Human Decency

I was walking down the street today, headed for the grocery store, when the most bizarre thing happened. First of all, it's about 8:30 in the morning, I was up and about today and determined to get stuff done. Clearly anybody who has his days off on Tuesdays and Thursdays made the right life decisions, right?

Anyways, I'm trotting along the sidewalk and it was a little chilly early on today so I put on a hoodie. Nothing special, just a regular, red hoodie. No design, no nothing. Simplicity is the essence of fashion, or so I've been told by people that know what fashion is. Besides, even though I'm smaller than most people, I produce body heat at an exponential rate. Seriously, I'm hot.

All of a sudden, out of absolutely nowhere, a car went racing by on the same path that I was headed and a man leaned out the window and yelled, "Hey faggot! Nice jacket!"

Let's recap really quickly: It's 8:30 in the morning, I'm minding my own business on the sidewalk, and I'm not doing anything to draw any attention to myself. This guy just felt that at that fleeting moment he needed to lean out the window and yell something.

At first I was startled. I'm in my own little world when I'm going places. I start talking to myself in my head and coming up with wacky ideas that I can write about in the future. I know it sounds narcissistic, but when I'm walking down the street, my focus in on myself.

Then, after I realized that somebody yelled something and it was directed at me, I started to process what he said. The more I dwelled on it, the more it pissed me off.

What kind of jackass does it take to yell hateful spewage out of his car window at a stranger on the streets? As a writer (cough, cough) I understand that words hold gravity. There's weight to what you say and it affects people.

People kill themselves because of what people say.

Ignorance truly is bliss. The guy that said that today continued on his path probably thinking he just did the funniest thing he's ever done. But what if I wasn't me? What if I was somebody just scraping by on a thread of decent humanity and that things were really going to get better. Then he comes along. Now I'm shattered.

Being funny isn't natural, it's a craft. It's a finely tuned machine that gets perfected with a better understanding of sociology. If you aren't capable of being coherent enough to understand how people think, then you aren't capable of being funny. If the only thought you can conjure up in your head at a given moment is a slur or a hateful remark, then you aren't funny--you're ignorant and you don't understand the gravity of words.

I'm not a naive person. I understand that the world is full of people that are homophobic, and racist, and prejudiced, and just downright bad guys. It's your right to be wrong, it's not my problem. Just for the sake of whatever it is that you hold dear to yourself, please THINK before you speak. If what you are about to say is something that you would never like to hear spoken to you, then shut the hell up.

There are plenty of ways to be smart, or funny, or significant without making another person feel like crap. Unless that person is you. In which case, I'm the biggest proponent for self-deprecation.