Getting High, Why Nobody Cares About Your Birthday, and Seeking an Enemy

So, I got super high last night. Which isn’t really significant, but it also kind of could be. You know, cause of the whole butterfly effect and all. Like what if me getting high last night is the reason we end up solving world hunger? I’m definitely taking credit for it, I can tell you that. When we solve world hunger, I’ll be there telling everyone it was because I got high that one time. It’ll be great. I’ll have a statue. And a park. Yeah… I’ll have a park.

Anyways, yesterday was my birthday and I was busy being irresponsible for a day because it’s socially acceptable to do that when it’s your birthday, so that’s why I’m posting on Tuesday instead of Monday. Birthdays are weird. There are just too many of them. And who are you to celebrate the day you were born? What’s so special about you?  And what gives you the right to call it your birthday? Every day is someone’s birthday. Hold on let’s do some math.

Fuck, why did I say I was going to do math? Okay so we have seven and a half billion people shuffling their dumb feet around while they think about sex or food or that new lighting display at Sears. And we have 365 days a year. Technically 365.25 but if you’re born on February 29th on a leap year you can go fuck yourself because everything is your fault and three quarters of the time you don’t technically exist. Okay so 7.5 billion divided by 365 is… hold on I need a calculator, I’m not some John Nash Steven Hawking Rainman glory child over here. Ew the MLB all star game is in Cleveland this year? Gross.

Sorry, I was supposed to be doing a calculation wasn’t I? Okay so on average, you share a birthday with about 20.5 million other people. Hahaha and you thought you were important. Dumbass. “It’s my birthday…”

Ooh I had a thought! That’s what I was getting at. So I got high and I was thinking about… um what was I thinking about? Oh, enemies! I think people are hardwired to wish for an enemy in their life. I was thinking about how easy it is to get pulled into the political poop fest and how I constantly watch really smart, generally well-meaning people on the internet slowly lose their minds because they just have to talk about how much they hate the other political party. I’ve felt the temptation myself, too. It’s easy to get sucked into.

I remember when I was younger I would occasionally wake up and the first thought into my head in the morning was something along the lines of “God, Republicans are so stupid.” Luckily I caught myself and thought, no you’re stupid. IDIOT! Then, a few years later, it happened again for a little while, but the other way around. I would wake up in the morning and think to myself, “you know who I really hate? Progressives.” I caught myself doing it again last night and found it to be really interesting. It’s like I was looking for something to fight so I could feel as if I was marching towards victory.

It got me thinking about how you can’t have a hero without a villain, and how most people want to be heroes. So, in order to make that happen, we have to find a villain. If one doesn’t present itself, we have to create one. Or just pick one. I guess that’s what most people do. I decide… to hate you! CONGRATULATIONS!

I don’t think most people want to recognize this tribal nature. Or maybe they don’t have the time. Or care. Whatever the case is, most people aren’t sitting around thinking about the tribal nature of their subconscious and how it subverts their conscious behavior. God that was such a pretentious sentence. Whatever. The point is, there’s something at play here that affects everyone and most people aren’t really paying any attention to it.

So yeah there’s this desire to fight an enemy. There’s also… there’s also… wait for it… hold on. Okay. There’s also this desire to not only fight an enemy, but to fight an enemy together. Because honestly, what’s more fun than finding someone who also hates the kind of people you do?

It’s nice to find someone who likes something you like. It’s great. But it’s not as powerful as finding someone who hates something you also hate. “Oh my god you can’t stand Power Rangers either!?” We’ve all had a connection like that. I mean… not that one specifically because I don’t know if that sentence has ever been uttered by a human being, but you get the point. It’s fun to bond over things we despise.

You know what? This subject is going to be continued on the next post. This is already getting long and I feel like I’m only scratching the surface here. Okay cool, bye.