ThreeFireflies
02-24-2008, 01:07 AM
Perpetual optimism or blind faith generates relationships that easily yield to subversion. Con artists like satisfied customers…..or satisfied voters, as the case may be. They avoid people who seek and permit a full range of emotions: sorrow, remorse, caution, dread, disgust, and indignation as well as joy and courage. We’ve even been taught to police each other lest anyone sense the probable outcome of “recommended” actions. We shouldn’t scare or discourage others by complaining, we’re told, and being anxious to preserve our values, we gradually comply. Thus we become responsible – supposedly - for the manipulation of other people’s emotions. If Bob isn’t happy, Sally had better make him that way, right? It’s an obscene predicament - one that has been leading to violence for centuries as frustrated, mystified marks try to free themselves from an intolerable burden. By now the burden supposedly requires detention camps and railcars equipped with shackles. The people who legislated the optimism are planning to pay some disgruntled thugs (who think they’re onto something) to wipe it away…..permanently. We should have made them happy, right?