Every Few Weeks It Happens Again

Posted 2008 September 01 Monday 20:40 Jabberings (6)

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a corporate world, or maybe it’s a desperation of people trying to pay rising bills in a world that doesn’t care, or maybe I’m just in a weird phase of my life where the stupid people are attracted to me like iron to a magnet, but every few weeks now it just gets to me — people’s stupid demands.  Cries that I can’t do this, I need to do that, why don’t I do something about that, why did I let that person fail…

Disclaimer: this blog post, like many before it, will be vague on specifics of names, places, or specific timeframes.  I have to protect the guilty, because I can’t afford a lawyer or deal with the mindnumbing frustration and pointless anger that a lawsuit would bring upon me.  So please fill in the names with your favorite enemies if you really need names.

Oh, wait — Disclaimer number two: I’m taking the opposite side of many popular opinions amongst some valued friends, or even my own opinion in some cases.  It’s called drawing out the discussion.  I get any hateful words about it and I’ll cheerfully delete your e-mail.  Then I’ll go outside and enjoy the day, knowing that the hateful words came from another idiot.  Then I’ll have one more person to avoid like the plague.

Back to the post.

I hate entitled people.  No — hate isn’t a strong enough word.  I loathe their smug requests for attention, or money, or fairness, or some god-given right.

One of the first lessons I learned: you have to do something to get something.  Nothing in life is guaranteed except an end to it, sooner or later.  There is no effect without a cause, there is no meal without paying for it somehow.

I know some atheists that are atheistic because something bad happened to them or a loved one, and their prayer for something to be done about it went unanswered.  They are atheists because God didn’t provide for them.  Never mind the fact that God in the Christian Bible has never behaved once in the way that the Christian Bible says “he” does, to my (or their) knowledge.  Never mind that there are three Gods in the Abrahamic tradition: El, God, and Allah, and they are three very different personalities.  No, they’re atheists because God didn’t intercede and change things for them.

Hint: Stop denying a possibility just because it doesn’t obey promises written down three translations and a couple thousand years ago.  Look at what is written, then at what actually happens.  Then make up your mind.  I think it’s just as bad to have made up your mind about something for the wrong reasons as it is to believe in a lie.  I’m sorry for whatever pain caused you to think the way you do, and you have the right to think that way.  Just have a real reason.

I know people who believe that owning a gun is more of a crime than actually killing someone.  Never mind that guns can be used for hunting, and in some places all over the world for surviving another night.  Never mind that it’s the owner, not the gun, that decides to kill, to pull the trigger, to end someone’s happy day.  No — that person owns a gun, so all liquor stores and day-cares in the neighborhood are now in danger of a madman/woman.

Hint: Start to learn about that gun-owner.  Try to figure out if they really are psychotic and maladjusted to people around them before assuming they are going to kill you and everyone else.  Or get a bomb-shelter and stay in it for the rest of your life, and save me from hearing your voice.  You’re impressing stupid ideas on young, impressionable minds.  Think of the children and get in your shelter.

I know people that believe they have a right to their ignorance, and fight to be ignorant.  They yell and decry every attempt to explain things to them, or any argument against some falsehood they’ve uttered, or disagree with any account of events that happened but their own incomplete version.  They don’t ask how they’re wrong, they just will spout some bullshit like “well, that’s your opinion” or “let’s agree to disagree” after I’ve told them that they were wrong, President Ford wasn’t elected to office.

Hint: Shut up and listen more than you talk.  Start considering things a little.  Have a discussion once and a fucking while.  Remember the world isn’t just a hallucination, that there are others out there with their own pin-headed ideas and some of them actually have good ideas.  You ain’t that special, hon.

I know people who believe it’s wrong to have money, so they target the rich and call them greedy bastards.  Nevermind that there are some greedy pigs out there, they believe that wealth always equals corruption.  That you cannot save your pennies, spend wisely, and manage to build up money.  They conveniently don’t voice with words what the context of their babble is: that because they don’t get a free hand-out from someone rich, that rich person is evil.

Hint: Don’t hate someone that has more than you just because they have more than you do.  Consider how they got what they have.  Consider what they do with what they have.  Consider how helpful they are to people, how hurtful they are to people, then decide if the person in question is a good or a bad peep.  Or better yet, leave judgement up to people better able to judge, and shut your pie-hole.

I know people who think their own word is inviolate.  Any questions about what they said is a direct threat to their own authority, and that other unenlightened beings shouldn’t be allowed to open their mouths.  If they are challenged, they throw a fit worthy of any preschool, and need to have their ego smoothed over so much that it just sickens.  They can do no wrong, they can have no unintended consequences to their actions, they shit fucking butterflies and flowers.  If they say it’s nighttime at noon, turn on your headlights you boob.

Hint: Grow up.  Get a real spine, instead of faking it.  Challenges to what you say, if they don’t derail anything that is important right now, should be honored and answered.  It’s called responsibility for your knowledge and actions, and maybe helping someone else understand you.  Who knows, you may even learn something.  Well, that might be taking it too far…

I know people who cannot abide my swearing.  They will not talk to me when I’m swearing.  They’ve never noticed that I swear about generally unimportant things, or that if I stop swearing about something then maybe I think it’s vitally important.  Or the fact that every swear word I use is either part of a joke, or to punctuate what I’m saying.  They are more concerned that I used the “effenheimer” or that I called someone a “female dog” than why I used the effenheimer, or called someone a “female dog”.

Hint: You should listen to the content, as well as the words.  With anyone you’re supposed to be listening to.  I sometimes actively don’t care about your sensibilities, and want to communicate something with words that help emphasis.  Sometimes you dingbats miss the vocal inflection, or miss the look on my face, or the nuance of gestures.  So I’ll throw in the effenheimer.  Get over it.  Politeness is not more important than communication.

Urgh.  There’s more, but I’m already at 1,200+ words.  That’s enough for this go at it.

Besides, it’ll happen again in another couple of weeks.

Have fun, readers.  I’ma have a beer, I think, and stare out the window.

Skåll!!!