Everyone Needs To Come Out Of the Closet

This post is a touch different for me. At least based in the last year's blogs I've done, that is. This post is for everyone out there who keeps their peccadilloes bottled up because they think no one else feels the same.

We, as individuals, have been placed in a position where we feel obligated to uphold social expectations because society tells us to. Society tells us kids are the be-all and end-all of existence. Society tells us we're all either right-wingers or liberals. We must believe in a God, because society tells us we must. And above all, we must believe that every American is well above average.

Look, if you agree in whole to maintaining the social illusions foisted on all of us I mentioned, then move along. There's nothing for you in this post.

To living up to all of these expectations, I say, "Bullshit". You don't need to agree with all of these things, but if you agree with the bullshit part to any of them, then great. Sit back and have a good read.

I call upon all persons with a functioning brain and critical thinking skills to denounce these social expectations vocally, loudly and frequently. Come out of the social expectation denouncer closet and defy convention by actually telling the TRUTH about the way you feel.

Hey, if you want to believe in invisible sky friends, great. Go for it. But if you don't, yet think you have to give lip service to those who do, screw them. It's THEIR delusion. Not yours. If you don't like it, say so. You can be polite about it if you want - kind of like dealing with a person who has a mental handicap or, as I like to call it, suffers from a highly contagious psychosis. But usually, with these folks, it's best to be impolite. They don't react well to that. Or claim you worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, live in the embrace of his Noodley Appendages and consider Olive Garden to be a place of worship. They don't know how to handle that.

Either way, if you've reached the age of reason and don't like people pushing this stuff on you, then tell them. Don't play along. Take a stand. Be firm. It's YOUR decision, after all, and they should respect it.

How about politics? Tired of letting the right-wing tell you that you're a liberal because there's something about them you object to? Or are you tired of the liberals thinking you're a right-wing radical because you agree with something the right-wing does? Seriously this is a problem in our country. We need to know you're out there, because the far right thinks you're a leftie and the left thinks you're a terrorist. The other moderates out there have no idea you exist - that is we know there are others but we don't know who they are or how many of us there are.

If we show some backbone to the lefties and the righties in our political discussions, taking a stand on the issues we believe in and refusing to accept their labels because neither fit, we could actually effect some kind of change on the political landscape by creating our own representatives.

I, for one, as I'm sure any regular reader of my blog knows, would actually love to be politically represented in whole rather than constantly being forced to hold my nose to select the candidate that stank the least every time I went to vote. I imagine there are a hell of a lot of you out there who feel the same way.

SPEAK UP! We all need to know who to count as like-minded individuals among us.

Speaking of politics, how about the current selection of candidates? What, Lloyd and Harry (From Dumb and Dumber) weren't available? So they got Crazy, Dopy, Horny, Shooter, Scooter, Anonymous and Anti-Christ? Sounds like some psycho's idea of the seven dwarfs. Only in this case, they aren't dwarfs in stature, but in mental ability.

Is stupidity contagious? I'm beginning to think so - especially among the right-wing. But while these candidates are all losers in the critical thinking skills department, they're not the only people out there who you think got viciously and repeatedly assaulted by a stupid stick. It's OK to tell someone they are dumb. It's best to point out why. But you don't have to be polite to these people. Society tells you to be polite to them, but WHY? They're lowering the average. Yes, they make you look like a freaking genius by comparison (which, In fairness, is probably one reason to be polite to them) but you don't need to be polite to anyone in an elected position if they are fundamentally stupid. They're your employee, after all. You're the public and they're the public servant. It's a good idea to remind them who they work for, once in a while. And we want our servants to be bright enough to at least pound sand properly.

But random acts of stupidity abound and you don't need to stay quiet about them. Point them out. Maybe, if we all did that often enough, people would get a clue.

Finally, we come to my least favorite of all of today's social expectations: Child worship.

I do not like children. I especially don't like other people's children (given I have no children, and never will, this may be a redundancy in statements). And I loathe and despise the children of other people who expect me to respect, like, watch out for or even remotely care about THEIR child.

We live in a society where everyone expects other people to respect their uterine discharges when they pop out a kid as if that child was the most special thing on the face of the planet. I have news for them: They aren't special. They are pathetically common and the world respects them about as much as mother nature respects the sanctity of life. Which is to say not at all.

Be proud of your kid. That's fine. But don't expect me to cut your brat a break because they're kids. Don't expect me to cater to your delusion that I like to have a kid screaming in my ear, pulling on my hat or flying by like a midget banshee in a restaurant. Don't ever think I like to have your child playing out in front of MY house or that I will do anything in the event of an "emergency". YOUR kid, YOUR responsibility so keep it on YOUR property.

My respect for kids is when they are well mannered, polite and respectful - you know, like people are SUPPOSED to be more often than not. My respect for their parents goes up exponentially when their kids are well mannered, polite and respectful. But since I've encountered exactly three children who fit that description in my life, I'd say the rest of the world's parents, and kids, have a hell of a lot of catching up to do.

If you agree with any part of that anti-kid rant, great, SPEAK UP about it. Kids are not as special as their parents think and I'm tired of their parents - and society as a whole - telling me to think they are. We need to stop being complacent and start being vocal. Have designated "Adults only" theaters, restaurants and residential units for those of us who don't want to have anything to do with kids or their pretentiously deluded parents.

There are a lot of closets from which we as a people need to emerge. Politeness is generally good, but complacency isn't. The bottom line is that we are being expected to accept unreasonable behavior. That's where the division between reason and unreasonable complacency lies. We need to tell people when they've crossed the lines of reasonable behavior so they stop doing it. If we don't tell them, they'll keep doing it.

And it seems to me the one thing this world could use more of is reasonable behavior.