The core credo most westerners grow up with – at least one could hope – is, you do you. Go do your own thing, whatever. It’s so deeply ingrained that it’s hard to imagine the alternative.
But rarely has one bothered to make the distinction of that, while you’re welcome to go do your own thing – as long as it doesn’t infringe upon the freedoms of another – that doesn’t mean others have to think it’s cool or okay. And, of course, it’s not like you have to care about their opinion.
Rarely has anyone ever bothered to take advantage of this distinction. Those who often do have a sanctimonious undertone about it, appealing to some dead morality and it’s nauseating. But still, while you’re welcome to do what you please, maybe one ought to be alerted to the consequences.
Nevertheless you learn to not interject because you figure they’re going to lurk the sewers whether you say anything or not. But, again, it’s vastly underestimated how important an alternative opinion could be even if the echo-chamber barricades and buries one in.
So, with all that said, lately it seems as though Tolerance is a Dead End. That no matter how much you ignore, somehow these things you fundamentally disagree with invade. That tolerance is antithetical to the will of Nature and you’re just choking yourself.
In fact, this tolerance is culpable to why relationships are so vacuous. That relationships are only worthwhile if you share the same values; things you wouldn’t concede on, things you would want to work on. A world you’d want to live in.
After living so long in this credo of tolerance, what were its fruits? Paranoia, illness, avoidance and isolation, and, ultimately, witnessing demise in the name of “freedom” where “freedom” is ingesting the information of not of those who have an interest in your well being but all the advertisers or three letter agencies driving MK-Ultra people to “choose” their exit – or distant peoples who have nothing to do with you regardless.
When you experience a lot of anger and stress so the natural inclination, as one gets older, is to avoid it as much as possible. But, in some ways, it’s this anger which holds together the world. Corny as may be, without this anger many things wouldn’t exist; one often builds out of frustration.
So here’s the fundamental tension: one can choose indifference or intolerance. And don’t get me wrong, indifference is often the correct choice, especially when you’re dealing with people you will never cross paths with or live with or interact with in a serious capacity. It’s almost funny though, seeing as whether you choose indifference or intolerance, so inevitably you’ll find yourself retreating further into the woods.
But if you never set the bar, so stagnation and nausea follows. Only by treating others and yourself to a higher standard, clinging to virtue as a sanity consumable, and realizing that you have to live with yourself and your actions for the rest of your life unless you are the satori one can you push away the nausea.
I’m tired of tolerating stupidity, weakness, hysteria or pathos-overloads along with indifference. And I’m tired of feigning interest or doing social graces of things to protect the emotional well being of those around. All in the name of Tolerance.
Mediocrity, though at first comforting, slowly strangles you in meaninglessness. Because it is anathema to dreaming big. Without a big dream, what’s left? Fitting in? Not much to look forward to with a haywire’d mind.
Eventually, there’s nothing left.