anguish pain around you.

   Just my take. If there are few or no absolutes anymore, and people are taught that they are just a ‘thing’, that God no longer exists, and are set adrift in a sea of uncertainties of beliefs and false promises of an elusive utopia.

   Those that believe in nothing will soon believe in anything.

   1. Ken, religion, the first and most predominant “mental” illness. Actually, today we hang labels on people , and they often behave in a manner in accordance to their understanding of the label. As dyslexic with ADD I speak from experience. Many people try to tell me how I differ and how I should be acting. They fully fail to understand that any and all human qualities are spectrums.

      1. You write rather coherently for a dyslexic with ADD. Or is it DDA?

         As a kid, I often found it difficult to concentrate in class. There were many times in my life, when I would read pages and pages of textbooks … never actually understanding a single word on the pages as my mind wandered to other things. This habit grew particularly acute in about 6th grade, when my fellow female students started developing secondary sexual physiognomy… I blame the halter tops.

         However, if I were a student today … I would have been given multiple diagnoses … all of which would absolve me from any and all responsibility for my own personal failings (lack of discipline and FOCUS). While ADD, dyslexia, ADHD, blah, blah, blah, all exist to some degree … I suspect that we are horribly OVERdiagnosing these relatively rare disorders. Our society prides itself on “rescuing” the weak and frail … which causes the rapid expansion of victims to “save”. We seem bent on denying the bell curve of nature in our breathless pursuit of doing … “good”. I also suspect that too many mothers today are determined to establish that THEIR child is more special than yours … even IF that means her child is more wrecked than yours. It’s so much easier to raise a victim child than a valedictorian child. Much easier.

         1. As a kid, I often found it difficult to concentrate in class. There were many times in my life, when I would read pages and pages of textbooks … never actually understanding a single word on the pages as my mind wandered to other things.

            I was the same way. However, that changed when I was in senior high school when I found the course material challenging plus I was looking ahead to what I would be doing after I graduated. Getting good marks would have increased my chances of getting into university.

            It wasn’t until I was in my late 30s that it all started making sense. In a roundabout way, I found out that I was quite left-brained and, eventually, I qualified for membership in Mensa.

            When I was a schoolboy in the town where I grew up, there were few means of accurately determining one’s intellectual prowess, nor were there any schools or special classes for those with above average IQs. The result was that my grades were largely average and I languished in school.

            There might be other explanations, such as possibly having Asperger’s Syndrome (which some on-line Internet tests appear to indicate), but I’ve formally investigated it any further.

      2. Ken, religion, the first and most predominant “mental” illness.

         If there were no God, NME, it wouldn’t matter what you or I believe. If you and I were products of a random universe without any design or purpose, what difference would it make if we were sane or crazy? We would just be absolutely insignificant specks milling about on yet another insignificant speck, the planet earth. If there is no God, then as the song said, “All we are is dust in the wind.”

         But our Creator exists. I know you don’t believe it. In fact you write comment after comment that there is no God, or words to that effect. But have you never been wrong before? Let me assure you, you are this time.

         I was once, like you, an atheist. I didn’t waste quite as much of my brief time here on earth arguing with and putting down Christians as you do, although I did argue with them. However, one day at the age of 26, 44 years ago, God in his mercy revealed to me that I had been wrong about his existence all along. This began my search for an understanding of this God and a few weeks later I became a Christian, something I never wanted or expected to be. I had been prejudiced against Christians, maybe not as angry as you are, but I didn’t like them or their beliefs.

         Again, God showed me I was wrong. There is no one like Jesus Christ who suffered and died for our sins and rose again from the dead to give us hope.

         If you were to ask God humbly if these things are so I’m sure he would show you. Even an atheist can say, “God, if there is a God, I would like to know it and I will follow you if you are real.” This is only a suggested “atheist’s prayer” and I have no desire to put words in your mouth or control you in any way. What have you got to lose?

   2. I agree, Ken. The various sexual manias that are spreading today, from homosexuality and pedophilia to transgenderism, are partly a result of our turning away from God. Also, the number of mentally deranged gunmen shooting people en masse is clearly related, in my opinion.

      Atheism seems to work okay for a some people when there is not much stress. As Richard Wurmbrand wrote, ” “When an engineer has built a bridge, the fact that a cat can pass over the bridge is no proof that the bridge is good. A train must pass over it to prove its strength. The fact that you can be an atheist when everything goes well does not prove the truth of atheism. It does not hold up in moments of great crisis.”

      Many atheists who “created” their own meaning in our supposedly purposeless universe are finding that without God meaning, purpose and values are all illusions.

      1. Well said, both times.

   3. I hate to say it … because I will be called a eugenicist … but we have interrupted Darwinism as it pertains to the mentally ill fringe of the human spectrum. There are MORE mentally damaged humans now … because we have enabled their survival. Nature has taken care of these defectives throughout human history as “the weak” failing the challenges of survival. However now, we support, encourage, fund, and prop-up the weakest among us as a sign of virtue. And now we have really jumped the cultural shark by actually questioning our own normalcy. Now we uphold the fringe as somehow … better … than all us “conformists”. See! they say … Van Gogh was a BRILLIANT painter … and … was totally NUTS! Therefore … every loon (who believes themselves to be the last surviving Unicorn with rainbow stripes) is celebrated, encouraged, and worshipped. Bruce Jenner is still a man, despite HIS delusions … and he sure as hell didn’t “have” children … he planted their seeds … like a MAN.

      Sorry to say, this either doesn’t end well for humanity … or ends very poorly for these defective human colonies.

      1. Agreed

      2. good gawd Kenji!!! I write rather coherently for a dyslexic with ADD??? Did you actually comprehend WTF you wrote???

         Approximately 15% of the population has dyslexia, of which 75% are males. Dyslexia is a spectrum, like every thing human. Alebert Einstein, dyslexic or mildly autistic, ditto Sir Isaac Newton. S Jobs, dyslexic, S hawking also, both Wright bros, Bell, JFK, Da Vinci, Branson,……………………………and GD list goes on. Many dyslexics are of superior IQ.

         I thought you were a little smarter than that post paints you.

5. Fat and lazy rules.
   More mental illness?
   Who is sane enough to know?
   We are all crazy if the conditions are right,sanity is relative on a good day.
   Normal is a slippery standard.
   But useless and clueless we have in abundance.
   Could have something to do with rewarding and protecting the “victim class”.
   You cannot cure stupid,but you do not give them the keys to your powder magazine….
   The definition of insanity that goes repeating the same actions over and over again,insisting that different results must occur is pretty close to the current norms.