Category: stupidity

Naked and Afraid and Nutty Oh My!

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

thI’m sitting this evening, watching this wonderfully entertaining — and wonderfully stupid — show that puts together one naked male and one naked female and dumps them into some exotic jungle and says see ya in 21 days.

There are plenty of reality shows on the telly to entertain the simplest mind. I suppose this is what American TV has come down to these days. But back to this reality show. There is always a ton of ego involved in this survival.

There’s also a lot of bone-headed ideas.

Some of the couples start off on the right foot together, and others don’t like each other from the get go. Being stuck with another naked person for three weeks can test anyone’s patience. She may be a tattooed beauty, he may be a muscled god, but when it comes down to it, their pre-conceived notions of each other never really disappear. They merely…adapt.

She wants to be an individual, he wants to be the alpha. He’s usually aggressive in one way or another, she gets pissed of and keeps to herself. She wants to catch crab, he wants to eat the dangerous sea snake. She wants to fix the shelter so it doesn’t leak, he wants to cut down trees in the hope there’s coconuts with milk in them. They go in with no food, (what? I thought there were McDonalds everywhere!) no fire, no weapons, and have to fend for themselves.  They eat termites and crabs and snakes and put up with storms, flooding, insects, sunburn, infection, diarrhea, alligators, sweat, dehydration, starvation, thorns, all kinds of things. They are tapping out after Day 5, Day 11, crying, praying, crabbing, mumbling, overwhelmed by the sheer primativeness of it all.

And I wonder — why?

I know there is a whole psyche nation that has to prove to themselves that they have “what it takes.” Whether its climbing Mt. Everest or kayaking down the Amazon or entering a triathlon, there is some height we all want to reach. Some person we want to become. Some goal want to achieve. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But I watch these two people knocking around, tired of everything the other person says or does, starving, sweating, swearing, doing their best to survive 21 days without killing each other.

Is this proving your worth?

I suppose I am on the wrong side of town to really appreciate the sacrifices people make to prove something to themselves. I have never been overly ambitious, overly demanding, overly aggressive. I have also always been overly honest. I know what I can do and what I can’t. What I can do if I’d just work harder, what I’ll never be able to do.

I suppose that also means I’ll never know the complete satisfaction of overcoming incredible odds to do something few others have. And I don’t mean overcoming cancer or things like that. I mean going, doing something exciting and different and life-changing. Part of me feels bad about that, because, like all human beings, I want to be special. I want to be remembered. I want to be unique.

Somehow I just don’t think eating termites is the way to do it.

You Are Not Your Conditioning

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

thTruth time is often embarrassment time. Sometimes it’s an uncomfortable time. But often it is necessary time. So here goes.

This morning I read an article on ESPN.com about the Minnesota Vikings investigating a confrontation where one fan demanded to know if another fan was a refugee.  http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14332031/minnesota-vikings-review-refugee-confrontation-fan. 

With all the bombings and shootings taking place recently, I knew it would only be a matter of time before knuckleheads started beating on anyone of a different skin color.

The truth is even more upsetting.

I went to a football game on Sunday; our group stands around on the first level, watching the teams warm up, before we go to the nosebleed seats. As I stood there, this “dark-skinned” man came up beside me, and the first thing…the FIRST THING…I thought was…is he a terrorist?

Turned out his wife came around soon, and they took pictures of each other with the field and players in the background, laughing and posing and having a good time. They took off to seats unknown, and I was instantly ashamed of what I thought.

I had no idea of his nationality, where he lived, what he did for a living. But with the media pumping fear into all of us all the time, I slipped into the same mud millions of others do. I judged a person by the color of his skin.

And I am ashamed.

I know better, I believe better. Yet years of reinforcement of prejudice from all around me had me acting like Pavlov’s dog. Bring in a trigger and your mind instantly goes to the same place. Every time. Now, the guy in the above article was an idiot; he confronted the guy openly, became unruly, and security had to be called. This is what the fellow said:

“…somewhere in his mind, all he saw was a terrorist, based on nothing more than the color of my skin. He was white, and I wasn’t. He didn’t see anything else. He didn’t know that I have lived in Minnesota for the past four years, that I was born and raised in New York and that the words ‘Never Forget’ may mean more to me than to him.  He didn’t know that when I went home and my children jumped on top of me and asked ‘How was the game?’ that I’d be holding back tears as I told them about racism instead of touchdowns.”

Is that what the world has become? A world of suspicious anti-terrorist spotters?

Yes, we have to be  aware of what’s going on around us. I learned to be alert and watch what was going on when I worked in downtown Chicago many years ago. Keep going on with your business, but don’t get lost in your daydreams until you get where you’re going.

But this terrorist threat is hurting a lot of decent people. People who keep their religion to themselves. People who work beside you and shop beside you and are as frightened of someone gunning them down as we are.

Yet extremists go far beyond stupidity and want to ban all refugees from entering the country. Want to do triple checks on their backgrounds and family trees. Why not corral them all and put them in pens like the U.S. did to the Japanese after the war?

The original point of this post was that I let my mind go to the deepest, most embarassing part of my psyche and I prejudged someone with absolutely zero facts. I admit I sometimes do that when I’m around African Americans and Mexicans and other ethnicities.  And I am ashamed.

I am spooked by weird people and giant people and people who talk too loud.

I shouldn’t be spooked by people who just came to cheer the Bears at the game just like I did.

Be aware of your knee jerk reactions. Maybe you can’t stop them, but you can at least realize them for what they are. They say you are not your conditioning — let’s hope that’s true.

And anyway — I’m sure those people who were taking pictures of themselves at the game share my sentiments about football in general and the Bears in particular. (Insert head smack here…)

 

 

The World is Full of A…Donkies

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

3328880852_4310e8f431_zI have known for a long time that the world is full of asses.

Now, don’t misunderstand — there are millions of people who have good intentions, good hearts, who go out of their way to help those they’ve never met. It’s part of being human.

I’m beginning to think being an ass is part of being human, too.

Sometimes one can’t help being stupid. Not paying attention, getting older, driving and texting — the reasons go on and on. I put myself am on that list now and then. Case in point. Asking the attendant if I could go in and wash my hands when they were clearly cleaning the bathroom. I knew I should have turned and just gone to another bathroom, but like a deer in the headlights, I stood there stupidly, asking a question that, if I were her, I’d wanna smack me.

But I’m talking about bigger asses. Not ones who are total horrid beings (like those who drag dogs behind their car or put their pit bulls in fights)…that’s for another story (one I’ll probably never write).

I’m talking about asses who on purpose do things that are stupid. Like they spend their lives thinking of ways to step out of the box and into the silly putty. People who on purpose take up two parking spaces. People who speed like crazy in driving around you only to put their signal on 500 yards further and stop and turn in front of you. People who spit out their gum on a busy sidewalk. People who throw their garbage out the car window. People who smash your cart to the side in the store so they can get to their side of the aisle.

What in the hell are wrong with these people?

Is it the thrill of doing something “naughty”? Were they deprived or beaten or super spoiled as a kid and now they need to check out the “other side”? Did they watch the movie Jackass and think it was funny?

I read on Yahoo today a story about two teachers who gave a “certificate” to a learning-challenged child that read, “8th Annual Ghetto Award” and the category was the “huh?” award.

Who does that?

I followed a well-dressed woman to the check out line a few weeks ago, and one of her items was not marked down like the others. Instead of talking it over with the sales person, she belittled her with snide remarks and complained about the store and customer service and demanded to see the store manager. She had the girl almost in tears. And for what? A few dollars discount?

Who does that?

I’ve known people who’ve had their work stolen word-for-word, theory-for-theory, and advertising-for-advertising, by others who wormed  their way in  by “friendship”, taking what they want, and throwing out the rest like the punchline of a joke.

Who does that?

I know people have their patience tested more than ever these days. Between being denied coverage by insurance companies, the price of everything going up, false advertising, hidden fees, rush hour traffic — all of it gets on our nerves one way or the other. But that is a universal burden, not an individualized one. It happens to everyone in one way or another. Why do some people insist on taking out their frustrations on someone they don’t even know?

How many times have you picked the wrong lane to drive in? The wrong lane to check out at the grocery store? Dressed for sun and the weatherman was wrong and it poured? How many times have you come home and found the dog couldn’t hold it and they pooped on the rug? Or the cat threw up on the sofa?

Shit Happens.   But does that give you licence to leave your mark on the world by keying someone else’s car or making fun of the disabled or showing your boobs to the camera?

Most people are able to get over it. When I hear of people being deliberately mean or deliberately stupid, they add to the stress I’ve already had to deal with.  Sometimes their meanness carries over into bullying or shaming. Having gone through that in middle school, I never had the foresight to realize that they were the stupid, messed up one, not me. Now days I’d blast them open a new….well, you know.

Ignorance is one thing. Stupidity is another. Neither one should be part of one’s life. Yet the media thrives on the latter, until we all are nauseated and infuriated at the same time.  To get your stunt in the paper, on TV, even talked about around the dinner table, is enough for some. And until the time stupid people stop doing stupid things, we will be dizzy with them and their tactics.

I guess it takes a world of asses to make the world go round. Or at least to make us dizzy.