A Waning Resentment

Hypocrite: A person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs. 

OK, last post bitching about the latest business meeting . . .   OK, could be the penultimate post . . .  Might be the last post in a concluding tranche of bitching posts . . . Or possibly I'll keep on bitching until I'm lying on my death bed in swaddling clothes.  I'll motion everyone closer and croak out in a hoarse whisper: "Rosebud."  No, wait, that's from an Orson Welles film . . . I'll say: "Business Meeting" and then die.  A murmur will go up in the room, no doubt crowded beyond fire department regulations (this will, of course, be post-CoVid so my death can be properly celebrated . . . errr . . . mourned while not breaking any of the regulations I'm currently bitching about): "Business meeting.  Business meeting?  What can that possible mean?"

Our state and our county has instituted a complete shut-down because of an alarming rise in the number of CoVid cases and a worrisome trend of fewer and fewer ICU beds.  Here's the verbatim notice from the state website: They (referring to the regulations) prohibit private gatherings of any size, close sector operations except for critical infrastructure and retail, and require 100% masking and physical distancing in all others.

From what I can tell the anti-maskers at the live meeting are continuing to meet.  They might be paying lip service to masking up and socially distancing but they sure as hell are continuing to gather.  The state reg is unequivocal.  It brooks no re-interpretation.  I'm assuming you could petition the appropriate regulator for an exemption if you wanted to keep holding a meeting but I doubt this has been done or the meeters would self-righteously crow about that, too.  And I know because I'm a self-righteous crowing jackdaw myself.  I know about the Better Than You philosophy.

I will state for the record that I have managed to successfully move past a sense of serious grievance here while managing to hold onto some information that may help me be successfully self-righteous down the road.  My opinion is that you are rule-follower or you are not.  My opinion is that it's bullshit to follow and enforce rules you think are wise and ignore those that you think are not.  I, personally, am not a huge rules guy.  My saving grace, if such a thing exists, is that I don't often complain when someone breaks the rules.  I avoid hypocrisy so that I may sleep well at night.

Here's my self-righteous point self-righteously made: some of the people who are meeting in-person, breaking the rules, rules they think aren't good ones, are quite strident when someone else breaks a rule that they think is a good one. C'mon, man, give me a break.

I have this information stored in my mental 12-Gauge shotgun and the safety is off.  I will break my Vow of Silence the next time one of these hypocrites complains about a rule-breaker.

Self-Righteous: Confident of one's own righteousness, especially when smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions and behavior of others.

See?  Can't you tell I'm over my resentment?  Aren't you happy for me?  Aren't you impressed with me?  Good, because I'm awfully, awfully impressed with myself.