בשוק סמייא צווחין לעווירא סגי נהור

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

(This post's name is a similar, early phrase, meaning, "In the street of the blind, the one-eyed man is called the Guiding Light".)

I'm sure we all know what this means. Even as we recognize it as ableist, we recognize the truth of the gist of the saying.

Things are relative. I am tall relative to some standard (my basketball team, or my peer group, or the Lollipop Guild). There are objective standards, but even those have built-in assumptions. I am tall relative to the average population of humans, for example.

Personally, I think that we have evolved to normalize. We don't get too happy when things go well, because the earlier human-ish folks who thought everything was going well were more likely to get wiped out by the early frost or the tribe in the other valley that wasn't hungry but was sure as fuck not going to get wiped out by the early frost.

So, within limits, we acclimate to what our condition is. We generally are cool with moving at any speed--it's the acceleration that gets us. Of course, as you move closer to the speed of light, even a constant rate of motion becomes an issue as subatomic particles might mess up your body (I can't find a link; trust me).

This explains (to my basic monkey brain) why someone who hits the lottery can be unhappy. Or why someone who has almost nothing in her life can find joy in a sunrise. We get used to stuff, and we find pleasure and displeasure in different things.

My life is pretty cushy. I have a great, healthy family that is close to me (emotionally, if not geographically). I have reasonably good health, hair, teeth, shoes, and vocabulary. My bed is comfortable and my friends are fun and my cats are snuggly.

Life is good.

But, because my brain is telling me that I don't want to be wiped out by the early frost, I get irked by things. Even as I recognize my frustration over these things, I am able to see that these problems aren't a big deal. That helps me keep an even keel in the intermediate (and, I hope, long-) run, but I still feel a flash of irritation at them. And I'm still going to blog about them.

Here, then, are some the "one-eyed men" of problems in my "land of the blind" good life.

Unfortunately, I can experience all three of these on one commute home from work.

Umbrella/Overhang 

I live in Seattle. Seattle has rain. Being rained on generally sucks.

Much of downtown Seattle has overhangs where folks can walk along the sidewalk without being drenched.

Some folks here also have umbrellas. Which I get. I don't use them, but I don't have hair that I can't get wet. And I'm not a pussy (cat).

The source of my irritation is when folks with umbrellas don't pay attention. Don't pay attention to the overhang. Don't pay attention to other folks, like, me, without an umbrella.

This is a life-like computer-generated simulation of how this situation should work:

See how nice that is? You can see the smiles on both of their faces as the water, ever the destroyer of happiness, is foiled in its efforts to make them miserable.

Unfortunately, this sort of commonsense heaven on earth doesn't occur to everyone. Instead, we get this:

Stupid people (I know "stupid" is ableist--I'm sorry) keep their umbrellas up, walk under the overhang, and force me (at risk of getting my eyeballs poked out) to edge out, under both the rain AND the overhang drip.

That. Annoys. Me.

Waiting at the Bus

I like order. I like being in a line and making steady (even if slow) progress towards my goal. Whether it's at the grocery store or waiting for a restroom or a drink or a prostitute, I don't want to feel like I'm getting skipped over.

In certain situations, a strict line is just not realistic. Which is fine. I don't require a line. But when a line exists, I want people to play by the rules.

Whenever the bus pulls up at a busy stop, there is some uncertainty. The buses often pull up to slightly different spots, so there's no clear "perfect" spot to wait (trust me; I've tried to find it). Additionally, buses allow riders off before the folks waiting can get on, so there's always a bit of swirl.

With that being said, order usually asserts itself to a certain degree. People wait, people exit, and people then start to sort themselves.

Often into (yay!) a line. Or lines.

If there are multiple lines, the zipper merge method should be used. One person from line A, one person from line B, one person from line X, another from line A, another from line B, etc.

It's very simple and people should do it.

I get, though, that some people are incapable of understanding this logic and/or inconsiderate. So I don't expect the zipper merge to be perfect.

What I do expect, though, is for people to not come from outside any of the lines and start to walk right up to the door. It drives me nuts, and I do my best to obstruct people who do that. I recognize that they have their own stuff going on, but they can wait in line like everyone else (to be slightly more fair, I do a quick scan of the person... if it's someone who obviously needs to sit down more quickly, then I will get out of the way; if it's some dude who's obviously just stolen five collared shirts from Ross, I'm not going to let him get around me unless I fear he'll stab me if I don't).

I like order. Adults who act worse than first graders in terms of waiting in line really tick me off.

Backpacks on the Bus

People are different sizes. Heck, I'm a different size than I was a year ago. I respect personal space, and if someone is a bit bigger, then I am going to do my best to give them their space.

This is not a rant against heavy/bulky people on the bus. This is a rant against this:

Actually, it's even more specific than that. It's when fuckers wear them like that on a crowded bus.

Few of us know that someone is standing right behind us but then choose to pivot into that person... we have a sense of how much space we take up, and (in the interest of everyone's safety and sanity) we avoid unnecessary collisions.

That is... unless you're one of those fuckers that wear a backpack on a crowded bus.

I'm not the first person to complain about backpacks on public transportation. I even saw a sign on the bus (which I took a pic of, but it has been lost in the massive amount of photos on my phone), asking folks to place their backpacks near their feet to reduce the assholedry (my word).

Gawker has this nice summation:

You think you are out of other people's way, but your backpack is still in other people's way. This is profoundly annoying to other people. 

Get your backpack out of everyone else's way.

It's obvious, and that it is SO obvious makes it all the more annoying that so few people actually do it.

Grrr.

FOMO? More like GINT (or, "The Grumpy Old Man Post")

FOMO is a noun. It is fear of missing out. It means, according to Urban Dictionary (sort of a modern France's Académie for American English these days) as:

A form of social anxiety - a compulsive concern that one might miss an opportunity or satisfying event, often aroused by posts seen on social media websites.

I never, never get FOMO.

(What, never?)

No, never.

(What, NEVER?)

Well... hardly ever.

(He hardly ever gets FOMO!)

Whether it's because I'm extremely confident in who I am as a person, because I am extremely egocentric, and/or because I quote Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics while I'm writing a blog, I almost never see pictures on social media and think, "Dang, I wish I had been there".

Instead, I noticed last night that, instead, I more often experience GINT.

Glad I'm not there.

Which is funny, perhaps, because lots of research and opinions indicate that people often curate and distort real life when they post on social media, which causes envy amongst many of us who see it. It causes FOMO, in other words.

But me? It causes GINT. Even if I am happy that the people appear to be having fun, I usually am happy that I'm wherever I am when I'm seeing them having fun.

As I thought about the notion of GINT, I wondered what, specifically, I feel that over and I came up with a few things.

Boat Parties

I don't know these people

Listen, bikinis are great, especially when a woman is wearing one. I'm all in favor of drinking and having a good time and having adventures and doing group activities.

When I see pictures of what I'm referring to in this post as "boat parties", it is usually women in bikinis with big smiles on their faces (and often big sunglasses, of which I am also a fan) enjoying the sunshine and/or an adult beverage.

This should, given my predilections, cause me FOMO. Instead, it causes me GINT. I remember that I don't like being in the sunshine that much. I remember the times where random women have asked me if I have a boat. I remember the times where guys who do have a boat used it as a carrot to attract women.

I totally acknowledge that boats can be fun. I recognize that my friends aren't just using, in the case of men, their boat to lure women and, in the case of women, the men to get their boat. Or maybe they are and it's not malicious.

Or maybe it's malicious. I don't know. I just know I am glad I'm not there.

Burning Man

Listen: I am what I like to think of as "Burning Man Adjacent". I attend fundraisers for Burning Man camps. I have attended a decompression or two. I have literally dozens of friends or friendly acquaintances that have attended Burning Man (it's a low number of dozens, but still...)

I admire so much about it. The creativity and the openness and the sense of community and the women wearing little clothing.

So much good stuff.

I don't know these people

But I don't like getting dusty. I don't like big crowds. I don't do drugs (other than booze and the occasional caffeine-rich soda pop). I don't like the idea that if I'm not having a good time I can't just disappear, whether to my home or to a hotel room or whatever.

My friends post beautiful pictures of their time at Burning Man. I'm not sure that they capture being on the Playa--in fact, I'm quite sure they don't--and I can't discount the possibility that I will go som day. But I look at the posts and the pictures and I don't feel any sense of missing out or longing to be there--I feel GINT and pleasure that I can't get Playa foot in my living room.

Twitter

I'm pretty active on social media, and I have expectations for each of the primary platforms:

• Instagram: Inspirational quotes, food, and female butts.
• Facebook: Baby pictures, political nonsense, memes.
• Snapchat: First-person driving videos with music on the radio, pot smoking.
• TikTok: Hypersexualized under-age girls lip-syncing songs I've never heard.
• Twitter: Angry blow-hard opinions, racism/anti-semitism, SJW nonsense.

(With TikTok [at the time, Musical.ly] it took me about an hour before I determined it wasn't for me and uninstalled it. Enough said about that.)

I really don't like this

I limit my time on Twitter almost as severely. I really, really don't like it.

I've maintained an account since 2007 (although I rarely post), and while I acknowledge its importance to some folks, I believe it's one of the worst things to bubble out of the Internet. 

I don't like how the artificially low number of characters allowed (originally so you could text in a post) change how people spell and form thoughts. I don't like how certain users are deemed to be "blue check-worthy". I don't like, you know, the racism and anti-semitism and group think and tribalism and stupidity and rage.

Soooooo... while it's not a specific type of social media content, whenever I hear people talking about Twitter arguments (which is almost always the case, since Twitter exchanges are usually either yelling at someone or agreeing to dogpile on someone) I nod and feel a strong sense of GINT.