Monday, March 20, 2017

What's some popular saying that you think is total bullshit?

Reddit top voted comments....

It can't get worse from here!

The whole "you have to love yourself before you can expect anyone else to love you"
I brought this up with my therapist once and she got angry, calling it "pop-psychology bullshit" and then ranted for 5 minutes about how humans are social creatures that need to be appreciated as a part of a group, and having that appreciation shown in at least some aspects is usually necessary for one to appreciate themselves.

"work like you don't need the money."
If I lived by that saying, I'd be fired

"People get what they deserve."
Bullshit!  Many people get away with being narcissistic assholes their entire lives without consequence.

On romantic relationships: "Don't look for anyone... you'll meet someone special when you least expect it."  
No, actually there are many people who've been "least expecting" for years and they're still single, still alone, never meeting anyone special.

"Flattery will get you nowhere"
It's usually the opposite.

A million people can't be wrong.

29 comments:

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

God will only give you what you can handle...

bagoh20 said...

"Everything happens for a reason." Sure, but it's not anything related to the stuff you imagine. It would have happened regardless of what you hope it means.

"Experts say..."

"Studies show..."

At least 50% of these are reliably wrong, and studies show that the percentage could be much higher.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"Experts say" is the go-to- for our crap hack MSM.

AllenS said...

I love you long time, GI.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

AllenS

edutcher said...

Unnamed reliable sources say...

Methadras said...

Dumbfucks who quote fight club as a narrative for living life. To wit, this piece of dialogue from Tyler Durden. By the way, I loved the movie, just not some of its sentiments.

The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.
You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. Reject the basic assumptions of civilization—especially the importance of material possessions.

Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns. I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let’s evolve—let the chips fall where they may. The liberator who destroyed my property has realigned my perceptions.
Do you know what a duvet is? It’s a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then? We are consumers. We’re the byproducts of a lifestyle obsession.

We’re consumers. We are the byproducts of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty—these things don’t concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy’s name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra…fuck Martha Stewart. Martha’s polishing the brass on the Titanic. It’s all going down, man. So fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns.

Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. Goddammit, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables—slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man: No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war; our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.


As you can see here, this is a great lament, but tragically, it's essentially wrong. You are your stuff, you are a consumer, even as hunter/gatherers, we consumed. You spend your life force in exchange for something else to either acquire something or to exchange it for something else in order to possess it for your purposes or needs to make yourself better. Whether that is wealth or personal enrichment or just to sit on it all and watch it burn. You are your stuff.

Look around you, see the things you have, every one of those things has a level importance, but all of them resonate with the life force exchange from you or someone else. Someone thought it up, someone made it, someone sold it, someone bought it, someone appreciated it, someone made memories with it that otherwise wouldn't have happened, someone cherished it, and used it for it's purpose. A thing has a purpose and when you make a statement above that you aren't your stuff or your things, all you are saying is that you are a useless sack of water, fat, and shit. That your life is about as meaningful as a dust mote and the things you've done to get things has been a futile pursuit from the time you were born till the day you die. All lies, all bullshit.

ricpic said...

Total bullshit? That David Rockefeller was a philanthropist.

Chip Ahoy said...

Stick their head in the sand (like ostriches)

Now this here is what you call a serious miscomprehension and misinterpretation of wrongly observed animal behavior.

Ostriches do dig their nests as depressions in dirt, and they do lay their heads flat to ground as they flatten their bodies over the nest to disguise the nests best as possible when threatened but that's as close to sticking their heads in sand as they come.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Meth, the message missed in Fight Club is not being a slave to your possessions.

ampersand said...

Not BS. I wonder about the phrase "a friend in need is a friend indeed"

It can be read either way. When you are in need, a friend that helps is indeed a friend.
Or
A friend in need is truly your friend until they get what they need.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I can't think of even one popular saying that is total bullshit. And that's coming from someone who thinks that there's some quantity of bullshit in just about everything just about everybody says just about all of the time, including myself.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

ndspinelli said...

"Nobody ever drowned in sweat."

"There is no 'i' in the word team."

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

All sayings on my high school football team locker room wall. My coach was a little man, asshole. But he had one great assistant who I always tried to deal with.

Leland said...

I thought the phrase, "A friend in times of need is a friend indeed", but doing some searches suggests that I'm mistaken, so yeah, BS.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Get off my lawn! oh wait - I like that one.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I think I just saw one from the next Supreme Court justice...

#Gorsuch: “My dad taught me that success in life has little to do with success....

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I had a gym teacher in high school of whom I was quite fond. I was respectful of authority, in general, and I admired him, in particular, and I think he genuinely liked me. Maybe he liked my ambition. Maybe he liked my hustle. Maybe he felt a little pity for me. Maybe he saw in me something that reminded him of himself in younger days.

Anyway, I remember vividly the time he gave me some fatherly advice: "Work hard and anything's possible . . . within reason."

He said it just like that. With emphasis. He really stuck the landing.

Which makes perfect sense, since he was an accomplished gymnast in college.

William said...

All the banalities are true for some of the people some of the time, or they wouldn't be banal. It's an easier life if you accept banalities as your guiding principles. Your chances of discovering some grand new truth that will lead to durable happiness are slim indeed.

Guildofcannonballs said...

A friend with weed is a friend indeed.

ricpic said...

Looks to me like the deep state or the uniparty state is making its move to impeach Trump. I hope Washington does actually try to overturn the election. Then we'll see if the Republic means enough to the People to overturn Washington.

Leland said...

"Forgive and Forget" There's something to forgiveness, but it's BS you have/should/need to forget too.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

William's comment reflects genuine wisdom and is excellent advice.

Methadras said...

Here is one I particularly loathe, "Faith in humanity restored."

Donny Genaro said...

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

I wouldn't bet on it.

rcocean said...

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Yeah, I agree on that one. Its doesn't have to kill you to be bad, just maim you for life. Or being ill, does that "Make you stronger". I wasn't stronger after the chickenpox or having a torn calf muscle.

rcocean said...

"Diversity makes us stronger"

No its the exact opposite.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"If it would only save one life"

William said...

Nietzsche was the one who said " what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." I believe Nietzsche died of tertiary syphilis, so rule that out in any body building program......I think you could probably go further and arrive sooner with the banal maxims in Ben Franklin's Almanac than with the thunderbolts in Nietzsche's writings.