Foxy,

Who are the worst kind of people and how have they surprised you? I don't put people into good and bad kind. I firmly believe there's no such thing as a nice person. Or a person with a good sense of humour. Just people you get on with and people you don't. Maybe nice people are people who get on with lots of people. I wouldn't like to spread myself so thin. Maybe I need more depth.

pelican,

Perhaps the left are whining more because the right are winning. What I'm saying is the right are winning because people are humans. And if the left were to somehow win, what would humans have changed too? I gather the left want humans to change to these fluffy little bunnies giving free hugs. But I don't find that kind of human very interesting. It doesn't ring true either, so I think that creates conflict in the average lefty and their good intentioned wants for the world.

Dear Houellie,

What I referred
to as the "worst kind of people," was simply those
people who choose to ignore the knowledge that what
they are doing is wrong, and do it anyway.

How have these people surprised me? Occasionally,
by doing the unexpected

You may have a point Houlley. The pendulum has swung to the Right over the last 20 years, and that might explain some of the discontent. The winners don't need to complain I guess.

I think the Right did the same after Whitlam was elected and it was commonly thought it was the end of the world as they knew it.

There is certainly a growing cynicism for politics and our politicians but I don't think this is confined to the Right or Left.

No matter how discontented one might be the biggest thing is to remain positive in RL. Nothing comes from wallowing or the woe is me and much of it really does not matter - we still have some choices in this country and one can choose not to conform or to buy into what we don't like whether it be rampant consumerism, debt, waste.

The best things often happen at community or local level with little input from pollies.

For example I love the Buy Local campaigns that have sprung up all over the place. Local markets selling local organic produce for those that don't want to buy imported food and the increasing interest in backyard vegetables.

Not everyone's thing I know but my point is that there are still choices even if one might lament the increase in foreign food imports and implications for biosecurity, farmers etc.

Houellebecq

What a good excuse for a rant this thread is. You've outdone yourself.

You've also revealed the deep extent to which your long list of pet hates must gnaw away at you.

<< Maybe the guilt you feel for being human needn't be purged by preaching to others. >>

The Left doesn't have a monopoly on so-called 'preaching'. In fact when we consider the growing influence of Rightwing Christian fundamentalism and the 'preaching' here of the likes of Runner, I don't think many would seriously accuse those on the Left of being the 'preachers'.

The Right has been 'preaching' the promised glories of free markets for decades now. Most have gone quiet of course since the global financial crash. They know their hallowed free-for-all has been revealed as the flimsy deck of cards and illusory creator of real wealth many on the Left argued it was right from the start.

<< ... still wanting what you haven't got. >>

In my experience, it's those on the Right who are the ones most bitten by the urge to acquire. The more they have, the more they want.

<< The left by far do the majority of the complaining about how people are choosing to live their lives. >>

Maybe that's because the Left can see the path of self destruction the Right has set us on. None are so happy, as those who are too blind to see.

<< Maybe I need more depth. >>

Wow, you sure got that one right.

You may be moving into dangerous territory here, Houellebecq.

>>If you're constantly on about wanting to eradicate every little idiosyncrasy that makes people... people, do you not therefore just hate people? Is the biggest fear that they can actually 'see', they just don't agree? Or they don't care? Or they have different values? Maybe the guilt you feel for being human needn't be purged by preaching to others... It's an innate hatred of all things human.<<

I think I can help.

"Transference occurs when a person takes the perceptions and expectations of one person and projects them onto another person. They then interact with the other person as if the other person is that transferred pattern."

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/psychoanalysis/concepts/transference.htm

I have noticed this before in some of your posts. You project this image onto the "you" figure, as in your little diatribes above. You then proceed to demolish them for their follies, with put-downs and sneers.

My suspicion is that you actually hate yourself, for a number of reasons - probably not precisely those traits that you then accuse the "other you" of exhibiting, but in all likelihood close to them. You then experience a form of guilt-expurgation, by setting up this figure whom you dislike so much, and allowing yourself to throw mud at it.

Possibly it is also a form of catharsis, in which by articulating and recognizing those things that you hate yourself for, you undergo a form of ritual purging. Notably, you use any dissent - "no, it's not really that bad" - as a spur to self-flagellate just that much harder - "yes yes, I'm such a naughty boy!"

There will be no charge for the session on this occasion.

Dear Pelly,

You're right - Houellie has raised some
interesting questions.

I'm currently reading Goldie Hawn's biography
where she says:

"As we grow up our lives become so cluttered.
We become shackled with responsibility, and bogged down
with work and kids and the daily rituals and problems
of everday lives. We forget how to play...

When we were children, we lived entirely in the moment.
We knew no greater pleasure than to jump in a pile of
leaves, ride bikes through muddy puddles or make
crazy faces at each other with mouths full of ice cream.
And tomorrow was only tomorrow...

Somewhere along the way, we grow up and suddenly feel
self conscious doing all these things, perhaps
because the adults around us start to tell us,
"Act your age!" But what does that have to do with
play? How can we relate a number to a full-on expression of
abandonment and joy?"

I guess what we need to do instead of wallowing, "Woe
is me," is unleash the child within us from time to
time, and watch how it unleashes the child in those
around us. As Einstein said, "A person starts to live
only when he can live outside himself."