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Do You Think You’re Better Than Anyone Else?

Do People Know When They Are Being Fake?

I chose this photo because I immediately judged the subject; Look at me, look at me, I’m different, I’m beautiful.” In truth, he (if this person identifies as a he), is probably just making a buck modeling and what’s wrong with that — this is my internal dialog around tolerance and acceptance.

A Recent Observation

I took a long walk to a trendy restaurant in Basel, Switzerland last week. I have to say, I definitely dig hipster food. Young up and coming chefs trying to stand out in a crowded field are showing up these days. Their food can be fresh, delicious, and creative; I want to eat it whenever I can. The clientele these chefs are attracting, can be horrible people — by horrible, I mean fake . . . pretentious . . . showy . . . ugly.

I observed a group in this restaurant in Basel and it got me thinking.

What I Witness All Around Me

I love the city of Faro for many reasons, but mostly I love it because it is a working class city that doesn’t pretend to me something else. For the most part, people live in modest homes and drive small, inexpensive cars. Buildings are not ostentatious and grander than they need to be. If you like places that boast garish, way too massive homes, more power to you — live there, play there, stay there.

Whether it’s where you went to university, where you live, the hotel where you stayed in Paris, your child’s accomplishments, etc., shut up about it and let people learn of those things from either asking you or from others who might boast for you.

Perhaps it was my upbringing; having been born into poverty and a city in decay, I don’t appreciate excess. It seems to me that a big chunk of humanity is biting off more than they can chew. At some point, the world will implode. Or perhaps climate change will wipe the slate clean.

Ask me about my travels, I’m happy to tell you about the two-star hotels I stay in.

The Best Thing About Being Retired

I do not have to impress anyone in order to make a buck. I cannot count the number of times in my career when I had to smile when I could vomit or listen to someone spewing nonsense when all I wanted to do was flee. Work socials, conventions, visitors to campus; so many insecure or narcissistic nobodies trying to be somebody. There were a few authentic and modest individuals I truly enjoyed being around, but there were more ego inflated buffoons who were legends in their own minds — celebrity chefs come to mind. Inflated egos are difficult to navigate.

Tolerating Fake People

We are surrounded by individuals who for one reason or another need validation by boasting about what they have or relying on people to tell them how incredible their lives appear to be. Social media has accentuated this in a perverse way.

Here are some ways to deal with these individuals:

  • Avoid them by going nowhere near where they might be
  • Buffer yourself by having a friend who doesn’t seem to mind them, sit right next to them
  • Say something like, “Oh I wish I had time to pay attention to such things, or I drove into that neighborhood once, but I was profiled by the police and escorted out.”
  • Stay quiet until you can no longer control yourself and then tell them to fuck off
  • Lead by example
  • Do what’s best for you and ignore the rest
  • Just be better

Do People Know What They Sound Like?

Humans have this uncanny habit of believing something to be true just because it’s been said a number of times; even if it’s an internal voice and even if it’s false.

I often wonder, while I’m listening, if people have any clue about how pretentious and ridiculous they sound? I wish I could say something right while they’re doing it. I believe that some of the people I know will read this blog and think, “I know people who brag about everything; it’s disgusting.”

I know that I have been focusing on what is real and true a lot lately. Why? The death of siblings, living on a budget (I hopefully have a few good years left and I’ll need groceries right up until the end — I worked in the education sector, not hedge fund management), having friends that are so ill they cannot leave their homes, aging, self-reflection, empathy, our current political landscape — it’s a combination of all of these living realities. Maybe pissing and moaning makes me feel better. I never want to feel superior; however, I do want to feel good, safe, and hopeful.

It’s a good time to remind myself that I am no better than anyone else. That includes you. I know that when I’m dead, no one will care about the car I drove or the size of my condominium — these things will not have defined or informed my life or character.

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Future Travel

Asia land & sea, end of October/November, Lyon, France for Christmas, South Africa land & sea in February, and Oslo, Norway July 2024. Finally, a visit to the Puglia region of Italy in the spring of 2025. The United States in 2025 is likely: Brooklyn, Portland, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina and maybe the west coast.

Trust me, it’s all done on a budget; no business class or Four Seasons. I should note that travel is a big part of my blog, therefore, I do not consider this section of my blog boasting. Let me know if you believe it is — always interesting to get your perspective.

Current State-of Mind

I have to admit that sometimes I’m pissy and I don’t know why. The weather is great, I’m seeing good friends, I’m eating well, sleeping well, my health is good, Paco is healthy; it’s all good, but I’m still pissy. Not all the time; it comes and goes and I refuse to take a pill in order to hide or mask it. Instead I just walk around trying to manage it.

Pissy defined: negative attitude, short tempered, difficult to please.

Maybe it’s the high school students revving their motorcycles on my street? Maybe it’s my ginger beer price going up 50% from one week to the next (I hate how business owners are profiting from inflation)? Could it be the dog shit I stepped in yesterday? Perhaps it’s friends who seem completely self-absorbed? Yes, it’s all of the above that is making me pissy.

Remembering Dianne Feinstein, who lived an exemplary life and served us well. Rest in peace Dianne.

Please forgive any and all typographical and grammatical errors. I hate proofreading and I often get crazy with commas.

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Righteous Rants Get You Nowhere

A Periodic Reminder (to myself)

This blog is not meant for anyone else but me. I’m making notes for future reference. Righteous behavior, righteous thoughts, righteous finger pointing; all harmful to one’s health and well-being. I figure if I consider it and write about it, it might someday actually stick. I’m taking bets, anyone interested?

righteous*

adjective

*morally right or justifiable.”feelings of righteous indignation about pay and conditions” Oxford Languages

If you think that someone behaves or lives in a way that is morally good, you can say that they are righteous. People sometimes use righteousness to express their disapproval when they think someone is only behaving in this way so that others will admire or support them. Collins COBUILD

Example: One morning this week, I was walking Paco and a man and his unleashed dog were walking toward us. I politely asked him if he would leash his dog (there are signs everywhere in the park). We are not in a controlled environment and Paco is not always friendly when dogs run up to greet him. The man told me his dog was friendly and I replied, “My dog is not always friendly.” He ignored me and kept his dog off-leash. I had to keep myself from chasing and threatening him. Paco has never bitten another dog, but when aggression begins, it can go in several unwanted directions. Herein lies the problem:

This guy doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Paco or his reaction. His dog weighed a good 80 pounds more than my 8 pound pooch. So he’s probably annoyed with me for about 10 seconds as he continues to defy the law and my wishes. I, on the other hand, carried the anger around for hours, days even. So who is right and who is wrong and does it matter in the long run?

How Do You Know When You’re Being/Feeling/Thinking in a Righteous Way?

Oh this will be a fun list to create:

  • When your blood instantly starts to boil
  • When you can’t see straight
  • When you write an angry text, press send and immediately regret it
  • When a friend calls and tells you to take down a post
  • When punching your pillow gives you no satisfaction or even breaking a dish against the wall
  • When you keep thinking, “But I’m right, doesn’t that count for something?”
  • When you start screaming while driving your car because you think no one can hear you
  • When you are wide awake at 3:00 a.m. thinking about something someone said to you three days earlier
  • When you find yourself spending more and more time alone
  • When something that happened 10 or 20 years ago is still occupying your thoughts

What Can You Do About it?

This question is more difficult for me than it might be for others; I am mighty righteous. I’ve had a lot of practice when it comes to dealing with righteous thoughts and actions. The following are some of the things I’ve done — a combination of successful and unsuccessful coping mechanisms:

  • Take a step back, breathe, and wait
  • Ask an objective party to evaluate your scenario and advise you
  • Let it go and keep it gone
  • Do some research on the topic and then act to address the problem
  • Escape. Leave the house. Leave town. Get away from your everyday life.
  • Read
  • Meditate
  • Find a positive way to relay your thoughts. For example: a friend of mine carries extra poop bags and when she sees someone leaving their dog poop, she walks over and hands them a bag. She usually adds, “I thought you might need this or did you forget this?” Brilliant.
  • Therapy or life coach (both have helped me navigate through life)
  • Think through the pros and cons of acting on your rage
  • Journal entries where you purge the anger and live it on the page (or blog)
  • Sometimes you just have to tell someone to go f*^k themselves

I do believe personal freedom is important and right; however, when people infringe on my freedom or space, that sets me off.

Finding Your North Star (your center)

The absolute best thing you can ever do is make peace with whatever or whomever is causing you to feel anxious and/or angry. It may mean apologizing even if you’re right. I don’t want to be “that guy.” You know that guy, the one who climbs onto his or her soap box so often everyone stops listening. I used to follow a couple of liberals on social media. I thought they had some great things to say about our current state of affairs. Things quickly changed when they went too far left and you know what happens, people stop listening; I stop listening.

My List

The kinds of things I get all righteous about on a daily basis:

  • People trying to sell you on religion
  • Motorcyclists revving up there engines and/or riding without a muffler
  • People who do not pick-up their dog poop
  • People who refuse to recycle
  • People who try to overtake you in traffic or bully their way to the front of the line
  • People who try to top you when your sharing something (i.e., my accident was worse than yours or my illness is worse)
  • Individuals who cheat and then try to justify it
  • People who lie to your face and know that they are lying
  • People who underpay their workers or cheat them out of their pay
  • People who block traffic by double parking
  • People who throw trash on the ground
  • People who complain about the government and do not vote
  • People who vote for candidates just because someone in their family (or a friend) tells them to
  • People who hate on others because whatever it is someone else is doing goes against their religion or personal values
  • People who accept invitations for parties/dinners/events, but never reciprocate
  • People who refuse to communicate because they cannot tolerate any level of conflict
  • Individuals who always think that we should laugh at their stupid, inappropriate jokes
  • Individuals who for one reason or another, think they are better than anyone else

I could keep going, but it’s making me anxious. This should help you understand why I live alone.

Side Note: I have always been jealous of individuals who seem completely unaffected by an injustice they may have witnessed or experienced. I wonder if they are so healthy that they can clear their minds of any thoughts related to what they experienced or if they can sort it out quickly and move on. Either way it is admirable, but not usually the way things go for me. Two questions loom large: 1) Are they telling the truth about their response? and 2) Is it healthy to be unaffected?

My theme song from La Cage aux Folles: I am What I Am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zreTvtpTeoU Gloria Gaynor

At this point in my life I don’t see that POV changing: righteous, stubborn, obstinate, cranky, opinionated, emotional, critical, and big hearted. I’m not defending who I am; just stating a fact. Then of course there is the nature vs. nurture question — that’s for another day.

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Future Travel

Basel, Switzerland in September, Asia land & sea, end of October/November, Lyon, France for Christmas, South Africa land & sea in February, and Oslo, Norway July 2024. Finally, a visit to the Puglia region of Italy in the spring of 2025.

Current State-of Mind

Milder weather has arrived to the Algarve. My spirits are lifted when the air has a slight chill and a cool breeze is blowing — perhaps even some rain in the near future. I’m sure you can always ascertain from my very telling blogs, that I’m going through some sort of existential crisis. Jotting down my thoughts and tumultuous feelings, helps me to sort it out — I highly recommend it as a tool for peace-of-mind. Either writing or moderate drinking, both work.

I’d love to hear from you on this topic. Please forgive any grammatical or typographical errors.

Posted on by CP · 6 Comments

Admitting Your Own Mistakes

Image result for mistakes quotes

This is a tough one :p

This will be a short blog. Not because I haven’t made mistakes, in fact, I’ve made many mistakes. The reason this blog will be brief, is that I am working on being more positive. Weeks and weeks of lockdown can send you down a dark rabbit hole and I’m choosing an upward path.

Objectivity is way more challenging than most of us care to admit. For me, everything is always personal. The former president signs an executive order to ban immigrants from several Middle East countries and I take it personally. It’s not terribly healthy, but I recognize the mantra, “It’s not about me,” is worth repeating often . . . very often.

Big Mistakes Versus Tiny Ones

I often say regrets are a waste of time; therefore, rehashing bad decisions would be futile; except in at least one circumstance: if you can learn from your mistake.

For example, and I’ll avoid a personal recounting for a change, you purchase oysters and put them in the refrigerator. You plan on opening the oysters that evening, but something comes up and you tell yourself you’ll shuck them the next day. Life happens and the next day comes and goes. On the third day you remember the oysters sitting in the refrigerator. You think about the $26 you spent on them and you wonder how long they sat in the fish market stall before you bought them. You ponder their freshness for another 30 seconds and then you say, “Oh, heck, I’m sure they’re fine, I’m going to have Harry shuck them.” That night you and Harry end up with food poisoning that almost sends you to hospital. I think it’s safe to say that you will never make that mistake again. And who the hell is Harry?

Big Mistakes

For me, the biggest mistake one could make would involve badly hurting another person. There are so many examples of this: having an affair, killing someone (accidentally or on purpose), pinning a crime on an innocent person, driving drunk and paralyzing someone for life, and more.

Hard to fix a big mistake, in fact, in many cases impossible. You end up having to live with the mistake and live with yourself. So why do we make big mistakes? No easy answer here; however, there is something we can do to preempt big mistakes:

  • NEVER drink and drive
  • When you get so angry you want to use your physical power against someone, walk away
  • Play the worst case scenario game and if the outcome is dire, don’t go with that plan, choose another
  • Ask friends for their advice
  • Write a pros and cons list (my favorite past time)
  • Use protection prior to sex with someone you don’t know very well

Small Mistakes

Small mistakes are quite different. We make small mistakes nearly everyday. Beating yourself or someone else up over a small mistake, is a waste of good energy (as are regrets). Instead, why not apologize to someone or use it as a teachable moment. No major damage was done and a lesson might be learned. Repeating bad behavior is inexcusable.

45 Forgive Yourself Quotes | Self Forgiveness Quotes images – FunZumo
Sure, easy for you to say

A mistake I made this week: I walked into the dog park in my neighborhood with Paco. Please keep in mind that I have been going there with him for seven months and there has never been an issue. I asked the two people in the park if it’s okay to take Paco off-leash. We were all three wearing a mask and the two individuals were fairly far away from the entrance. I believed I had been given the go ahead. Unbeknown to me, one of the two women, is tried to tell me that she didn’t believe our dogs would get along. I didn’t comprehend this until Paco charged her dog and attacked him. The owner screamed and lifted her dog off the ground with his leash. Paco grabbed his tail and he was literally swinging off the dog’s tail. I pried Paco off and tried to grab him, but he was angry and rabid. I held the woman’s dog high in the air so that Paco could not harm him and she managed to put Paco on his leash. I learned that this poor woman has heart problems.

I anguished over this mishap for several days. I have since learned that you cannot not expect a neutered male (Paco) to play with or interact with a non-neutered male (her dog). Lesson learned and I hope it never happens again; it was extremely scary and could have ended in the spilling of blood or even the death of her beloved pet.

Side note: There was an unneutered male dog at the park yesterday and his owner assured me that there would not be a problem. She was right, Paco played beautifully and happily with this dog. She told me that it is not the neuter factor, but a scent that dogs give off. It is this uncertainty that concerns me. Is there a clear cause and effect answer?

Recommend an excellent podcast, Obama and The Boss

Question of the Week:

I’m getting some great feedback on and off-line and I want to let you know how much I appreciate it.

Have you done something in the past that haunts you? Is it time to let it go?