It's the beginning of the day after the day after Turkey Day (or just plain the day after Black Friday, where people don't know the meaning of the words "conspicuous consumption"...no literally, they don't--people are damn ignorant). This brings me to my latest epiphany. While it's true that my general misery is indigenous to me, it is at best, only partially my fault. This is because people suck. By "suck" I'm not talking about the fun kind that involves a significant other and mutual nakedity. Hell, I'm not even talking about an odd propensity to use a drinking straw for beverages or some just plain bizarre affliction that causes folks to imitate a Hoover vacuum (i.e. a vacuum that heartlessly presides over the worst economic downturn in U.S. history).
No, the kind of suck in play here cannot be easily defined. It's the kind of suck that makes people like me feel lonely and bored. The problem, despite what some may contend, is not with me but with others. It is not I who has low self-esteem, it is everyone else in the world who I have no esteem for until earnt (and very few succeed in proving themselves to me, and those who do...well more on that later). It is my profoundly unscientific opinion that there's a percentage breakdown of the general population of the world of 95/4/1.
95% percent of all people just plain suck. They are beyond redemption and beneath my contempt. They like 50 Cent and Fear Factor. They work 9 to 5. They take the same route to work everyday. They make the same stop for coffee in the morning everyday because they can't get going without their coffee coffee COFFEE! They go on lunch break the same time everyday with the same people. "Hey Phil, hey Stan, how's the wife? Patty, is your kid still getting straight A's?" They make the same stops each night on the way home. They take the same route home everyday. 5 days and 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for the next 40 years. They get a brewski with co-workers and/or friends at the dive of their choice every Friday. The men go cruising similar dives every Saturday looking to get laid. The women show up knowing these men will buy them drinks, making the nice ones more receptive to getting laid and the slutty ones more likely to drop the act pretending to be one of the nice ones. The guys bag their prize or go home and masturbate in lieu of said prize. The women not taken home by last call's end go do whatever women do when they've had too much to drink and no one to open their legs for. Sunday comes, the men watch sports, the women do chores or shop. The whole lot of them hang with each other from time to time, spouting their intellectually vapid garbage at uninteresting theme parties. They watch Desperate Housewives with a notebook and no clue that the program is tongue in cheek (actually, they don't...none of them would make the effort to take notes, and if they did, they would at best be mental notes, at least what passes for mentality). They are the jocks and cheerleaders, the married, and the browbeaten. They used to have original thoughts, maybe once, long ago, when they were kids. This was quickly discouraged, though. They got made fun of for liking Star Trek or Emily Dickinson, so they abandoned those things that made them different to "fit in." Imagine an overwhelming majority, an avalanche of people who are kowtowing to the kind of thing you thought you'd left behind in high school. This is what the 95% are. They are not just the ones who set the bar low, who determine what's mundane enough to be mainstream, but they are also the ones who gave up. They are the ones who USED to have a soul, a mind, a sense of being that has nothing to do with fitting in. They used to be themselves. They are now merely cogs in the Big Machine of Wrongness. What's worse is it's moving in reverse. Those responsible are content to let it do that. Those not responsible have given up on trying to change it. They go with the flow now, and are officially duped, sucked in, and become a part of the problem. 95%? All in this category? Yup, you bet your ass! Don't believe me? Just watch The Apprentice. People actually think that the way things are done in that show is precisely how business and interpersonal relationships should happen. Business as usual. Manipulation, backstabbing, one-upsmanship, rampant egomania by all involved. This is the world? This is what it's supposed to be? NO, IT'S NOT!!!!! If you disagree with me, you already are one of the 95% and I fear it's too late to save you from the mundane swill that envelops us. It drowns us in a way far worse than what happened to the city of New Orleans a few months ago--it's far more insidious because we won't know how much harm this kind of environment of mediocrity is doing to us until we can no longer breathe. Bad for us, but hey, as long as the huge corporations that feed and maintain the Machine get their profits before we're all gone, that's all that matters, right?
The remaining 5% of all people know better. They are smart, informed, and have an unwavering sense of self. They will not travel down the easiest path in life, just because it is easy. They find their own way, instead. Going out drinking and seeking sex has no appeal to them. They are too thoughtful and centered to bother with such public debauchery. They prefer their debauchery to be like everything else in their lives, smart, clever, and fun rather than cheap, disposable, and detached. They do not care to judge or be judged. If it is their whim to go to a Star Trek convention or a Ren Faire, or to read Harry Potter ravenously, or to learn a computer language, or to listen to and analyze They Might be Giants lyrics, they'll do it. To hell with what anyone else thinks, whatever they're into is what they're into, and they will not be deterred by agents of the Big Machine of Wrongness who try to convince them to abandon their quirkier pursuits. These are my kind of people. They are like me in one or many respects. They rage against the Machine (if you'll pardon the pun), or at the very least, they are not a willing participant in it most of the time. These are the only people I can get along well with. These are the only people WORTH getting along with. These are the only people who DESERVE to have someone as loyal and thoughtful as me in their lives.
You'll note that my original breakdown was 95/4/1. I've shown you a 95/5 breakdown. As you hopefully guessed (especially if you're among the 5%), the 5 breaks down to 4/1. You see, just because I can get along with this five percent of the populace, it doesn't mean THEY can get along with me. These are the 4%. These are the ones who get IT, but can't get ME. Perhaps they incorrectly see me as part of the 95%. Perhaps they can't deal with my quirks. Perhaps they have all the friends they need and don't have room for more. Any of these and more are possible. I'm not easy to get along with--after all, I'm not changing who I am for the Machine, so I'm not going to change for the 4% either. In a sense, the 4% have betrayed me and themselves. They expect others to get them, but when it comes time to welcome their brethren, they shun us if we do not meet their standards. They have, perhaps, forgotten, that they are not supposed to judge--people in glass houses and all that. There is hope for the 4%, but because they are among the 5%, they must find it on their own. They must make the journey to acceptance of their own accord. Trying to push them down the path most of them are hopefully destined to follow is like trying to push Everest to Sri Lanka. Hire an army of Shirpas if you wish, it's not going to budge.
This leaves us with the 1%. These are the people who think for themselves AND get me AND are willing to put up with me. I suspect 1% is a rounded number. It's probably closer to 0.5%. When you factor in that even among these people, there's about a 75% chance that sooner or later I'll alienate them or they'll alienate me to the point of discontinuing our association, and the problem becomes clear. It's easy for the 95% to find friends, lovers, spouses, buddies, etc. There's a greater pool of them, all thinking inside the box, the box that is used to ship the Big Machine of Wrongness to points unknown worldwide, no doubt. The 4% would be cool but for the fact they misguidedly don't want to deal with me. The 1% (rounded up) are few and far between and often have better things to do than to make me feel less lonely. When they are willing to give me a chance, it all goes south 3 times out of 4. It's frustrating and infuriating and makes me want to give up. I can't do that, though. I'm me and I can't give that up. I won't give that up. I will not be fodder for the Machine. It's very tough and I don't know how I'm going to get through this winter without friends to lean on. To say that I'm just going to have to try seems hollow. I cannot be anyone else, but it's not easy being me.
