Welcome to the-meme-cement-mixer: a web site of ideas, theories, philosophy, futurology, and maybe even the above wrapped-up in things like fables or poems. Generally thoughtful or thought provoking articles emanating from my noggin....it will be what it will be.
What's with the name of this web site: "the-meme-cement-mixer", what's that all about?... well the Meme Cement Mixer is a mental tool to protect you against memes, whether they be lurking on this or other sites, in newspapers, on the telly, or spouting forth from your friends or from the the proverbial bloke down the pub.... a meme is an idea, a notion or a way of thinking that can infect your mind, often without you realising it. If the meme fits your current mood, or you admire who's saying it, or it strikes a chord with you in some other way, you may just subconsciously accept it without question and it will start to form part of your attitude and way of thinking, all without you realising... in other words it takes-over a little bit of you. Memes have been likened to viruses and to protect against viruses you need an immune system, and that is where the Meme Cement Mixer comes-in.
Be mean to memes. Imagine a cement mixer, y'know the kind, those waist high revolving drums on a stand that you get on building sites. Switch it on, 'see' it rotate, and any memes that come your way, chuck'em in. Get into the habit, of chucking all memes in there immediately, the moment you see, read or hear them, before you think about them... and more importantly before you actually think them. It's like a mental tool: a 'place' to keep memes, protecting you from them, before you've have a chance to evaluate them and make sure they make sense, for you at least.
When ever a situation arises in your life, or you see a situation or scenario played-out on the telly, or a friend tells you of their experience, or you read someone's account in a book, and so on, then yank-out all the memes from your mixer on that subject and see if they hold true for that situation, see if each meme would have helped or hindered you and other people... then chuck-em back in the mixer.
Only when a meme has proven itself to be beneficial at least a few times should you start to act upon it or consider adopting it. When you adopt it, it becomes part of you. The exception is safety related memes that are benign in nature, like: "Visit your doctor if the symptoms persist" or "Look both ways before crossing the road." But even when you have adopted one of these memes, or one from your meme cement mixer, you should give it a re-evaluation after every time you use it: comparing it with any competing memes on the same subject in your cement mixer. Would "Look left, look right, look left again" have been safer than "Look both ways" when I just crossed the road then.
The more abstract memes like fashion seem harmless so you might think why bother to chuck'em in the mixer before adopting them? Well every one you adopt changes you in a small but sure way and enough of them will change you greatly and you kind-of become someone else.... it's like a gradual body-snatch, so you should chuck these memes in the mixer too and everytime you get them out for evaluation ask if they suit you and if the direction they will take you in is the direction you want to go in.
Memes that tell or suggest how you should, relate to or respect people are ones to be particularly wary of -- be mean to these too and chuck'em in to the mixer... because being mean to a meme here may prevent you from being mean to a person.
Of course.... the meme cement mixer is itself meme too ..... so evaluate it well before adopting it ... be in control of your own destiny, then when looking back upon your life, whether it be good or bad at least it will have been your own life. (That last bit was a meme too by the way).
Some articles that may be appearing over the comming months:-
[This document: Meme Cement Mixer Intro V1.012, posted:15th June 2012 original posted 14th May 2012, (c) J Prestidge]