The public’s love affair with Pope Francis continues. Just today he uttered the, quite possibly, the most obvious sentence I have ever heard and believers are all aflutter. Here’s the quote; “Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church’s credibility. Those who listen to us and observe us must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips, and so give glory to God!”
The Catholic Church has been pulling the old, ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ routine for so long now that many people no longer take them seriously. He may be winning back some hearts and minds with statements like the above, but for how long? The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. My guess is that the pudding will be about as real as the invisible man they worship.
Misplaced pride has been a disturbing trend of late where people take the most objectionable part of their personality and claim it as a source of personal pride. Yes, some people are shouting their misplaced pride to the ends of the earth. This type of pride comes in a multitude of forms.
There’s the proud racist.
The white pride idiots exist all over North America (yes, in Canada too). They are too stupid to realize that the reason they don’t have that high paying job they are always accusing foreigners of stealing from them, is that they never bothered to educate themselves beyond the absolute minimum. They are also too lazy to lift a finger to help themselves, because that would be like admitting that the finger they did bother to lift… the finger of blame was a colossal waste of time. The last thing these folks want is to have to go out and actually work. They consider it a full-time job to blame those darned foreigners for taking their jobs, their women, their hopes and their dreams. Not to mention all of the effort it takes to indoctrinate their many children that they cannot support with as much hate and scapegoating as possible.
Next up is fat pride.
Now I am all for women eschewing the media’s ideal of the stick woman as sexy and beautiful, but there are those who take it way too far. Morbidly obese women talking about how sexy they are with all that ass. Oh yes, diabetes and heart disease are so sexy. What these women don’t realize is that when (not if, but when) they get sick and need medical care, it’s the rest of us that have to pay for it. Even in a country with Universal Healthcare, the taxpayers are the ones to foot the bill. The more people who get sick, the higher the taxes get. Personally, I would rather my tax dollars go to kids with leukemia over the morbidly obese any day of the week. Being morbidly obese and proud is like flipping the bird to the rest of society. This is an issue you cancontrol. There is a billion dollar industry in place to help you out of this health hazard… including medical help. The first steps are the easiest, admit the problem (as opposed to living in the deluded idea that morbid obesity is sexy) take responsibility and get help.
I find this next one particularly offensive. Redneck pride.
Again, a group of people who have it within their power to change their circumstances through education and ambition, yet refuse to further themselves because of misplaced pride. Everyone has the power to change their circumstance. There is always a choice. These people actually choose ignorance, racism, misogyny and general xenophobia as a way of life of which to be proud. It doesn’t help that reality television rewards this behavior with fame and money. Of course reality television isn’t as much to blame as the people who gleefully watch these shows in order to feel better about their own lives. This lifestyle would not be glorified if there weren’t a demand in the first place. Just how low has the bar been set if the only way you can feel better about your life is by watching Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, My Crazy Obsession, The Real Housewives (sure they have money, but they still act like petulant teenagers), Hoarders, Toddlers in Tiaras or any other show that the ironically named Learning Channel broadcasts?
Pride should be reserved for your accomplishments, not used to describe your shortcomings. Where has ambition gone? People use to strive to better their lot in life, to give their kids a better childhood than they had. It seems as though we are collectively giving up. The things worth having are the things worth working for. The sad truth of the matter is that, in North America, we have the luxury of having a host of government programs in place for those that actually want to educate themselves that go unused every year because people like these choose to live in ignorance.
There seems to be a theme forming here… take personal responsibility and make the world a better place.
I have heard this saying more and more over the years. It always seems to be uttered by people who are trying to cheer someone who is going through a particularly tough time in their life. Scientifically, this saying is true. It’s a dumbed down and generalized version of Newton’s third law of motion which states, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The folks who pepper their speech with this saying are also fond of espousing that they think, “The universe has a plan”.
Yes, these pompous idiots actually believe that the universe is a sentient being that, not only knows you exist, but actually cares about what happens to you. The level of arrogance possessed by the human race never ceases to astonish me. Sure, the universe has planned out every little fart in your life, just like the ocean has big plans for each and every grain of sand on its floor.
I do understand that we humans have an overwhelming need to answer every question, but what good is an answer that is obviously a load of crap? No other species on earth has the luxury of being able to think beyond survival. We have that luxury and what do we do with it? We come up with trite little sayings meant to feed our already over inflated egos. But, it’s more than that, isn’t it? If everything happens for a reason and the universe has a plan, then we are not responsible for what happens to us. We can point the convenient finger of blame when things don’t go our way. Oh, it’s not my fault that I got fired, the universe (or Jesus, Allah, Vishnu etc.) has a plan and I wasn’t meant to have that job. Never mind that you stole from petty cash, sexually harassed a co-worker or disrespected your boss… it’s the Universe.
More of us should spend time looking through a telescope at the night sky in order to get a good healthy dose of just how insignificant we really are. A little humility would go a long way in this world. Perhaps, if we weren’t so puffed up we wouldn’t be so quick to go to war with each other. We might not go around belittling everything that is different from us by proclaiming that we are number one all of the time. We might actually realize just how little what we do, say and think matters in the grand scheme of things… and by grand scheme, I don’t mean the big script in the sky that has everyone’s roles all neatly written out. Conceivably, if we realized how unimportant and unnecessary we truly are we might spend more time on the questions that actually matter, like how can we live in better harmony with the planet that is hosting the parasite that we call the human race, as opposed to getting all caught up in blaming invisible forces or deities for our inadequacies. It would be a lot less of an effort to live and to take responsibility for our pathetically tiny lives if we just looked outside ourselves for a few minutes and saw just how little for which we are actually responsible. I notice that these very same people who blame the universe never credit the universe and it’s plan when things go well in their lives… nope, they are perfectly happy to claim full responsibility when they have a success. So, which is it? Does the universe have it all planned out or not?
