I'd rather be a pessimist because then
I can only be pleasantly surprised.” --Benjamin Franklin.
If so, then Franklin had Abundant Hope at one time.
How about I point the snide and snarky
comments on this blog at someone else? Like myself?
I was snarky and snide even as a kid. I
never took the “your elders are your betters” to heart when I
saw, as a kid, so many adults being utter losers at life.
I remember a third grade teacher, Mrs
Keough, complain to me that I, “Ought to respect
my elders!” Gee, elders in my neighborhood like the pedophile at
the end of the street? The child abuser? The drunk? The gambler? The
blowhard? The wife cheating husband? There were so many people I
could look up too!
I'm not sure where my bullshit detector
came on-line but it was early. By the time I was eight I think was
the time. At that age, you really make advances in your ability to
figure stuff out and I aimed that at the world around me. Bullshit
detection is a necessary tool and I used it. The problem for the
adults was that, at times, I blurted out my opinions. That made them
angry when you exposed them in the full noon sun.
“From the mouths of babes...”
It's all about being able to detect
people, institutions and anything else trying to deceive you. It's
self defense. This is America and it's history and we, have been
always tried to persuade the sucker next to us. You, like I, have had
how many people try to con us? This is the core of our nation, the
freedom to bamboozle the guy next to you.
Pessimism and cynicism doesn't look
pretty, nor does it sound it when it's said. And yes, it's kind of
gloomy as it sounds like. It reads like a total repudiation of ever
there being anything good. But the reason why there's so much of it?
There's a lot of horseshit to wade through. But there are diamonds of
goodness in that pile of offal. The ugly task is that you have to
shovel through it to find them. They are there. The other trick is
not to knee-jerk everything in a cynical light. Doing so will blind
you to the great opportunities that do lie out there. I know for
myself, it's hard not to do, when there's so much sewerage around. I
have to be a distinctive miner and know there are occasionally
diamonds sitting in that glop. I have found a few, massive Hope
diamonds during my life that I still keep today.
Here's an example when I was a complete
asshole where I dropped a very Politically Incorrect statement at a
meeting when I was in my old occupation in social work.
The local propagandist (read this as:
In house PR person) would remind us of the Holy War we were to fight
for the developmentally disabled.
“But the developmentally disabled
want to be like everyone else! They should be treated like everyone
else!”
I said: “Ok, then they should be lied
to, stolen from, abused, ignored, forgotten, pushed aside and be
treated like another number...just like everyone else is.”
That didn't win me many converts. I was
supposed to believe in and promote the happy horseshit that life was
always about. Que a Disney song with happy lyrics now. “It's a
small world, after all!”
I can at times just shoot my mouth off
and come off like an asshole. I do regularly enough to lower my
social standing for a few minutes. Sorry, when I hear or see BS...I
can just open up and respond in a not so kind manner. I have years of
practice with it.
Does doing that make me a less “liked”
by others at the time? Sure does! I know most people don't want to
have a pretty veneer ripped open to show the ugly pus
underneath...it's not happy stuff. And people prefer happy and don't
want to be around unhappy. I get it. But I cannot stand obvious heaps
of horse malarkey being called a pile of roses.
I forget the story, but it's about an
elephant in the room and everyone there refuses to mention it nor
talk about it. I, however, if annoyed enough, will blurt out, “Jesus!
Can't you smell this thing? Are you that blind?”
Whoops...I wasn't supposed to do
that...I was supposed to go along with it all.
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