Agent of Change

Y’all Need To Find Something To Do

As I am working a lot more than normal (how is that possible, you may ask, and all I have to say is, I always find a way), but personal internet time is severely limited. When I am not working, I usually only have about an hour or two, and to unwind, I have been watching old episodes of MST3K and laughing pretty damn hard.

I have put up a couple of things on Twitter, since I can just drop them and not think about it afterward or be compelled to dig into what others are saying. I listen to a little bit of news on the BBC on my way to work or home so I don’t feel totally isolated.

I checked on Facebook yesterday when I had a spare minute, and one of the posts I had had generated over 200 responses. I won’t get into them other than to say, y’all need to find better things to do that yell at each other and call each other names on social media.  No one’s mind will be changed.  No one will “win” an argument.  No one is keeping score.  You won’t “own” anyone and your clever cruel remarks will fall on deaf ears.

No one will listen to you.

Let me repeat that again for the people in the back: NO ONE WILL LISTEN TO YOU.

If you and your buddies are having fun poking the people on the other side, you are the problem. Period.  Full stop.

I hear constantly “Why won’t liberals/conservatives listen to me!” Maybe because you call them libtards, hillbillies, snowflakes, dotards, and on and on and on.  I’d also like to let you know that when you start talking like that, you really aren’t saying anything anyone will listen to because you are just parroting what you heard.  Recently, someone sent me a nastygram calling me a “Beta cuck libtard snowflake SJW”.  Rather than hurting me, it made me think that the person hadn’t had an original thought in their life and we just vomiting up what they read somewhere and thought “heh, I’ll show those people who make me feel bad!”

My mind has been changed by my experiences and by learning, never by someone shouting at me and calling me names. All that gets you is blocked.

I say it all the time:  If you hurt me, even a little bit, you can fuck the fuck off.

And if I can pull that trigger on someone I have known for almost 20 years or in-laws, I have no problem doing it to random internet hatetroll.

In a perfect world, I’d ask you to quit talking and posting and listen. Listen to what people you disagree with say.  Ask them how they came to where they are in life.  Try to understand the fear that drives them to hate.

But, instead, I’ll just say that y’all need to find better things to do, so here’s a list:

• Take a hike on the nature trails in your area.
• Visit an art gallery or a museum and think about what was going through the mind of the artist as they created.
• Read a book just for fun, some genre you enjoy like a mystery or action novel. Then find one in a used book store from 40 year ago in the same genre to see how writing has changed.
• Try to find the best pizza in your city.
• Listen to my podcasts, ya bastards.
• Watch a foreign film. Yes, Godzilla counts.
• Get involved in a toy drive or something for Christmas and see how you can do little things that really help people who need it.
• I have four podcasts going, listen to them and then buy from our sponsors.
• Make a list of how your life has improved in the last year, and if the list is too short, get to work fixing things.

Then again, you aren’t going to listen to me either. Everyone is just talking at us, not to us, and we may expect everyone to hear us, we don’t want to listen to what anyone else has to say.

Must love to friends old and new and again, y’all need to find something else to do.

Rough weekend

This was a rough weekend. I was at work for most of it, and we have sick clients, burned out staff, and the two are a brutal combination.  Staff had little patience and clients wanted to be taken care of and left alone at the same time.  They also had a lot of…well, you’ve been around sick people.

They are messy.

And not in a “left their socks in the living room” kind of messy.

I am also dealing with our busiest time at the full time job, sleeping away from home most every night and normal life stresses, so while I tried pretty hard to have patience with the clients, when they staff would start to lose patience, I didn’t have it in me to confront them. Instead, I would just step in and help the client back to their room, clean up the bathroom AGAIN or find things to help people calm down.  It took a lot out of me, so by the time I got home yesterday at 3 pm (and I’d been at work since 9 pm the night before) I just didn’t want to do anything.

The thought in my head after hearing the news headlines was “I give up.”

Part of it is how tired I was. Part of it was my lack of a personal life. Part of it was how little energy I have. Part of it was how my emotional checkbook is empty. Part of it is how I look at the state of things and feel like the selfish, the cruel, the violent….the monsters are winning.

Another mass shooting, and the exact same people who screamed that the perp in the Halloween attack in NYC needed to be shipped to Gitmo, and we needed to bar anyone from coming to the US minutes after that happened are the ones saying it’s too soon to say ANYTHING after yet another mass shooting with an AR-15.

Yeah, I say all the time that a lot of life is how you look at it and back when I decided to change my mindset, I said that I was going to do that. Some days it’s easy.  Some, it’s not.  Some days I have no problem with thinking the best of people and knowing that I have people in my life who care for me.  That the things I do to make things a little better than I left them is working.

Some days, though, some days it’s hard.

Some days, I’ll say that it’s just a ride, that we can change the world, that people can eventually be their best selves.

Some days, I just say in my head “I give up.” And there’s no one close to me in my life to talk me out of it.

So. Today?

I give up.

I’ll go to work.  I’ll write.  I’ll be kind to the people who cross my path.  Anything else?

I give up.  Life may just be a ride, but I’m tired of people turning the lights out on it.

I give up.