Kootenay Crust

By Ian Cobb

Some days, weeks, months or years simply just stop you in mid-stride and force upon you the realization that our world is run by complete scumbags. And I say that with all due respect.

The system upon which we perform our daily rituals has been designed by greedy rats with the ethical pulchritude of the grease that stains your barbecue propane tank. It was deemed so long ago.

Everyone who becomes involved in ‘the system,’ with good intentions or not at the outset, becomes stained and cynical and conniving because if they don’t, they get eaten by the fat fish and scrubbed into oblivion by ‘the managers’ who ensure the fat fish have a never ending supply of food. (Think of Igor and his relationship with Dr. Frankenstein or think about history is always written by the victors.)

Yet, here we are. Shrug. What can I do? Who am I to think I can make a difference by making a snazzy Facebook post that declares the world to be all messed up? What an original zinger am I!

I know it’s not just me who is feeling a complete and utter uneasiness with the folds and back eddies of our world. My personal universe has become one seriously challenging package the past few months and I can think of numerous people who have experienced complete and utter hardship over this time span. I believe astrologers predicted such upheaval. Some of the stuff these folks have endured makes me ashamed to feel as I do right now, because my shit ain’t shiznit in comparison.

I have a friend who recently accompanied and accommodated her sister to death’s door. A RN, she gave her sister the ultimate departure, by helping take her to a remote but beloved location so she could die. She sat with her for weeks while the cruelty that her body was afflicted with performed its final act.

What my friend did for her sister – to hear of the death she experienced, one only the truly luckiest of us could experience, with beauty and love surrounding her in her final moments – is the work of an angel.

My friend, freshly removed from this harrowing and draining experience, then moved on to what should have been a gorgeous distraction – the marriage of a child.

Alas, she was sideswiped by the ‘gimme gimme gimme- me me me’ generation. Complete disrespect wrapped in a sock filled with all that is wrong in our world hit her upside the head. And there was more piled on top of her after that.

In that light, I consider the disrespect that has fallen at the feet of my family in recent weeks as minor in comparison. It’s always good to have a measuring stick, eh.

The word that is ringing in my head, far too regularly nowadays, is ‘respect.’ More to the point, the exponential lack of it being shown by far too many people.

Look at world affairs for an off-the-top glimpse.

Then look at national and provincial affairs and then narrow it down to your neighbourhood – disrespect everywhere.

Criminal acts, refusal to care about anyone beyond the self, irrational, dangerous behavior (texting and driving springs to mind) and non-stop gimme gimme gimme – me me me despite a complete lack of having earned anything.

I am turning 50 soon and I am experiencing widening depression at the state of our world and despair over where it is heading. I know I am not alone and I try my hardest to see the good and positive – something my wife encourages on a daily basis.

I rant and rave and publish my ranting and raving, because that’s what I do. Part of my life experience is apparently to serve as a shouter who warns people about the impending and perilous and my voice is almost as tired as my patience.

It seems with each passing decade, my patience for the egoists and loser-pissed idiots decreases 10 fold.

This past week I solemnly declared war on loser-pissed idiots. When I turn 60, if I am so fortunate, there will be no loser-pissed idiots splashing me, or my loved ones, with their sorry foolishness. That door has closed with a chest-rattling slam.

Should you stray into my space in that time and you act like a loser-pissed turd, consider yourself warned. The days of turning my cheek or holding my tongue are over. Crappy service will be rewarded fully, for example. Or smart-assed comments uttered by simpletons with grandiose views of themselves, showcasing their stampeding ignorance and less desirable attributes, will be contested.

Lord, our world needs respect. Humankind has the duty to shepherd that need, because we have claimed this world as ours to own. Yet look at our record and check out our prospects moving forward.

Sing it Aretha – sing it louder than ever before because the masses are distracted out of their minds and lives.

I respect all life; all creeds; all races and religions and viewpoints. I expect it in return but I do not see it or experience enough. None of us do and the gulf widens with each generation moving forward, it seems.

As a person entering his fifth decade, I take full responsibility for my part in raising a generation of gimme gimme gimme – me me mes. The generation before mine needs to do the same, because a random cross section of their spoiled spawn reveals the same lack of respect floating in their polluted blood streams.

And the generation following mine also needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and snap to. So many of you – your kids are sniveling cry baby suck-holes who need to spend a few weeks digging graves in Haiti or digging wells in Somalia or tending to the torn and displaced in Syria, or at least learn the value of hard work. At the least, they need to lift their heads from their bums and come to terms with the fact they are not the most important people in the world and hold luck no odds maker could fathom in that they are living in the best country in the world. But listen to them pee and moan, especially when they don’t get their way. Watch how they lash out and point copious fingers of blame.

As Carrie often says, people who point fingers always have three pointing back at them.

As parents who have allowed this disrespect to fester and grow like a fungus, because we relied on Homer Simpson and Barney and Sesame Street to babysit our kids while we worked two jobs to make their world a finer place, we must take the blame.

We must also accept the blame for allowing corporations to trample over our institutions and use television to brainwash and corrupt our children’s brains, which today would rather lick at a dollop of glittering nonsense than mull over something vital or complex that when mastered will better you as a person and do so for the rest of your days.

It’s all about so-called convenience nowadays and endless options for distraction.

Following in the wake of rampant distractedness is sweeping disaffectedness and petulance, which amount to major disrespect.

An example is the continued downward trend of people voting in elections and referendums.

Mainstream media has been horribly ruined the past two decades by the same rat bastard weasels that have corrupted all our once fine institutions.

Corporations and media have distorted our perceptions. The ‘average’ young girl these past few decades has approached her teen years burdened by feeling like they have to look like Twiggy in order to be ‘normal,’ when how they look naturally is the most normal thing in human existence.

The mish-mash that was the guilt dripping norm of sexual expectation developed in the early to mid 20^th Century, combined with the sleazy charms of snake oil salesmen and before you can say “reality television” we’ve become an entangled mess of  shriekingly selfish sheep and act on our emotions before synapses start firing.

This has all occurred because disrespect has become the norm, as opposed to the last straw.

It’s easy to not give a crap about people as fewer tangible encounters occur. What does your device say? Hey, mine says ‘who cares about you? Go prong yourself. 🙂 Oh look, Miley Cyrus is gyrating in her underwear! 🙂 What were we talking about? Oh look, someone I don’t know wants to be my friend on Facebook!”

Folks, if we do not rediscover the basic truths about the human experience, we are truly and irrevocably screwed.

So I vow to do my part. Those who disrespect – in any fashion or flavor – the space I inhabit – are going to immediately understand that I do not appreciate their behavior.

It’s part of my human experience, I guess. The older I get, the less patience I have for morons and assholes and the more likely I am to inform said morons and assholes that they are morons or assholes.

We have the power to make these changes – each of us in our own way. Be respectful to others, for starters. Get off your high horses and realize you are just another ant on the hill being stared at by an impish six-year-old with a magnifying glass. You are just as likely to get burned by his cruelty as the person next to you.

You are not special; you are not important in the grand scheme of the universe; you are not a star, even if you are on a reality television show every week, showcasing your shortcomings so a pack of equally selfish, hyper-opinionated fools can laugh at you. You’re just another ant in the lab experiment who cannot utilize 95% of his/her brain – just like those you deem fit to disrespect.

Now excuse me, I have a mid-life crisis to experience.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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