Are you the concrete?

BLM:90 WHM:90 SMN:90 THF:90 WAR:90 DRK:90 RNG:90 PLD:90

Culture is like concrete.

I focused on a weed today growing out of a crack in the concrete. It was a nice picture of something trying to make it's way out of a seemingly benign crack in the concrete that was already there.

If you imagine a tree growing out of soil, it grows much like a mushroom cloud. The more branches the tree has, the more roots it needs to have underground to support that branch.

People are like this. The more risks they take, the more trouble they bring to their roots, to their family, to their small group of people that support them in everything they do. It's safe to say that not all trees make it to old age because the dirt is simply not there to support the roots that need to grow to support the fully grown tree.

Evil, selfishness, dark thoughts, secrets are all fuel for our branches.  This is dirt.  We know or should know what is right and wrong yet always we go to the line to at least "look" at what life is like at the other side of what right is.   The yachts, the watches, the Armani suits, the mistresses, (omg can I get another look at that General's mistress, POW, MAN, now, where do I get me one of those!) serve as lures to dreams of a truly fine existence, even though we know in our hearts that we do not deserve to have it. 

We want more, we want more. It's not hard to understand, people want more. (insert commercial here)

Our culture is the concrete. Some cracks are there, some few, because it is simply impossible to maintain something so structured intact, and it's because of these cracks, aka loopholes, that living things want to make a life there, because it's easier.

People smoking weed, want everyone they know to smoke weed. People taking bribes, need others that take bribes to talk to cuz like I have said before, they know it's wrong but if they brag enough to one another, they convince themselves it was a good thing.   Ganging up on one person might seem like a good time... until you realize you are addicted to doing this, and until you get found out.

But these groups of people are what it is like to be a part of a culture. People in Japan have no guns but they sure do like a whole lot of children entertainment. It's different over there isn't it? Russia's president is pretty scary when you think about how much power he has and that he had to conquer his country the old fashioned way, through violence. Different culture. Probably a lot of thugs and police had to die to make that happen huh? Evil incarnate, yeah?

He is probably laughing right now, reading this, knowing that our leaders perhaps killed two or three more people than he did to accomplish what we did in Iraq. 

That was sarcasm.

So enough about culture right? We know that wherever we are we better understand the culture.  Whether we see Brennan saying "yeah, get him" at the thought of torturing enemies in front of CIA folks, or we see him in front of CSPAN saying "torture, no way" in front of the rest of the country, we know he understanding the culture. 

So enough about culture right? Now a question I have asked myself and concomittantly, I put it to you...

ARE YOU THE WEED?