12:29 pm | 14 July 2003 | just deserts

After i left the land of Victim Culture and finally accepted that, hey, i might actually be worth being treated well, etc., i still based that request--or justified it, i guess--on some bullshit subconscious karma-based idea. That life up until that point had been so unmitigatedly shitty that by golly, wasn't i due some flowers now and then? A phone call? Picking me up at the airport when the plane actually arrived and not, say, two hours later? Not being hit?

This is also bullshit, i realized, because it's still based on a premise of being 'owed': that we accrue, via suffering, some experiential debt that is then someone else's duty to repay. That's neither logical nor fair. Our burdens are our own & the "universe" doesn't owe us jack.

So i think about this for a while. And i think, you know, i have worked pretty hard to become a decent-to-awesome human being. Isn't that merit enough? And i think it is. i think, beyond the fact that most humans deserve decent treatment, i am justified in asking for it because that's what i give (actually, i give friends & lovers 125%, and ask for so little in return). So: i am almost there.

I am only afraid of one thing, and it's this: one of the things i hate most about people is this weird type of personal ignorance that verges on hypocrisy: for example, like when someone brags about being intellectual & she is clearly not, & not only is she kinda dumb but is being an asshole to you, or being self-righteous and greedy &c., under those (false) pretenses. This applies to all kindsa things, such as the people who are like, "oh, no, i am super-PC. i have tons of [gay/black/foreign] friends." Whatever. So i am afraid that i am doing the same thing. That if i ever come out and say, "You know, actually, i'm gonna require you to be really, really nice to me, because i am sweet like a honey-roasted ninja, hokay?" the person to whom i am saying it will be shaking head sadly & thinking, "Boy, is she ever wrong." Oh god i hope i'm not. clm.

P.S. To stave off the inevitable flood of "it's just desserts, not deserts!": no, it's not. "Deserts," in this context, is still pronounced the same way as afterdinner sweet treats, but has the same verb root as "deserve," and hence "just deserts" are "those things honestly deserved." Class dismissed.