There is nothing harder for me than waiting for feedback. Waiting to get my test results back, waiting to hear back from a prospective employer, waiting to see what people think of my latest blog post–it’s always rough, but the one thing that is consistent about it is that it is almost always not as bad as I think it will be. I worry that people will take offense over what I intended as an innocuous statement and come to my door carrying pitchforks. This is, of course, silly, but the flip-side is that when people do come to my door bearing pitchforks, it’s over something that I honestly thought was pretty innocent. I’ve got a million stories like that, too many to share them all here, suffice to say that while I welcome constructive criticism, I have little use for people who confront me and demand that I explain myself. Nobody likes being put on the spot, after all.
This video is touching. No, seriously, it’s sweet. More importantly, it demonstrates that not only are people generally more critical of themselves than others are, but that pretty much everyone has a tendency to obsess over imperfections that they cannot change. The problem, which is fairly similar to the aforementioned drama that I have experienced over my blogging, is that sometimes we’re right about those imperfections, just never in quite the way that we thought they were. There is nothing I hate more than having my cynicism confirmed, which is part of the reason why I have little patience for art that tries too hard to be provocative. There is a thin line between pushing people’s buttons and sheer exploitation, which is why Bruno was, I’m sorry to say, not as funny as Borat. Oh, it still had its moments, but there were far too many scenes where Sacha Baron Cohen expected people to be shocked by the mere fact of his character’s sexuality. Even that was not as shocking as his stunning lack of good taste. Really, anyone who is dumb enough to get handcuffed to another person in a hotel room without keeping keys within reach deserves what they get. That’s not to say that people who react strongly can’t be homophobes (Ron Paul didn’t do himself any favors by calling Bruno “as queer as a three dollar bill”), only that you have to do a little bit better than getting somebody who you’ve just tried to seduce to get angry in order to call your work socially relevant. Does Sacha believe his work is socially relevant? I don’t know. It’s hard to say.
The point I’m trying to make is that I’m remarkably bad at predicting what sort of a response anything I do will get. Does everyone else feel that way? I get the impression most people are at least a little bit better than I am. I can really only think of a couple of posts that I’ve written on this blog that have gotten the response I was hoping for. Sometimes, the response is even better than I was expecting, and usually that’s because I honestly wasn’t expecting much. But since I want a Pulitzer, a Nobel Prize, and sure, why not, an Oscar for being such a great blogger, it goes without saying that I am usually disappointed.
Oh, and this video is hot. I know there’s a version that featured women, but who gives a shit?
I’m going to dispense some of my valuable life lessons here. It occurs to me that if you really want to have people in your life that you can trust and rely on blah blah blah, it’s probably a good idea to make sure that they actually have lives outside of helping you. It sucks to have to face it sometimes, but even your best friends can’t just drop everything to come give you a hug or whatever every time you need it. Is there any better indicator that a person is in a co-dependent relationship than that the other party homes in on them whenever they start to think for themselves? It’s a paradox, but people who claim to be just trying to help are basically saying, “Don’t force me to change anything about myself, because I’m so selfish that I depend on you to validate my prejudices.”
On a completely unrelated note, New Zealand just passed a bill making marriage equality the law of the land. If you need something to take the edge off of what has been a really shitty news week, watch this. It’ll warm your heart. (Honestly, the Boston Marathon bombing was just fucked up. I especially loved the way that the douchebag(s) who planted it set the explosives to go off two hours and 50 minutes after the marathon began, just when most people would be crossing the finish line. The wife of one of my classmates was even running in it, although she finished in two hours 45 minutes. But that must have been scary.)
Not much else to say right now. I have a lot of shit to do this weekend, but am hoping to find time to fuck around as well. I went to the gym earlier, which is something that I haven’t done on a Thursday in months. (My schedule is front-loaded. Sunday afternoon through Thursday evening is always insanely busy, then I have several days to reorient myself before it begins again. I’m tired. And I still have to apply for jobs and work through this shit on my Netflix queue.)
In conclusion, here’s a lolcat.
Robot King 