Digging for dirt may actually only end up getting oneself well and truly "stoned"

The hard cold truth is that it really doesn't take all that much digging into just about anyone's personal history to find something mildly (or even [Gasp!] overtly) shady. Anything at all. So believe it or not, it's really not all that hard to unearth just enough good old fashioned terra firma to hold over someone's poor, hapless, unsuspecting little head.

But please, before we proceed, please do, kindly... think about it. Think it over really, really carefully before you find yourself seeking to engage in what may, in truth, amount to nothing more than shameless social blackmail. Seriously; is clandestine (or even bald-faced, overt, out in the open) social shaming really ever the right way to go? Even and especially nowadays, in the highfalutin era of "me too?"

I mean, as the Book of John so aptly puts it, "So when they continued asking him, he [Jesus Christ] lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." (John 8:7, King James Version)

At any rate, I think that one may safely be able to glean (at least partially, anyway) why Bob Dylan so curiously (but perhaps also quite adroitly) pointed out in one of his immortal classic songs, "Everybody must get stoned."

But then, I myself am a lifelong teetotaler, so I am most definitely not herein referencing but only one example of a timelessly classic Dylan tune because I actually think that that particular much celebrated artist might actually have been trying to suggest that just anyone should engage in casual drug abuse.

Well, sure, maybe a then much younger and as yet less worldly Dylan was indeed talking about dabbling with often harmful chemical substances. Because, after all, it really was the drugged up 1960s back when he first recorded that song, but I honestly think that he was actually suggesting, in a very, very clever way in fact, that, in this little Life of ours, no matter how good (or bad) one may appear to be, there will always be petty, spiteful people in our midst who may hate and/or envy others, even to their very own detriment.

And usually for all the wrong reasons.

Thus, sadly, all those pesky "gifted" others may, perchance, simply appear to be prettier, smarter, stronger, more talented, etc., etc. to such an extreme, that this or that jealous little person or other will actually nurse their misplaced ire to the point where they will inevitably stop at absolutely nothing to eliminate any and all presumably viable competition.

Although sure, there are any number of viable reasons why someone or other may seek to target any one of us at any given time, but in general, it's often for all the usual (mostly wrong) political, social, and/or personal reasons that often clearly dishonest, negligent, pathetically envious, or just plain mentally deviant people, may indeed end up working so very, very hard to get a bad old fashioned "leg up" on someone or other whom they've decided to target for summary elimination.

But hey, don't take it from me. Think on it. Think on all of this perhaps merely empty, or simply superfluous, philosophizing. Think it all over really, really carefully. Take as long as you need, in fact. Because as good old Dr. Zaius himself once put it (perhaps much, much more aptly than even the ever wise and inimitable Bob Dylan), "think well, before you act." (Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 1970)

And speaking of the once almighty witch hunt infamously known as the "MeToo Movement," and social blackmail in general, if you haven't already, take a look at just how low down and dirty some folks really can get when first they "practice to deceive."

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.”

~ Marmion, by Walter Scott

And last but never least, whatever you do, take some solid advice from another one of my all time favorite singers, the John Mellencamp, and I guess, if ya can, go right ahead and "get a leg up." Just... please don't do it at someone else's expensive, huh? Or is that actually what the human social landscape is really all about to begin with? Hmm. But I sure do hope that that nasty old zero sum equation isn't in fact all there actually is to Life down here in the humble mud of Planet Earth.

That Little Spark of Celestial Fire Called Conscience

Conscience, and the genuine sense of humility that can only be taught by suffering, are really what makes the man (or woman), you know. Because it's actually when any one of us gets too big for our very own britches that we tend to lose sight of the bigger picture, and our true place in the grand scheme of things.

Because it is often at the very height of vanity that we tend to be surrounded by the usual coven of obligatorily attentive sycophants and yes-men, who may very well grin and bear our arbitrary outbursts of self-righteous rage, but lest we forget that it is then that the king may truly be bereft of clothes.

It is then that he becomes little more than a pauper, impoverished of even the benefit of simple truths that those of more humble stature tend to take for granted. In fact, our very first president was offered a crown on many an occasion. And yet, every single time, he refused it.

So perhaps it was actually the numerous setbacks and outright failures that George Washington suffered throughout his life, and specifically when he was often forced to retreat after being outgunned or outmaneuvered time and again by often better trained British forces, that eventually made him so very fit to become the true father and very first president of our great nation.

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."

~ "110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation"

On the Nature of Human Limitations

You see, the very first thing you've got to figure out in this life is who the good guys and the bad guys really, truly are. You've got to do your very own homework. You've got to study all the relevant facts that you can possibly accumulate, and then, and only then, can you make reasoned and informed choices for very own individual self. I mean, everybody knows that, right? Or do they?

Well, we all know that there are always a veritable bevy of people who may not be terribly bright, so seem to have nothing better to do than spew slanderous, dishonest, self-serving venom, propaganda, and pure, unadulterated lies from every conceivable side of any issue.

Worse yet, most people simply cannot sort through all that mental, verbal and societal subterfuge. So most folks just end up becoming part of the cacophony of conflicting information, half-truths and outright disinformation.

But that's not the only reason why so many people tend to traffic in pure, unadulterated malarkey. No, quite often, they do it for "business," to make as much money almighty as humanly possible.

Even more troubling, some individuals greedily soak up, and then willfully disseminate, outright falsehoods because they're just plain bored. Or they may simply pass misinformation along for the sake of entertainment - which is at the true heart of most wacky conspiracy theories to begin with anyway, you know.

Simply put, it's awfully, awfully entertaining to fancy oneself "smart," with all sorts of harebrained notions about how the Earth is supposedly flat, or that NASA and the entire government of the United States somehow managed to fake the moon landing. Yeah right. Gullible much?

The fact of the matter is that a whole lot of people simply obfuscate the truth for all sorts of self-serving (and often clearly delusional) reasons. They do it for mass media ratings. They do it for fame, which usually goes hand in hand with fortune - or so we are all led to believe anyway.

But perhaps most shameful of all, people engage in lies and deception for shamelessly political reasons, all designed to get power and control over the masses. Because ideology (religious zeal, etc) is often what gets most people worked up and/or motivated to specific ends. That's also where race baiting comes in, unfortunately.

In other words, many many otherwise well-meaning folks simply get inadvertently swallowed up in wholesale mass-media generated deception because they're outright misinformed. But also, unfortunately, because many people are simply naive, or at the very least, tend to be easily swept up in the vicious mob mentality that has often caused the very worst crimes in the long, often sad annals of human history.

Worst of all, the masses are susceptible to misinformation and outright lies, because as limited human beings, we're all more than capable of being shortsighted (or just temporarily blinded) enough to not even see the big picture in the first place. And all of the above, unfortunately, is just part of Life. It's the way most people simply are: limited.