Fucking (name redacted to protect the innocent) meeting has irritated and frustrated me more than every other meeting I've ever attended . . . combined. The group that split off to start a live meeting in a "church" where they are not paying rent is really getting on my last nerve even though it's none of my business and I don't like so many of the attendees that I'm glad they're gone. Generally I like smaller groups so this should be to my liking. If I had my druthers I would have voted to split the group into two smaller factions. Ya'd think I'd be happy by this development but ya'd be wrong.
We get so used to death in America: opioid overdoses, gun violence, drunk driving, and now CoVid-19. After 9/11 - when 3000 people died - our outrage at the insult led to two lengthy wars meant to avenge the carnage but now the 2000 a day we're losing produces a collective societal yawn. It's one thing to be frustrated at the inability to socialize and another altogether to begin the socialization as the virus cases in our area spin out of control. Now that our state has instituted a three week full shutdown - no private gatherings of any kind permitted - it'll be interesting to see if the group continues to meet. We're not rule followers so I'm assuming that they will. Again, none of my business. But if I ever hear one of these people complain about someone not following the meeting format or fracturing a Tradition I'm going to unload my mental 12 gauge shotgun.
This is why during the last two business meetings I took a Vow of Silence. If I can't speak reasonably and charitably I don't permit myself to speak. The shit that comes out is never good.
Again, why is this upsetting? Because they're idiots? Because the things that I love to do have been curtailed because of the restrictions that I'm following but some others are not? Because I'm not getting my way?
Whenever I have a personal conflict my goal is simple - to show you that you're wrong and that I'm right. The resolution of all of my personal conflicts is Winning.
I'm only partly kidding here.
Two days later . . . .
I'm still pretty worked up about this. I see the new meeting as the equivalent of joining the opposing political party, a faction I find nearly intolerable. A line has been crossed, a line I saw forming several months ago. A. A. and politics - wow! The line was pretty faint and indistinct before The Breakaway but now it has been chiseled into the concrete. The political/pandemic references are now on full display. There are some hard feelings here.
Fuck you, Reuben!
And the live camera phone shots of people clearly not wearing masks after the meeting ended. I find this idea of personal freedom, of getting to do whatever I want to do, the moral equivalent of saying: "I don't care what happens to you."
The other factor, beyond the politics, is that a lot of these types are BMOC - Big Men on Campus. Big personalities, strutting, making themselves the center of attention, cocksure in their attitudes and beliefs, dismissive of yours.
Who made me the Center of the Universe?
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