Look, a soapbox!

Do the blind hate the same things that those of us who can see hate? How about the deaf? Is hate tied to visuals? Sound? Or is it a combination of the two? Or is hate tied to language? I mean, if we had no words to define the differences between each of us, would those differences still be there? I know that words only have the power that we give to them, but what if those words ceased to exist? Would it be so bad for a generation, or for all generations, to never hear the words that we use to convey our hate, our misunderstanding, our fear of the differences between each of us?

I know that just because no one says these words out loud does not mean that the hate is not there. You cannot do a whole lot about the people that are so afraid of the things in this world that are different from their definition of the norm that their only response it to hate them. But, if there was no way to pass that fear on to other people, wouldn't that be a good thing. I believe that the fear of these differences between us is a learned trait, because I do not believe that anyone is born hating anyone.

The argument can be made that there is no way to go without hearing these words, or that “censoring” humanity to keep out hateful words is wrong in it's own way. Me, I cannot see how the effort could ever be wasted. Isn't trying the important part? Not in the “it's the thought that counts” way, but in the “we should be trying to leave a better world for those that come after” way.

As for the idea that watching what we say is wrong in itself: total crap. We already watch what we say and who we say it around. That's why the joke about racist jokes works. You know, the one that goes, “how does every racist joke start?” followed by the joker looking over each shoulder. We know what the words we use mean, so we make sure that there is no one around to hear them. But, by saying them at all we keep them alive.

If no one ever said another joke about a Jew, or a black guy, or a woman, or a midget, would we actually lose anything? If no one said them and they were forgotten forever, would we be worse off? The answer to those two questions is pretty damn obvious. I hope. I have in my head the hope that this world of ours is not so far gone that it cannot get better. I have this hope that hate is not a stronger emotion than love, that understanding can beat fear, that someday people will just be people.

Would the world be better off if we were all deaf and blind? Or would we just find something else to hate? I can't imagine how if there was no way to communicate the differences to each other. Then again, that hypothetical is pretty dumb anyways. I think I lost my train of thought somewhere.

I do not want the point of this whole thing to be that we should all just get along, mostly because I love to argue. I guess I just wonder why people do not pay more attention to the things that they say and the impact that they have on the world around them. It wouldn't take a lot of people to stop saying these things to have an actual impact. Community by community, city by city, state by state, country by country. But waiting for someone else to do it, for someone else to change, is just cowardly. Starting somewhere is important, so why not start now. Right now.

Derailed Pie

It is amazing to me how little it takes to throw me off. As an example, I had planned to work on my paper last night. No, not the paper, but another one of the seemingly endless essays that my english professor seems to feel the need to inflict on me. (The auto-correction feature is telling me that I misspelled english and misspelled, which is pretty effing hilarious. And I misspelled effing. Nice.) See, right there, I was thrown off of my original train of thought onto a different one, speeding off into a new and exciting direction. I am not sure how I knew that it was exciting, but we can just call it a hunch and let it go.

Ok, back to last night. (How the hell can this thing say that I misspelled ok?) I was ready to work on my paper. Had everything ready to go. I just needed to one thing that I had been craving all night. A few days ago Prof and Steph took me to Marie Callenders for dinner. It was delicious. For the road we all picked up some pie, and I got me some chocolate cream, pie that is. Took it home, put it in the fridge and went to bed. A couple days later, or last night, and it was on my mind all day. I have no idea why, but it was.

So I get to the fridge, and it is not there. Puzzled, I search again. I move everything, even things that it could not be behind. I figure that Dave would not have eaten it, as it was not his. With only one other option, I head over to his room and ask the new guy if he had seen my pie. (Translation: My pie is missing and I know that you ate it. Oh, and I am pissed off about it. Just an fyi.) He had in fact seen it, seeing as how he had eaten it. Frustrated yet again, this time by my roommates disarming tact of telling the truth, I headed back to my paper.

Sitting at the table, I realized that I was not going to be able to work on it at all. I really, really wanted that pie. In fact, I still do. I finished my paper tonight, and it is ready to go. But I am still left with this craving for pie. Aargh!

The next problem will be when I get the pie and it is not even close to being good enough to cause this much annoyance. I did not have it in me to ask my roommate if it had been a good pie. I bet it was. I bet that piece was better than any piece of pie that I will ever get to eat. Ever. It is like a damn metaphor for something or other. Like life, or something. I do not even know. I just know that I want pie.

That's right, it's my frakkin' table!

It's funny... I am sitting here at this huge round table in RCC's Wrinting & Reading Center, reading and writing. The table is big, as I might have mentioned, and it could probably fit six to eight people. Right now though, I am the only person sitting at the table. I have been the only one at the table for a while now. Suddenly that changes when a blonde girl puts her books down and pulls out a chair, sitting down without making any noise at all.

Now the funny part of this (no I hadn't forgotten about the funny part, I was just taking my time in getting to it, setting it up and all) is that I feel like she has somehow invaded my space. As if it is my table by right of being the last one sitting at it. My island. My precious. As if she did it on purpose, as opposed to sitting there because all of the other tables are more occupied than this one. Then again, she did do on purpose as she did not trip and fall into the chair, which would have made a ton of noise and annoyed me for that reason in addition to the whole taking up space at my big empty table.

I wonder if being territorial is what this is, if it is instinctual or something. I mean, she sat down real quiet like so what is my issue here. I think the only reason that I noticed her sitting there is that she is sitting in front of the clock that I have been checking every ten minutes for what feels like the last four hours, but has only been the last two. I did not hear her because I am reading and writing while listening to my iPod (Dave rocks!) which helps me to focus on what is in front of me.

She did manage to distract me enough to force me to write this, instead of the outline I am working on. By the way, our enviroment is going down the shitter. Seriously, I just read about it. I wonder how much paper has been used to write about the excesses of our culture and how we negatively impact our enviroment. I wonder how much of that paper fills landfills. I suppose it is biodegradeable, but it makes you wonder. Ok, it makes me wonder. I refuse to make assumptions about what makes you wonder.