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National Sloppy Joe Day 2023
Seems a bit early, but today is 🍔 National Sloppy Joe Day 🍔. Sloppy Joes always felt more like a summertime thing, but you can’t argue that sending winter off with some classic comfort food is a fine way to kick off the weekend.
🌎 World 🌍 Peace 🌏
Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start. ~Anthony Bourdain
World peace would be a great thing, but we’re a long way from it.
Historically, wars have been primarily about resources, egos or both. The best way to prevent a lot of wars going forward is to create a post-scarcity future.
First among necessary resources is energy. If you can find a way to make energy cheap and plentiful, you diminish the temptation to invade.
Next, and nearly equal, is the need for food. Deserts, badlands, swamps and jungles don’t lend themselves to farming.
Fortunately, since the end of WWII, a more collaborative model of international relations has been in place. Nearly everyone has something that someone else needs to make or do things.
A lot of that has depended on the United States military ensuring international trade. We’ve long said that the US shouldn’t be the world’s policeman, but that would depend on other countries sharing the load.
We need to be more collaborative on a lot of fronts. Granted, any country’s duty is to see to the needs and prosperity of its own citizens, but part of that is being good neighbors and participating in projects that benefit humanity as a whole.
I think most of us are inclined to do things that would be globally beneficial, but the question remains:
How’s a brother gonna get paid?
We need people to figure out nuclear fusion, efficient recycling, alternative farming approaches and even flying cars, but we also need people to figure out how to structure it all and support a collaborative, post-scarcity future.
Best if we whip up some toasty comfort food and give it some serious thought.
🍔 Sloppy 👔 Joseph 🍔
Grown Up Sloppy Joes
Speaking of comfort food, anything worth doing is worth doing better. Take a look at this video on how to make a better Sloppy Joe.
That’s the great thing about the internet. There are ingenious people demonstrating how to do things better, quicker, simpler, cheaper or more creatively.
That’s the heart of modern society. People want things to be better.
Well, rational people do.
Some people just want to freak the hell out and make other people’s lives miserable.
Some people are so sociopathic that they can only take things from others instead of learning to do for themselves.
Some people are so dreadfully indoctrinated that they can only function within tightly defined ideologies.
They aren’t willing to live and let live. What do we do with such people? Yeah, I don’t know either.
Dangerous ☠️ Motives
No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
To some extent, there’s a valid point in the claim that you should only write what you know but not all of us can be Ernest Hemingway.
Most of us won’t wind up fighting in a world war, bullfighting or participating in a civil war. I don’t know that we need to be as adventurous as some famous authors to craft believable stories.
We all have our own experiences. We craft those into our stories. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced a whole lot of danger in my life.
Does that mean I can only write stories about suburban frolicking? I wouldn’t think so.
Obviously, stories are more palpable if you have personal experience in what you’re writing about but we have the ability to research.
Stories, ultimately, come from our imagination. If they also come from our experience, great. If they don’t come from experience, we need to do the research to ensure that what we’ve envisioned is actually viable.
In the case of speculative fiction, who has ever experienced it? Who among us had put on a cape and flown into the sky like a missile? Who among us has cast a magic spell to turn someone into a frog? Who among us has engaged a hyperdrive to travel between star systems at speeds exceeding the speed of light?
It puts the ‘write what you know‘ chestnut in proper perspective. What you know is what occurred to you while writing the story. If it’s reality-based and you don’t want people who are experts in that aspect of reality to complain, you do appropriate research and edit as needed.
Simple.
As for my own stories, I’m still struggling. Part of it is because I’m busy at work. Part of it is because I’m still short on sleep. A lot of it is because I haven’t had a moment to construct the waypoints that help me structure a story successfully. Hopefully, I can break through some of those obstacles this weekend.
That’s it for today. I hope you get some much needed R&R.