I give the fuck up. People are beyond stupidity into a new realm of dumb I don't even have the vocabulary to begin to describe.
I literally want to hang up right now. Not because I'm depressed about myself, no. Actually I'm quite confident in my own intelligence and capabilities.
Instead I'm so dumbstruck by the outlandish, audacious, spectacular stupidity of the other human beings I'm forced to encounter on a daily basis.
People think I'm strange for not associating with, I mean literally anyone at all. I don't try to socialize whatsoever. And there's a damned good reason for it.
I am a somewhat intelligent, level headed, common sense using person who reflects on things and is thoughtful about my interactions with other people. Because I'm fairly empathetic, I often think about other people before I think of myself. I actually care whether people around me a happy, comfortable, having a good day, finding humor in life and other similar small things that take little to no effort on my part, while sometimes, occasionally, such thoughtfulness may affect someone greatly when you least expect it to. Sometimes it's the smallest of things that have the biggest impacts on how someone's entire outlook may be.
For example, I've always had a combative relationship with Police Officers. I always have, and mostly still do, think only scumbags with out of control anger issues and an inferiority complex become Police Officers.
But one time when my landlord repeatedly locked me out of my house in the middle of an eviction battle in and out of local Court. She locked me out, I broke a window and came in. She locked me out again, I broke another window, after the third time she called the police on me.
Of the officers that responded, I knew one of them from the local jail who'd known me since I was a dumb kid getting in way too much trouble. But one habit I've always had, I almost always owned up to my crimes when caught. Why bother fighting it at that point?
So when the now Sheriff's Deputy showed up, he had to arrest me for the Criminal Damage. As we're pulling away, down the street, what a surprise! My Landlord is standing outside watching me be taken to the Sheriff's Office and smirking on the sidewalk.
This Officer, whom I'd had many antagonistic encounters with as a teenager, suddenly pulls over and gets out of the car.
In that typical intimidating way, he walks straight up to my Landlord.
"so are you taking that scumbag to jail?" She asks him grinning broadly at this point.
"That's none of your business." The officer responds.
Like a firecracker my head snapped right up to watch the encounter from the back of the Police sedan.
"Did you lock Kevin out of the house?" He asks her directly.
As is typical, she denied it, used to never being questioned as a prominent business owner in the Community.
The Officer asks her if the Judge had told her not to lock me out. She said yes and again denied locking me out.
"I've known Kevin since he was a kid. He may be a lot of things but he's NEVER lied to me. So you're you're telling me suddenly he's lying to me after admitting to breaking the windows?"
The look of surprise in the woman's eyes was priceless. Clearly she's not used to being challenged by ANYONE.
I'm sure my own surprise wasn't well hidden either, but he didn't even stop there.
"If I hear from Kevin you locked him out one more time, I'll personally come here and drag your ass kicking and screaming to jail! You got that?"
My Landlord's pale face, a mix of fear, shock and indignation is something I'll never forget.
The ride to the Sheriff's Office continued in complete silence, and later I thanked him honestly. Something I'd never done with any seriousness before. One of my years long antagonists had actually stood up for me and I was stunned. I had always been used to Officers being completely indifferent as to whether I was innocent or guilty of a crime, I was just someone without the money or family to fight a case, with a criminal record who was easy to pin crimes on and make themselves look good.
But this Officer, he was an honest person. And despite the years of antagonism between us, looking back it never was more than a sort of a years long guy thing,a territorial pissing contest within our community. But we'd never had any outright hatred of any kind. We mostly just played our parts. I was the Good for nothing druggy criminal, and he was the Officer. We were supposed to be antagonistic.
But in that moment with my landlord, he showed himself to be an honest person with a true belief in a idea of fairness and Justice that meant something to him if no one else.
And that's what I mean when I say it can sometimes be the smallest of gestures on your part, some little thoughtful, honest, or kind thing you do for someone, and maybe you end up reviving a person's entire idea of what being members of a Community of any kind is all about.
But despite the fact that I have now been doing my best to live my life that way, to always treat people, not just with basic respect, that should be a given. But rather with human dignity. To recognize that we're all human, we're all part of a Community in one way or another, and we should treat each other like good neighbors, not with the thoughtless disrespect and cruelty that has become so much a part of daily life in a way I don't think it was even just twenty years ago.
People treat each other worse that rival predators in the wild. It's reached a level of stupidity and absurdity I never imagined it ever could.
It's so depressing to think this is how people think it's okay to treat each other. They speak condescendingly and disrespectfully, they steal from one another, take advantage of each other, and act like being rude is a necessity to survive in even the most benign of situations.
Everyone is just so sickeningly cruel and agressive that honestly, I'm just so sick of it. I'm sick of pretending like this is Okay or normal. No there's nothing fucking normal about spending all day surfing the web just to find opportunities to talk down to other people just because you feel like shit about yourself. Maybe you wouldn't feel like your soul is one big dumpster fire if you, oh I don't know, didn't go around trying to make everyone around you feel like shit? I don't know, just an idea, maybe try something different one day and see if you keep feeling like a bucket of worthless scum.
Maybe don't jack your neighbors cash when they leave their door open for little while one day. Maybe don't give that disgusted look at your waitress, as if she were some cockroach to be stepped on just because she asked you a question you already gave the answer to. How do you know that's not her first day or maybe her kids sick or her husband left? Not that it would matter, most people I come across could give a shit less as long as they feel that boost of feeling superior to someone else momentarily.
We live in a society obsessed with causing as much pain, suffering and hurt as possible. Why would anyone want to live in a world like this????
Sickened doesn't even remotely begin to describe how I feel about the people I encounter day to day. Most are just a bunch of assclown jackals waiting to pounce on the first injured, sick, or tired person they see.
How could anyone be happy living amidst this culture of inflicting as much suffering on others as possible?
I'm no angel. I've don't fucked up shit before, without a doubt. Though I always had a conscience about it and I never did it just because I enjoyed inflicting damage on others.
I'm in no mood to speculate on how or why our society has gotten this bad. All I know is I feel like trash just existing in it. I feel contaminated by it. I want no part of it but there's literally no where to run! Where you going to go that isn't becoming, or already is like I described? It's everywhere and those of you few people like me left on this Earth, you know damned well what I'm saying is true.
I don't know. Obviously I don't like it for my own selfish reasons, but I also always hated seeing another person powerless to bullying. But I mean, what are you supposed to do about it in a society where even most of the people tasked with protecting us are even more cynical than most!?!?!? Our own Government bullies the powerless. The privileged bully the non-privileged, and many people go around trying to bully anyone and everyone who isn't in a position to fight back.
Fuck all of it. I just want out. I want out now