"The Factory of Sadness"

[kingtycoon]

There are two ways to ruin a Sunday and they are Church and Football. These are the Worst Things.

Naturally today's bible lesson is about the Cleveland Browns - which is The Worst Thing about Cleveland. I can't emphasize enough how much I hate the Cleveland Browns and how deserving of hatred they are and have always been. The whole sad-sack ever hopeful Cleveland Browns fan is a real and regrettable type that you can encounter here - this is a person who throws good money after bad, who won't ever, ever shut about Cleveland Browns Football, Who plays on multiple different fantasy leagues, who knows every detail of the football team's roster - and yet has no idea who their state senator is, gets all of their information about anything from AM Radio and Local Network News and! And!!! is Insufferable.

For real I have such an immediate and compulsive contempt for any serious Cleveland Browns Football fan that I think it can be described as Hate. Yes Hate. Hate.

Anyhow! Because of how the local football team sucks and is a huge subsidy for plutocrats paid out by fools, I guess it equates to Church pretty favorably?

Really I have to say that Church and Cleveland Football are linked - in a really understandable & true way:

It will never pay for anyone to care about these things. These things are cynical manipulations by charlatans to separate well-meaning dopes from their money. Monetizing childish wishes and childish games - that's the stuff right there of the fraudulent trickster. Shame! Shame upon the shameless.


IT Professionals = Black Hoodies.

I'm... I thought- I'll look at this thing and pretend like it's a sincere present and that I'd at least give it a chance but I'm so fucking displeased. I hope that tomorrow is better.

Hope - this whole thing is about hope and I guess... Hope is a bizarre virtue and hard to explain. I understand it. You can't write a book without hope - or sell a car - or raise a child. But when you have unrealistic optimism - then you're better at all of those things. So what's the difference between hope and delusion? Am I hopeful that tomorrow's attempt to mingle per-agrarian sensibilities with post-modern reality will be insightful? I suppose so. Do I expect it to be? No. No I don't.

Comments

[aslant.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think my fundamental perspective on the whole "I promise you eternal etc" premise is that it's bullshit because I don't believe humans need to be threatened into being decent to each other.

What are you? Some Kinda Catholic!

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

There's the reverse angle though - where powerless people wish for their enemies to suffer.

I've seen dyed in the wool atheists 'convert' basically over this hope that the people who'd hurt them would somehow suffer for their betrayals.

I'm with you though - I believe in Carrot not Stick & it turns out rewarding good behavior is more effective than any punishment - but if there is punishment over our selfish transgressions - it's not like anyone is getting away with much.

People will treat each other decently without much provocation - but they'll be huge dicks to each other if only slightly deluded about their own righteousness

[jjjiii]

I think you're right, for the most part. I won't go quite so far as to hate someone just because they're a browns fan, but they sure have to go a long way to redeem themselves.

[fordmadoxfraud.livejournal.com]

> So what's the difference between hope and delusion?

I think hope is only delusion where strategy and action are lacking? Like, assuming your hope pays off without very hard work is delusion. Assuming hope alone gets you there, is delusion.

[kingtycoon.livejournal.com]

Being raised by religious fantasists and gamblers has put me into a a kind of cynical mien that I think of as being realistic but which has been described by others as defeatist.

Really it's the range of the ambition that renders a thing hopeless or possible - I mean... Entropy, Death - Nihilism has the one virtue of being True - but you can plan for tomorrow to be good - for next year and the next year. You can pursue aims - and yes - I do kind of see Hope and idle wishing as more allied than hope is to workmanlike execution of plans.

But I suppose idle nihilism is really a kind of bleak hope - a shitty wish for unimaginative moments.

Thanks! Somehow this helped me.