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Honesty killed the cat and that's OK
 Rebecca Jackson
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For 21 years, eight months and 11 days, I have been alive. And although I've bounced around a bit in my time, one constant has remained: I've always been around people. A lot of people.
I have a thing about people. First, let me lay out a few basic principles.
People are the same no matter where you are (back off, you alleged non-conformists who think you're so different: you're not). Of course, there are little traits that distinguish culture from culture, and on a more micro-level, individual from individual. But generally, it can be said that people as a species have a set of shared characteristics. With that out of the way, we are free to deal with the broader issue at hand.
People today have stemmed a new characteristic that was lacking in others before us.
Everyone these days seems to think someone owes them something. For their past, their personal situation, what might happen in the future and so on. Come on!
Everything is an issue, a possible topic for "open dialogue," a reason to get passive-aggressively angry.
When did everyone become so fake? When did everything become so serious? Where did it all go wrong?
I cannot pinpoint the start of it all. What I can do is admit that it has gotten out of hand. I used to be what I like to call a "cause head." You know the type, whatever global issue is the dish of the week they support. If someone makes a remark that they've been told is offensive, even if they don't know why, they cry out. Many of them have never left the country or seen any of the evils they care so deeply about avenging.
And why?
Because that is what other people do, namely the other people they know. People just like them.
"Because" has never been a reason to do something. "Because it's what everyone does" is a far worse reason. There is nothing wrong with liking a song that millions of people like, but there is everything wrong with attaching yourself to group mentality when it comes to things like feelings and emotions and logic.
That's how the Holocaust happened, people.
The worst part of it is that this atmosphere has been created under the farce of shaping a society in which all people can be honest about who they are and not feel ashamed. That society should definitely be an ideal. This current facade of caring and openness is doing much more harm than good to that end. People need to start questioning what happens around them, and figure out how they really feel about it. Regurgitating the preachings of others is no answer; people need to actually process information and make their own critical judgments.
There's a word here I've been skirting around. Honesty. There! I said it.
This is the only worthy option in dealing with life. Unfortunately, fake feelings have become the trend.
For example:
Standard comment: "Those (insert offensive word here) drive me crazy."
Conditioned response: "As a (re-insert word, or politically correct alternative), that statement offends me." Why? A loaded word, as they are often called, is still just a word.
Words are arbitrary. It means what you let it mean. After introspection, if one is still offended, fine. It is also okay to be offended. It's what keeps the world spinning, the fires burning.
Now the problem becomes change. How do we scratch through the layers that have built up? How do we peel back that plastic coating around our hearts? Part of me wonders if many people would know a real, honest feeling if it slapped them in the face.
Doubt has crept in, made me cynical about people and society. Yet I can't kill this small molecule of hope that keeps on, waiting for the day when I say something stupid and somebody I don't know calls me on it. Loudly. Rudely. When they say what they are thinking of me straight to my face, even though that's not what you're supposed to do to strangers.
On that glorious day, I will shout from rooftops and dance around in my knickers.
Let the thaw begin.
Rebecca Jackson can be reached at: [email protected]
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