Over the past handful of years, I have been talking and reveling a lot about the science of happiness, and my happiness from having learned that science through courses at Yale and Berkeley online. I do this enough that there’s even a header menu choice for “happiness” on my blog, even though there’s not a huge number of posts under it. That’s how much I value trying to catch people’s attention with it to share it with them! For all of its value and my intent, though, I find that talking about the science and pursuit of happiness in life occasionally rubs people the wrong way, or lead them to think I’m really misguided since I’d never be happy if I’m always chasing something I can’t get, right? Yes, except that I’m really working to maintain as much of something as I can, though that wasn’t quite right, either. I am not trying to be ecstatic or even perky sort of happy throughout most of my days, which is not what the courses taught, either. I am just pursuing a general feeling of bliss throughout as much for as many of my days as possible, and minimizing stresses and/or things that get me down, stressful or not. But how to properly explain that? Well, recently, the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley which had taught me the Science of Happiness course came to the rescue. Contentment, was the word I was seeking and meaning to use, not happiness, and it makes a huge world of difference!
knowledge
Do I Have a Problem Listening to 2.5 Hours of Educational Podcasts per Day?
I am listening to an average of 2.5 hours of podcasts per day so far in 2021. I didn’t plan it this way, but that’s how it’s turning out as I find more ways I can listen, and more podcasts and episodes to which I want to listen. The numbers look a bit out of control, though the important part is it doesn’t feel out of control. Still, I wonder if there is a problem with me listening to so much educational content per day, though I don’t mean a problem in the sense many might be thinking in terms of excessiveness with that time volume. But if not that, then what?
Knowledge is Power Only If It Were Used
It’s generally accepted that knowledge is power. But is it, really? What if you knew something, but did nothing with it? Did you wield any more power than someone who did nothing because they didn’t know what you knew? What good was your power if you didn’t do anything with it? What good would superheroes be if they did nothing with their superpowers?
Definition: Ultracrepidarianism
Ultracrepidarianism
The habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one’s knowledge.
Wow. Where was this word in my life 40 years ago??? For, both, me and others I know! Pretty much everybody’s been guilty at this at some point. It’s a matter of how much rather than having done it or not.
This will be a useful word for me for the rest of my life. It’s just too bad it’s so hard to say! I’ll remember it with the “ultra” bit, meaning going beyond. Then “crepi” is like scope creep to go beyond, so it’s like beyond going beyond. As for the “darianism”? Well, “how dare you” offer me advice on something outside of your knowledge??? 😉
From the podcast below, which is nice for other matters of getting out of ruts from stories you tell yourself, not ultracrepidarianism… which is not in the WordPress blogging platform’s spellcheck dictionary, I see. 🙂
The Real Shit on Biosolids
There’s a lot of shit going down in Halifax these days in the fight over the safety of biosolids, or human sewage used for fertilizers.
One side is claiming they can get all the bad shit out of the people’s shit so it’s safe to use. The other is claiming there’s no way that shit can be clean and appealing to people’s feelings on eating food grown in shit. I’m not going to advocate for either side because I don’t know shit about the shit data, but I don’t need to. What I will do is point out some interesting shit people who don’t know shit seem to be neglecting that makes this whole shit spit irrelevant. There are some healthy food that’s not subject to this, but most people don’t eat that shit when you look at the big picture.
First, would you rather eat food grown in your shit or someone else’s shit?
A lot of food in the grocery stores are grown in other places, fertilized by other people’s shit. California, Mexico, China and other places all allow shit to be used as fertilizers, and a lot of shit, too! (Halifax Herald story, with research from the Nova Scotia Environmental Network, via the Organic Consumers Association)
So are you telling me you’d rather eat food grown in their shit rather than food grown in your shit?
Hey, lots of people have prejudices against Chinese and Mexicans. They make lots of jokes about them, too. Ironically, the last laugh may be on those people cause they’re probably eating food grown from Chinese and Mexican shit. Ewwhahaha!
You and I are probably eating food grown from foreign shit, too. Maybe not fresh food as you may get your fresh food locally, but think about the processed food. Do you know where all of it comes from?
To be honest, though, if I had to eat food grown from people’s shit, I might well eat those grown from other people’s shit. Part of the fear about eating food grown in our own shit is all the chemicals we ingest that can’t get filtered out, especially drugs we take for illnesses or lifestyle, like birth control pills. The boomer generation is by far the most drugged up generation ever. In poorer parts of the world, those people don’t have access to such “luxuries”. I’d be willing to bet their shit is a lot cleaner than ours and would take the risk to eat food grown from their shit rather than ours. It’s just that they have pesticides and other chemicals that probably make them more harmful overall.
Second, would you rather eat food grown from animal shit than your own shit?
Have you seen or heard about the shit that’s been going into animal feed lately? There’s everything from growth hormones to genetically modified crops to low quality reject foods, and very possibly more of that shit than real food! Those animals are, well, animals! What did you think they were, people, to be worth feeding better shit to? And the shit they get fed is nasty shit, even in the world of shit! Birth control pills and medications are like organically grown peanuts compared to that shit. Watch Food Inc. on this site to get a little taste, though the superb documentary covers a lot more shit than that and is real good shit for anybody to know about the nature of the food they eat.
Animal shit has been used as nature’s fertilizer over the millennia. However, that was when animals ate stuff Mother Nature fed them, not the shit we’re feeding them today. If you know all the shit the animals you eat are fed, whose shit fertilizes fields other food you eat are grown in, I’d be willing to bet you’d take food grown from your own shit any day!
Finally, why are you concerned about fresh food grown in shit compared to all that processed shit you’re eating?
Seriously, few people these days don’t eat processed food, whether frozen dinners or fast food, not to mention drinking pop. Obesity is an epidemic for a reason, you know, not to mention a lot of other health conditions stemming from shitty diets. A little shit here or there that gets through from food grown in shit, or food fed shit in the case of animals, is nothing compared to all that bad shit out there people are eating. Even the good shit, if frozen or processed to much like frozen organic entrees, isn’t all that good shit to be eating.
Conclusions
All in all, worrying about a little shit that might get through after Mother Nature, and possibly filtration plants, have filtered your shit in which you grow your food is misplacing your concerns. There’s a whole lot of other shit out there you ought to be raising shit about.
All right. Enough of this shit.
I hope I won’t get in trouble for talking about this shit…
Oh, shit.
Digital Citizen 