Tag empathy

Hear my voice, my words, my story.

Elle Reverie 1 Comment

Sharing meaningful experiences with others has never been so hard. During the past few decades listening skills have diminished and empathizing with the challenges faced by those less fortunate or those unlike ourselves is mocked mercilessly and declared a trait of the weak or snowflakes. Such a stupidly weak attempt at bullying! And, the ones engaging in this ridiculous behavior can’t seem to recognize how cruel, and utterly stupid they appear.

Yes, I said it. STUPID! Call me a snowflake, liberal, elitist snob, stuck-up, or whatever jealousy and fear triggered catch phrase those with limited emotional intelligence and a baffling lack of curiosity employ when the truth fails them. Call me all of that and more but the fact remains, you are a scared, small-minded, insufferably stupid human being when you play the Us Against Them game. It’s WE, always has been and always will be.

The same color blood flows from our veins. Basic physical anatomy shows we are all intended to have two arms, two legs, two eyes, one nose=same. No opportunistically cherry-picked scripture will change that. And, even after all of that fact finding you still have no clue about my true position on certain flash-point topics. Not once did I declare my voting preferences or exact spiritual beliefs. I only declared what I see as asshole behavior and those who are ignorant assholes just assume and hilariously end up being wrong every time. Tricky huh? Not really, people simply don’t care to listen.

The notion that just because I don’t rant and rave like a rabid fool, constantly huffing and puffing about the audacity of “those people” that I see myself as better or elevated above those who wallow in self-imposed ignorance. Well, when it’s written out like that then, yes, yes, I do see myself as better than that! What reasonable person wouldn’t? It’s not like the foaming at the mouth narrow-minded jackals don’t readily crown themselves superior so fair is fair after all. And, if you notice, I’m talking about behavior not the individual. I don’t need to convince those who disagree with me to change because it’s a full time job sticking to my own intellectual guns in order to keep all the unnecessary nastiness in the world from changing me!

Okay, so now we come to the fork in the road where everyone has the option to see the humanity in all, no matter the physical, cultural, biological, religious, educational or racial differences or the choice to cling to bigotry, misogyny, mythology and misinformation. The latter being a recipe for certain madness and the former being a chance to evolve and let go of false narratives that serve zero purpose other than to stoke the flames of hatred. Without unchecked hatred control cannot happen, power cannot be maintained and upward mobility cannot be stopped or opposition squelched. YOU cannot go against ME! Uh, yes I can and yes, I will every single time bullshit flows forth from the mouths of inflexibly truculent trolls.

It’s okay…the dictionary is our friend! It’s full of amazing information and loves to have visitors. Go ahead, it’s spelled T-R-U-C-U-L-E-N-T and yes, I’m purposely being a smart ass, because I can. I earned the right.

I bet that triggered something inside the more insecure readers, or not so sneaky lurkers and again, it’s okay. Offense or anger is only felt if the insult applies so get to a mirror quick! The answer to the question of whose fault it is that butt-hurt was felt is right there in the refection. Everyone has the option to change so you still have time.

Hear me now, I am not in the business of dumbing-down anything for people uninterested in truly getting to know me as an author or me as a human being. Unless you take the time to study, to memorize the why of what I do and the how of the reason I came to my position in life that I currently occupy then please move right along. I am not for you and assuming you KNOW me will only end in frustration. Save your time, your energy and your certain anger. I have known who I am and why I believe the way I do for a long time. I did the internal work. Why haven’t you?

You have been told time and again how my point of view was crafted by painful experiences, the full confession of mistakes has laid bare my unapologetic soul to show all the hurt, the skinned knees, the bruised and battered heart. It’s all there for you to read, if you choose to take the time. I shouldn’t have to offer it up on a plate for those too lazy to inquire and too willfully moronic to understand the benefit that comes from learning from people not like them. We ALL have lessons left to learn. No one knows everything there is to know and, isn’t that exciting?

Change is good. Change is needed and voices that ring out the call for common sense, slowing the roll of unfounded bias and taking the time to get educated about FACTS are required should we really desire to continue existing. Did you think about that? That which cannot adapt cannot survive…again, FACT. My plan is to survive and to do so joyfully, with the knowledge that I did all I could to be the type of human being that actually deserves to be here. What’s your plan?

© 2019-2020 L.A. Askew

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “In the Land of Reverie” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Where differences matter the most

Elle Reverie Leave a comment

Don’t you just love the meme parade on social media following all tragic events of late? And by “of late” I mean every damn day!

I can’t wake up to good news lately because, well, it’s all awful 24/7 in Orange Tweet Land but it’s the, “let’s be fair” or “let’s love everyone even though they don’t share your political beliefs” bullshit that fans my fire of dislike for humankind the most.

Y’all just don’t get it!

Or, maybe you do and you just don’t care. I’m thinking it’s this one because caring takes effort and, WOMP-WOMP it’s becoming more and more apparent that “say it like it is” is really code for SHOW US HOW MUCH OF AN ASSHOLE YOU REALLY ARE! It’s okay, really, the Orange Anus in the White House will praise and excuse you and then pardon you if need be. That still doesn’t take away any of the stink…just so we are clear.

*Click the Womping link above and just read the vile comments from American citizens that feel pretty righteous typing away on their computer keyboards and phones in their non-cage homes.

Come on out you constitutional experts! You barkers of propaganda designed to do the very thing your memes and psshh comments are trying to wave off: Separate us even further. Do you really not see this? To condescendingly say: “I don’t hate people who don’t believe the same way I do” while posting obvious untruths and purposely incendiary links to articles, videos, and memes that drip of every ism around is gas lit Hamburger Helper. It’s not even the foie gras of propaganda. It’s the cheapest form of party line gruel.

It literally makes me both cry and laugh to see how well psychological warfare has worked on the very people whom I have heard say, “I don’t believe in that psychobabble, mumbo-jumbo!” Yeah, you may not BELIEVE in it but it still exists and its effectiveness has never been more evident than now based on how many families and friendships social media has torn apart since the Age of Orange began.

*I use derogatory nicknames for Tiny Hands 45 because:

#1) He set the example so if it’s good enough for him then it’s doubly good enough for regular folk! And,

#2) I fear saying his name 3 times in a row, like Beetlejuice, because, well, we know how that went and I don’t like sandworms or zombies.

Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand; in short, some differences really do matter. Like the difference between people who are and aren’t horrified with government sanctioned child abuse. I get it, shit has been going down for a long time and very little was done BUT, we are in the HERE AND NOW. It is in our fucking faces non-stop and the fucking tweets keep coming and the fucking asshole talking heads, oh sorry…apologists, well really, justifiers for the shitty behavior of a goddamn sitting US president all find great glee in this situation.

Hear that? THEY APPEAR TO BE OKAY WITH THIS SHIT!!!!!!!

Gotta secure the border. Gotta take back American jobs. Gotta, gotta, gotta….uh, how about gotta stop abusing children, period.

We all know the government doesn’t give a shit about the abuse of American children or THAT would have been taken care of long ago but to now turn that stern hand on children from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, you know, the countries Grand Poobah Cheeto deemed “shithole countries” is pretty telling. For a country with a massive Orange Talking Head that touts how great he is, THIS ain’t so great.

And Y’all wonder why people hate us? Really? You wonder?

My point here is this; don’t tell me to respect your beliefs if one of them includes justifying the abuse of children. On that, we will remain very fucking different. On that, we will remain in constant disagreement and on THAT we will remain extremely distant. Count on it.

 

© 2018 L.A. Askew
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “In the Land of Reverie” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
To steal the creative work of another to use as your own is the grand height of laziness.

What shall I do today?

Elle Reverie Leave a comment

Learn CPR or demand smart gun laws that save lives rather than pandering to a societal segment that likes to play soldier from the comfort of their own white bubble? I’m just thinking out loud and in type print here so bear with me. We are still allowed to think out loud right?

Rick Santorum and everyone like you, fuck off. I’m glad you’re feeling the heat for towing the dismissive company line of profit margins/party over public safety. If you truly believe in defending the 2nd Amendment then talk about the 2nd Amendment in an educated manner. Convince me that you need an AR-15 or an AK-47 to hunt a deer.  If you are really pro-life then actively give two shits about ALL lives. Convince me that having a large cache of guns will not make you a theft target yourself rather than Rambo to the rescue. But, if you are a sanctimonious asshole that only wants to protect their snowy white power position by standing on the necks of those courageous enough to wake the hell up and shout out as the 1st Amendment allows then, please… say more shit like this:

http://www.newsweek.com/rick-santorum-cpr-wont-save-children-mass-shootings-860678

Way to tell kids they don’t matter. Way to whine about kids daring to ASK adults to fucking help keep them alive! Heaven forbid old Ricky boy should realize that many of the victims of gun violence are not of voting age yet (MINORS) and THEREFORE NEED others (ADULTS) to help solve this “problem” for them. A problem, might I add, that adults created. Oh, and I guess wanting to stay alive is just an annoyingly insignificant little PROBLEM to Rick Santorum, one that these ungrateful little brats should just figure out on their own. How dare they ask for help!!!! Being in utero is one thing; the ultimate protected state for Republicans and Evangelicals alike. But, once you are born…sorry sucker! Stop whining, pack heat and throw around lame catchphrases about how good guys with guns are our only saviors or some other dumb shit about not taking a knife to a gun fight.

Really?

What if the Good Guy with a Gun is, pants around ankles, doing shitter duty?  Or, what if he decided to leave his gun in his glove compartment?  Or, Wal-Mart was out of his preferred ammo…or he took a sick day…or the Bad Guy with a Gun was faster? To say that the ONLY way to stop this kind of violence is to count on a fallible human, a stranger who may have a hair-trigger temper and bad eyesight is irresponsible and ignorant. To the people who have uttered this gem: God love you! I know you think your words help but I have to wonder, are you offering words just to “help” keep your arsenal of guns, (your toys), or do you really care that innocent people are being killed? It stinks of the, “if it isn’t happening to me personally then I can’t relate” Suck Hole of DUH so pardon me if I don’t believe you.

Listening to differing views is important and yet, it’s getting harder and harder because those differing views are becoming increasingly heartless and shortsighted. When attacking the very people with a real chance of dying because of gun violence seems like a good thing to do, I gotta say, you lost me.

When I hear human garbage bags like Ted Nugent attacking Parkland students, calling them soulless, I see how far down the sewer self-proclaimed conservatives are sliding.  And, by the way, Nugent’s complaints are pretty rich coming from a supposed pants-shitting, cowardly reprobate with pedophilia tendencies. Yes, yes, your soul is pure Ted and you sleep just fine at night wrapped in the American flag. Calling the Parkland students liars is also curious since, and I may be wrong here, but didn’t you fake being mentally unfit for service during Vietnam by walking around in your own feces prior to reporting for your physical? Or was that a tall tale you made up because begging for a student deferment wasn’t as wild as marinating in your own shit in order to scam the local draft board into a 4-F? Hmm…tell the truth, you were scared of GETTING SHOT just like the Parkland students so you begged for a deferment.  The truth doesn’t sound as good though and, at this point, I don’t care which it was because again, blame the victims and ya lost me.

Explain this Ted…

Now, back to the 2nd Amendment. Where does it say the right to bear arms means any citizen with hands can own as many guns as they like? It just says WELL armed which could mean the GROUP/MILITIA, as a whole, has enough WEAPONS to protect themselves and each other from the tyranny of the… uh, government not from someone wanting to steal their television. Where does it say that “arms” are explicitly guns when the definition of bearing arms means to simply possess weapons? Are weapons just guns or are they also knives, cannons, slingshots, maces, brass knuckles, nunchucks or 70 ’s style javelin lawn darts?

fun-fact-since-their-invention-lawn-darts-have-been-responsible-31739678

Anything that can be used to protect oneself from personal injury or death. I know, speaking for myself, I’d get more satisfaction from beating a would-be murderer with my fists, a veritable back and forth of blows in a battle of defense, even if it meant I lost in the end. At least I would have put in the work and the news reports would say, “She put up a fight.”  Now, what about those who can’t put up a fight? Children. Disabled. Elderly. Those who shouldn’t even have to if we didn’t live in a land of getting what you want when you want and to hell with everyone else? So, the RIGHT to life is secondary to the right to bear arms? Yeah…no.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/arms

I guess we can argue semantics but…that is exactly the point! Do we even really know what we are arguing about other than possessing the righteous crown to being seen as RIGHT? Everyone loves being right, even when it’s at the expense of another person’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Right? Be honest.

I’d rather be alive than depending on a false sense of security any day and, to all my gun owning friends, which do you grab for first when shit goes down? Your phone or your gun? Will owning a cache of guns really keep me safer than someone who owns none? There are no absolutes in life except for death. When we are dead, we are absolutely dead and guns don’t care if we support the 2nd Amendment or not. And, neither do those doing the shooting apparently.

© 2018 L.A. Askew
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “In the Land of Reverie” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.