Things we have learned as we grew up and matured

It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have is not just for firearms. It's actually pretty sound advice when you apply it to things like prescription medicine or if the power goes out and it's very cold winter out there without a small portable generator.

I used to think that things like Ancient Aliens and moon landings were a hoax were real and true until i started learning about things like critical thinking and how science actually works.

James bond can get away with slapping girls in their butts. In real life guys, especially ugly and scary and creepy guys like me, cannot.

Respect is extremely hard to earn but extremely easy to lose.

I don't know what real maturity is because all I se are twenty, thirty, so on, acting just like children with all their bickering and yelling and screaming and hurting each other.

How to tell the difference between honest and objective discussion and dishonest ones.

that no matter what i do or say, i am always wrong and everybody else is always right.

That showing anybody the faults in their reasoning is a personal attack. because beliefs and opinions are far far far and way too important over facts and evidence.

80s music still outshines the modern music.

Star Trek still has relevant philosophy to today.

as a guy I am a second class citizen.

Movies cause a lot of misconceptions.

People quote famous lines, such as Soylent green is people without knowing the full context of the line and the proper saying.

it's extremely easy to offend people.

people are quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand, and slow to change.

wizard's first rule.

any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

never forget. never forgive. make them pay and make them keep paying.

Only God can forgive.

Any strongly held belief can be treated like a religion. ANY.

Logic turns some people into snobby neanderthals.

What I have learned is that there really is no hurry. That is all in the mind.

You can say the most benign but totally random things and people will still still get upset with you. You can say the most factual things and bring up reams and reams and reams of factual things to support your assertion , but people will still get upset with you.

Ancient Herald said:

It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have is not just for firearms. It's actually pretty sound advice when you apply it to things like prescription medicine or if the power goes out and it's very cold winter out there without a small portable generator.

I used to think that things like Ancient Aliens and moon landings were a hoax were real and true until i started learning about things like critical thinking and how science actually works.

James bond can get away with slapping girls in their butts. In real life guys, especially ugly and scary and creepy guys like me, cannot.

Respect is extremely hard to earn but extremely easy to lose.

I don't know what real maturity is because all I se are twenty, thirty, so on, acting just like children with all their bickering and yelling and screaming and hurting each other.

How to tell the difference between honest and objective discussion and dishonest ones.

that no matter what i do or say, i am always wrong and everybody else is always right.

That showing anybody the faults in their reasoning is a personal attack. because beliefs and opinions are far far far and way too important over facts and evidence.

80s music still outshines the modern music.

Star Trek still has relevant philosophy to today.

as a guy I am a second class citizen.

Movies cause a lot of misconceptions.

People quote famous lines, such as Soylent green is people without knowing the full context of the line and the proper saying.

it's extremely easy to offend people.

people are quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand, and slow to change.

wizard's first rule.

any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

never forget. never forgive. make them pay and make them keep paying.

Only God can forgive.

Any strongly held belief can be treated like a religion. ANY.

Logic turns some people into snobby neanderthals.

Click to expand...

So these are some things in a nutshell that you have learned growing up.

Many of those are common experiences, yes.

For me, regarding medications, I save an extra supply of bacterial ointment, toenail anti fungicide, hay fever pills, and headache tabs (ibuprofen). Since they all have disposal dates however, if SHTF these will ultimately run out. But I always have plenty of them when I need them.

Where I live, blankets and sleeping bags is a better solution to warmth in an emergency. I have an ax and saw for cutting down trees if I need to, and a lifetime supply of fire starter sticks.

In my first job out of grad school there was a volley ball game at which one of the pretty ladies slapped my butt. Needless to say we both ended up in bed together not long thereafter. I would never have risked my job to slap hers however, although she did start something going with butt slapping in that game.

5 years later at the manager promotions party there were a lot of very drunken boyz and girlies naked at the pool at night. I don't know if they throw those kind of company parties anymore. Back in 1980 they were still common however. Almost everyone who was at that particular pool party is now retired however.

Today's generation of 20-ish, 30-ish and 40-ish peoples (not a typo) seem way different than those in my day however.

I did not listen to music a lot in the 1980's because I was too busy working and studying for certification exams. I remember some of it was called new age back then. Today's new age is rap music with lots of cussing and nasty words in it just because they rhyme.

Taxation & Legislation --

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...ate_for_Highest_and_Lowest_Income_Earners.jpg

This is the best chart I could find to get started with this discussion of taxation and legislation.

Note the trends.

Since 1913 under the 16th Amendment, individual income tax rates started out low on both the rich and poor and since then have gone up during WW1, come back down a somewhat between the wars, gone up again for WW2, stayed high for a long time, came down a little under LBJ, came down a lot under Reagan, then went up under GHW, stayed flat under Clinton, came down a bit more under GW, and have gone up a little on the rich under BHO.

For the poor these tax rates have been fairly flat since the beginning of WW2 and have not fallen much, except during Carter and Reagan. So Carter and Reagan are the champions of the poorer taxpayers.

Reagan and GW are the undisputed heroes of the richer taxpayers.

So the issue has never been how much income tax should the poor and the middle classes pay? Their taxes have always been fairly flat. Everybody has skin in the game.

The modern issue since Reagan in 1980 has been how much tax should the rich pay? And the consistent answer since then has been progressively less than before.

My brother in law is a small business construction contractor and he does not believe in paying income tax at all. I hope nobody from the IRS is reading this. His wife my sister pays her own fair share though, through her payroll withholdings in her surgery nursing job. The two of them could not be more different in most aspects of their lives, but they have been happily married for 40 years. They file married jointly but the return only includes the wife's income. Her husband manages to avoid 1099's somehow. I think the IRS and Sacramento both know that the construction industry is very noncompliant.

My other brother in law and my other sister are honest eagles and declare and pay their full share of income tax. As do I.

My personal view is that it is not worth risking Federal or State prison over money. But not everyone agrees with that view.

In addition to many of my own clients, this is my own anecdotal understanding of taxation in the USA and California.

Many people have the mistaken conception that tax lawyers and cpa's can make taxes go away at the last minute. This myth is a popular rumor. The only thing that tax lawyers and cpa's can give you is precision and also a heads up in advance if you let them look at and plan your taxes in advance for you.

It makes sense to put as much money as you can into retirement savings.

It also makes sense to buy a modest home and pay off the mortgage. Then in retirement you will only be stuck with the annual property tax plus repairs and maintenance.

It makes sense to buy a good car that will last 20 to 25 years than a flashy cheap one that will only last 5 at the most. This is not a tax related issue however. The retirement savings and the house are tax related however because the tax law subsidizes your mortgage interest payment and not rent.

But if you are living in a house that you cannot possibly afford to pay off and will need to sell someday then you are only paying rent to the bank and to the tax assessor and you are playing roulette with the real estate market. There are people who have played and lost this game and ended up homeless because their extravagant house took all their money and they could not put anything into savings. That too is a tax related issue because they thought they were saving taxes but in reality they were just wasting money.

The legislation regarding taxation is a hot button item that comes up every election. Cut taxes. Raise taxes on the rich. Reform the tax code. Other than Reagan's really deep tax cuts for the very rich, nothing on this topic has changed much over the past 100 years since 1913.

Therefore when politicians talk about hot button issues, I tune them out and stop listening.

I am listening more to hear about things which will tell me whether the politician can be trusted or not as POTUS or whatever he/she she/he is running for.

We learned with BHO that what we saw and heard is what we got. Not everyone likes him anymore, but we knew what we were getting at least.

We will never know what we missed with Romney or McCain. There is no way to know that.

We learned that with GW we got a clown who likes to pull stunts like landing on aircraft carriers with banners declaring victory long before the insurgency has ever even begun. And that insurgency has now destabilized the entire region of the world and there is no end in sight. He looked good though, at the time, when Lurf and when Gore looked strangely weird to us.

We learned that Clinton like some presidents before him could not keep his eyes of girlies, whether single girlies or other men's wives. We should have seen this coming but we all turned a blind eye to it. Otherwise there was nothing really remarkable about his presidency that we could not see coming. All presidents promise to deliver prosperity, it comes with the job (the promise does), and he was lucky enough that this happened for two independent reasons -- the dot com bubble and the real estate bubble.

GHW raised taxes on the poor and middle class while keeping them flat on the rich. This would be the worst case scenario for any president now or then or in the future. No surprise that he was not re-elected.

Humanitarian Relief, Humane Animal Rescue, Environmental Clean Up & Conservation, And Leaving the Earth a Better Place --

Near the middle or end of life, after each of us has accomplished all the responsibilities and tasks that society and necessity have demanded of us -- which are growing up, education, job training, government or military service, family obligations, financial planning, savings, and preparation for retirement -- then we each need to think about helping others, including other animals, and taking care of the Earth.

The 25th Chapter of the Gospel According To Matthew talks about the many things that can be done for other people --

- feed the hungry
- quench the thirsty
- clothe the naked
- heal and comfort the sick
- visit and comfort the imprisoned.

Regarding animals the Bible tells us to consider the lives of our beasts, which for most of us these days means our pets. There are other stray or abandoned or feral animals that could also use our help.

Regarding the Earth the Bible tells us to dress and keep it, and that this was Adam's first job and responsibility after being created.

To leave the Earth a cleaner place than I found it I pick up litter and trash whenever I can and put it into the proper receptacles. I do this every day on the way to the big dumpster with my own garbage in our complex.

Of all the animals I have become a lover of cats. I never was before. I had a pet rabbit and 3 pet birds of my own, when younger. But one day 3 begging kittens and their momma cat appeared on my patio crying for food. I fed them and they kept coming back. They had 30 more kittens and I kept one of them -- the most beautiful white one -- and I found homes for the other 29. Eventually I caught the fertile females and had them fixed. Now I love cats and have one of my own and I take care of him and of his mother and her sister who are still with me.

I have fed the homeless, and shared my water with backpackers who have run out of theirs, gave clothes and suits of clothes to fiends who did not have much of their own, visit my friends whenever they are sick, and have helped our parish priest and nuns to bring communion to prisoners in state prison.

Everyone has a preference usually from among whether to help people, or help animals, or help the Earth. I have done them all. I love the Earth, and I love cats, and I care about other people's feelings too. Most of all I fit the profile of an animal rescue person.

It would be great if more people did all this as well. That's what Jesus was talking about. That's what the apostles and evangelists wrote down.

Moses gets credit for telling us to take care of the Earth however -- in modern terms environmental protection.

Those are the things that I learned growing up ... and growing old.

It takes time to learn them all.

Nobody learns them all right away. It always takes time.

Q.E.D.