Slow on the Uptake

What I've learned recently is that the preferred or correct method of toasting a Pop Tart is the vertical way. That is, you put it in so the skinny side is parallel to the toaster. For my entire toasting life, I have been putting them in the other way and having a helluva time getting them out without burning myself. It never, ever, occurred to me to do it the other way. I thought that the end would stick out and not get as molten-hot as the rest of the Tart.
What is my point? I am not terribly bright. No wait, maybe my point is that I am not a moron, but these minor little things, in the complexity of this life, can remain elusive to one for years--or even forever.
I am also, at the age of 40, in dread fear of becoming an old fart who talks about people in terms of their "generation." "These kids today have no sense of responsibility and respect." That kind of thing. I have even felt myself wanting to use the word "entitlement" in sentences. I never understood the term, really understood it, and part of that was that I didn't want to. I didn't want to use and understand such a broadly deployed and trendy descriptor. But there it is. I feel it every time some young person is non-responsive, unappreciative, or generally dead weight; it bubbles up in me.
I also realize that every generation--- since Og and Kodunga got together in French caves and rutted and had kids and watched those kids put together the new wheel and axel because they (Og and K) couldn't understand not only what it was, but what it was good for---has been saying the same thing. My urge to avoid triteness is trite. Do we let ourselves bitch and moan about "kids today," or do we....um....not? Of course, no matter what we decide to do, we won't actually do it. We'll do what comes to mind as habit, which will often seem kind of moronic and a step behind wisdom.

You Can Pick Your Friends, but...

I admire John Mortimer's quote above--in theory. I also fear that society at large—in following this theory----would have to avoid me—not that I don’t recommend that anyway.

It can be wonderful thing to be chatting with someone, feeling them out, and finding out that they seem to agree with you on some core values—perhaps even just opinions or tastes. “Say,” you say to yourself--ideally not aloud--“this person could be a friend.”

{Digression: I feel even more dopey and juvenile than usual when I think of such a sentence, but it actually came to me few weeks ago. When you are a kid, you just have friends. They happen somehow and that’s it. You take them as a consistent fact, like The Muppet Show or macaroni and cheese. When you become an adult it becomes this rare thing to be appreciated and perhaps even moronically commented on in a blog}.

So I was saying that it’s a special event to come across someone who you feel comfortable with; who seems to understand your point of view. Then that person is labeled as One of Us—a good thing, to be sure. But then two things:
a. We may have fallen into the rut of gathering yet another person who agrees with Us up and down the line; a person who is not adding any spice to the dynamic. This can also be good, because strength in numbers certainly works on a social level. The more of Us there are, the less isolated we feel. But then if we are insulated within this Us, then we run the very likely risk of...ah the hell with it.
b. Or maybe we eventually see a fundamental difference with this person. According to our theory this should be a good thing. We should be seeking this out in people, but do we really want that or do we want to appear to want that? Or at least tell ourselves that we want that? I feel that this is a problem in Unitarian Universalism as well, but that’s a theme for another day.

Most of us are capable of damning another person in toto for a view we find particularly unfathomably ridiculous, if not utterly offensive. The question one has to answer, consciously or not, is whether it’s an issue worth fretting about, arguing to a hot degree, or even worth severing relations over. Is this person worth our time if they have this part of them that makes us uncomfortable, whether it’s that they hate anyone from Luxembourg or that they slurp their coffee? Does it become an equation where we balance their right-on attitude about azaleas against their truly insane pro-cockroach stance? Of course one may apply this—consciously or un---to issues less trivial, I just cite these vital areas of dispute to make a point.

I guess the answer is to avoid those who annoy and to embrace (not [necessarily] in the literal sense) those who don’t. Making math or chemistry out of it may be a waste of time.* An even bigger waste of time and emotional and philosophical energy would be worrying about why you are avoiding someone or do not like them. "Worrying" here is not the same as pondering. Looking at why you have decided something should be enlightening, but it should not produce guilt and self-loathing. If you don’t want to be around a swell guy because of his breath but for some reason are tolerant of a Luxembourger hater, you might want to think about it for future reference, but I wouldn’t recommend rocking in the corner over it.

Now that that is sorted out, maybe you can stop beating yourself up about why you avoid the likes of me, but remember to at least think about it as I sit silently cursing all of you for Not Getting It, Man.

*Yeah, it may be a wast of time. And Bill O'Reilly might be evil.

On Hatred

If this were a high school essay, it would start: Random House Webster's College Dictionary (Newly Revised and Updated) defines Hatred as: "the feeling of one who hates; intense dislike or extreme aversion or hostility."
Hatred (the definition of which is much shorter than that of "hate," by the way) is something that seems to plague this civilization more and more. It stands in the way of communication and compromise. Hatred and meanspiritedness seem to flow from some sort of pride issue. One would rather be angry than to admit that the other guy might have a point.
As someone who thinks that hatred is tearing this world apart, I feel a certain shame at admitting a real hatred that I have. It is based on experience and frustration and personal contact, but that does not excuse it. I have tried to work with it and sooth it. I have been gentle and I have been tough. I now feel that it has broken my faith in basic goodness.
It must be obvious by now that I am talking about weedwackers. Or Weedeaters, or line trimmers, or whatever you call them. They hated me first, but that's no excuse.
I'm sorry. Please try to love your enemies; if you can't do that, at least try to be friends--maybe go have a drink. But you don't have to go any further than that.

The Self Involvement Begins to Gain Momentum--If Only the Content Would

As someone who has never even seen an MP3 hoozit,* all of this blogging (digression--I have been torn between the worlds of prescriptive and descriptive linguistics (this is not the imply that I have a firm grasp of the subject or anything--I know just enough to talk myself out of bar fights), so neo-verbs such as "blogging" leave me in a quandary. Though I am annoyed by these words ("interface" as a verb is another that jumps to mind), I also know that language is an evolving thing. I must accept that one day night will be spelled "nite" in places other than outside mud wrestling venues. It is pretentious and narrow to scoff at such things. Being narrow and pretentious myself, you can see the difficult situation this puts me in. Or the one in which it puts me----if you went to high school before the nineties (I hope to Jesus that they are not still teaching that old myth about prepositions)...okay which parentheses are we on?) stuff is pretty exciting. One feels an obligation to say something interesting and do it often.
One (told you I was pretentious) begins to see why the world is so full of so much misinformation and anger. It is awfully easy to say that certain world leaders, public figures, and neighbors with huge mutant dogs and Lynard Skynard fixations are engaging in activities that one finds loathsome. Or that they are having thoughts that the world should know I think are misguided. Rather than pissing and moaning or grinding our molars into dust, we can now sit down and let the world know of our mundane little stressors
And it also seems that the dreaded and bedraggled media have seen what the world looks at on their computer screens and attempted to keep up with it. Thus, though the amount of information continues to grow, the quality and focus begin to suffer. Actually, the amount of information--as defined by one as facts of relevance or real interest or use --does not grow; we are just hearing it more.
What does all this mean?
Not a hell of a lot.
Bugs and Fishes.

*Surely someone has already called his or her band this.

Initial Annoyance

First, the positive: the likelihood that I will post often is extremely---um---unlikely. That, by the way, is just the kind of nifty writing and use of vocabulary you can expect here.
The negative: If I should happen upon something amusing or interesting to say, I will almost certainly forget it by the time I sit down here.
Then again, that could be a positive.

Sorry to have wasted your time, but be mollified by the positives listed above.

F de V.