Take a Bite of This Apple

Comfort Eagle

I think I know how people felt in high school when I self-righeously shoved my overbearing moral maxims down their throats, because I'm the one the "you've done wrong" index wiggles are pointed at now. Half of them bear a stick sharpened at both ends, and the others, at the very least, a big mouth and no sense of the way half-truths propagate themselves in Chelmsford.

If life in the big city, to quote my father, is a busy and impersonal game littered with anonymity, competition, and cold transaction replacing genuine interpersonal interaction, then small town life is an overly open, judgment filled, never-ending game of telephone, only you're trying to get the game to stop because it's getting way too personal and you're playing with people you don't even fucking like. The more it goes on, and the less credibility the claims seem to retain, the more they are diffused. Alternatively, the more they become widespread, the more authenticity gets sacrificed. Rumors and myths function much in the same way in these respects. People don't bother looking into them. They don't research. They don't ask questions. Hell, they don't even ask themselves questions. They just accept the facts, because they sound good, because they are interesting, or because they are sympathetic to the manor in which they have been told. Consider the statement "marijuana kills braincells". Many believe this because of negative propaganda and fried-egg smear campaigns, and others agree that it's a myth because they've heard others say it is. It's called looking up your facts.
Whatever happened to keeping yourself well-informed?
Whatever happened to critical thinking?

Between school or town gossip and widely accepted common misconceptions, the former is unique in that we have the opportunity to confirm or disconfirm it first hand. Ask before crucifying.
 "But Cary", you might ask, "What if they lie?"

Then they're face-preserving, it's none of your business, and if you can't accept that, you're just being a nosy little cunt, like the rest of us.

I'm really glad I'm confident and self-assured. This small, insignificant, incident's current proportions might have otherwise destroyed me. However, it doesn't change who I am, what I'm doing, or where I'm going. As soon as I can, I'll be out of this go-nowhere place. I'm gonna be just fine. It's sorta the other people targeted every day by this small-circle bullshit I worry about, because it's not okay. People need to remember that morality (not always but very often) is subjective, everything is not as it seems, and life is too short to dwell, or thrive, of the private behaviour of others.