If I disappear …
If I disappear one day, it won’t be that someone has killed me. Nor that I have killed myself. There will be no mystery. There will be no episode of Dateline or true crime podcast to binge.
If I disappear it will be that I have reached my limit on dealing with the insanity that is the world around me.
While discussing some family drama recently, someone said, “Your problem is that you are a very black-and-white person. You think rationally about everything, and no one in your life is rational.”
Ironically, that’s the most rational thing anyone in my life has ever said.
But it’s beyond family drama. It’s the world around me.
It’s come to my attention recently that teenage couples are now having sleepovers. Not sneakily when mom and dad are out of town, but with their parent’s blessing and while the parents are home.
The couples allegedly sleep in different beds and mom and dad supervise the behavior, but … um … NO!
It is also perfectly fine to exist as a professional, adult human being in Western Civilization and not only fail to actually read texts or emails, but ask the sender to type the same information over and over.
This is an actual exchange between me and a person who is thought to be in full possession of homo sapiens DNA. (I replicated it via a simulator for image clarity.):
This is not the first time this happened to me. It is not the first or only person it has happened with.
And don’t get me started on people and four-way stops. If I do wind up killed, I’m certain it will be because someone failed to recognize who arrived first. My guess is it will be because they were texting someone “What time?” unnecessarily.
My most recent obsession of thought is around where the world suddenly became abnormal. When did behavior that was always deemed unacceptable by society become okay?
Sure, the citizens of the United States of America did elect an evil clown to be president once. But strange shit was happening long before that.
You can blame it on social media. It’s now acceptable to libel and slander people in a public forum. The appropriate societal response is to libel and slander back.
Maybe it’s devices. Gluing our brains to LED screens every waking hour has to have some repercussions. Perhaps we are quite literally frying our brains?
The contrarian in me would also insert 1991 as a potential culprit. That was the year lawsuits and school systems and social workers came crashing down on corporal punishment which was quickly outlawed in many public schools. While I’m not one to advocate for violence as an appropriate form of discipline, the lack of fear of consequence in generations after mine has a face tattoo, a tongue stud and a baby mama.
(Incidentally, the Kentucky Board of Education outlawed spanking in schools the year I graduated from them. Always bugged me.)
While certainly there are some personal family challenges that are behind some of this rant, the last 3–4 generations of humans have been propped up, spoiled and coddled so much that those of us who had to work for everything we had are expected to just hand them everything they want without reason or deservedness. And if we don’t, we’re not supportive and the cause of their mental health issues.
And god forbid you give them sound, salient advice based on evidence and experience. Because every corner of the Internet has an alternative truth they claim is more truthier than yours.
In previous decades, a frustrated adult could go to work to escape from these generational troubles. In the workplace there should be systems in place that recognize and reward experience. There should be a hierarchy of respect and a just rewards and recognition system for those who perform well in their roles so they can become the experienced ones.
In 2009, I watched a 20-something project manager dress down a 50-year-old, award-winning industry veteran and get away with it. Easily would have been fired on the spot 10 years earlier. I knew the end was upon us.
Not only do we have to extend the entitlement and coddling of everyone in the workforce today, we are expected to know they’re a they or an it, be comfortable with their inability to pay attention or focus, and FOR FUCKSAKE PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE AND TALK TO MY FACE.
(For the record, I don’t mind using different pronouns. I respect you and them. But anger when I use traditional ones and you’ve not informed me otherwise? Unfair and inappropriate. I also shouldn’t have to add a parenthetical to my silly missives because you’ll lose your mind if I don’t.)
If I disappear, it will most certainly be that I’ve just had enough. I’ve spent my whole life accommodating the trials and tribulations of irrational friends and family. Society says I now have to be nice about dealing with those from the rest of you peckerheads?
Someone will break the last straw. And I will just disappear. You won’t find me. I won’t want to be found.
I won’t say goodbye. I will no longer assume responsibility for jobs or relationships or children or family. I will liquidate everything I have and silently exhale a lifetime of relief as I fade into the sunset.
Don’t be mad. I’m just following your lead and finally insisting that everything in my life be perfect and given to me without thought of consequence or accountability.
Photo by eberhard 🖐 grossgasteiger on Unsplash
