Why does it feel wrong to keep secrets?

Seriously, why does it feel wrong to keep secrets?

I'm not talking about hiding the fact that you're sleeping with someone you shouldn't be, nor the ubiquitous stealing office supplies from your company, or other silly stuff that's more hurtful or dishonest, but feeling bad about keeping something that's private, private.

It's always one of those things that when it comes out it's really not that big of a deal, yet the reaction to it is like you knew who killed JFK, who really did it, but said nothing to anyone. Maybe it was embarrassing, maybe it was deeply personal, maybe you were protecting someone from bad thoughts or wishes of others, or maybe you just felt it wasn't anyone's business, yet you're made to feel bad, feel guilty, for keeping it a secret.

Why?

If it is truly innocent, truly not hurting anyone that it is not known, why should we feel guilty about keeping the secret?

Is there some odd part of human civilization, at least in modern time, that gives folk the impression that they have the right to know everything about a person, every little secret and if a secret is kept that somehow, some way, the person keeping the secret means people ill? I just don't get it.

I'm not an idiot, I think I'm a fairly good judge of people, character, and hold a fair bit of understanding of how the human beast works, yet that one thing slips through my fingers each and every time. I'm not talking about the government keeping secrets from the governed, nor am I talking about cheating spouse or significant other, I'm just talking about the concept of personal privacy and whether or not we're allowed it, anymore.

I'm of the view that privacy does exist and that you do not owe everyone a synopsis on every aspect of your life, regardless of what it is, since we've a right to privacy. Maybe I'm just mopey, or down right now, so my brain is rattling off on some weird tangential though, but it is called Emerson's Rambling Nights, so I guess it's fitting.

Anyhow, who knows if anyone is even out there, reading this, and seeing what I'm saying. Maybe I'm just shouting into the storm that is the Internet and the yelling is cathartic enough.

I'm in lust with Pauley Perrette...

...I call it lust because I don't know her, so I couldn't, shouldn't, call it love. But, it's all good, so no worries about a stalker vibe going here. I don't think we're destined lovers with her handlers keeping her from me, or whatever cliched insanity that we usually here from stalkers. I just think she's an interesting, intriguing woman with a unique beauty wrapped around a cool mind.

I'm sure she's got someone, it'd be more surprising if she didn't, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that they're pretty cool to hangout with. The conversations, I'd imagine, are varied and interesting, but I'm a criminal justice major, so that could just be an oddball hope or thought of mine. It'd be kinda cool, when you think about it, that she studied forensics, thus lending that air of authenticity to her character.

Then, wrapped all around that mind of her, is that lovely form of hers. Forget the fact that I'm a sucker for brunettes, which I am, or that I find those eyes and her smile enticing, but it's the whole, unique package that draws my brain to think the most illicit of things. Of that, I'm sure, if I ever met her I'd have to apologize for. I know it's silly, but I'm off the mindset that it's okay to think all sorts of things about people that you don't know, without telling them, but once you know someone, it's only civil to let them in on it.

But, as I've said before, will say again, I'm a bit of an odd duck.

However, this is about Pauley, not me. *chuckles* I'll fully admit, I never watched NCIS until I was bored one day, watched an episode, saw Pauley, and fell in lust with her and in love with the show. I know Abby is a character, but if Abby was a person, I'm sure she'd be a lot like Pauley, which would be cool.

I've never been into the Goth thing myself, but Pauley and the Suicide Girls have definitely enlightened me to the fact that I like freethinking ladies who do with themselves as they see fit. Independence is, I think, one of the key aphrodisiacs for me. There is just something about that air of a strong woman that makes my mind go all over the place with illicity thoughts, ideas, and fantasies.

Anyhow, I think it's time to cut this short, before I set off the stalker alarm, too much, and get a court order dropped on my head.

In closing, Pauley, if you see this, don't worry, while I'm lustful, I'm also sane, thus not all "I'm your biggest fan" cliched. That is all.

So let me get this right....

....if I blow something up, but it's more spontaneous, then I'm not a terrorist? I guess, then, that makes me asks, what qualifies as planning?

McCain just made a quick move to pull Palin's bacon out of the fire, since she was asked what the difference between a militant radical bomber from the 60s and an abortion bomber; the correct answer, Sarah, is nothing, they're both violent extremists, not by definition of their targets being government institutions. I mean, seriously, if you're against homegrown terrorism, then you're against all of it, not just the groups who are likely to vote against you.

I think that exorcism you had done on you didn't take and you might wanna visit Thomas Muthee, again, for a booster shot.

I know it's a bit mean of me to say this, but I'm in a crap mood today, anyhow, so I'm gonna say it. Sometimes when Sarah Palin starts answering a question badly, in that blathering way she does trying to hold her ground around a talking point, she really reminds me of Miss Teen USA South Carolina 2007 and her moment of televised brain farting.

Anyhow, I'm gonna shut up now, I swore I'd try to be nicer this political season, but I'm getting close to my nasty level that I had against John Kerry last time. Seriously, folks, think before you open you mouth, or else you're never gonna win a damn thing.

Okay, one last nasty thing, then I'm done.

She set gender equality back a decade with her vapid answers, circular logic, and inability to raise her candidacy beyond her MILF Status?

Who is Governor Sarah Palin?

I voted for Obama...

...and while I'd like for you to do so, too, I'll be happy if you just vote, period. Vote for whomever you want, even if it is a write-in candidate, McCain, or someone from a 3rd Party, but just vote. While I'd be happier if my candidate won, I'd be even happier with a huge increase in voter turn out, be it in your state or on a national level.

If more folk just voted, I think we'd have a much more diverse and interesting political environment than we do now. We'd turn into a more party system, than a two party system, and that would just be awesome.

So, my fellow Americans, vote, please. Vote your thoughts, your minds, your hearts, and your beliefs, but just vote. It's not only your privilege, but it's your right, exercise it and throw the statistics on their heads.

I wish we were there already...

...in that future with flying cars, mining of the asteroids, artificial intelligences, jet packs, and all other sorts of stuff that you'd find in a Brin novel. Heck, even the talking dolphins would be cool, so long as they didn't sound like Darwin from Seaquest.

It'd be different, I'm sure there'd be new issues to deal with, new problems to replace the old problems, but it'd a wondrous time, too. I'm sure it'd be a bit more bleak, not the Utopia of Demolition Man, probably somewhere closer to Minority Report than Blade Runner, but it'd be change. It'd be progress, for good or bad, as the World the way it is today ain't the future, it's more the past 2.0 with some updates that change ths surface, but the insides are all the same.

Imagine a world where prototypers are common to every home, where people make their own tools, pieces of equipment, and common needed items from public domain templates, their own work, or purchased templates with specific replication allotments. We're not too far off from that, if you get a chance go searching for protoypers, they're this cool devices that you can built things from ceramic, aluminum, and plastics, potentially even carbon filament, at very low costs right in your home.

We're on the cusp, potentially, of a sudden paradigm shift where the middle-class groups, be it the low end or the high, are going to have this shift where the economics of the world balance out a lot better than they do now. It'll be a move away from the neo-feudalism that we have today, where the wage slave is the serf, the middle management is the local lord, and the various Boards and stockholders are the upper nobility that are starting to devore their own via incest.

While I'm all for capitalism, I'm more for the person, or as they're referred to in the United States, the People. I'm very much a "Needs of the Many, Outweigh the Needs of the Few", to remember the words of my favorite Vulcan. Too often, I think, does the cheerleaders of the big corporations drone on about capitalism versus communism when what they really mean is their ideal of capitalism.

Big Money, mind you, doesn't want the little guy getting his licks in, making his fair share, or coming up with his idea that they have to pay him for. Goodness knows that the little guy, or lady, shouldn't have a chance to do something that the big companies can't just take. The only difference between the Robber Barons of the turn of the century before this most recent turn is that they're not individuals like J.P Morgan and crew, they're groups of them. 

Funny how that works, huh? When it was big, rich, powerful individuals we had issue with it, but when a slightly more numerous group of the same sorts of folk, even some descendants in there, do it we've less issue. We vilify the individual, yet allow the group to just slip under the radar. If a single person runs around killing people, we're outrage that it could happen, yet when a large grop does it, we turn a blind eye.

Anyhow, obviously I got all sidetracky - the place is called Rambling Nights, ain't it?

Hence why I want the future, even with its troubles, as it's gotta be better than this, the now and here.

Welcome!

Welcome to the rambling nights full of errant thoughts of one Robert N. Emerson, a computer technician, freelance writer, freethinker, and humanist, also known as 'Me'.

Hi.

It's my hope that you pull up a chair, read what I've got to say, and share your thoughts with my own. While I'm open to full discourse, remember that it's my house, my table, my chairs, and thus my rules. I've got to abide by the landlord's rules, so you've got to abide by mine.

Be cool and cool will be done to you. Be uncool and it will be returned unto you.

That's pretty much my main rule, left open to my transulation, but I'm pretty easy going, even if some of my talk doesn't always seem so.

Thanks and enjoy!