Why am I driving in Tyler, Texas today? It's a long story. But it's something I felt like I needed to do today. On my way though, I've seen such an interesting juxtaposition of Texas. As I rounded just the very first clover entrance to the freeway, I noticed two cop cars with their lights on that were parked and I may have rubber necked just a touch trying to figure out what they were there for. I looked down into the middle of the clover and saw that there was an overturned car down there, so I guess now we know. Later, as I was driving past a cemetery, I happened to glimpse a casket in the process of being towed and lowered into a grave. I stopped at a gas station to fuel up and to get a snack, and there were four Las Vegas style slot machine arcade games. A gentleman was sitting at one of the games; he looked like he had kind of given up on life, or maybe was really hopeful that this would change his life. Texas just feels so depressing sometimes. And it makes me wonder what we're even doing on this Earth with our lives.
One of the billboards I saw repeated a few times was a Christian billboard with children's wooden alphabet blocks showing A-B-C, and it was something like A: admit your sins and B: believe in Christ and C: something else. I don't know, whatever, but it's just so funny to me to think of Christians thinking that that's a good idea. They're so in their own belief system that they don't understand that that doesn't resonate with non-Christians. If you're a believer, you might think that's such a clever idea to spread the message on billboards - brilliant! But if you're not a believer, that simple ABC thing is actually demeaning or just stupid and laughable. It prompted me to later look up if there were statistics on people converting to Christianity as a result of a billboard speaking to them. I found that, of course, there is a low conversation rate, but more interesting or maybe appalling is that the Christians funding it don't actually seek to convert - the messaging is more about reconfirming their own beliefs for their club of believers, presumably providing comfort in moments of need or doubt. So they're literally admitting that not only is the tactic ineffective to actually spreading the message but that they put them up so they can feel good about the echo chamber they create. It's almost like they're buying faith.
There's so much information overload in the world and I I wonder if that makes us believe whatever we want to believe because we can't believe everything we read. So instead of being discerning readers, skilled in applying the scientific principles, we're merely choosing to read the stuff and believe the stuff that resonates with our own beliefs. Instead of a healthy skepticism, we outright reject anything that doesn't reinforce our chosen beliefs. Road rage largely comes from everybody thinking they're right, and that other driver is an idiot. They've been wronged, regardless of what the other person is trying to do or doing or going through.
I do a lot of traveling out of DFW, and I've noticed the airport's water bottle refill stations are almost always red for the filter needing to be replaced. I tried the water once from a filter in that status and it was terrible. This is not a problem at any other airport I frequent. Isn't it just so Texas to reject the maintenance of water filters to save on plastic bottles? Like, that shouldn't be a political thing but, yet, it somehow makes sense. Republicans don't believe in global warming or environmental sustainability, so therefore water is bad at DFW airport. Water! The stuff of life! Are ya'll okay? (She said ironically, because she refuses to adopt the local contraction in earnest.)
And so we've come full circle: death, salvation, echo chambers, and the stuff of life, the lack of which is death. Texas!
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