Many years since my last post. Too much updating to do. So I'll just focus on what I'm thinking about right now.

I've never been one to succumb to "groupthink". I tend to be a nonconformist. I've never been one to "go along to get along." It's just not me.

This has created a lot of problems for me. I've never "moved up" much in the places in which I've worked. I've never fit into many groups which might bring me some form of solace. I'm on the verge of completing my divorce, among other things that have held me back. When I was at AOL, I didn't really fit in, even though many seemed to want me to, because of some skill or trait they found appealing. Yet, when everyone else was there, so full of themselves, the stock price, and good feelings, I was there saying, wait, what is it we're so good at? Making CDs with our software (and adware)? Not letting people cancel their accounts? That our salespeople are good at lying to our customers about why they'd be crazy to cancel? Or, at my nursing job at a highly esteemed hospital organization, where we were told FROM THE FIRST DAY OF ORIENTATION that we will have it SO good here, that we can't ever go anywhere else, or we'll be so dissatisfied that we'll regret it forever and ever.

But I can say this also. I've almost always been resistant to any sort of sales pitch. Good luck selling me something that is useless or overrated, cuz I'm going to investigate before I buy. And sure, I eventually bought into the AOL and hospital organization's lies. I asked openly, what is it that we do or make that's making our stock price skyrocket so high? And I was told, again and again, "You just don't get it. This is the way things are now." Despite my misgivings, I eventually bought into this mindset, though never completely. When I left said hospital organization, MANY people said "You're going to hate working somewhere else." And I believed it to some extent, but left anyway. In retrospect, that was nothing more than a sales pitch and groupthink/cult teaching started from the first day. It WAS NOT true.

We've certainly seen the effects of groupthink/cultism in the Trump presidency, from our friends and our family members. It's the largest such groupthink I've seen outside major religions. I still have trouble believing or understanding friends and family who subscribe so completely to this groupthink and lack of logic or facts. It's a reliance on a fiction created mostly by one man, and otherwise by one party/media system.

But I also see this sort of "if you're not all in with us, you're out" type thinking with Bernie Sanders supporters. To his credit, I've not seen it from Bernie himself, but to his detriment, he has not denounced the trolling and name-calling his supporters have been doing. It pains me to see this in the guy I wanted to win in 2016. For this reason, as well as his age (yes, as a nurse, I feel compelled to be an "ageist"). I can't root for him anymore. The last thing we need is to go from a cult leader to another cult leader.

This is all, as a close friend of mine says, "going to resolve" in the coming years. I sure hope it does, anyway. It's got to, or this is just like the late 1930s. In the meantime, I freaking hate it. It's torturous, for our society and for me personally. Cult-like groupthink needs to become a rarity again. Can we just go back to relying on facts and research and stop this worshiping type of behavior?

Please?