TinYAP 035 — Cultural Warfare

Are we going to be punished?

We dared to draw a line in the sand, a line we have avoided drawing for three years because we did not understand such a line might ever be there or what it might turn out to be.

Now It seems as if Tina stands on one side of this line while we stand on the other.

Cultural Warfare is an ugly business often disguised by the presumption that anyone who does not wish to fit into society must be mentally ill.

Now we do not deny that we are mentally ill, any sane person would be mentally ill in this world, it is, after all, a mad, mad, mad, mad world…

<Yes, this is not another paradox, just another example of how things really are…>

No matter whose camp you choose to join, you must follow the rules, know the enemies, and kiss the holy asses.

Or else.

After all, even pacifists must have enemies; just ask anyone who is not a pacifist, they often hate pacifists and wage their wars without regard for pacifist objectives such as peace.

We would rather never drag the random world up to our ear.

Once upon a time we owned a telephone.  Our telephone brought us mostly grief.  Then we went broke and we consequently ‘lost’ our phone.

Now we are still broke, but Tina wants us to have a phone even though we have discovered that we do not want another phone because it has been a relief not to own a telephone.

Who would we call that we would not upset?

Who would call us that did not somehow upset us?

<shakes head>

Nope, we do not want a phone, not even Skype.

Tina has beaten us with invective, whipped us with anger, lashed us with frustration, and still we do not want a phone.

We do not think it should be regarded as our duty to own a phone.

Tina, who has complained and complained about how loud our tv is has the volume cranked up now to interrupt us, so we are being punished.

Doubtless she will find other ways to punish us, we can only fear where this may be headed.

We refuse to own a phone.

Will Tina waste money buying us phones we must then either lose or break?

Will she blame us for wasting her money if she dares to insist we must have a phone by purchasing a phone for us?

We do not want a phone.

Why can’t it be that simple?

We cannot stand the pain we hear in people’s voices; the more we talk with anyone we love the more pain and stress we must bear on their behalf.

We cannot stand the pain we feel in our heart, knowing that our private worlds are nearly entirely closed to anyone but ourselves; a phone may only fruitlessly remind us of how we have wished we could share our worlds with people we love who never seem to have the time, the patience, nor the inclination to come visit in our worlds, were we able to show them the way.

Nor do we want to hear from the many rude or random strangers who may arrive on the crescendos ma bell’s demanding ringtones.

We once thought we wanted to talk with our families, but we no longer ever hope that they will call.  If they cannot write a letter, then they certainly do not need to call.

If our inability to adequately reply to their letters sometimes perturbs them, then so be it.  We refuse to be caught in the middle between people with contentious information objectives.  We will take no sides but our own, even if this means we must hold ourselves hostage, speaking with no one but ourselves.

We cannot escape our pain, but neither do we have to share it on demand.

We feel better without a phone.

Shouldn’t that be enough?

So why is this a matter of cultural warfare?

Well, it is a local cultural paradigm that everyone should own a phone.  People automatically assume something is wrong with someone who does not own a phone.

But what if not owning a phone is really the right decision for us?

We may later change our minds, nothing is ever completely written in stone.

<whetting our chisel to continue>

We have not asked Tina to give up her phone.

We try not to make Tina a casualty of our war with her culture.

Cultural warfare is a game played over the generation gaps in family dinner tables.

Cultural warfare takes people hostage within their own families.

Cultural warfare is a dirty business because it is used to justify any number of crimes.

Here in the good ole USA, that’s really quite a few crimes.

America is the motherland of the very worst cultural warfare games, some evidence for this has been securely locked away in our prisons.  We have the highest rate of incarceration per capita of any nation in the world, and that is without even counting our mental hospitals, thank you.

Is this really, then, the Land of the Free?

Only if you choose to believe the cultural warfare hype and tripe.

If we believed we had a society we belonged among with whom we were able to participate then yes, we might want a phone, but only if we could trust that our phone would bring us more joy than sorrow, more happiness or relief than pain or stress.

We have no evidence of any society we might feel we might genuinely belong among; we have friends we love, yes, but we are not really any parts of their lives, nor does it ever seem likely that we may ever really become so.

Nor have we any evidence for trusting that owning a phone will ever bring us greater joy than sorrow.

The intensity with which we have felt our love for so many, many people has not been reduced by an iota by our missing phone.  Nor do we wish to study which is worse, the pain of never being called or the pain of wanting to escape an unwanted call.  Either way a phone is sure to bring us much pain and stress but little or no relief.

So for now, no phone; if circumstances change, maybe, but not now, nor anytime soon.

Give us time to continue to mend, we are still on our road to better health; a road which has so far been challenged by more pain than we know how to bear well.

Meanwhile, we may still regard this as a matter of cultural warfare.  If we say that phones are a huge waste of time we may offend a lot of people.

That, right there, is part of our evidence that phones are a part of an ongoing process of cultural warfare.  If we were mistaken about what a huge waste of time phones may be, then no one should be offended.  It is people’s reflexive, reactive cultural defense mechanisms which are really being offended.  Whenever we trigger one of those puppies it is typically a reliable indicator that we have identified another cultural holy cow.

Enjoy!

Love, Grigori Rho Gharveyn,
aka Greg Gourdian, Falcon, Chameleon, Roger Holler, etc., et al…