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Thanksgiving 2008/Your dumb luck

The world is ridiculously unfair, but if you can read this post, chances are high it’s ridiculously unfair in your favor.

Colin: American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British accent.
Tony: You don’t have a cute British accent.
Colin: Yes I do! I’m going to America!
Tony: Colin, you’re a lonely, ugly, _____. You must accept it.

Love Actually

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve got running water. You might even have a water softener. And, despite the countless articles that note that tap water’s probably cleaner and better for the environment than bottled water, you’ve probably got somea that too. Little more than half the world has tap water.

While we’re on the topic of the world, the axiom’s that 1% of the world has a college education. Dunno if that’s true (in the US, it’s about 27%). And you probably got a mobile phone, a fridge, and a tv. Hold that thought.

On a distantly related note, I got ill, viscerally ill, hearing about the 13-year old girl in Somlia that was recently raped by five-men. And cause she reported the incident, she was buried alive up to her head in a stadium of 1,000 men per Islamic law. She screamed for her life as she was slowly stoned to death. They dug her up when they thought she was dead. But she lived. So they finished her with more rocks.

As if that wasn’t ______up enough, an eight year-old boy that tried to save her was shot to death. The kicker’s that the men that raped her were not arrested.

Lemme get to the point: the world is horribly, ridiculously unfair. You’d agree with me, yeah?

But – and hear me out – I submit that the world is ridiculously unfair in our favor. Can’t speak for you so lemme talk about me:

That’s all just in the last two years.

Someone wrote me once, how do you not be broken? After two months, I think the answer comes in two-steps:

  1. Be grateful. The kinda grateful you are if someone paid your tab just cause they could. Cause, that, in essence, is what you got. You got to live in a place where you got enough time to read the random musing of a nobody like me. And water’s a twist of a faucet away. Where life, most likely, has value.
  2. Pay it back. You owe the aether something for your largess. Something. What that is, I dunno. As for how? Dunno that either. Sorry. I’m not that bright and get by mostly on fading looks and charm. But I suspect God’s given you some gift. Start there, I guess.

Now you might think this is some sorta pinko commie, holiday post. It’s not. The first step above is so you’re not onea those miserable people that bitch about everything all of time. So annoying. The second step above is so you’re not onea those miserable people that are happy for nothing all of time. Almost as annoying.

This isn’t so you can save the world, though that’d be nice. Rather – and I know this sounds strange coming from a barely sober nobody holding a tumbler fulla rum as I write this – it’s to save yourself.

Cause I read/know some of you. And I hear how angry and sad some (not all) of you are and, just cause you read me, figured I’d pay some of it back this way.

The saying goes that Wisdom is seeing things as they are. I disagree. Wisdom is the seeing things for what they can be.

Don’t accept when people tell you that everything sucks. They’re lying to you. Things suck, yeah, but you don’t gotta accept it.

Andy Warhol once said that They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. That sounds about right.

And I’m not saying don’t stuff yourself silly over the holiday, and enjoy it. I know I will. Quite the opposite; enjoy it more knowing that you’re among the lucky. The blessed. Your dumb luck. Said it before, God gave me everything. The thing is that I know it. And that’s why I’m not broken.

After you’ve had your holiday, try and make it a little less unfair. Ideally, yeah, do it cause the world’s broken and you got a moral obligation to pay somea the extra you were given back. But if not for nothing else, if for no one else, do it for yourself – to make yourself a little less broken.

Cause, maybe if you do that, you can see things for what they can be.

Colin: Never. I am Colin. God of sex. I’m just on the wrong continent, that’s all.

Location: in my black chair, staring at this screen
Mood: hopeful
Music: I’ll give you anything you need
YASYCTAI: Somehow return of that luck you have to the aether. (Lifetime / 4 pts – 5 if you let us know what you did)

25 replies on “Thanksgiving 2008/Your dumb luck”

I love the movie Love Actually.And I agree about complainers. I just think you could spend the energy coming up with a solution or alternate reality. Everyone's stuck in a reality of their own making, so make it your best!

I like this post, and I agree.. except that… sometimes the world *is* ridiculously unfair.. period. like to that 13y old child. Unless when you meant in 'our' favor, you meant americans.. which i don't think you did? or did you? This side of heaven I think there will always be things that seems ridiculously unfair.. and my only consolation is that the eyes and heart that i see the world with.. are cloudy… not sure if that's exactly what i'm trying to say.. but it will have to do.yet.. thank you for the reminder!

thanks for this post. i was actually feeling a bit melancholy this t-day cuz i was alone and the city was dead… so i felt… not myself. it stirred feelings of sadness and woe is me. but then i reread this post and u're absolutely right. we have such a privileged life and our problems are not nearly as bad as a lot of people. we have many more opportunities and the ability to change our situations.so ur contribution to the aether was this post. it motivated me to change what makes me sad (money) and do something about it (not spend it so much and make more of it by working a second job). here's to me and my slashes.

on a separate and unrelated topic, is setting your blogger to your domain id an easy thing to do? i'm trying to set up my blogger to my domain name but also have other tabs for the rest of my webpage (which will need to be created). do i need to enlist the help of some nerd friends?

heh pretty sure it wasn't an outspring of this post.. but this weekend produced a long post on my page too… with time comes pensiveness. =)

Alana – I agree with you completely, too many people here complain about a whole lotta nuthin.YM – I meant to us as Americans. I'll read you post too, just a little behind my own posts, actually.Suz – Well, if that's my contribution to the aether, I'll take it. I'm glad it made you feel a little less craptastic. I meant to ask how you found me, BTW…

i'm a dork and i been reading rain's work since asianavenue… hence i've followed u guys and bachelor cooking, 72nd canal, etc. was looking to see if u guys made any more videos. alas, no. but found ur blog.oh yeah and u were on cash cab!!! how cool is that. i didn't know that happened in real life.

[…] us? I’m only an American cause I got lucky. You too. Don’t y’ever forget that dumb luck put y’here and not Somalia or North Korea. That’s the only goddamn difference between […]

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