Thursday, September 25, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Drowning in cold water
Right, so. I don't quite know why this is bugging me so much -- wait, scratch that, I do, and I will address it below.
Let me get a couple things out of the way up front:
I am fully aware of how devastatingly horrible ALS is
I know how the challenge works
I'm glad that so much money has been raised to fund the science necessary to a cure and the ALS Association is, apparently, very good about the way it uses money
Perhaps most importantly, I am not against doing the challenge
These things being said, however, I'm really rather disgusted by the way it's become a mini-polarization machine. When it comes to this issue, pretty much the entirety of the Internet has become "don't read the comments" territory. On the one hand, if you point out what you might see as an issue with it, you're wrong and you don't care about/hate people with ALS and their families (and probably puppies, kittens, and babies, you evil bastard). On the other, if you embrace the challenge, you don't care about the environment, you're seeking attention, you're caught up in a trend and you're doing something that's basically the next step up from "slacktivism," and you'd apparently suffer dumping water over your head to give less money to a worthy cause.
I should hope obviously, neither of these is the case. I believe the people who are doing the challenge have big hearts and open wallets (in the charitable-contribution sense). I think they want to do the right thing and make people aware that this is an area of research that could use more financial support, and it's a creative and fun way to do it. I love the people who are doing it, because they're caring folks (the ones I know, anyway, and barring celebrities because they are by definition attention seekers).
That does not mean that there aren't problems with this, and I only offer them up in the spirit of examining our motives individually and as a society.
One of the problems I see comes from the "calling-out" aspect. Once you take the challenge, you're supposed to "call out" or "nominate" three other people to do it, too. Here's the thing with that: whether you see it or not, it's a subtle social pressure. People see that you've been called on to either dump-and-donate or just straight up donate a significantly higher sum of money. Let's suppose that a "nominee" is living paycheck-to-paycheck, barely making ends meet. That $10 s/he spends to dump water over their head might severely impact their budget (and don't you dare point out that it's only a nominal amount of money; I've been in that place and, let me tell you, it's an enormous stressor when you don't have the cash to put gas in your tank to get to work). At the same time, s/he doesn't want to look like a jerk in front of people if they don't do the challenge. The thing of it is, you may not know just how strapped for cash someone is when you "call them out." You could be putting someone in a miserable position.
I also have to wonder how many people did this precisely because they were called out -- would they have done it on their own otherwise? Sure, it's fun to make yourself look ridiculous in public (I do it all the time), but would you, of your own accord, choose to do it if someone hadn't "challenged" you to? I suspect the answer is "no" for a lot of people. So, you're sort of pushing someone into doing something, maybe. Maybe the cash is nominal to them, and they don't mind taping themselves being silly, and that's great if that's the case. And sure, a lot of people simply aren't going to give money of their own accord, and that's sad in and of itself, because we're here to help each other. I'd like to think that more folks are more charitable than I realize, though, because despite the fact I'm not Christian I have always remembered this:
In this case, yes, I know people are intentionally doing silly things in the spirit of encouraging other people to do the same silly things in a spirit of good faith, fun and kind-heartedness. This is not how I choose to practice charity (publicly, that is), but that's me and not you out there in the 'tubes necessarily. I'm not the person for public, or even semi-public, spotlight when it comes to how I feed my heart. I'm also not the one who's going to force someone to be "altruistic." I can encourage, I can speak, but my personal morality has an issue with out-and-out saying to someone publicly "Hey, do this for a good cause! And don't forget to show us!"
And speaking of "minimal," I've read a lot of reactionary complaints about how the amount of water being wasted on this is "minimal." Well, just like the cash thing, that's a relative statement, isn't it? What's "minimal" to me or to you might be a real gift to someone in a different position. In the case of basic environmental justice, each bucket that is dumped (and ohgod yes I know some people use pool water, etc.) is water that could have been used to water vegetables (and yes I'm sure some people have found a way to do this) to feed people, or given as drink to people who are suffering a lack of potable water. There's a drought on in parts of this nation, if you weren't aware; and even if it weren't here, there are a whole heck of a lot of folks in the world who don't have it nearly as good in terms of water, let alone money, as we have it in the States. "Minimal" amounts of things add up pretty quickly, as we've seen by the enormous slew of money raised by this fundraiser. Part of the problem, though, is that the "minimal" amounts of water add up, too, and could do a hell of a lot more immediate good in other ways. We've become very wasteful in our collective relative comfort.
This speaks to a broader issue for me: considering the very roots of problems and focusing on fixing them, rather than band-aiding the problems themselves, and shaking ourselves out of the complacency that that collective comfort has lulled so many of us into. Some things, like genetic disorders, there's nothing else you can do but raise funds and apply them properly to the advancement of science, and I get that. But what about all these fundraisers for different kinds of cancer and for other diseases that have been proven to have at least partial environmental causes? I found it rather funny (not ha-ha funny, but funny peculiar, as my fifth-grade teacher used to say) that at the same time I was rolling all this around in my head, I read an article about how DuPont wants the standards of toxic material cleanup eased so that it doesn't have to spend as much money removing hazardous (and proven carcinogenic) pollutants from sites in New Jersey. Why don't we have a fundraiser to, I don't know, hire a bevy of lawyers to force change in environmental law? Why aren't we having public conversations about that? (In this case, at least for now, the DEP/EPA are sticking to their rigorous standards, but the cynic in me feels that it's only a matter of time before they back down in the face of stupid-large sums of money.) Why not a fun-run where the cost of entry is at least one old piece of e-waste, which is something the DEP is raising its focus on because of the hazardous materials contained in electronics equipment? Why not an event to raise awareness about the evils of styrofoam (not kidding)?
It seems like I'm traveling a little afield, but not only is that par for the course around here but it's also a natural consideration for me when I see the way we're attacking each other over the "Ice Bucket Challenge". It has proven itself to be a ridiculously effective vector for both awareness and fundraising (I, personally, am still a little stumped over the "awareness" issue, but again, that's me). How aware are we of ourselves and of each other, though, if we cannot think about or publicly discuss a simple thing like this without immediately resulting to "You're heartless if you think this is stupid" or "You're just seeking attention and trying to avoid giving more money"? If we automatically polarize over an issue this small, I cannot imagine how the larger problems -- the roots -- are going to be repaired, because it's going to take the vast majority of us working in concert to effectively tackle things like proper environmental maintenance and peace among nations.
Then again, maybe that's why the small things are placed into the center of public consciousness: to keep us divided. If we're not thoughtfully debating and coming to some sort of common ground on the small things, we're never going to do so when it comes to the big ones. That's the "awareness" I hope to see most of all.
Let me get a couple things out of the way up front:
I am fully aware of how devastatingly horrible ALS is
I know how the challenge works
I'm glad that so much money has been raised to fund the science necessary to a cure and the ALS Association is, apparently, very good about the way it uses money
Perhaps most importantly, I am not against doing the challenge
These things being said, however, I'm really rather disgusted by the way it's become a mini-polarization machine. When it comes to this issue, pretty much the entirety of the Internet has become "don't read the comments" territory. On the one hand, if you point out what you might see as an issue with it, you're wrong and you don't care about/hate people with ALS and their families (and probably puppies, kittens, and babies, you evil bastard). On the other, if you embrace the challenge, you don't care about the environment, you're seeking attention, you're caught up in a trend and you're doing something that's basically the next step up from "slacktivism," and you'd apparently suffer dumping water over your head to give less money to a worthy cause.
I should hope obviously, neither of these is the case. I believe the people who are doing the challenge have big hearts and open wallets (in the charitable-contribution sense). I think they want to do the right thing and make people aware that this is an area of research that could use more financial support, and it's a creative and fun way to do it. I love the people who are doing it, because they're caring folks (the ones I know, anyway, and barring celebrities because they are by definition attention seekers).
That does not mean that there aren't problems with this, and I only offer them up in the spirit of examining our motives individually and as a society.
One of the problems I see comes from the "calling-out" aspect. Once you take the challenge, you're supposed to "call out" or "nominate" three other people to do it, too. Here's the thing with that: whether you see it or not, it's a subtle social pressure. People see that you've been called on to either dump-and-donate or just straight up donate a significantly higher sum of money. Let's suppose that a "nominee" is living paycheck-to-paycheck, barely making ends meet. That $10 s/he spends to dump water over their head might severely impact their budget (and don't you dare point out that it's only a nominal amount of money; I've been in that place and, let me tell you, it's an enormous stressor when you don't have the cash to put gas in your tank to get to work). At the same time, s/he doesn't want to look like a jerk in front of people if they don't do the challenge. The thing of it is, you may not know just how strapped for cash someone is when you "call them out." You could be putting someone in a miserable position.
I also have to wonder how many people did this precisely because they were called out -- would they have done it on their own otherwise? Sure, it's fun to make yourself look ridiculous in public (I do it all the time), but would you, of your own accord, choose to do it if someone hadn't "challenged" you to? I suspect the answer is "no" for a lot of people. So, you're sort of pushing someone into doing something, maybe. Maybe the cash is nominal to them, and they don't mind taping themselves being silly, and that's great if that's the case. And sure, a lot of people simply aren't going to give money of their own accord, and that's sad in and of itself, because we're here to help each other. I'd like to think that more folks are more charitable than I realize, though, because despite the fact I'm not Christian I have always remembered this:
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4)
In this case, yes, I know people are intentionally doing silly things in the spirit of encouraging other people to do the same silly things in a spirit of good faith, fun and kind-heartedness. This is not how I choose to practice charity (publicly, that is), but that's me and not you out there in the 'tubes necessarily. I'm not the person for public, or even semi-public, spotlight when it comes to how I feed my heart. I'm also not the one who's going to force someone to be "altruistic." I can encourage, I can speak, but my personal morality has an issue with out-and-out saying to someone publicly "Hey, do this for a good cause! And don't forget to show us!"
And speaking of "minimal," I've read a lot of reactionary complaints about how the amount of water being wasted on this is "minimal." Well, just like the cash thing, that's a relative statement, isn't it? What's "minimal" to me or to you might be a real gift to someone in a different position. In the case of basic environmental justice, each bucket that is dumped (and ohgod yes I know some people use pool water, etc.) is water that could have been used to water vegetables (and yes I'm sure some people have found a way to do this) to feed people, or given as drink to people who are suffering a lack of potable water. There's a drought on in parts of this nation, if you weren't aware; and even if it weren't here, there are a whole heck of a lot of folks in the world who don't have it nearly as good in terms of water, let alone money, as we have it in the States. "Minimal" amounts of things add up pretty quickly, as we've seen by the enormous slew of money raised by this fundraiser. Part of the problem, though, is that the "minimal" amounts of water add up, too, and could do a hell of a lot more immediate good in other ways. We've become very wasteful in our collective relative comfort.
This speaks to a broader issue for me: considering the very roots of problems and focusing on fixing them, rather than band-aiding the problems themselves, and shaking ourselves out of the complacency that that collective comfort has lulled so many of us into. Some things, like genetic disorders, there's nothing else you can do but raise funds and apply them properly to the advancement of science, and I get that. But what about all these fundraisers for different kinds of cancer and for other diseases that have been proven to have at least partial environmental causes? I found it rather funny (not ha-ha funny, but funny peculiar, as my fifth-grade teacher used to say) that at the same time I was rolling all this around in my head, I read an article about how DuPont wants the standards of toxic material cleanup eased so that it doesn't have to spend as much money removing hazardous (and proven carcinogenic) pollutants from sites in New Jersey. Why don't we have a fundraiser to, I don't know, hire a bevy of lawyers to force change in environmental law? Why aren't we having public conversations about that? (In this case, at least for now, the DEP/EPA are sticking to their rigorous standards, but the cynic in me feels that it's only a matter of time before they back down in the face of stupid-large sums of money.) Why not a fun-run where the cost of entry is at least one old piece of e-waste, which is something the DEP is raising its focus on because of the hazardous materials contained in electronics equipment? Why not an event to raise awareness about the evils of styrofoam (not kidding)?
It seems like I'm traveling a little afield, but not only is that par for the course around here but it's also a natural consideration for me when I see the way we're attacking each other over the "Ice Bucket Challenge". It has proven itself to be a ridiculously effective vector for both awareness and fundraising (I, personally, am still a little stumped over the "awareness" issue, but again, that's me). How aware are we of ourselves and of each other, though, if we cannot think about or publicly discuss a simple thing like this without immediately resulting to "You're heartless if you think this is stupid" or "You're just seeking attention and trying to avoid giving more money"? If we automatically polarize over an issue this small, I cannot imagine how the larger problems -- the roots -- are going to be repaired, because it's going to take the vast majority of us working in concert to effectively tackle things like proper environmental maintenance and peace among nations.
Then again, maybe that's why the small things are placed into the center of public consciousness: to keep us divided. If we're not thoughtfully debating and coming to some sort of common ground on the small things, we're never going to do so when it comes to the big ones. That's the "awareness" I hope to see most of all.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
A question I cannot help but ponder
Stress.
Stress is bad for me, it's bad for you, it's bad for everyone. I've learned some tools to help control the stress in my daily life, but some days I suck at using them. Some of my stress is more deep-seated than just deadlines, commuting and the age-old problem of what's for dinner. That's something that seems to run in my family.
See, we (by which I mean in this case my paternal family line) tend to take things to heart. By no means is this unique to the human condition, but for us it seems to be a major contributor to the issues of mental illness that have plagued us for generations. It's not just simple things like, "Someone said I'm a jerk." It's wider than that, it's global.
Here's an example: my father, who was a relatively young firefighter/EMT at the time, was driving along and saw a family parked by the side of the road, clearly in need of assistance. This was the late sixties/early seventies, so it wasn't especially unusual for someone who could actually render assistance to stop and offer, which is precisely what Dad did.
You know what these fuckers did? One of them pulled a knife on him.
This didn't do a whole lot for his view of humanity. I won't swear to it, because I can't know his mind completely, but I suspect it had a great deal of impact on how he saw his fellowmen. I know his view of humanity dimmed as he aged, but the light of hope never completely went out for him, not until his dying day. He served for as long as he was physically and mentally able, in one form or another.
Unfortunately for me, I seem to have inherited the darker view of humanity. It's made me far more cynical than he was (which is difficult to believe, for those of you who knew him and know me). I'm skeptical of humanity as a rule, and very little of my experiences over my short time on this earth have helped alleviate that. I've been betrayed, insulted, and punished. The irony in all of this is that, like my father, I have always been driven by the need to serve. Hell, when I was inducted into the National Honor Society back in the day, I spoke on "service" as one of the core tenets of said society (granted, the NHS, like lots of other things, was/is another way to say "I'm a better test-taker than you, so I'm better than you," but I digress, as usual). Service to others is a fundamental aspect of my core beliefs, and something I can't help but avoid.
So what does all of this have to do with stress? Or, to put more fine a point on it, how is this-all contributing to my stress level? Well, increasingly, the source of my distress is other people (in the very broadest sense). As a former co-worker, who very much shared my dim view of life, the universe and everything once said: "I love humanity, it's people I can't stand." I expect that wasn't original to him, just like it's now not original to me. So, I find myself in the position of caring about the people around me while they act like -- well, buttheads, by and large -- and I don't have the luxury of crawling into a bottle to avoid the cognitive dissonance the way my forebears did. I chose to break that cycle long ago. Instead, once in a while, I retreat when I feel overwhelmed by the sheer selfishness and barbarism of others; it's never for as long as I like, and I know in my heart of hearts that it's really strictly a band-aid measure and I have a long way to go in terms of accepting people as they are.
My brain has distilled all of this down into one plaintive question, which I ask with the most sincerity: Why do people, by and large, find it so goddamned difficult to just be decent? Not even the work I've done in evolutionary theory, where I often find deeply-buried motivations that most of us tend to overlook (since, y'know, we're all enlightened and shit compared to the rest of the Animal kingdom) can really help me on this one. I mean, one of the most basic reasons for pair-bonding back when we were baby humans came from sharing -- playing to our strengths for mutual benefit. Where we really start to run into problems is when our social/familial groups feel our resources are threatened.
We seem to have taken that last bit and run with it, though -- and run, and run, and run. It's parlayed itself into things as simple as how we handle whether we open a door for someone else to things as complicated as the unrest in Ferguson or Gaza. Sure, I'm oversimplifying a bit, but really, when you think about it, not all that much. The selfishness of the human condition, which began like many other things as something of an evolutionary benefit, has really become a maladaptation as it's taken on a life of its own. It really didn't take long for that to happen, either, from the standpoint of looking back over thousands of years of human history.
I've talked before (and at length, it's one of those things) about how I know we're better beings than our behavior toward each other would have one think, and it frustrates me to know that that's true. I mean, really, it's so much easier to be kind to someone than it is to be a jerk -- and the benefits are far greater. It's that whole "it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile" chestnut; that's something I can attest to, too, because my particular medical conditions make me pretty aware of what my muscles are doing whether I want to be or not. I notice when I frown, and I notice how much fucking work it is. It's far more work to stir the festering shit-pot than to let things go and "be the better person". I mean, seriously, have you ever cooked something that requires a lot of attention? It's a lot of work. Much easier to, I don't know, have a bowl of cereal or order a pizza or something.
So, why do people act like selfish three-year-olds instead of mature adults? That's where ego comes into play, I suspect, and ego does not forget the lessons of its ancestors: if you "protect" what you have, you not only get to keep it, but if you extend that concept of "protection" outward in some weird individual Manifest Destiny way you might wind up with more, and since some is good, more is better. Okay, it may not be the ego as much as the superego or id, but, quite frankly, I'm not a psychologist so shut up -- I mean it in the spiritual sense more than the psychological one, though the two interplay something fierce. It takes so little in terms of physical/mental effort to do someone a kindness, but so often Ego exerts itself and asks, "why bother? More for me." That "more" could be more time, more focus, more energy, more food ... the list, she is long. But that's what the deciding factor comes down to on an unconscious level: "Why bother? More for me."
But do you need it? Really? Is two minutes out of your day going to kick your ass that fucking much? Could the time and energy you're spending on yourself (and your self-aggrandizement) not be more fully and better used tending your own garden for good instead of evil, or reaching out a hand to another in service? Do you have to be an asshole?
Maybe, if we all approached each interaction by asking ourselves this question: "Do I have to be an asshole here?" our lives would be drastically changed. It all comes back to examining our motives, which is something most people just don't do because they have the self-awareness of a piece of toast. And sometimes, the answer is "Yes, I do," if only because you are, as someone once described me, "that cold, wet, fish-slap of reality to the back of the head" -- though even then, you may be doing a service by giving someone a perspective of reality that is sorely needed.
So, in sum: why are you doing what you're doing? Why did you not bother to hold the door open for the person entering the store right behind you? Why did you cut that person off? Why did you feel the need to put your energy into painting an ugly picture of another person? What's your motivation? Do you really have to be an asshole?
For the love of the gods, and each other, the answer nine times out of ten is no. So knock it the fuck off, already, 'cause I, for one, am sick and tired of it -- literally. I suspect most of us are, too, whether we know it or not.
Stress is bad for me, it's bad for you, it's bad for everyone. I've learned some tools to help control the stress in my daily life, but some days I suck at using them. Some of my stress is more deep-seated than just deadlines, commuting and the age-old problem of what's for dinner. That's something that seems to run in my family.
See, we (by which I mean in this case my paternal family line) tend to take things to heart. By no means is this unique to the human condition, but for us it seems to be a major contributor to the issues of mental illness that have plagued us for generations. It's not just simple things like, "Someone said I'm a jerk." It's wider than that, it's global.
Here's an example: my father, who was a relatively young firefighter/EMT at the time, was driving along and saw a family parked by the side of the road, clearly in need of assistance. This was the late sixties/early seventies, so it wasn't especially unusual for someone who could actually render assistance to stop and offer, which is precisely what Dad did.
You know what these fuckers did? One of them pulled a knife on him.
This didn't do a whole lot for his view of humanity. I won't swear to it, because I can't know his mind completely, but I suspect it had a great deal of impact on how he saw his fellowmen. I know his view of humanity dimmed as he aged, but the light of hope never completely went out for him, not until his dying day. He served for as long as he was physically and mentally able, in one form or another.
Unfortunately for me, I seem to have inherited the darker view of humanity. It's made me far more cynical than he was (which is difficult to believe, for those of you who knew him and know me). I'm skeptical of humanity as a rule, and very little of my experiences over my short time on this earth have helped alleviate that. I've been betrayed, insulted, and punished. The irony in all of this is that, like my father, I have always been driven by the need to serve. Hell, when I was inducted into the National Honor Society back in the day, I spoke on "service" as one of the core tenets of said society (granted, the NHS, like lots of other things, was/is another way to say "I'm a better test-taker than you, so I'm better than you," but I digress, as usual). Service to others is a fundamental aspect of my core beliefs, and something I can't help but avoid.
So what does all of this have to do with stress? Or, to put more fine a point on it, how is this-all contributing to my stress level? Well, increasingly, the source of my distress is other people (in the very broadest sense). As a former co-worker, who very much shared my dim view of life, the universe and everything once said: "I love humanity, it's people I can't stand." I expect that wasn't original to him, just like it's now not original to me. So, I find myself in the position of caring about the people around me while they act like -- well, buttheads, by and large -- and I don't have the luxury of crawling into a bottle to avoid the cognitive dissonance the way my forebears did. I chose to break that cycle long ago. Instead, once in a while, I retreat when I feel overwhelmed by the sheer selfishness and barbarism of others; it's never for as long as I like, and I know in my heart of hearts that it's really strictly a band-aid measure and I have a long way to go in terms of accepting people as they are.
My brain has distilled all of this down into one plaintive question, which I ask with the most sincerity: Why do people, by and large, find it so goddamned difficult to just be decent? Not even the work I've done in evolutionary theory, where I often find deeply-buried motivations that most of us tend to overlook (since, y'know, we're all enlightened and shit compared to the rest of the Animal kingdom) can really help me on this one. I mean, one of the most basic reasons for pair-bonding back when we were baby humans came from sharing -- playing to our strengths for mutual benefit. Where we really start to run into problems is when our social/familial groups feel our resources are threatened.
We seem to have taken that last bit and run with it, though -- and run, and run, and run. It's parlayed itself into things as simple as how we handle whether we open a door for someone else to things as complicated as the unrest in Ferguson or Gaza. Sure, I'm oversimplifying a bit, but really, when you think about it, not all that much. The selfishness of the human condition, which began like many other things as something of an evolutionary benefit, has really become a maladaptation as it's taken on a life of its own. It really didn't take long for that to happen, either, from the standpoint of looking back over thousands of years of human history.
I've talked before (and at length, it's one of those things) about how I know we're better beings than our behavior toward each other would have one think, and it frustrates me to know that that's true. I mean, really, it's so much easier to be kind to someone than it is to be a jerk -- and the benefits are far greater. It's that whole "it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile" chestnut; that's something I can attest to, too, because my particular medical conditions make me pretty aware of what my muscles are doing whether I want to be or not. I notice when I frown, and I notice how much fucking work it is. It's far more work to stir the festering shit-pot than to let things go and "be the better person". I mean, seriously, have you ever cooked something that requires a lot of attention? It's a lot of work. Much easier to, I don't know, have a bowl of cereal or order a pizza or something.
So, why do people act like selfish three-year-olds instead of mature adults? That's where ego comes into play, I suspect, and ego does not forget the lessons of its ancestors: if you "protect" what you have, you not only get to keep it, but if you extend that concept of "protection" outward in some weird individual Manifest Destiny way you might wind up with more, and since some is good, more is better. Okay, it may not be the ego as much as the superego or id, but, quite frankly, I'm not a psychologist so shut up -- I mean it in the spiritual sense more than the psychological one, though the two interplay something fierce. It takes so little in terms of physical/mental effort to do someone a kindness, but so often Ego exerts itself and asks, "why bother? More for me." That "more" could be more time, more focus, more energy, more food ... the list, she is long. But that's what the deciding factor comes down to on an unconscious level: "Why bother? More for me."
But do you need it? Really? Is two minutes out of your day going to kick your ass that fucking much? Could the time and energy you're spending on yourself (and your self-aggrandizement) not be more fully and better used tending your own garden for good instead of evil, or reaching out a hand to another in service? Do you have to be an asshole?
Maybe, if we all approached each interaction by asking ourselves this question: "Do I have to be an asshole here?" our lives would be drastically changed. It all comes back to examining our motives, which is something most people just don't do because they have the self-awareness of a piece of toast. And sometimes, the answer is "Yes, I do," if only because you are, as someone once described me, "that cold, wet, fish-slap of reality to the back of the head" -- though even then, you may be doing a service by giving someone a perspective of reality that is sorely needed.
So, in sum: why are you doing what you're doing? Why did you not bother to hold the door open for the person entering the store right behind you? Why did you cut that person off? Why did you feel the need to put your energy into painting an ugly picture of another person? What's your motivation? Do you really have to be an asshole?
For the love of the gods, and each other, the answer nine times out of ten is no. So knock it the fuck off, already, 'cause I, for one, am sick and tired of it -- literally. I suspect most of us are, too, whether we know it or not.
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