Radio: A Sydicated Conspiracy

Let's talk about a necessary evil: Commercials. When listening to a radio talk show, commercials are something that every listener must deal with. You can try changing the station, but they all seem to go to break at the same time. It's an immense conspiracy I'm sure. But we can't change it, so we all cringe and focus our thoughts in another direction trying to ignore the fact that we're being pitched a way to "make money from home with nearly no work involved! And all you have to do is call this number... Now!" The irony lies in the fact that the show's last segment was about how to avoid these types of scams. Yet we all must recognize the necessity of these commercials. Radio is free, and we like it that way. Without commercials, there would be no free radio, that's just the facts.

Being especially annoyed with the commercials that seem to dominate the airwaves, today I decided to time the segment of the radio show, and then the following commercial break. The results were astounding to say the least. I have always known that the commercials are way too long and the show itself way too interrupted, but this was ridiculous. After a three minute commercial break, the show came on. The first thing that aired was fifteen seconds of some old and long forgotten song, and then the host began talking. He had barely introduced his topic when the background music signaling the next commercial break faded in. all in all... one and a half minutes. Next commercial break, Four minutes. Need I say more?

Why is it that the radio stations - mainly with syndicated shows - feel the need to deluge us with pointless and annoying commercial chatter? I'm convinced that it has something to do with the Monopoly that is syndicated radio. Because of these before mentioned conspiracies, we, as listeners of radio talk shows, are required to suffer through this seemingly endless torture to try and get some sort of ideas about the current political issues of the day, the best way to invest, or neat ideas about fixing up your house. After all, where else are you going to find useful information while cruising at seventy down the I-5? In short, all of us who choose to make a little bit of use out of a long drive must take the bad with the good. We must sacrifice, and succumb to the will of the machine. It is what we will live for, it is what we will die for. I guess that's just how bored I get on a long drive.

Who Ever Said Happiness is What We Should Strive For?

In recent weeks it has solemnly come to my attention that many people are dedicating their lives to "being happy." Why, you may ask? That, my friends, is what I am dedicated to finding out.

For too long, people have just "survived." They look at their lives as a very long and disturbing inconvenience. When thinking on the meaning of life they decide that, because they're so unhappy, the purpose of their existence must be simply to find a way to be happy, and then once this "way" has been found, proceed to be happy, and that's it. This method of thought has many flaws. It certainly creates a sense of "good enough is good enough for me" among the masses. The resulting aspiration of mediocrity surely becomes the most important and final aspiration in life.

To ensure that a misunderstanding does not occur at this point, I would like to point out that happiness is not a negative thing in and of itself. It is the ideal that happiness is the ultimate goal that is dangerous. Doesn't it seem logical that other things in life would be more inspiring, more educating, more emancipating, than happiness? When we view happiness in its proper roll we come to realize that it is simply a pleasant by-product of a personal progression towards one's valid ultimate goal.

So what is a valid ultimate goal? To give the example from my own life, learning is one answer. I have observed, through many experiences that brought me sadness, and many that brought me happiness, and many that made me neither happy nor sad, that satisfaction comes from experience. Experience is learning. Life, after all, is just one giant string of experiences. When we gain knowledge from each of these, progress, and move forward with our lives, we find ultimate satisfaction. Sometimes, it is the happy experiences that help us gain the most knowledge, sometimes it's the most difficult and extreme. Making a significant impact on society or raising a family would also be examples of a valid ultimate goal. Doesn't it seem logical that simply obtaining happiness, without satisfaction, would not be... well... satisfying? Let it be satisfaction we strive for, and happiness will follow.

Let's examine what exactly leads people to believe that happiness is what we should strive for. Some of the main factors are things that take place in many peoples day-to-day lives: Religion, welfare and class structure to name a few. These are things that have been completely integrated into the social system for thousands of years; they have been ingrained deeply into the minds of the people. Because of these systems, and the attitudes they propagate, people are either afraid or unable to take control of their own lives. When the church says "fear God!" and the welfare system says "you could never do it on your own" and the wealthy say to the poor, "you could never get to where I am" people believe them. It becomes a form of slave mentality. People don't believe that they'll ever obtain satisfaction from life, so they settle. As if trying to scramble an egg without breaking the shell, they fail.

All of this may sound troubling to you. You may ask: "What can we do?" Well, the only place to start is education. It doesn't even matter what we teach, or what people want to learn. The simple process of learning, gaining knowledge, will teach us all how to become the people that we want to be. It will show us how to recognize our potential, how to set our ultimate goal, ultimately achieve it, and move beyond it. By doing this, we will surely find our happiness, only now, we'll see this happiness simply as a pleasant by-product of striving for, and reaching our ultimate goal in life.