TWITTER: BIAS in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

I was going to write something about my personal biases… but I kept writing exceptions to my own biases; thereby suggesting that it isn’t as much of a bias. Breakdown:
I have long had problems with the unintelligent and the uneducated.
Living in Tiny Town; I have begun to lose my issues with the uneducated. There are many people around here with no college degree (some with no High School) that I get along with perfectly well. We aren’t friends and I couldn’t see them inviting me into their homes; but the prejudices against the uneducated have significantly decreased.
My issues with the unintelligent persist; but are not as widespread as I thought.
I have a significant soft spot for the mentally disabled.
I have a significant soft spot for people who have recovered from something.
And yet… I still find myself struggling with individuals who repeatedly refuse to contemplate anything beyond their navel.

If you call a business and want something taken care of… you should be aware that the business may need to call you back. Telling them “Oh, I don’t have a phone” is… just dumb. You called the business. “I use a VOIP phone so it is over the internet.” Okay… how do we get back in touch with you? “I don’t know.” This kind of idiocy boils my blood rapidly.

But even then… as irritated as I am about that… there is forgiveness in the back of my mind. The type of thing irritates me and makes me genuinely concerned about the person’s mental state… but as I think all of that, there is the nagging sense in the back of my head that says, “Without mental stimulation, what can you expect?” And maybe that is a prejudicial dickheaded thing to think. It really might be. But it honestly inspires me to forgive what I see around here when things seem… far less than they should be/could be.

Imagine you have zero money. Imagine you have no license. Imagine you live in an area of the state/country/world where an inability to travel long distances significantly cuts you off from things like hospitals, museums, cultural centers, intermingling with a diverse population… almost everything. It is you, your family, and a few other families… a gas station, a hair salon, and a bar. (No, Up North isn’t that bad; but it sets the tone). All you have access to is a small number of local businesses and a small number of people in the same boat as you are. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you have access to a television that shows you “the rest of the world.”

And from that perspective… it makes a tragic kind of sense. Humanity, often times, is like a cat… like a plasma. It fills its container… sometimes it goes outside of the bounds of its container, sometimes it doesn’t. But it fills a space and then stops.

I don’t know what the answer or the solution is. Frankly, I think a lot of people around here wouldn’t want an answer or solution… they don’t want to change their worlds, just like I didn’t want to come here and change mine. But it is a little sad that we can’t do more. To educate people. To take care of the mentally ill. To aid the addicts. To bring life to a dying community.

Maybe that is why we’re here right now. To learn how best to intermingle with those who are different; to forgive offenses that another individual may not even realize are offenses; and to learn… accept… that truly, seriously, deeply… people cannot be saved from themselves.