pointlessness – radical druid

Lose Your “Authentic” Self

Published on October 11, 2025

It feels like not that many years ago there was an interest, almost a “movement” if you will, to seek out and embrace our “authenticity”, to “get real” with ourselves and our world, and cut through all the game-playing to get back to the essentials of human living.

Am I wrong? Was that just in my head – or maybe just not in the South?

In any case, we seem to be living now in a post-truth, post-authenticity world, where it’s easier to adopt a persona (especially online) rather than be who you really are. Maybe it’s thanks to the Trump years (which ain’t over, are they?).

Maybe it’s “reality” TV. Maybe it’s because when we isolated during Covid a lot of us realized we really didn’t like ourselves all that much. Maybe it’s because of our fascination with Artificial Intelligence (AI) created not from just facts, but from our illusions, misinformation, misperceptions, and flat out lies.

Have we ourselves become deep fakes of human beings? We made corporations people. We make bots our friends. We add filters to our photos to make us younger, better looking, and cooler than we ever actually were. We imagine a world where we don’t actually have to accept responsibility or be accountable.

As Jello Biafra once quipped, the conveniences we demanded are now mandatory.

But life hasn’t gotten any easier, has it? Real life, that is. Every day here and now.

Well maybe it’s not SUPPOSED to be easy. No muscle grows without resistance.

Trees that don’t experience the wind never put down deep roots.

11 OCT 2024

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Virtuosity

Published on December 19, 2024

Is the solution
so simple and black and white
that you can tweet it?
Weighing in with your two cents
isn’t risking your money.

Is the right answer
pitting our us against them
in a blind fool’s game?
No one wins a war of words
without caring how you score.

Is this the moment
when we prove how right we are,
simply counting coup
to display our bravery
in a virtual showdown?

Is the solution
shouting at our enemies
until they go deaf?
Just being the loudest noise
is a hollow victory.

19 DEC 2024

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Does Somebody Win?

Published on June 9, 2017

Doesn’t seem to make much sense at all;
win or lose don’t matter in the end.
It’s a race that seems too close to call;
finish line’s just up around the bend.

Doesn’t seem to change much day to day;
up or down, they’re pretty much the same.
It’s an endless cycle, anyway;
good or bad, the blues still run the game.

Doesn’t seem to be much of a choice;
nothing but illusions and disguise.
If you take a stand, or find your voice,
all you know or say ends up in lies.

Doesn’t seem to make much sense to me;
just another day to make it through.
Wasn’t what they promised it would be:
finding something meaningful to do.

Doesn’t seem there’s anything that’s true;
everyone pretends in something more.
What’s the point in simply playing through?
Who is left to count the final score?

Doesn’t seem to be a worthy cause;
after all, what matters, when it’s done?
Instinct versus artificial law;
both are losers, if somebody’s won.

09 JUN 2017

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Plain Speaking: toddaid

Published on June 6, 2017

“You must speak more plainly, sir,” he said,
“Most men ignore the complicated.
Their jaded minds and souls seek simple things:
weak drinks, brutal sports, the understated.”

“How much more sad that seems,” I made reply,
“to have no dreams than see them all fade.
A life made of no attribute but length.
I’d not have strength for such charade.”

“Aye,” he answered back, “’tis quite a showing:
all the time knowing there’s nothing more,
no real sense of self, nor point in being,
for years, seeing naught but shuttered doors.”

I spoke then, “What a statement on mankind:
that so few find a purpose beyond toil,
but slowly fade to nothing, spoiled and torn;
just born to return back to the soil.”

06 JUN 2017

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A Thing: barzeletta

Published on January 16, 2017

A thing before the eyes, so crystal clear,
a vision any fool could plainly see:
the fate of any government of men
who choose, not to subdue nor comprehend

the reasons why a thing should come to pass,
or be, thing-in-itself, more than a dream,
perhaps just fancy, winged with gossamer
that looks good in parade, but cannot fly.

The thing our focused energies engage,
what matter that it live on undefined?
A drooling child could scarcely fail to see
that wasting time is all it guarantees.

But something, or just nothing? ‘Tis the rub
that rattles conversations on and on;
and wears great minds from sharpness, down to nub,
until such things are worth the thinking on.

The thing, the magic thing! Oh happy day,
when we may glorify it with a name!
‘Tis such a shame it takes so very long
for any thing worth naming to arrive.

16 JAN 2017

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Happen

Published on August 10, 2015

If it doesn’t ever happen
was it ever gonna change?
Do the puzzle pieces ever move
or just not look the same?
Are the ones that make it happen
just the ones we find to blame?
Do we pick and choose the enemies
who help us feel less strange?
Are we really hoping those like us
are all that will remain?

If it hasn’t ever happened
who’s to say it ever could?
What percentage of the greater
helps define the greater good?
Are the enemies we’re fighting
just dressed up in different hoods?
Is the only thing preventing change
that no one thinks we should?
Do we really think the universe will
end, misunderstood?

If it’s never gonna happen
what is evolution for?
What’s the point of boats, or bridges,
standing land-locked, on the shore?
Are the only ones who ever learn
the dying, dead or poor?
What’s the reason to keep going,
or for trying any more?
When there’s no one left still standing,
does it matter who just scored?

10 AUG 2015

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Conversate

Published on December 11, 2014

We conversate, but what’s the point of it
when what we say results in nothing new?
Instead of acts to reinforce our views
we throw up walls of words, then simply quit,

imagining ideas are enough
to put the wheels in motion, so to speak.
Oh, never mind our arguments are weak,
and for the most part, made of silly stuff

we quote and quote, ad nauseum, and feel
ourselves so clever and so in the know;
and so our endless conversations go –
like spears we thrust them onward with such zeal!

And if our words should damage, what real harm?
Why worry over consequence and such?
Our so-called, self-named victims cry so much
that caring has lost both its worth and charm.

Besides, it’s not our fault the world is mad
and will not listen to the sense we preach;
put those who disagree far out of reach,
and write them off, as evil, cruel or bad –

they waste the precious manna of our words,
so surely they do not deserve the air
we need to rule the world from our armchairs.
Let them feed on our crumbs, like starving birds!

But now, enough of that, back as you were:
what was that witty comment I just wrote?
Let’s keeping on talking; we can sugar coat
the world, and keep reality a blur.

11 DEC 2014

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Tag: pointlessness

Lose Your “Authentic” Self

Virtuosity

Does Somebody Win?

Plain Speaking: toddaid

A Thing: barzeletta

Happen

Conversate