Cripple Chronicles: Issue 8, Cripple Calculations
The issues of importance, relevance, and practicality damn near haunt me. You see, if I'm doing something that may be a waste of time, it's likely that I'm wasting someone else's time as well as mine, and that's like twice as bad. For this, I measure everything; even abstracts can be encapsulated to some degree. With this, equality is entirely abstract, and pretty much thrown out the metaphysical window in my head. I joke about being an elitist, though the truth in it pertains to seeing our individual strengths and weaknesses. Cripples are really the ultimate proof that equality is only a conceptual ideal.
Who's time is mine more valuable than? When do my wants become needs? For the most part, I let others determine these things indirectly. The most compassionate and effective method of measure I've managed is to constantly gauge the willingness of those that help me, to help me. They tell me in an array of ways, but mostly in tones and/or groans of acknowledgement, the amount of time between when I ask and when they start to do what I asked, and how many times I, or someone else, has to remind them of what I asked. This doesn't mean that I expect people to hop up, smile, and jump on my every request, but that I have to pay attention to these things; the general willingness of a person to help me in relation to the rest of the people in the room willing to help me, weighed against the relative importance of my request determines if and who I ask for help. It would be ridiculous of me to assume, or even be convinced, that just because someone is okay with helping me get a drink means that they can deal with helping me do everything all the time; I have to spread myself out.
Thoughts of this nature are especially confusing and necessary when it comes to the possible affections of a pretty girl. It's quite natural to feel an urge to help those that you're attracted to, so is she just being nice to a helpless cripple, or does she want to ride me like a mechanical bull? Who fuckin' knows? What it boils down to, though, is that I will impose myself on females less in an effort to reduce the amount of the shit I have to pretend to decipher that they do and say to me.
No one is my equal, and everyone sits on a scale. Aww shit, it's time for another rap...
I can't climb a tree,
but I know the root of three.
You can throw a rock,
and I know its trajectory.
We're not the same
and it's not lame,
but it's insane and inane
to blame the perfectly sane
for what they never had to gain.
Like a girly curse, it's a dame shame.
Run faster, jump higher,
or calculate who to hire.
You don't have to be the best,
but don't be the rest.
It's time to drop the excuses
where everyone loses,
'cause when it comes to equality,
that shit's below me.
Who's time is mine more valuable than? When do my wants become needs? For the most part, I let others determine these things indirectly. The most compassionate and effective method of measure I've managed is to constantly gauge the willingness of those that help me, to help me. They tell me in an array of ways, but mostly in tones and/or groans of acknowledgement, the amount of time between when I ask and when they start to do what I asked, and how many times I, or someone else, has to remind them of what I asked. This doesn't mean that I expect people to hop up, smile, and jump on my every request, but that I have to pay attention to these things; the general willingness of a person to help me in relation to the rest of the people in the room willing to help me, weighed against the relative importance of my request determines if and who I ask for help. It would be ridiculous of me to assume, or even be convinced, that just because someone is okay with helping me get a drink means that they can deal with helping me do everything all the time; I have to spread myself out.
Thoughts of this nature are especially confusing and necessary when it comes to the possible affections of a pretty girl. It's quite natural to feel an urge to help those that you're attracted to, so is she just being nice to a helpless cripple, or does she want to ride me like a mechanical bull? Who fuckin' knows? What it boils down to, though, is that I will impose myself on females less in an effort to reduce the amount of the shit I have to pretend to decipher that they do and say to me.
No one is my equal, and everyone sits on a scale. Aww shit, it's time for another rap...
I can't climb a tree,
but I know the root of three.
You can throw a rock,
and I know its trajectory.
We're not the same
and it's not lame,
but it's insane and inane
to blame the perfectly sane
for what they never had to gain.
Like a girly curse, it's a dame shame.
Run faster, jump higher,
or calculate who to hire.
You don't have to be the best,
but don't be the rest.
It's time to drop the excuses
where everyone loses,
'cause when it comes to equality,
that shit's below me.