Regarding Symbols
They only mean what you assign them.
For years I stood in full agreement with Carlin, symbols were for the symbol-minded—particularly, the American flag. I worked for the St. Louis Rams football team on the audio crew for seven seasons. I knew 911 wasn’t what I was told. For the last two seasons I worked (2011-2012), I refused to stand for the national anthem and instead sat behind my computer and acted as if I was too busy to notice. Nobody ever said a word to me. A few may have noticed the chip on my shoulder but didn’t want confrontation in a public setting. After all, it was my right to ‘sit’ it out. Besides people in wheelchairs, everyone else stood. George W. Bush attended a home game earlier in my tenure, and the place went into a frenzy of patriotic praise for their beloved military, cops and firefighters—all held high (post 911). I had a deep seated cynicism toward it all. I felt ashamed for my country that people everywhere had bought into the lie of 911 and that we needed to be in a war in the middle east—and that people were too stupid to see what I saw clearly. I thought soldiers were just dumb pawns made to be used as cannon fodder for H. Kissinger’s foreign policy pursuits via the New World Order.
Years later, I would realize things about my stance that made me feel foolish and haughty. There is always a slow and long maturation with all ideas. The mistake is thinking that we’ve figured everything out right after the seed of thought sprouts. All ideas take time to maturate, and some change greatly with age and experience.