What not to Bring to 2025 (Exhale the Bullshit 7.0)

As we enter the peak of holiday season and 2025 morphs from a distant visage into impending reality, lists of goals, promises, and wishes seem to pop-up everywhere you look. Truth be told, for the next few days and weeks, the aforementioned seem to spread quicker than the rising mercury in thermometers across the globe.

Instead of reciting all the things you want to improve, which takes work and follow-through, let me, once again propose a different kind of list for 2025. Why not focus on getting rid of that extra mental luggage weighing you down? This year’s updated list features returning champs who stubbornly have managed to hang around and some newcomers totaling eight items of premium, high-grade malarkey I suggest you unceremoniously dump on the curb along with all the other trash from 2024 and never look back.

1.  We Need to Save the Planet

Why not start with a contemporary classic? While the world seems to have moved past Saint Thunberg's obnoxious judgmental and toothless brand of idealism much to my satisfaction, as one would expect, bullshit of this magnitude seldom if ever, evolves in a positive direction. Now we are stuck with vague and dubious communiqués meticulously crafted by a faceless bureaucracy hosted by petrodollars whose sole point seems to be boosting Doha and Baku’s claim as the premier purveyors of drivel worldwide. Let’s get real. Is there a more self-aggrandizing load of hogwash than the concept of humanity as the steward of the planet? Poor little Earth, imagine where would it be without us! The planet does not need saving. It has survived all sorts of cataclysms before humans showed up and it will still be merrily orbiting the sun billions of years from now with or without us. What we need is to save ourselves. For all planet savers and eco-warriors out there here’s a marketing tip: Nothing motivates people into action like when their asses or wallets are on the line. We need to take care of the environment and deal with climate change, a.k.a. the mess we’ve made, for purely selfish reasons. Forget the altruistic bull about saving the bees or trees. Clean air, land, and water are prerequisites for human, not planetary, survival.

Given 2024’s shockingly rapid increase in both deaths and financial toll from climate disasters, I am hopeful this might be the final run of this item in our list. See, I too can have a Pinkeresque moment. On the other hand…it’s also been the year where a convicted fraudster and sexual predator returned to the White House and where a man who seeks advice from a deceased dog through a medium landed in the Casa Rosada. Call me skeptical, but my Osmentian self is hiding under the blanket whispering I see dead people. If we make it to 2026, we’ll see who won.

 2.  Self-Help

If this item isn’t self-evident to you, it should. Self-help is one of those trendy gibberish terms that pollutes the language and must go. If you needed someone’s assistance to accomplish anything, you needed help. If you did it on your own, you didn’t need any help. It’s simple as that. If the obvious linguistic case for the removal of this aberrant expression from our lexicon doesn’t move you, consider this: How narcissist and egotistical our society has become that we’ve created wording expressly designed to allow individuals to claim credit for someone else’s work? It’s tacky, cynical and precisely the sort of crap whose time to purge has come.

Given its permanence in the list over the years, unequivocal proof of the profound societal impact my commentary has, my Quixotic crusade against this prime piece of crap isn’t over. While I do fancy this bit of text, even an indolent ass like myself, grows weary of using it verbatim for a seventh straight year. If for no other reason than saving my precious energy and your patience, let’s make 2025 the year Self-Help became a thing of the past.  Since reason isn’t cutting it, I have no qualms with guilting people into action.

3.  Diplomas are irrelevant

While not all diplomas are equal (think Phoenix University vs. Harvard) and by no means fully reflect the abilities of an individual nor impart on those who obtain them a moral superiority over the rest of the populace, they still are a valuable certification that one discredits at their own peril. Proponents of this gargantuan load of poppycock should follow their own advice when selecting their surgeon, lawyer, accountant, engineer, etc. Since they are not going to put their money where their mouth is, we’re all better off if we just flush this load of crap from our society and move on.

On a side note, behind the obvious idiocy of this statement resides a more dangerous and pernicious idea: a repudiation of the institutions that generate knowledge and knowledge itself. In an increasingly complex world, it baffles me that anyone would advocate that the pursuit of knowledge and the acquisition of skills required to successfully navigate modern society aren’t important.

4.  You are in control of your life

Perhaps the sole reason of this decade so far has been to successfully make this gigantic pile of bullshit with a heavy sprinkle of self-aggrandizing painfully obvious. But if you haven’t gotten the memo and still need some further convincing, here’s a repeat of last year’s arguments:

Tell that one to the victims of any natural disaster, drunk driver, terrorist attack, or any number of other arbitrary daily occurrences that alter the course of our lives. This is precisely the kind of myopic rubbish we must stop telling ourselves. Can you sense a pattern forming? As Donne eloquently stated, "No man is an island entire of itself". Living requires we navigate the whims of our fellow humans and the randomness of society and nature. Each action and cascading effect turn life in all sorts of unforeseen directions. All we can control, at best, is limited to how we manage our actions and reactions to the constantly shifting environment that surrounds us. According to the moment, we can be passive actors or leading characters in this drama but never the sole actor. As any AA (or any 12-step program for that matter) member can tell you, the trick is having the wisdom to know when to play each role. If you figure this one out, don’t forget to tell me how. In the meantime, checking out of Mount Olympus is a good start.

5. Equality

It is one of the drivers of the civil liberties movement today and an intrinsically false concept we must simply extricate from the conversation. Equality, in its simplest definition, is a symbolic expression of the fact that two quantities are equal. Humans, particularly in this day and age, are everything but equal. We have created over the past decades a multitude of labels precisely to highlight our differences. LGBTQ, African-American, Latino, Native American, Evangelical, Conservative, and Progressive are just a few examples of the categories designed to highlight our differences in sexuality, skin color, creed, or ideology. The Pollyanna's out there might argue these labels would help us find our place within the wider world but in truth, I find little to no evidence of that. Reality suggests that these labels have been drawn and are repeatedly signaled to ensure we know whom to hate. I guess the principle of judging someone by the content of their character and not the color of their skin (or any other trait above mentioned) just isn’t inclusive enough.

Adding insult to injury, if we understand ourselves to be unique individuals it is therefore impossible, and in my view undesirable, for us to be equal. While squaring the circle of equality is great cannon fodder for culture warriors on both sides of the aisle to play with, being the load of baloney it is, leaves the rest of us either in a road to nowhere or on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

What we must demand, unwaveringly and uncompromisingly is equity. We must realize that it’s not about equalizing the individuals but the playing field. Once unburdened by the malarkey of equality, we can focus on what really matters: agreeing that ensuring our common rules, be they laws or societal norms, guarantee fair and just treatment to all is paramount (not to be confused with the advocating of equal outcomes, which is a whole different type of baloney). If the common good isn’t your thing, do it for no other reason than self-preservation and self-interest. That would bring about real progress.

I realize that some of you might be tempted to dismiss my point by assuming that I’m a language zealot indulging in some kind of fastidious word picking fantasy. Words do matter and our use or misuses of them have real consequences.  Alternative facts, fake news, exclusionary zoning, lived experience and enhanced interrogation are but a few examples of how words can normalize abhorrent ideas, alter perceptions, and inject an unhealthy dose of confusion to distort the public discourse.

6. Cancel Culture & Wokism

While the idea of equality and its patent contradictions have previously been addressed, we must also take aim at its evolutive heirs. Running the risk of being proven wrong, this is gobbledygook of the highest caliber. It might sound as something new, but it is just the latest installment in a long line of intolerance and censorship operating under the cover of pseudo-virtues. Taking a cue from Neil DeGrasse Tyson let me try to break it gently: the world is under no obligation to be pleasant to you.

Born out of the Perspective theory, though I’m willing to bet Nietzsche would barely recognize it in its current form, Wokism's idea that only those who are directly involved with a topic can and should speak about it reeks of idiotic lunacy. For starters, what about free speech? I might not have any first-hand experience about the struggles of the disabled native American lesbian evangelic unionized republicans but the same is also true for African refugees crossing the Mediterranean. How come I can’t express an opinion about the first but it’s okay to talk about the latter? What I find most disturbing is that nestled within this world view lay two truly poisonous ideas: 1. Since I am not like you, I am unable to comprehend and empathize with your struggles which justifies my silencing. 2. There is only one perspective, mine. Anyone else outside our group having a point of view is at best irrelevant while offensive is the norm. In so doing are we not imploding the only real binding agent of society, our ability to dialogue?

Certainly, there are well intentioned actors in this space, after all the term useful idiots didn’t spring from the ether, but they are at best, misguided. Cancelling someone for expressing their opinions, no matter how objectionable or despicable, is the equivalent of sweeping dust under the rug. In case you’re wondering, it won’t disappear. In fact, do it often enough and before you know it you´ll find yourself experiencing a sneeze fest or worst yet, watching the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Boris Johnson, Santiago Abascal, André Ventura, Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni, Rodrigo Duterte, Matt Gaetz, Javier Millei, Jair Bolsonaro or Donald Trump taking the oath of office.

While dust swept under the rug won’t become a martyr, people or ideas cancelled will or at least try to. Not only does it give assholes the opportunity to play victim but also exposes our own fragilities. For starters, the act of cancelling someone is behavior akin to that of a spoiled child who confronted with the slightest difficulty opts to walk away instead of facing it. Most importantly it reveals our growing inability to argue and persuade, our ineptitude at handling conflict (have you noticed how no one simply disagrees anymore? Everything has become a fight to the death), our growing intolerance (how did we go from different strokes for different folk to if you don’t share my beliefs, you are dead to me?), and the hypocrisy of our own self-rightness which was masterfully captured by Brazilian writer Millôr Fernandes who once wrote: “Democracy is when I order you around. Dictatorship is when you order me around.”

Martin Luther King Jr. is regularly cited as an inspiration by the duplicitous proponents of this asinine idea. Instead of hallucinating that engaging in cancel culture somehow carries on his legacy, it might be useful to read his writings. A good starting point is this portion of his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech: “But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

Did I mention that useful idiots are reliable cash cows? While the increasing toxicity in human relations might turn the mere act of living unbearable for you and me, polarization as it turns out is quite lucrative. While we are too busy transforming family reunions into war games, politicians, tech robber barons and lobbyists, to name a few, are literally laughing all the way to the bank.

It’s time to pull our heads from our asses, put on our big boy pants, dump Cancel Culture & Wokism in the rubbish bin and face the world head on.

7. Being Productive

This is one of those gibberish perversions that have become so prevalent in society that finding its origin is almost impossible. Everywhere you go there’s an incessant focus on productivity, on doing more as if it is the cure to all ills of the world. It is not uncommon to run into people who are so consumed with measuring, tracking, and evaluating their productivity that you'd be excused for thinking they have OCD. While waking up at 4 am, live conferencing at 5, and being at the office by the crack of dawn might increase the amount of stuff you get done, the old GIGO rule still applies: Garbage in, garbage out. The sole difference is there´s just more crap. Herein lays the problem with productivity. At best, by itself, it is a meaningless measurement and at its worst is life-threatening. Instead of trying to increase your productivity, how about focusing on being effective, thoughtful, and solution-based instead?

8. Politicians Suck

When I think of 2024 it’s not that I’ve run out of words, I just simply cannot choose the term that best encapsulates the year we’ve had. Hopelessly stuck in between shitshow and clusterfuck I’ve been trying to restrain my despair and drown my overwhelming malaise with industrial quantities of spirits. As one does whilst Bacchus takes the wheel, I engaged in random video watching mode while my mind drifted. Until the universe, karma or the youtube algorithm brought me out of my torpor with this gem from George Carlin’s 1996 show “Back in Town”.  Since messing with perfection is the most heinous crime of all and the levels of blood in my alcohol stream are barely in the functional range, I’ll just quote the whole thing:

“Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand-new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.”

Bullshit, some might argue, is what makes the world bearable. That it acts as a social lubricant reducing the natural friction caused by human interaction. Use too much and relationships become too slippery. Use too little and they’re unnecessarily brittle.  Others will tell you that it plays a role akin to make-up in Kabuki Theater, helping to stylize the harshness of reality and in so doing making it palatable. No matter which view you subscribe to the underlying assumption is that one is able to distinguish guff from reality. The contemporary problem, as reflected in the ideas listed above, is most people have lost this crucial ability. Our “bulldar" needs to get back online. Think of this list as your training wheels. While I'd love to hear other bullshit ideas that should be left to decay in the trash bin of history, before posting, remember Flan Kittredge's sage words: "Never bullshit a bullshitter”