Many choose to say that “people are basically good” and bad people are the result of bad circumstances. I say people are fundamentally assholes.
Just assholes who behave themselves most of the time, because it’s what is expected if they don’t want anyone else to be an asshole right back at them. Why do you think it’s easier to be a dick than it is to be well mannered as the Earl of Warwickshire? And power/responsibility brings it out slowly so you can’t feel it emerging; by the time you know it’s out, you don’t see the difference anymore. I have dealt with hundreds of people who would have all liked to tell me to go fuck myself. It’s true and I wouldn’t have blamed them. But they didn’t. These days I barely stop short of telling people to go screw themselves and their brothers at the slightest cause of irritation.
When I first saw it, I thought I was going through an “asshole phase” like a number of behavioural “phases” I’ve seen over the last 2 years, but now the sum of all those phases includes a more than adequate helping of that addictive product called “Prick”. It’s already hard enough for people to not dislike me at first meeting, so here I go further confounding things for myself.
In less than a month, life has gotten a lot more complicated than I would have expected. Surprises have hit me in the face and I’m not in any kind of position from where I can reasonably well decipher the consequences of either rolling with them or going against the flow. It’s probably just life as everyone knows it, but I’ve never been found especially resourceful at that sort of thing. Typical.
I’ve complained plenty about the state of our country, our traffic, our close mindedness, our religion-mania, our cinema and our people. While this gives me ample conversational fodder, it also presents me with an annoying conundrum to contemplate.
The easy to choose option is escape; move away to a place that actually offers me everything I ask for and grow old in contentedness. But neither side achieves anything real in the end.
The second choice is to stay and believe that we will eventually grow up. A large part of this belief is about modifying the definition of what is acceptable and setting expectations with a realistic upper limit in mind. Recognition of progress is another wheel on the carriage. I need to appreciate what I do have before I begin to want what I don’t have.
Presently, the so called cream of the social crop operates almost completely in the English language, setting the apparent benchmark for the rest of us to define our level of cool. It’s probably because I have been so influenced within the walls of an English establishment, rarely having to use another tongue, but rather than trying to belong among hip company, I make an effort to be acceptable to proper Hindi speakers. I mayn’t have seemed like much of a patriotic bastard thus far, or for that matter, ever, but the national language has a je ne sais quoi that quite appeals to me. It gifts you a permanent sense of identity. I have cribbed about the tendency of Indians to clump together wherever they have settled in foreign countries, but I would rather be tagged an Indian abroad, than just another coloured foreigner.
Plus there’s nothing like the look of a white dude wondering what the fuck’s going on when you switch over to the language of home.
For now, I’d rather drive on the left side of the road. For now, I’d rather miss the blonde with the cute ass. For now, I’d rather watch a cultural re-emergence.
But that doesn’t mean I’m setting down my martini.
I don’t get all these commercial advertisements and movies that show people lying in bed with just their feet sticking out from under the covers. Who the fuck sleeps like that?? When I’m in bed I like to make sure my feet are firmly tucked in beneath the covers, regardless of how well the rest of me is covered. What the fuck is the point of using the covers if you’re going to have cold feet all the while? Unless it’s hot… and in that case you wouldn’t need the covers anyway! Morons.
Pearl Jam – Yellow Ledbetter
“You give me the most gorgeous sleep that I’ve ever had
And when it’s really bad I guess, it’s not that bad.” – Underneath It All
