Don't reserve your best behavior for special occasions. You can't have two sets of manners, two social codes - one for those you admire and want to impress, another for those whom you consider unimportant. You must be the same to all people.
-- Lillian Eichler Watson
Interesting idea. I'm sure some will react like "so I should be as pleasant to the bag boy at the supermarket as to the mayor? Yeah, right."
The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds.
-- Tryon Edwards
Aha. That might explain why I have a lousy memory for numbers and a great one for music and pictures and literature. Numbers just don't interest me.
11 comments:
Interesting idea. I'm sure some will react like "so I should be as pleasant to the bag boy at the supermarket as to the mayor? Yeah, right."
We should probably be even more pleasant to the bag boy and the cashier, because we're going to see them a lot more often than the mayor.
How often do we meet the mayor? Like never, maybe.
I'm surprised that anyone considers that an interesting idea rather than an obvious maxim for living.
I'll be very nice to the bag boy, and I'll avoid the mayor like the diseased rodent he (or she) is.
Aha. That might explain why I have a lousy memory for numbers and a great one for music and pictures and literature. Numbers just don't interest me.
You don't appear to have a great memory for those things either.
I'll be very nice to the bag boy, and I'll avoid the mayor like the diseased rodent he (or she) is.
Ah, Kent, thank you. Where would we be without moronic nonsense like this? I've read your articles, you are fucked in the head. A dude like you should have had his balls cut off. I can't believe you've been allowed to pollute the gene pool.
Yep, it's "moronic nonsense" to know that a person should be left alone to live their life as they see fit as long as they are harming no innocent person, and to recognize that government at all levels is built from its very foundation on theft and murder, and can't even exist without harming innocent people.
Only an idiot like you, combining great idiocy with an ignorance of human nature, could possibly think that would work.
Keep fighting the fight by jaywalking and parking in handicap parking spaces.
I do neither, oh brave Anomymous. I don't "jaywalk" because where I live there is no such "crime". I don't park in handicap spaces because I care about people and I know I would want a close space if I were handicapped. I have no need to park close to the door. It wouldn't matter whether there were a "law" about it or not. Government is evil and irrelevent.
I know for an absolute certain fact that "my way" does work, in real life, among real people. In fact it is the only thing that does work. At least, without becoming a parasite on humanity, looking to take what you want from anyone you can harm without consequences. But thanks for letting us know how you live.
"How often do we meet the mayor? Like never, maybe."
Also, let's be honest, how many mayors are more helpful to you than the bag boy and the cashier? :-P
Not that I'd take Kent's position as a universal principle for treating ALL mayors. :-)
Besides, I used to dream of becoming a veterinarian for ickle wabbits and hamsters!
Anon #1 has a point there: it should be obvious to anybody with some basic wisdom.
Look at Chinese movies and other Asian/kung-fu films: I bet much of their multi-standards behavior, ranging from abject kowtowing to mercilessly humiliating the more humble, is aimed at comic effect. Would explain why you see it even more enhanced in Animé and manga.
It also contrasts acutely with some very typical "Oriental wisdom"... So I'd say it's a mix of farce and social satire.
"Yep, it's "moronic nonsense" to know that a person should be left alone to live their life as they see fit as long as they are harming no innocent person"
You said it! :-)
Have you read what I commented recently somewhere about lebanese shatara? Many Lebanese would indeed consider anyone who's not a bully slaver at any given chance, to be an "obvious moron".
"What? You're not taking advantage of the situation? Man, I can't BELIEVE how dumb you are!"
How many times have I heard that line...
Oddly enough, I tend to be both aware and proud of my being "such a moron". To each his own, eh? ;-)
"Keep [...] parking in handicap parking spaces."
(sigh) That's a shatara that I shall forever be denied.
We don't HAVE handicap parking spaces in Lebanon.
Besides, everybody knows that to even FIND a parking space anywhere, you've got to eat wolves for breakfast. Baby wolves. In front of their mother. Then you eat the mouth-foaming mother. Now THAT's manliness. Also "having been nursed on the milk of lions" is usually recommended.
OK, so we tend to lack wolves and lions in Lebanon too, and we usually have to content with a dog-eat-dog world.
BTW, "jaywalking"? I thought his name was Kent, not Jay. ('Sides, everybody who's anybody knows that Jay Garrick is the Flash. So his only traveling speed is "jayrunning". Or eventually flying, like a jay bird.)
Hmmm... "like a jaybird". Maybe THAT's why that old wrinkled streaker is always running!
"I know for an absolute certain fact that "my way" does work, in real life, among real people. In fact it is the only thing that does work."
It's called having civic manners.
Then again, call it as you wish. Have it "your way"! ;-)
"I don't "jaywalk" because where I live there is no such "crime"."
What about streaking? Is it legal?
Tarnation. That would take all the fun out of it!
I've never quite gotten the honest legitimacy of punishing "jaywalking" in its official definition. I mean, if I'm visiting a town where I don't have a house of my own (let's assume I'm staying at the local motel for the night, or sleeping in my winnebago) and I want to take a leisurely stroll, "wandering aimlessly" for the pleasure of it, doesn't this qualify as grounds for being arrested?
Then again... in many american films/series, it does! Until the hero comes a-gunning all representatives of the bullying pseudo-"Government".
A hero that sometimes looks like Kent McManigal. Oddly enough. Tall, bearded, stetson, and a pretty rifle. Kind-mannered but tuff-talkin' and ready to stand for himself.
Howsabout it, Kent? Remember: at the end, you get the hot girl!
(OK, maybe not so hot in Lebanon, but we'll give you our village's prettiest hairy-lipped female biped. I solemnly swear with my hand on my mustache!)
"How often do we meet the mayor? Like never, maybe."
We could use another example: your junior at work and your senior.
In the case of work, your junior and your senior should be treated the same. Unless and until one or the other starts making unreasonable demands or dealing with you in a dishonest way. Their status doesn't automatically determine how they will treat you or how "important" they are to you.
"We could use another example: your junior at work and your senior."
Eolake, that's not very Lebanese!!!
I still remember fondly the day my senior internship Chief Resident behaved most dishonestly with me, and it was just too blatant, so I "passed him a soap washing", as they say in French: I put my foot down and gave him a major scolding. He was simply stiff silly with stupor! (Say it 5 times fast. Then imagine giving your cat a bath and decidedly rubbing the shampoo: that's about the picture.) All his subordinate Residents outside could hear every word of it. I didn't exactly whisper. :-)
Oh, yes, it felt good. Not the being in dominant position or anything. Just the courage to be completely honest, no matter with whom. To shatter a taboo with a sledge hammer... without damaging the floor around. :-)
Few things in this world feel more fulfilling than to be true to yourself, while at the same time being true and fair with others. "I let him go with a warning this time", but he never did it again.
Anybody who remotely knows me is aware that I might on occasion be cautious (some people can be downright dangerous in this country), but otherwise I discriminate nobody. WYSIWYG with me.
"Thank you for saving me, Black Canary!
- Oh, it's nothing. I would do the same for anybody: a perfect stranger, a stray puppy, even a politician... really anybody!"
(Genuine quote from a Green Lantern comic.)
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