OK, fine, let me amend that.
I tolerate your* existence without feeling the need to correct the behaviors you embrace that I would not engage in myself. (Even if I still think you’re an asshole for doing them**).
One thing I have noticed around and about lately when I can bother to pull my head up out of the sand and pay the least attention to the news, is that there’s a mighty big pool of people out there who think it is their job to tell other people exactly how they ought to live.
When I was looking up information about getting a tattoo, I found a lot of sites where people had put up lovely pictures of some exquisite body art, and then other folks had taken it upon themselves to explain that a)all women with tattoos are whores, b) tattoos are an abomination against GOD or c) (and these were the well-meaning ones) tell the person in question how much they were going to regret the tattoo when they were old and wrinkly.
Same thing with some of these body acceptance blogs I have been reading lately… Person A will post something saying… you know, I think I am just going to accept the fat I am carrying around and decide to just like myself. This will be followed by either a) ranting about how fat people are unattractive or b) (and these were the well-meaning ones) how the fat is clearly going to kill the person and wouldn’t it be better to hate themselves as long as that meant they might get rid of some of it?
To all of these people, both the jerks and the well-meaning, I kinda would just like to say… hey! fuck off!
This is where I was starting to go with my last post about how everyone dies. You see, I am a firm believer that since no one here gets out alive, that it’s pretty much up to the individual to decide whether they care if something they are doing is going to kill them or not.
Is it any of my business if someone else wants to smoke, or drink, or eat an entire ice cream cake, or shoot heroin, or jump out of a perfectly good airplane, or exercise 20 hours a week, or, or, or…
And I can only come to the conclusion… no. No it is not.
Even though I personally have a set of behaviors that I find acceptable for living my life, this does not mean that they apply to anyone else. And frankly, I don’t want to have to live my own life by the standards that anyone else chooses to employ (especially those crazy fuckers that jump out of airplanes).
So why do so very many people think it’s their business to tell other people how to live – especially when it’s “for their own good”?
If all of us have, say, 100 years to live, and someone wants to trade 10 of those years for living their lives with a habit that they find pleasurable? Then fine! Hell – if you want to be a meth head and trade 30 of those years in… still – got nothing to do with me! You think it’s worth it? Fine!
And I am not swayed by the argument that meth, etc. increases crime and pollutes… because if it were legal, it’d be like buying beer, and it would neither cause people to steal my stereo nor pollute the neighborhood by making it (and you better believe if it were legal, that we’d totally have Bayer brand meth in every Walmart).
I could continue on with this vein… why do people want to tell other consenting adults who they can have relationships with and have sex with? why do people want to get all hot and bothered about what other people are wearing? why do I have to see 10 magazines at the news stand discussing the cellulite on the thighs of random celebrities?
There’s a lot of stuff in this world that I will say “no thanks” to… but that doesn’t mean it should be illegal. Same as I just want to be left alone with my own behavior and not listen to lectures about what I do and do not do.
So there it is… Ya’ll do whatever it is you want to do, and as long as it’s all involving consenting adults***, then I say “good on you”.
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*And by “you” I mean the generic you, not you personally, who happen to be reading this blog right at this moment. I’m not calling you a crack-head. (unless you are one).
** (I’m looking at you, Hummer drivers)
***No, I do not believe that people should be able to abuse children or animals or anything like that… personal behavior choices are just that – personal… you start screwing around with things that are not consenting adults and I think you should get whatever’s coming to you.
