yes sir...i mean ma'am

I have conceded to the fact that I will be called "he" for the next five months. At first it bothered me a little bit, but I've slowly gotten used to it. Now, I look forward to the winter months and the looks on people's faces as they try to determine if I am a twelve year old boy or something else.

 

Last year, the gym at school closed for a month around the Christmas holiday. I decided to get a trial membership at Bally's (yuck) during that time.

 

One day, on my way to the gym...

 

I was all geared up and on the road. I pulled off at Exit 28 (yes, I live in Jersey) and proceed up the ramp. At this time I noticed two things, first, the car in front of me was going about 3 miles per hour and second, the vehicle behind me was about to be in my trunk. I took a peek in my rear view and saw an Escalade, most definitely rollin' on twenties with tinted windows. The driver was an irate man.

 

The three car procession followed up the ramp, where it split. The slow car went left. I went right and the Escalade came up the shoulder to pass me. As he did this, we made eye contact and I flipped him off. Yup. He didn't particularly take a liking to this. He put down his window and asked me if I "wanted go." I thought to myself "Do I wanna go?" All I could do was laugh, but apparently he was serious and becoming increasingly irritated my decision to laugh. He followed me to the next traffic light. When we stopped I took off my winter hat, at which point he realized that I was a woman. The light changed and he turned around.

 

That was fun.

dispensable

Last month the dishwasher in one of my rental units broke. I thought about my options: pay someone to come out to look at it and potentially fix it OR just buy a new one. Dishwashers only cost about $250 so it made more sense to just buy a new one rather than have the old one fixed.

We have become a throw away society. Rather than try to fix something old that is broken we just go out and get one that is new and "better."

I would even go so far as to say that this throw away mentality has had a trickle down effect, to the point where we now see people as dispensable.

I thought about some of the ramifications of that statement: People have become increasingly unwilling to work on relationships and less tolerant of others. Many of the sick and elderly have been deemed unworthy and cast aside.

There is a philosopher by the name of John Rawls. He introduced a concept called the "veil of ignorance."

Parties behind the veil of ignorance are constrained so that their decisions will be fair ones: everyone's interests are represented and the decision cannot be biased in anyone's favor.

The veil of ignorance prevents people from knowing anything about their own situation in society. They are unaware of the talents and abilities, ethnicity and gender, religion or belief system of the citizens they represent. The idea is that this will end up designing a society that will be fair to everyone because they don't want to risk ending up in an intolerable position.

Maybe ignorance isn't such a bad thing after all.

balance

I woke up a few weekends ago after a night of intense partying and realized that something needed to change. This word had been stuck in my head for a few months now and I was desperately trying to do something with it.

Moments like these serve as a reminder of the importance of having balance in your life, of investing your time and energy into things that make you happy, things that are healthy not only physically, but emotionally as well. People tend to forget about this somewhere in between working 60 hour weeks, abusing their bodies, staying in unhealthy situations because they think people will change, because they feel trapped, because they feel like this is as good as it gets.

There is a recurring theme in my life, that I tend to over extend myself to people who don't appreciate it and it lends itself to friendships that become one sided. I am not sure what quality it is within me that seeks these types of bonds or if it is with any intent at all. Maybe I feel as though I can conquer these people. Maybe I think that if I show them just enough love or attention or whatever that they will reciprocate.

So yeah, I guess what I'm saying is that I am going to try to make some better decisions in the future regarding the people and activities I invest myself into.

"I live every day like there'll never be a last one 'til they're gone and they're gone, oh but I'm too proud to beg for your attention and your friendship and your time, so you can come and get it from now on."

- Brandi Carlile

Commentary by someone who shall remain nameless:

In response to this extract, I 110% agree with you and I feel the exact same way. There's really nothing to add to that cause I think you pretty much covered it all. But if I had to add just one thing it would be that all this comes with a sense of maturity. Only when someone is mature enough to stop their life for a moment, step out, and view it as an outside perspective, are they able to analyze their life or situation and apply something as abstract as balance into the equation. You never see younger people being able to do something like that. And that's not a bad thing; they just aren't ready or able to do so yet. They're the type that is very self-centered and tunnel visioned and cannot mentally visualize stepping back out of all that and seeing what's really there. It kinda goes back to my whole argument on people's innate ability to see what they want to see. That's all I have to add. You did a very good job cutting it to a tee. Bravo.