I am trying to be a good deal less misanthropic, not with a great deal of success. Fortunately, I do have some grounds for hope. My neighbors are just plain old lovely. As are my friends. But driving around during the last two weeks makes me wonder if Darwin expected to be proven right quickly with the rapid demise of my species. Really.
Like the people who can't clear snow off the top of their cars and then drive rapidly and erratically, like the people behind you won't be affected by 60 pounds of snow falling onto their windshieds.
Like the people who are still marking their parking spaces, five days out. Tacky. Yes, you, I, and everyone else shovelled their cars out. It wasn't just for our own benefit. I think the whole marking your parking space thing is so Southie (I'll say no more), but even in the Northeast, the general understanding is that the "saved" space is saved for 24-48 hours. No more. And in my neighborhood, the people who are religiously marking their spots are the ones who borrowed shovels but didn't help neighbors dig out. The couple who helped me and six or seven other people? They aren't marking their spot.
But that's the problem with a post like this. Focusing on the problem brings up the negativity that won't help solve the problem. The problem is people acting like they aren't part of the social compact isn't a problem that can be fixed my ostracizing people or looking down on them. The only way to get people to chip in and carry their weight is to be a good example and praise any and all good behavior one sees. That's why the first few paragraphs of this post and all of my previous post are attitudes I need to eschew. Eschew, eschew, eschew.
Me feeling self-righteous and superior does nothing, and honestly, I know I have plenty of behaviors that would inspire someone else to self-righteousness and superiority with regard to me. No one has ever read another persons list of pet peeves and thought "No! I'll never do that again." They read them and think: "Aw, get a fucking grip." So, lets focus on my many great neighbors, not the nitwits. Nonetheless, markers in "your" parking space five days after the snow? Don't expect others to honor them.
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3 comments:
We're in a particularly partisan age, no? I wonder if it has to do with the spread of internet culture, and the "keyboard courage" that comes with anonymity. We see people every single day writing things online that they would never say in person to someone else. I do it myself all the time, railing against this or that in politics but rarely venting the same vitriol with the people among whom I work (and who espouse the very convictions I despise). Is it venting? Or keyboard courage? Or something else?
I applaud you trying to seek out the better angels of your (and our) nature. But you're not wrong to keep a watchful eye on those who would take more than they give.
Stuff to think about.
You know what i'd do? I'd move those markers away from the parking spot.
Then again i am evil!
Wunelle: Well, since I wrote that, I haven't written another thing, which tells you something about the attractiveness of negativity, no?
Cookie: Oh yeah.
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