My inner bastard
Introspection is a bitch. You can be walking along one day,.. and get onto a line of thinking,.. and just follow it right off a cliff. Or at least,.. I seem to have that metaphorical ability. For all of my thinking I don't really seem to get that far. At least I don't have to be a contestant on holly wood squares or listen to the most up to date subway commercials between chunks of entertainment, or pretend to like the taste of miller genuine draft.
Its a small consolation.
I am a clinical and antisocial bastard. The 'total' bastard if you will. I say swear words, I have a twitchy eye injury, I laugh about as loud and generally unpleasantly as my dogs make barking noises, I don't believe in the easter bunny, and its funny when the fat yuppie lady with larval clutches attendant falls down on ice in the parking lot when yelling at which ever one it was that needed yelling at. (that shit is funny to me, I cant help it) Its in every culture code to identify and expel bastards on general terms with righteous indignation and furious anger!
I go beyond 'total' bastard though.
I can deny myself these things. For the ease of movement in society when I am on the square's turf I don't draw attention to myself. I can say my pleases and my thank yous and my Sirrs and my ma'ams. (being from Tennessee it was required by law for a baptist to beat the proper pronunciation in me don't you know.) I can do these things,.. but I detest them as hollow contrivance.
Really,.. the bastard is strong with this one.
I don't really care what the person in front of me in a line translates last night's 8 o clock news to mean, I don't really believe in the smile a customer service representative gives me, I don't ever know what color of tie best brings out the color of the assistant manager's eyes. All that shit,.. doesn't really effect me as an individual and I know I sure as hell do not effect these things in a lasting or meaningful way.
In other words. Fuck 'em.
I'll smile. I will keep from stepping on any toes if I can manage it,.. but I will not invest a quantum of myself in thinking that other people are any different. I refuse to do the little dance. I should add that my sense of common politeness also includes things like,.. stopping to see if the guy that just slid off the ice road in front of me needs a cell phone and has a plan of what to do next. We are all animals made of meat sacks of mostly water. Not everyone realizes this, so being in a position to do a trivial courtesy that might be the difference between Darwin or the tow truck is part of the unwritten survival pact I think social animals should possess bare minimum.
Fuck 'em,.. but don't leave them to be eaten by moose, it's too horrible even for yuppies.
So while I feel I don't go out of my way to be a /dick/ (a whole other subspecies of social reprobate) It does set the context of what I like to think of as the rarefied 'true' bastard. If I value absolute truth with myself on how I see things I neither expect or give an ounce of care to anyone outside my range of interests all day long and then I sleep well at night. (I sleep well in a semi underground lair amid a pile of carnivores, any place else is sort of iffy) Even the things I think of as perhaps altruistic on the surface, is ultimately something I can identify as self serving. (when I feed my dogs cooked meals their enjoyment of it makes me feel good,.. without that reward of feeling good I don't think I would be driven to do it)
If you have to stop and think for more than five minutes to answer “Am I true bastard?” the answer is either yess,.. or 'see Sociopath the 'evil' bastards for more details'
Even the draw to self identify as a 'true' bastard itself is something that rewards me. When I look at myself in the mirror I do not see a hypocrite, the type of person I have a low and utter kind of contempt for. By accepting the substance of how I actually see things I feel I can make some progress at discovering who I really am more than who I would like to think of myself as (the process never being complete of course). It also makes me feel like I can be a /better/ person than I typically expect other people to be by that simple act of doing the bare minimum. Every time I stop to ask if everything is okay I always get this sort of look of surprise. Its always a kind of canned line but I like to leave off encounters where I did help by saying “We are all in this together."
The 'true' bastard always contemplates the second helping on theoretical grounds.
Always
If I had a 'true' bastard motto it would be that,.. “We are all in this together” Its one of those statements that is not inherently good or bad,.. its what you make o fit,.. and usually in a reflexive manner without thinking about it. Taken at the end of push starting a car its interpretable one way,.. looked at from the eye of a 'true' bastard it always has the subtext 'and you jackasses are broke down in troll country wtf is the matter with people! Get the hell off my lawn!'
(waves politely from the dog filled car and waves)
(teehee) yuppies
Whenever I am broke down I don't expect any one to stop and the only ones that ever would are the pilot cars for the arctic trucking crews. Don't get me wrong,.. I respect those guys. But I respect them only marginally more than the guy that pays them to do it or the weasel bastard that signed off on it /having/ to be their responsibility for legal CYA reasons. I know they are probably giggly at me later down at the hill top truck stop,.. but that's okay,.. If they have to stop on my account,.. I was probably doing something stupid and a chuckle doesn't have any of the tooth of frostbite.
The 'True' bastard cuts in both directions.
So,.. back to my initial point about introspection. I think a lot. It does not take me far in life in the way conventional success is often determined But it takes me weird places. Its not a source of as much pleasure as it is being realistic in the application of my limited time here on planet dirt. I don't really have any uplifting message or some throw back wisdom to share with you rare and few seekers or dreamers, I just don't want to have to keep up pretenses and have a handy public service announcement to point at as an explanation for the bizarre anti social behavior that people unexpectedly find themselves stumbling through from time to time in the loose vicinity of knowing me as a person.
I think everyone that has gotten to know me the least bit knows this.
Its a small consolation.
I am a clinical and antisocial bastard. The 'total' bastard if you will. I say swear words, I have a twitchy eye injury, I laugh about as loud and generally unpleasantly as my dogs make barking noises, I don't believe in the easter bunny, and its funny when the fat yuppie lady with larval clutches attendant falls down on ice in the parking lot when yelling at which ever one it was that needed yelling at. (that shit is funny to me, I cant help it) Its in every culture code to identify and expel bastards on general terms with righteous indignation and furious anger!
I go beyond 'total' bastard though.
I can deny myself these things. For the ease of movement in society when I am on the square's turf I don't draw attention to myself. I can say my pleases and my thank yous and my Sirrs and my ma'ams. (being from Tennessee it was required by law for a baptist to beat the proper pronunciation in me don't you know.) I can do these things,.. but I detest them as hollow contrivance.
Really,.. the bastard is strong with this one.
I don't really care what the person in front of me in a line translates last night's 8 o clock news to mean, I don't really believe in the smile a customer service representative gives me, I don't ever know what color of tie best brings out the color of the assistant manager's eyes. All that shit,.. doesn't really effect me as an individual and I know I sure as hell do not effect these things in a lasting or meaningful way.
In other words. Fuck 'em.
I'll smile. I will keep from stepping on any toes if I can manage it,.. but I will not invest a quantum of myself in thinking that other people are any different. I refuse to do the little dance. I should add that my sense of common politeness also includes things like,.. stopping to see if the guy that just slid off the ice road in front of me needs a cell phone and has a plan of what to do next. We are all animals made of meat sacks of mostly water. Not everyone realizes this, so being in a position to do a trivial courtesy that might be the difference between Darwin or the tow truck is part of the unwritten survival pact I think social animals should possess bare minimum.
Fuck 'em,.. but don't leave them to be eaten by moose, it's too horrible even for yuppies.
So while I feel I don't go out of my way to be a /dick/ (a whole other subspecies of social reprobate) It does set the context of what I like to think of as the rarefied 'true' bastard. If I value absolute truth with myself on how I see things I neither expect or give an ounce of care to anyone outside my range of interests all day long and then I sleep well at night. (I sleep well in a semi underground lair amid a pile of carnivores, any place else is sort of iffy) Even the things I think of as perhaps altruistic on the surface, is ultimately something I can identify as self serving. (when I feed my dogs cooked meals their enjoyment of it makes me feel good,.. without that reward of feeling good I don't think I would be driven to do it)
If you have to stop and think for more than five minutes to answer “Am I true bastard?” the answer is either yess,.. or 'see Sociopath the 'evil' bastards for more details'
Even the draw to self identify as a 'true' bastard itself is something that rewards me. When I look at myself in the mirror I do not see a hypocrite, the type of person I have a low and utter kind of contempt for. By accepting the substance of how I actually see things I feel I can make some progress at discovering who I really am more than who I would like to think of myself as (the process never being complete of course). It also makes me feel like I can be a /better/ person than I typically expect other people to be by that simple act of doing the bare minimum. Every time I stop to ask if everything is okay I always get this sort of look of surprise. Its always a kind of canned line but I like to leave off encounters where I did help by saying “We are all in this together."
The 'true' bastard always contemplates the second helping on theoretical grounds.
Always
If I had a 'true' bastard motto it would be that,.. “We are all in this together” Its one of those statements that is not inherently good or bad,.. its what you make o fit,.. and usually in a reflexive manner without thinking about it. Taken at the end of push starting a car its interpretable one way,.. looked at from the eye of a 'true' bastard it always has the subtext 'and you jackasses are broke down in troll country wtf is the matter with people! Get the hell off my lawn!'
(waves politely from the dog filled car and waves)
(teehee) yuppies
Whenever I am broke down I don't expect any one to stop and the only ones that ever would are the pilot cars for the arctic trucking crews. Don't get me wrong,.. I respect those guys. But I respect them only marginally more than the guy that pays them to do it or the weasel bastard that signed off on it /having/ to be their responsibility for legal CYA reasons. I know they are probably giggly at me later down at the hill top truck stop,.. but that's okay,.. If they have to stop on my account,.. I was probably doing something stupid and a chuckle doesn't have any of the tooth of frostbite.
The 'True' bastard cuts in both directions.
So,.. back to my initial point about introspection. I think a lot. It does not take me far in life in the way conventional success is often determined But it takes me weird places. Its not a source of as much pleasure as it is being realistic in the application of my limited time here on planet dirt. I don't really have any uplifting message or some throw back wisdom to share with you rare and few seekers or dreamers, I just don't want to have to keep up pretenses and have a handy public service announcement to point at as an explanation for the bizarre anti social behavior that people unexpectedly find themselves stumbling through from time to time in the loose vicinity of knowing me as a person.
I think everyone that has gotten to know me the least bit knows this.