On the road…again!!!
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

Memes Can Be Inspirational

Creating memes is a modern way of making a point without spending a lot of time or risk losing the potential audience.  Memes as reproductions of classical quotations are worthy reminders of past wisdom. And the majority of readers might not challenge the wisdom of deceased luminaries.  But when it comes to modern memes, especially those composed by people with an agenda, we allow ourselves to be exposed to ideas that may or may not have merit.  Good or bad, clever or dumb, memes are here to stay. And we cannot unsee a meme.  We can delete it, ignore it, or enshrine it… but thanks to computer archives located in cloud servers, memes are cutting instruments like knives in the kitchen drawer.

As a personal aside, the Footloose Forester abhors dumb memes.  Admittingly, he takes pleasure in chuckling at more than a few really silly ones, but is usually annoyed by those political memes that are misleading, deceitful or downright vicious.  Clever sophists are usually able to add the dumb political meme to their narratives.  The misdirection and the gaslighting may be part of the plan or even be part of a job description. Dumb memes may not be honest, but most people don’t immediately catch on or ever bother to check.  Little wonder that more than one autocrat has publicly stated that the press is the enemy of the people.  Journalists, reporters, historians, and those who publish opinion pieces embrace the challenge it takes to make sense of what we are told and what the truth really is.

The serendipity of the day, as regards the subject of memes, appeared in the news feed of the Footloose Forester.  He thanks the anonymous author for a bit of much needed inspiration.  The least that can be done is to share the idea with others, so here it is, below. 

  Any and all challenges to its wisdom are welcome.