(no subject)

[nonethefewer]

It might be hair-splitting, but I think a right is an immutable thing, and all the things that people quote off as being rights are not immutable. They are contracts between the individual and that individual's society, and -- and this is the really important part -- the contracts can be altered or rendered null and void at any time by either the individual or the society.
- roaminrob

Good shit.  Mood: appreciative.

Via australian_joe: 10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life.  Reading this (all but the last item) was an exercise in saying "No shit!" and "Fuck you" over and over and over.  It pissed me off because, you know, NO WAI, RLY??.  I never would have thought of these on my own!  I should just give up on feeling guilty!  Why haven't I thought of this before??  It's amazing!  This depression and anx I've struggled with for years and years?  If only I had had this list!

Which is not to say it's not a good list.  It's just a fucking stupid list.  There's like a 10% chance that somebody ACTUALLY doesn't know these things.  (Again, all but that last item.)  The rest of the time, either they know it and are living it, or they know it and can't live it.  Hi, guess where I am!  Fucker.  So it's a goddamn simple list, meant to elicit either "Yeah, so?" or "Fuck you fuck you fuck you die".

It is the morning.  I may be being too harsh.  It's impossible to say, really.

My skull full of voices and I are off to work now, thank you.

Mood: no shit, fuck you.

Comments

[rosefox]

It's not just you. That list made me want to throw things. It's so absolutely patronizing!

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

I'd say that 90% of the people I know never really thought of these things in distinct ways. So they don't quite get to the stage of saying, "Yeah, great-- and how am I supposed to do that little thing?"

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd argue that list is fucking retarded because it's mostly wrong.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

Point-by-point elaboration of why I think this guy is a fucktard here (http://sonnlich.livejournal.com/1003266.html).

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

Perhaps.  I'd only read the bolded first-lines things, since I really should have been leaving for work, not getting pissed off.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i *couldn't* read more than the bolded bits. it was just too painful.

[perich.livejournal.com]

If I see a list titled "ways to keep from messing up your life" on lifehacks.org, I want it to say things like, "Don't drop out of high school" or "Never move more than one hundred miles if you don't have a job lined up" or "Never take out a payday loan."

Not that shee-it.

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

Dude, word.

[novalis.livejournal.com]

Seriously, if life advice were simple enough that it could be given in a short blurb, it would already be an aphorism.

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket," for instance. Good advice (unless you're NASA, in which case you just build a billion-dollar basket). But you knew it already.

"Waste not, want not."

"A stitch in time saves nine."

Etc. For each of these, you can think of cases where not following them has ruined lives. But they're hardly news.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

My sense of that list is that it's a thinly disguised reaction to the author's having dealt with one too many supremely self-centered people, couched in the language of a list.

Thinking of it in those terms, I found myself saying "fuck, YEAH!" a lot.

[heinleinfan.livejournal.com]

I agree that it feels patronizing, I mean, really "you think what you think" is supposed to *help*?


We should throw rocks at him...only this might be one of those situations where there just aren't enough rocks.

[roadriverrail.livejournal.com]

A contract which can be altered or rendered null and void by either party at any time is no contract at all. At best, it is an agreement. At worst, it is anarchy. In practice, it's a bad joke.

[coorr.livejournal.com]

in practice, its society.

[roadriverrail.livejournal.com]

I consider society to be slightly better than a bad joke. Then again, I don't measure "society" by the nonsense of social contract theory.

[roozle.livejournal.com]

Assuming one rewrote the list so that it actually presented a somewhat more nuanced and less patronizing angle on the valid points the author is making, one could then retitle it 10 Really Difficult Exercises To Work On for the Rest of Your Life. Because ... feeling what you are feeling and STILL doing the work that needs to be done? Hard. Keeping good boundaries between your actions and your responsibilities and how other people react to those actions and to you? Really hard. Changing patterns of reactions that don't serve you well when that's counter to the grain of your habits and inborn temperament? Sometimes it's possible, I'll grant you that. But I doubt it's ever easy and it doesn't sound simple to me.

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

I hope I made it clear in my post on it that it made me rather tense and angry as well.