Feel-Good
Arrogance
Charlie Earl
What is it
about those people who insist on telling us how we should live? What drives
them to nip and nibble every little aspect of our lives in their misguided
efforts to force us to live as they think we must? Their constant nagging and
brow-beating is enough to drive a guy to drink, but they preach that consuming
copious amounts of alcohol is not good for me. I know that already, but a gradual
failure of my liver is preferable to death from grinding my teeth as the mavens
of “feel good” pester me. From the time one first becomes aware of one’s self
identity, other people feel compelled to dispense lifestyle advice.
Mommies,
Daddies, Aunts, Uncles, grandparents and kindly neighbors all chip in to guide
and direct the child. (It takes a village, you know). I sometimes wonder how
our frontier families managed to get by without other people hovering around
them dispensing unending advice and prescriptions. It is a wonder that so many
of our forbearers managed to survive without the beneficent hands of Big
Brother, Nanny State and the Feel-Good lobby. Even when we turn to our escapist
entertainment sources, we cannot escape the “you-ought-to-do-this” crowd.
Multiple commercials tell us how to avoid all the physical and emotional
tripwires we may encounter as we blindly stumble through life. A potent body
spray will insure that we’ll be sexually attractive, and using the proper
baking soda-sugar compound of toothpaste will preserve our fragile choppers
forever. Being alone is too great a burden to bear so we are told/admonished to
join “Hook-up dot com” so that we never have to suffer the consequences of
solitude and peace again. It is so true in today’s world that if you’re not in,
you’re out of it, and lots of people are willing to tell you how to be “in.”
The
difference between an exile, an outcast, and a recluse is based on who makes
the decision to choose isolation. The end result is the same. The person
involved is set aside from the community. The primary difference is the outcast
is frequently shunned while some do-gooder folks may feverishly attempt to
integrate the recluse into the social structure. The passionate communitarians
cannot conceive that the self-exiled person prefers that type of life when for
most people it is a punishment. It seems that anyone who chooses a lifestyle
that does not conform to the feel-good model must be cajoled or coerced into
the social mold lest she or he make others feel uneasy. The feel-good, do-good
mentality cannot face the possibility that its pattern for living may not be
universally accepted. Aberrant behavior is seen as threatening, and the
do-gooder cannot understand nor countenance those who resist the “norm.” In
addition the do-gooder is incapable of comprehending the recluse’s desire for
solitude and suspects it may be indicative of some underlying disorder. The
arrogance of the feel-good do-gooder is the actual social disorder because they
believe everyone must conform to their view.
Feel-gooders
are smiling well-intentioned autocrats. Their innermost desire is to rule, but
they lack the cajones to seize power.
Instead they seek to wield power through manipulation and guilt. Their constant
reminders about what is good for you and me represent hordes of guilt-laden
pinpricks to eventually force us to accept their superior wisdom. We are
expected to yield and to comply with their remedies for what ails us, what
might ail us and what “no way on earth” could affect us, but you should prepare
anyway. When a cat gets severely injured, it crawls away to die in peace. The
do-good Nanny Staters want us to live forever in despotic agony. The cat has
the right idea. To them I plead: Just leave me be. To them I say: I don’t want
your help. To them I insist: I will not yield to the force and power of
government while making my personal life decisions.
There were
probably some bureaucrats in the Soviet Union who believed that a few years in
a Siberian gulag would be a good thing for wrong-way thinkers. There were
undoubtedly some folks in Salem, Massachusetts who assumed that a good dousing
would cleanse the soul of a suspected witch, and there were probably many
people during the Middle Ages who knew that a trial by fire would purge a
sinful person of all impurity (and earthly life). The progeny of those types
are still with us, and they continue to torment us with their solutions for
mythical problems. Busy-bodies, bureaucrats and do-good politicians will be the
death of us….sooner rather than later.
Charlie Earl
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