Sunday, May 16, 2010

Cutting in line

I saw Nora Jones in concert last night at Cobb Energy Center. She has the voice of an angel -- a very sultry angel. During her performance, I was transfixed. Outside of that ...

... I usually dread such ventures into the public, such as going to the movie theater, because of the callous rudeness one almost always experiences while being around hoi polloi. The vast majority of the 6.7 billion people on the Earth have low self respect and, therefore, proportional disrespect for others and others' rights and space. They all have their own ways of acting out this disrespect.

And so, back to the Nora concert. Before I could even get to the parking garage, some hair-feathered 30-something guy with his trophy girlfriend passes up the long line of traffic waiting to enter the theater parking lot next to the garage. The pathetic fellow picked me, of all people, to break in line in front of, with his girlfriend flashing me her winning, oh-please smile.

As I and other drivers saw barbarian coming, we all closed the distance between each others' bumpers, furious that we'd followed civil rules and that he was brazenly believing he was a notable exception. As he tried to force his sports car into the space in front of me, our bumpers came within a few inches of each other and we stared each other down with me mouthing "fuck you" to him and his pretty trophy.

He shook his head indignantly (Ha!) and backed away from the standoff, but the car behind me relented and let him in. As I stared at him in the review mirror, practically begging him to get out of his car and take a fucking beating that he deserved, his girlfriend shot the finger at me. He didn't get out of the car, and he found a parking space far away from me, even though he had a chance to pull up next to me.

These "special" people are cowards, and they are the reason I attend fewer concerts and movie theaters nowadays. Some of his breed also sat behind me and other nice people in the theater. The lady directly behind me decided to sandpaper her nails during the opening act. The lady next to me and I shot her looks to no avail, and just as I was about to turn around and say something, she evidently finished her 10 finger and stopped.

She and her "special" entourage also chatted through the opening act. I'd decided that if they continued even for one minute during Nora's performance that I'd stand up and shout them down and let it go wherever it might go. They were quiet, and my blood finally cooled about five minutes into lovely Nora's performance.

During the opening act, also, a line of eight people arriving fashionably late stood in front of their seats in the row in front of me trying to figure out whose seats were whose with their mobile phones lighting up the seat numbers. This went on for about three minutes. Meanwhile, I and 7 people next to me could not see the opening act and could not listen to the music because of our fury at the insensitivity.

Who are these people -- these drones who populate our world, believe they have special status, ignore the rights of others, disregard civility, attempt to harass civil people, and blithely interfere with others' joy while intoxicating themselves in their own narcissism?

To quote Doc Holliday, they have a great big hole, right in the middle of 'em. They are not people, not anymore. They are lower animals who've abandoned rationality, abandoned personal responsibility. They are subconsciously furious at themselves for their mental treason, and they reek the havoc that is their inner turmoil upon any who come near, in an attempt to make the lives of their victims as wretched as their own.

Instead of the self-esteem of a well-lived life, they have the vacuum-soul that attempts to mitigate its suffering by imposing suffering on others or attempts to falsely inflate its worth and walk the land like a king who imposes his special treatment upon others, becoming indignant when others don't honor the king as expected.

Some people ask why I spend so much time around my Objectivist friends. The above is my answer. Though most Objectivists haven't quite yet become perfectly moral and cleaned up their psychologies, they are, by and large, very respectful of each others' lives and space. I don't usually have to worry about the lashing out or the presumption of kingship. I can have conversation, have good laughs, have congeniality, have mature relationships, have a mutual respect for life, liberty, civility and friendship.

They don't have a big whole inside.

Here's to my friends!

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