Throwing paint on the Mona Lisa, stopping street traffic, and coming down the aisle of a Broadway theatre to make a speech for your climate cause…sorry, but none of this is ok with me.
Regardless of how right you might think you are, how much you believe some sort of change needs to happen in the world right here and now, and even maybe how many people might agree with you (and I am sure for any cause we can find just as many people con and pro) you do not have the right to disturb the life of the people around you.
You just don’t.
I say this all the time, and please don’t take offense…but I don’t care about the opinions of people I do not know. I barely care about the opinions of the people I do know. In fact, I mostly don’t even care about my opinions. With those folks I consider my friends and family, in the end, if we come to discuss something and we disagree, let’s show the maturity to get to the point where we acknowledge one another’s opinion, show our respect one another’s view…but move on. I guarantee you that in almost all cases, you are not going to convince me of a blessed thing, as I won’t you.
And I don’t care to.
I don’t care if even when you read this, you like or dislike it.
It used to be that we did not discuss religions, politics, and sex in polite company. Man, what I wouldn’t give to go back to this edict. I guess the idea that we need to air our every opinion comes from our ability to yawp across various social media whatever we think, feel, eat for breakfast, any time of day.
But just because we can do something, doesn’t always mean we should. Haven’t we learned that lesson yet?
Let me clue you in on a little secret: nobody is listening, and nobody gives a shit. Those people on your Instagram feed or twatting away with you all day, are only waiting for you to stop posting or DM-ing or whatever it’s called, so they can have their say. They are not listening to you. I guarantee it. These days most people are too stuck in the swirly whirly of their brain, nose-deep in their cell phoe face, to give anybody even a passing notice.
Sorry, but it’s true.
We have evolved into the most selfish versions of ourselves that have ever existed on the planet. And it’s never going to get better. Don’t agree, that’s ok.
So, if you get up during a revival of Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” as somebody did last night, disrupting the performance by walking down the theater aisle, declaring “No Broadway on a dead planet.” “No theatre on a dead planet” thinking this is your right because you are part of Extinction Rebellion concerned about climate change, I can clearly tell you your ends does not justify my means of paying for a ticket and wanting to watch a play without you in my life. I don’t care about your opinion, and this has nothing to do with me feeling this way or that about your cause. It’s simple civility and my desire to live my life freely. Your ability to do the same stops when you trample on my freedoms, as I would expect the same criticism if I did the same to you.
Get out of my life.
