That's right, Ragnar Lodbroke. :)

I want peace but there's only one way to enter Valhalla.

Absolutely true! Frustratingly slooooooow... barely a flicker most times, but when the opportunity arises I speak. Sometimes it clears a table. Bring up common core in a room full of teachers..it's like being a magician. Poof! Some day it'll hit home with them (some of them)...hopefully before there's a muddy boot on their neck though.

I'm sure you'll come away disappointed even if you do figure out their tangled way of thinking. I believe planting seeds of thought will eventually cause them to grow causing the light bulb to turn on. Though I also remind myself constantly that my mind functions from years of activity and not to expect too much from the folks around me as they might only be starting to use their mind. Sounds horrible but I believe it must be true as the evidence seems to point to this conclusion. I have had individuals tell me they view films differently after having listened to me discuss films with them and I've noticed changes in certain individuals I've talked philosophy with. Only they seem like baby steps to me which should be enough to satisfy me but it never will be. I want to change the world for the better so I'll never be satisfied with baby steps even though it's a start. (My fingers are freezing, must be that global warming finally having an impact.) So you stay active waking folks minds up and together we'll make a better world.

....but I think my mission in the discussion, somewhere, is trying to figure out their tangled way of thinking...and how to find a way to reason with them in a way that might make a light bulb turn on. So far....it's slow goin's. Irrationality has many unrelated threads trying to cohabitate. I need verbal scissors...and each person needs a unique set of specially shaped and sharpened blades. Not an easy task. And I have a busy life!

When I'm around people gossiping about others I always think of this quote, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." Though I too discuss others but it is usually in relation to how they are harming themselves with their own behaviour as I you seem to do as well. With that said, it still doesn't benefit us very much wasting our time discussing such things when they are still out of our control regardless of how irritating it is to us.

Which only adds to my frustration!

on the bright side, oh, there is no bright side.

I complain at length about how they all avoid any kind of REAL discussion about anything important. And I voice my frustration about this often. I just don't understand the avoidance. It's more important for people to get a long and not do anything they think might make waves...I guess.

I don't think you dwell on other people as you complain, it's more of a way of acknowledging that they're idiots and then tossing them away. Like you would do with a sock that you pull out of the drawer and find it has a hole in it.

Who's going to stop me?

I need to start a movement.. the marry-a-phrase coalition.

You can’t? That doesn’t seem fair. Let’s write our representatives.

You can 't marry a line in a book.

I love it like I want to marry it kind of love.

Me too

I LOVE that line!

While reading this article I thought of one of my favorite scenes in The Fountainhead between Howard Roark and Ellsworth Toohey where Toohey asks him what he thinks of him and Roark simply responds with - "I don't think of you."

absofreakinlutely

14) MSNBC

I have issues with this one also. There are a lot of things I cannot help but complain about these days, especially people that always want people to do things for them.

This is a great, accurate list. Number 4 is iffy on the part about talking about other people. I talk A LOT about other people who bug the hell out of me. I think at least half of society (probably much more) is willingfully ignorant, lazy, and have no interest in thinking outside of what their cell phone's capabilities are.