On parrot people and the lack of free lunches

Of course, when I needed sleep, my brain decided to go 'fuck you!' and not be able to sleep until 6 a.m. this morning. Sometimes I'm really ecstatic that I don't have to be at work until 4 p.m., because without sleeping until noon today, being nice to potentially horrible customers would've been a total pain in the ass. It probably still will be though. Ah well. I feel like an upstanding employee of amazing moral fiber for not calling in sick today.

My sister K once again surprised the hell out of me by buying into the whole 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays crap floating around facebook. She posts stuff like that on a pretty regular basis, and I'm always equally baffled by the complete lack of critical thinking, or even the desire to think critically. Why would you share something dubious-sounding that sensationalizes Chinese mysticism because a facebook status told you to do so to receive money from an unknown source? Don't people google this stuff? Am I just an overly analytical cynic who automatically finds ways to prove bullshit about... well, anything?

K is in no way stupid. That's why I find all of this nonsense all the more annoying. A lot of it would probably be attributed to boredom from being a stay-at-home mom with toddlers, which is one of the more compelling arguments for me to continue to stay as far away from children as possible, but where does the desire to believe in 'free lunch' situations lead to people throwing all kinds of rational thinking out the window?

I'm guessing this is the kind of attitude that makes me unpopular at holidays with religious undertones. A few years ago, dad wanted to do a bible reading on Christmas eve, and as a hardcore atheist, I didn't feel the desire to join, so I opted to quietly sit it out in the kitchen. That didn't fly very well, as most of my family came to give me shit about not 'respecting dad's beliefs' (sadly, the irony of the situation was completely lost on them) and eventually guilt-tripped me into taking part in an activity I really wasn't comfortable with.

I always get the same response for protesting things like that. "Oh come on, it's not hurting anyone." "Why do you always have to ruin it with facts?" Some things can't be explained with science!" "How do you have the energy to keep questioning everything like that!" and they're just fucking cop-out answers for people who don't want to think for themselves. I'm not saying that my thoughts are the right ones, or that there's only one answer, but I'm asking for people to not blindly repeat everything they're told or shown without thinking, like parrots. Parrots are fucking assholes. Don't be a parrot.