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Maybe there’s a reason I don’t have friends. I’m annoying. People are smart.

But thing is, I don’t want a friend who is pointlessly fussy. I gladly go along with “characters.” Recent boating adventures reinforced that.

In past times I’d meet interesting individuals and  couples with solid stories told well. Not the same as hearing a gas-bag bray that they were sailors almighty and should not be disallowed in any way.

Of course the expert did not know why the Great Lakes had ore boats instead of ore ships or what a black ball run up a mast showed.

Puffed up folks are annoying in a way I find honestly exhausting. Go give yourself a medal or have a statue made to honor your greatness. Try that around people I like and respect and you won’t get far.
So what’s the deal behind saying this? Fairly simple, I hope only to say I don’t buy into that fuss and complaint that things aren’t fair in some way to someone because the unfair thing is just too difficult or hard.

O woe!

Well, it is sad that there aren’t enough free or low-cost penthouse apartments or easily had lakeshore villas or upper management positions and salaries available at the entry level. It’s sadder than hell, and I weep my best false tears for those treated so unfairly. Poor them.

But bet you anything the complainant do not want someone with an easy got paper being the one to perform their eye surgery.

Achieving some things is difficult. For a reason. Because we really do not want “easy” in the surgery theater or lackadaisical performance from educators who (some of you will get angry, go ahead) believe hair color and pronouns are the pudding’s proof. Sorry.

There’s more to it than that. A lot more.

I routinely play with grammar and round things off in ways clearly wrong. Thing is, dear easy way proponent, I know I’m doing it and could do it the right way at need. But holey mac an’ oley, it’s become too much a thing to see sloppy combos getting passed off as “OK” and suitable for employment. What’s that about?

There’s the famed poet who said he “saw three deer on snowshoes” instead of “while snowshoeing I spotted three deer,” or “Snowshoeing, I saw three deer.”

There is a kind of logic and order in grammar. Go folksy and you’ll pay the price in contracts or arbitrations.

In fact, the easy way all but guarantees more disputes because the language and terms are ill defined. (Some professions delight in this.)

But favorite and nearest-dearest to my frame is the LGBTetc. cry and hue for I’m not sure what. Is it inclusion?

Inclusion in some way that sounds more like superintending than participating.

In my view (more anger fodder coming) a minority position is not meant to be easy nor is any minority lifestyle going to be a cake walk. It’s not easy. More pointedly, it has to be hard.

A poet will tell how easy it is to sell a poem. Not easy, but difficulty points to higher value.

Handing out gold badges of difference makes for an unearned status not worth the cost of the badge.

Twain said long ago that being eccentric wasn’t easy. It’s definitely not. The people of proven difference I’ve known earned and paid a high price for every bit of difference in them.

Seems to me if a person wants easy then they are reluctant to face life. Life isn’t easy. Dead, now that’s easy. And as the ancients said some time ago, “Only the dead know peace.”

The peace I hear touted so often isn’t so attractive when a person considers what’s involved.

Consider this (more annoyance coming): three wonderful things ardently praised that I drop in a place many of you won’t like. Peace! Perfection! Paradise!

What are they?

Dead.

Peace is dead because putting an end to conflict means putting an end to people, most if not all.

Disagree?

Try something simple like a dinner menu.

As for perfection or ideal, what could be deader? An ideal, perfect society is never changing because who’s up to improving perfection. It’s settled. It’s dead.

As for paradise, same thing. Dead. If it’s mansions, feasts or virgins, a paradise of them has to last eternity. Which is how long? Long. A wait like that is worse than death.

So in my humble, seeking any of the above is same as wanting death. You can if you want, but I think I’ll stick around a little longer. Of curiosity. Thank you.

You see, to me it’s fun watching the show (almost put clown ahead of show but caught it in time) and wondering how long, if ever, the participants will catch on to how deviously amusing (stupid) times can be.

Now just in case you haven’t noticed, one of the best and time-tested ways to get yourself a police state is to (are you ready) denounce and do away with policing. Yay! We’re free! No unlawful law for us!

Now, sit back and watch things get out of hand. The public, growing tired of damage and public dissention at every corner will beg for protection. In the day ordinary police. After dark, secret police.
Now you may think this won’t happen, but it has, and once it gets rolling it is very hard to escape or undo. Doing away with enforced civil order leads directly to freedom helpful to thugs and crooks and unhelpful to victims. They who didn’t want protection find they need it and will put up with some occasional excess for the sake of peace. Good old dead as a dormouse peace.

And, got to say, many a time there’s scant connection between what a leader says and what then happens.

Sure we want the freedom of genderless washrooms! But when that brings someone perched leering, following every move, well, the freedom benefit might feel a little less valuable than a touch of good ol’ privacy.