Promises

Promises are perhaps the most unpromising of things. Have you ever made a promise to someone? Have you ever broken one? Fulfilled One? Have you ever been fulfilled by a promise?

Some time ago I made certain promises to myself.

1) To be honest and upfront with myself.
2) To be self-fulfilled.
3) To LOVE others.

While these three simple propositions may seem overly general, I think it is important to remember that no matter who you are - values matter. We all have values - even us secular godless liberals. From these "values" we create certain sets of behavior. These behaviors become expectations, rules, laws, regulations, etc. Thus, these values that a moment ago seemed so very harmless become very enforceable. So let us examine this proposition: if I have made promises to myself, then I have values. Also following: if I have values, then I have certain sorts of sets of behavior. In our post-modern, really post-behavioralist era, we seem to be posting a lot of things, and such is the case here. While many people in eras gone by may have created articles such as this and shared them in letter or print of some sort or another, I post here. Posting is a behavior. Posting is a value. Posting matters. Harmless Posting is very enforceable. Posting is a promise. The reader can expect that I will continue to post, to express myself, because it matters. It matters to express what you think - what values you have - to others.

Values, promises, and behaviors are not set in stone. There is no one who is perfectly consistent. Indeed, even in the typing of this meager article, I have written in many inconsistencies. Some of them I have corrected - others I have not. While perhaps I have answered the question why do we have values? The real question is why do we continue to hold the values that we do - many nearly indefinitely? To be completely honest - I do not have an answer to this question. That is as much I have said in a great deal of time.

This "blog" - God how I despise that word - "blog" - it's a horrible contraction of our age. It's the ain't of the internet age. It speaks of mindless modern chatter. I feel uneducated just saying it. I think it reduces your overall IQ. Blog. Blog. Blog. Bla. Bla. Bla. I dislike contractions in general. Contractions inevitably lead to bad grammar. Language is inadequate enough without words that really aren't words at all, but a mere short cut of two words. Yet, because the two words have become one, we are forced to treat them as one word. You have this promise from me - I will only use contractions when I'm pissed off.

the Professor asked me once, "when are you going to get pissed off enough to really do something about it?" The "it" in this phase is applicable to many areas of my life. the Professor's sentiment - while said to me regarding a particular issue at the time - is a reverberation of my general attitude. My attitude sucks. I consider myself right now to be worse than an argumentative teenager. I am generally appalled at my total lack of substance, respect, intelligence, and unlovingness that is entirely transparent to others. I am shameless in my hate, ruthless in my contempt, and reeking of indignation. I'm bitter. All of these things have a(n) value(s) beneath them. We have not even scratched the surface with respect to un-entangling this mess. However, I provide some general disclaimers to any of the unfortunate souls who find themselves reading this:


1) I will adhere to all of the promises I have made thus far.
2) I will also break each and every one of them at least once.
3) I promise to keep promising.

I am going to come out of my "shell" so to speak - That is the purpose of this "blog" in the first place. You will note that my name is "lastmanout." I am the rotten egg.

Yours truly,

LastManOut