jackasses

Not to mention all the jackasses you run across who see everything through the lens of, say, punk rock, or beat poetry, or what-have-you. One just brayed to me about how true art grates on the nerves and outrages mendacious fascists. I didn't bother to mention that grating on nerves is most likely to elicit violence from your victims, but I did mention that outraging liars is not effective... just something wimpily to brag about. I did not come out and say, "You jackass, giving fascists headaches with yer cacophonous 'music' will not save even one life." Because I have no depth... and... whut? There was something else... oh! And I'm an idiot.

This time, I'm guessing, I picked the fight because I had the audacity to point out that musical tastes are not what brought our world to this sorry pass, but other times someone just comes out of left field to riff on what you've said, yank it off on a completely immaterial tangent, clearly purely for the fun of masturbating in public. There are people, mostly male, who do that in every single conversation they have. The more you buck their blather the pricier their lexicon will become, and shortly revealing their misconceptions about those big words, too. I think I'm going to start ending such disputatious exchanges with, "Okay, Moe, have it your way." My gripe is that everyone is looking through the lens of their conditioning and their ego's reaction to that conditioning. It is cloudy. The reality on the other side of that murky lens goes unaddressed, even when you have brought it up in the most explicit of terms.

Seeing the real and understanding it... identifying it and fathoming its characteristics... to be able to address it, act on it appropriately, is crucial to the survival of the species, of the planet, and most humans have cataracts. Where there is a clear and present danger, they see only a blur... and they get very cranky when you manage to reveal to them that it is only a blur they are seeing, no matter how altruistic your intent. 99.99% of the time they will opt for whatever ploy will subsume that exposure rather than take the step that would clear their vision. There's no time for it.

If you're not only unwilling to die, or so much as walk off your job for an afternoon, for the truth, but unwilling even to set aside your ego trips for the sake of acting positively for the future, why shouldn't fascists chew you up and spit you out?