Two moments of irony in two days:

I love the music of Alanis Morissette, Ironic is like an anthem for my pre millennium generation. Recently two moments occurred that left my saying, isn't it ironic.

An ambulance parked in front of a pharmacy. No body died waiting in line for the cashier to call the next customer but a little old lady required additional medical care when the nurse on duty treating her asthma noticed serious symptoms of restricted air flow to her lungs. Not so ironic when you read the back story. Moving on to the Russia / South Africa bait and switch. Listening in conversation I heard a Russian woman residing in South Africa warn us about the Putin threat. Skipping ahead to the irony of the tale, this woman left Russia when Putin took power fearing the evil he ultimately became. Her only living connection to Russia is a close friend from South Africa who left South Africa about the same time she left Russia citing the same reasoning. Ironic, both were bang on the money. So I'm thinking, hearing the distant sounds of gunfire on the African bushveld at dusk, of another popular song that has no relevance to my tale of irony but is a nice twist ending. Waka Waka...

Initially I misheard the lyrics and thought Shakira was singing "when you fuck it up oh oh, when you fuck it up eh eh'

Admittedly it's a play on the South African street culture, I'm local so I get the expression and I'm not inclined to try explaining it you. It's the hook to the song 'this time for Africa' that took a left turn as an expression of irony. Nobody really gives a crap about Africa, Unicef commercials aimlessly promote straving for change village folk with weird names nobody can pronounce correct. Admit if you're two dollars actually made a difference you'd at least know where Africa is on Google Earth. You don't,  that's cool, let's move on. The ultimate irony is Putin getting a foothold on the continent least desired where the locals are unpredictable, an every other un prefix imagined. The real estate isn't worth its dirt because what unclaimed resources remain within the former colonies have long been plundered by local greed. The is a step down into failure, unremarkable failure from which one may never return. Real irony is Africa has no memory, all occurs quickly then all is quickly forgotten. I'm enjoying the sunset while it lasts.

Currently Influencing Pop Culture Solicitation:

Lately I've been struggling to disconnect from the daily push. Keeping to anything has become a mental decathlon of times, dates, deadlines, names, places, addresses, faces that I sometimes forget. Just forget, a brief blank in my mind. I have to make a conscious effort to step away from the smart devices. Occasionally I tune into the infomercials in my head, good old fashioned channel surfing when I hit on Kevin Trudeau telling the world about Mega Memory, his system of memory training is a favourite of mine. The mind palace technique, my mind palace is somewhat disorganized. In an effort to reorganize my thoughts I've done, absolutely nothing. Then I watched some YouTube and there was a man claiming the advantages to walking backwards. So I tried it and it's rather enjoyable. As the organization of my mind progressed I fixated; can you walk backwards on a treadmill while browsing tiktok videos?
Yes, but you look like an idiot everyone is filming in case you faceplant which is worth 52.4m views. I'll reserve my reverse walking for outdoor spaces free of treadmills and tiktok. Curious thing about handheld smart devices, or the absence thereof, when you decide to reverse walk is your eye line is parallel with the horizon instead of your feet. As trending as your footwear might be it limits your point of view. I represent the broken part of life, my pessimistic outlook on reality is far more depressing than Neo waking up in the real world to then be told he's destined to die for a cause that inevitably changes nothing. The further I walk the simpler things seems, by things I mean human nature. Still advocating for the end of the pursuit of human singularity and a.i. because I want droids like r2d2 and c2p0 instead of whatever the millennial version of hal9000 or skynet or viki might be. Keep it simple. We don't need the additional complications, ahem, back in my day we Had LGB, SMS and cash because that's all we needed. Now we're tacking on letters for everything, using chat bots everywhere and starting up a virtual currency daily. The excess is making everyone miserable and unbearable. As I walk in reverse I speculate if rather than when we'll discover time travel and I doubt anyone in the past would want to deal with the modern era bullshit non associate binary forms trying to Karen about the validity of the crypto unicorn sparkles making their a-iPhone needs yum yum to picture take.

Simplicity is traditional and tradition is human. The king's coronation exercised tradition dating back 1200 years. Tradition connects humanity across our timeline. We continue the scroll on our smart devices to interact online without ever considering scrolling was the method of interacting with information recorded on rolls of papyrus. 

I once saw him kill three men in a bar... with a pencil, with a fucking pencil.

Britain thinks a weapons ban will stop violent stabbings, they passed idiotic legislation to prove this but they were wrong. Human nature opposes all, people will stab other people with anything so taking away the sharp pointy things won't stop this. People don't need restrictions, people need guidance. Guidance offers understanding and understanding offers choice. When offered a choice to either be right or be happy I choose to be right. I understand what that decision brings and I stand by it Steadfast. So I decided to write a short children's story called; Where does mum keep the kitchen knives?
You can illustrate it yourself:

Sam arrives home to a flat in Kent.
Mun and dad shout about paying rent.
Mum says 'you're drunk again before 10 am.' Dad says 'what, what, what?'
Sam passes by as quiet as he can, he didn't want to watch his parents fight again.
Dad is shouting 'you're a useless wife,' there's a struggle in the kitchen as he reaches for a knife.
Mum is scared, she tries to stop him.
Dad screams 'Sam where is the fucking chef knife?'
Mum pushes him aside, dad reaches the cupboard in one stride.
Mum sceams 'help!'
Dad, now angry at his useless wife reaches in the cupboard to grab his zombie knife. He turns to swing by bumps his head on the side of the fridge instead. The tiny kitchen has no space when two adults stand face to face. Dad tries again to stab his wife but no such luck with a large zombie knife. The machete blade is bulky and wide with awkward sharp edges at odd angles each side. He lifts the blade up trying to chop but the hard thud above him signals his stop. Sam watched dad's face turn bright red as the zombie knife was stuck in the ceiling above his head. Mum saw her chance, life-saving essential, poking out dad's shirt pocket was his only work pencil. Mum pushed him back with a shove and a grab. 'Die you bastard,' she shouted then stab, stab, stab. Sam was sad when police arrived, he'd never mum or dad again, dead alive. But Sam doesn't live in that flat on his own. He's happy with friends living in his new foster home. Sam kept that pencil, it served him through school. He wrote his docrate with that scribing tool. Some years later, in his adult life Sam addressed a letter to the Prime Minister.

Dear Minister
It is in your power to regulate the rule of law that keep the order of governance civilised and respectable. Many have critisised, questioned, opposed and ignored your decisions passed for various reasons. Such reasons I have learned are from a want of understanding. I too questioned a decision you made which affected me as an impressionable youth. Your decision that came into law had zero impact on my personal well being as the law intended, in fact it produced ruinous results. Results that changed my life for the better. A ban on a weapon design allowed me an opportunity to pursue education. When zombie knives were banned the law didn't spare my parents from the downward spiral their lives were on, it spared me through tragedy from coming the next tragedy. The act of a violent crime committed could never have been prevented with a weapon ban; perhaps the statistical evaluation should have shifted focus from the action onto the ignorance, I am not the person to pass judgment. Instead I implore you to consider the facts better, evaluate the data to find a comprehensive solution rather than a short term fix. I begrudge neither my parents for their destructive living nor the government for passing laws they believe will benefit everyone, I simply ask for an expansion of perspective. In closing I have inserted personal responsibility and effort to assist in the betterment of the community from whence I came, Kent needs our help. I thank you for your ongoing service to our country and taking time from your busy timetable to read my letter. Sincerely. Sam.

You Shall Not Pass:

Seismic activity is not common place in Africa because fault lines and tectonic plates are few and far between. My experience of the Earth moving under my has occurred three times while under African blue skies, each time barely stirring me from slumber. Some speculate the extensive mining infrastructure cross crossing the affected zone of the highveld. The endless shafts and tunnels peppering the Witwatersrand may have something to do with it. I have another theory. I considered Graboids but none of the seismoraphers around the cradle of humankind even blipped. What if we unearthed a Balrog?

My theory is the nearly three decades of illegal sub surface mining has compromised the structural integrity of the mknes and now we have tremors. As Gandalf put it they were to greedy and they dug too deep and something deep below was awoken. 

Reality

Never stop to think about it. I move between rows of ordinary people queued and waiting for the charity of reality. I do not sympathize with them, I do not feel empathy for them, I do not immediately judge any of them because once I was them and I can be them again at any moment. We all have choices in life, some we make bad ones. Seeing these desperate folk standing in line for the scraps discarded to them by an evil government, absolutely the South African government is evil. The spare change of a government grant is the life line they cling to in vain. I'm not stirred by this scene, I never am. It's the grim reality Unicef commercials aimlessly promote. I keep those thoughts in a folder I revisit frequently, studying the photographs, reading the recorded testimonials, staring at those pitiful faces. We're not supposed to give a flying fuck for the modern world of our own creation. Our instinct for the natural order drives us to care for other forms of life, the natural world in which we live and the driving force of our self aware consciousness. Philosophy that renders technology useless, money worthless and individualism meaningless. Why can't we consciously get over that hill?

Stupidity is man made, artificially manufactured and incorrectly guaged on an unnatural scale. That sounds rather depressing, in reality it is. It's like playing a MMORPG but real. I can rant on for eternity about millennial generation being the last generation of the human race but why should I?

Instead I'll share something I firmly believed the world needs right now. RAGE. On my travels a watched an unassuming man rage out his frustration in a public parking lot across from the local magistrate office, assuming the two are related I was inspired by this individual voicing whatever it was he needed to rage over. I don't care for the details, I care one man is giving Society the middle finger as he rants about the injustice currently afflicted upon him. I champion such oddities, these weirdos intermingled with the political correct douchebags of the world politely pass judgment on as they pass them by like the assholes in the Bible parable. Everyone has their story, most of them are best posted on social media for the haters to tear apart. I commend those who rage, be heard, you matter, fight the power. 

Buy The Kid a Damn Chocolate

Sometimes I revisit the ideas my beautiful mind offers to update things. Like standing in line at a shop waiting to pay when your attention is drawn to a kid and parent discussing the importance of wants versus needs in front of the toy or candy shelf inconveniently but strategically place at the cashier tills. We all know the story, it ends in tears of frustration and stares of indignation and a warmish smile of understanding on my face in witness to the discomfort these incidents cause to adults. Adults are assholes, we try rationalise everything. Children live for every moment. In my observation the adults take the same approach to everything, rational. Things escalate quickly. So why do we do it?

Are we more concerned with the positive appreciation of strangers in public than our own children?

Some people are, let's call this group assholes. I believe in all things being equal, what we do from there determines our judgment from others. Sometimes you need to be the villain and say no, explain your reason and ride out the storm. Who gives a flying fuck what other people think. Sometimes you need to be the hero and buy the kid a damn chocolate because who gives a flying fuck what people think. And then there's me, watching with enjoyment the pain of these incidents cause those condescending assholes standing by silently in misery. I care not for their back story for had I the means and consent of the parental figure I'd buy the kid a damn chocolate if only to ease the burden. Children don't understand reasons and adults always have reasons and shops always have delightful little trinkets of temptation for childhood wants that frustrate adulthood needs. Next time you encounter such incident take a moment to observe the situation and if warranted, with parental consent buy the kid a damn chocolate unless you're some creepy weirdo with real issues then nevermind and stand in line quietly being miserable with all the other assholes.