OH POOR BABY! A GENTLY REASSURING ESSAY

While typing a comment underneath a posting in a pipe tobacco forum, a thought came to mind: "you have to coddle your tobacco before it can coddle you". To many pipesmokers this will seem quite axiomatic, while for addicts of foul aromatic mixtures and most non-smokers it will be baffling.
Pot smokers, of course, either understand it as a zen-like gestalt, or go 'huh' before drooling melted icecream into their beards and forgetting what was just said.

["It's all about good karma, man, and the Grateful Dead."]

No, the pot didn't make them do that, they were like that to begin with. Pot appeals to people with no greater talent than being self-impressed dingbats. It releases their inner fool.


In real life, though, the same principle often holds. Jobs and relationships benefit from being treated properly, and will be more rewarding in consequence.

I'm fairly certain that spouse-abusers and people who constantly whine about their work lead rather unsatisfying lives, and neither their loved ones nor their employers look upon them with any great favour.

And sometimes they'll blame everything on that dang computer.

[BTW: this is a metaphor. But not a very loose one.]


I learned years ago not to vent about too many things, because helpful friends would then always jump in with suggestions about how I should take charge. The purpose of venting, they failed to realize, was NOT a demand for change, but a steam off-letting. Insofar as I took their irritating advice to heart, I learned how to ignore the steam. Do not give people an opening to tell you how you could do everything better.
It will not build-up inside, that's often a load of bollocks.
No, there is no delayed expression of "trauma".
Pop-psychology doesn't work here.
I am perfectly fine.

Years ago a friend -- someone whom I choose not to ever see again, because she's a self-absorbed drip with a law degree -- was whining about how something made her feel. Oh, it was terrible! She was hurt! While everyone else present made soft gentle soothing sounds, I put some extra preserves and butter on a hot toasty bagel, and wondered if her cats were as unimpressed as I was.

Encouraging her to vent simply made the problem worse. It acquired a life of its own, and subsequently at every meeting she brought it up, no matter how irrelevant the context. She let it fester, and revelled in her sense of injustice. All the rest of us got to hear about her, from her.
It became one of those defining factors.
A familiar signature quirk.


AFTER A WHILE, NO ONE CARES

The realistic approach would have been to face the subject, recognize what it represented, admit a certain level of co-stupidity, and move on.
Did I mention "self-absorbed drip with a law degree"?
It's fundamental to the discourse here.
Describes her perfectly.

Many fairly intelligent people cannot understand that while it's all about them to themselves, it isn't to anyone else. And lawyers are often too intellectually pushy and narrow-minded (a skillset which led them to law) to acknowledge or even respect other people's boundaries and realities.
Plus many of them like the sound of their own voice.
They cannot understand why we don't.
Maybe we're stupid?


In mittn drinnen, if you are wondering why I was using melted butter and preserves on a toasted bagel, it was because there was NO smoked salmon or whitefish. She was a vegetarian, and refused to have ANY animal protein in the house. If you even mentioned it, you would get a long lecture about how as a modern liberated soulful lesbian she would not tolerate the murder of another being, it went against everything that she stood for and represented the cruelty and oppression of stupid male meat-eaters and obedience to the diktats of society. She felt healthy and pure since she stopped eating meat, and everyone should follow suit.
Put meat out of your mind. Think tofu. Only tofu.

She fed her cats non-meat canned food.
There were no neighborhood birds.
Probably no mice either.


Don't let what you dislike define you. Be realistic and flexible, acknowledge that there is more than one way to skin the cat.
Allow yourself to be entertained.
Eat meat occasionally.
And coddle.


If you cannot enjoy the happy tweet of songbirds, eat them.
You need the protein, you're looking wan.
Delicious juicy meat!

[BTW: this is a metaphor. But not a very loose one.]


Feel free to share things that made you happy in the comments; I enjoy hearing about stuff like that.


You must step away from the marijuana and silly vegetarians, little bunny rabbit, and come to the meat.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================