Expect Little!

My mission to procure cigarettes and beer from the liquor store nearly ended in disaster one night last summer when a woman in a swell car almost ran me down.  She had responsibly checked for oncoming traffic — in the wrong direction — before executing her turn, and as she passed me our eyes met through the passenger window.  She looked at me as if to say, “oh! how long have you been there?” and I stood in the street, toes mere inches from her rolling tires, grinning back at her in frank amusement.

I should have been outraged.  I should have spit upon the hood of her car.  The thing is, I just didn’t feel any anger toward her at all.  I found it funny that she might have killed me outright and, altogether oblivious of her  manslaughter, simply gone on to shop at Target.

Was it remarkable that a person should make such a glaring error among the throngs of humans negotiating the myriad avenues and boulevards of Los Angeles County, thought I?  Oh, hardly.  In fact, only an idiot wouldn’t expect it.

Then suddenly, as I went on my way with a wide smile warming my face, I shrugged, and an epiphany descended upon me as if from heaven.

“Expect little,” I said aloud.

And I’ve been saying it every day since.

The obnoxious behavior of others is normal for human beings. Expect little.

Expect little is a prayer.  It soothes and calms.  It educates.  It’s an unlikely mantra which inculcates a sort of passive humility.

It may be a nice gesture to presume that everyone is endowed with friendliness, elementary skills and common sense, but it’s an unlikely supposition which can only lead to discontent.   One ought rather to expect little of others.  Hate becomes very difficult when people act in accordance with your already-low expectations of them.

It behooves us all to acquaint ourselves with the idea that humanity may not be cut out for greatness, not even in our own hackneyed estimation.

Expect little, friends, because the highest percentage of people is always more rude, stupid, and unkempt than the minority of well-mannered, intelligent, and hygienic people.  This is because exceptional characteristics are by definition above average — which is to say, that they are the exception, rather than the rule.  Expecting little from people allows you to be content with the way people actually are, and pleasantly surprised by above-average behavior, which is as it should be.

To expect excellence from people, on the other hand, is silly.  People have never been cool en masse, but mass media has programmed us to expect everyone to be beautiful, polite, and at least somewhat intelligent.  This is (ha, ha!) not the case.

Expecting excellence from people is not even respectful to them.  In fact, it’s condescending.  You aren’t so cool, yourself, you know, particularly from the perspectives of people who don’t live up to your high standards.  We — you and I — are not cool enough to expect good things from others.  We don’t even know what cool is, in the universal sense.

Let people be stupid.  Let them be themselves, for God’s sake (big G).  Let them be stupid today, because you’re probably going to do something stupid tomorrow.

Think you're especially brilliant? Wrong. Each of us is just as gloriously idiotic as the next. Embrace humanity.

Expect little, because you can quickly become depressed by the amount of people who fail to meet your expectations.  That’s not any good.  Discontent with others leads to treating people as though you do not like them around — which tends to convince people that you do not like them around.  Pretty soon, you find yourself without anybody around, and where do you suppose everyone has gone?  Why, into the next room, of course, where everyone is frowning in your direction and calling you an elitist asshole.

Of you, they would do better to expect little.

We don’t only have irrationally high expectations of people, though.  Occasionally, we even find ourselves angry with luck, itself, as if it were slacking or something, remiss in its duties, not paying close enough attention to us and producing the wrong kind of random event.   This is perhaps our most common madness.  Why should we expect good fortune from random chance?  Random chance is the one thing from which we shouldn’t expect anything at all!

The world’s smartest computer can’t make accurate predictions of what random chance will produce.  Why bother lamenting an unfortunate mishap as if shocked that it might inconvenience you?  Mishaps happen.  In fact, mishaps happen so regularly — and with such colorful variety — that we ought long ago to have stopped guessing what should or should not transpire within the course of a day.  However, the rusty computers between our ears are always half-dedicated to overestimating their ill-collected data and faulty projections.

You see, then, we even expect too much of ourselves.  We’re only human, friends.  Chase your dreams in earnest, quest valiantly for glory, and by-all-means be the change you wish to see in the world, as the neo-hippies say — but…

Expect little.

Luck of the draw got you down? Dice come up snake-eyes again? Take my word for it -- expect little.

Expect little!  Expect your neighbor to make too much noise.  Expect your boss to give you too much work.  Expect helicopter parenting, drunk driving, and repeat offending, often by the same culprits.  Expect your favorite band to use too much cowbell.

Expect people from poorly educated states in poorly educated countries to act poorly educated.  Expect people crammed into tight quarters with millions of others to develop hurtful prejudices.  Expect full-grown adults to parrot what they see in movies, in magazines, and in mainstream music, and expect their teenagers (raised likewise by televisions and gangsta rap) to be perfectly disrespectful.

Expect politicians to lie, and cheat, and steal, not to mention fornicate with people you’d rather they wouldn’t.  Expect people with guns (soldiers, cops, and criminals) to shoot people.  Expect druggies to do drugs and go about in public on drugs, and to act just as though they might be high on drugs.  Say to them when you see them shrinking from the demons down aisle nine at Rite-Aid, “Hello, druggie.  How do you do?”

Expect preachers to sin, marriages to fail, and sons and daughters to leave the family religion.  Expect athletes to take steroids, psychiatrists to prescribe poison, and models to mutilate themselves surgically.  Expect wonder.  Expect marvel.  Expect to be astonished at the spectacle in which every one of us plays a humble part.

In other words, expect people to act just as though they were human — but for your own sake as well as that of others, the next time your friend complains that a significant other has forgotten an anniversary, or that some ruthless businessman has destroyed the local economy, or that a hapless driver has run over his or her favorite author (ahem), just shrug your shoulders and smile sympathetically, offer a beer and say to your friend,

“Expect little.”

With a great big smile and my fingers crossed, I remain,

Yours Truly,

-BothEyesShut

Four Things You Are Not

Having spoken with several acquaintances about concerns they have in common, I feel that I must explain some things.

This will not take long.

I. You Are Not Dumb

I’ve never met a stupid human being.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I see people do stupid things all the time, but that doesn’t make anyone stupid. They’re mistaken, not stupid. There’s an enormous difference.

I make mistakes all the time, and I ain’t stupid. In fact, I may even be mistaken now. For all I know, I’ve been sharing oxygen with morons every day of my life. I don’t think so, though.

There’s no such thing as a stupid person, only stupid decisions. The stupidity of every act is determined by the trouble it causes. That’s the secret of Mrs. Gump’s wisdom, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

The way I look at it, everyone’s his or her own sort of genius, and everyone screws up in different ways to different degrees. Some of us have educations, some don’t, all of us pulling bonehead moves pretty much all the time…

It’s just that some of our screwups stand out more, is all.

The next time you feel bad because you don’t know the square root of zero or the political term for “asshole” or the approximate population of Paraguay, just remember how easily you buttoned your pants this morning, then try training a dolphin to do it.

Yeah, that’s right. Not so frickin’ smart now, are you, Flipper? Brains the size of cantaloupes, my ass.

We're all geniuses. Or, at least, we're each as brilliant as everyone else.

II. You Are Not Strange

Never have I met an entirely strange and bizarre person.

Every human feels set apart sometimes, different than and misunderstood by surrounding people, but nobody’s too different from anyone else. This is because we’ve only got so much to work with, our hands, eyes, brains, and all that.

For this reason our situations can’t vary too much — but our own interpretations of our circumstances, as well as the circumstances of others, can easily fool us into thinking that the beautiful, young and wealthy sleep like babies every night, carefree and serene, without a twinge of the various pains we regular people feel. However, it is arrogant and juvenile to presume oneself in a class apart. No matter how a person may dress, talk, walk, or whatever, one thing remains certain: there is no escaping humanity. Once a human, always a human, and this means being part of us.

You can’t be weird enough to out-weird humanity. You are never the only one. Like it or not, whether you’re stressed about paying for something, tore-up over an ex-lover, or mortified for having been caught masturbating, you’re just like everyone else.

You’re just like everyone else, and that’s really not so bad, because we’re all just like you, too.

If that depresses you, though, maybe because you’re one of those drama club people who’s been wearing wacky hats to garner attention since high school, or maybe because you always thought you were super-duper special, God’s special little chosen one (big G), then, go get a new haircut. That always makes me feel like a new man.

Nobody's much different from anyone else, really, but never underestimate the power of a new haircut to help you feel like an entirely unique person.

III. You Are Not Ugly

I have never met an ugly human being. Now, don’t get me wrong, I see people doing ugly things all the time, the sorts of things people do or say which make them less attractive to me, but I’ve never seen anyone without beauty.

Physically speaking, beauty is fairly simple to come by. Humanity has invented for itself all manner of cosmetics, clothes, soaps, styles, and even surgeries for the beautification of the human form, and versions of these are available to just about everyone. Not only this, but even the most cursory spin around the seedier side of the Internet can confirm that pretty much everyone is the sexiest person on earth to someone. Nothing so subjective deserves to be taken seriously.

The problem is, so many of you out there have let Hollywood convince you that you’re shambling, horrific wrecks, and now you’ve forgotten how nice you look with your hair the way you like it. You’ve forgotten how nice you look in that sweater your ex- bought you for Christmas. You’ve forgotten how to stand up straight and walk like you’ve got someplace to go, rather than sliding down the sidewalks of America like bewildered clumps of moss.

You aren’t ugly. You just look like you think you are. Show a little respect to your body, and I bet you get to use it a lot more for recreation.

IV. You Are Not Going to Hell

Most importantly (speaking of gods) neither you — nor anyone else — is going to hell.

I know this because no loving creator would ever make imperfect people, only to sit back and watch them burn throughout all eternity for having made imperfect decisions. Now, if we’re talking about a wicked, sadistic tyrant with a chip on his shoulder and an insatiable blood lust, then maybe hell exists after all, but so long as you believe in an all-understanding, ever-present god who emanates love throughout the universes, you’re forced to accept that you are not going to hell.

You may, however, be going to a cosmic video arcade, where all celestial matters are decided according to who achieves the high score on Frogger, Asteroids, and Donkey Kong.

Ancient Hebrew mysticism has revealed that the apocalypse will be triggered when Moses prevails over the Holy High Score of Pac-Man set by John the Baptist in 1150 A.D.

So please, fellow humans, take a look in the mirror and see nothing more or less than what you happen to be: a powerful, intelligent, intuitive body organ of the universe, humming and thrumming, capable of godlike wonders of creation and destruction, given to acts of compassion, gentility, and grace far beyond anything described in any holy book, yet also bearing the potential to invent horrors yet undreamed.

I don’t care who you are; I can’t but be in awe of you. You’re human, for god’s sake. You can read and write, concoct a casserole, develop an opinion of modern theatre, alter your brainwave patterns through self-medication, communicate terribly complex concepts, drive a car, teach children to sing, engage in genocide against insects, play badminton, knot a necktie, walk in high heels, hum a tune, organize a spitting contest, pen a poem, flirt, flaunt, fornicate — all this while considering the implications of your existence in space and time and your relationship to the universe which birthed you.

Just admit it. You’re far, far more than you take credit for (and modest, too!) and your worst opinion of yourself is a nightmare from which you may as well awaken, because your shortsighted opinion of yourself is just as much silliness as anything else humanity has come up with, such as duck-duck-goose, Sasquatch, chewing gum, Teletubbies, or the Presidential election.

I don’t know what else to say, except that it’s time I stopped having to explain this rudimentary nonsense to people. You’re cool, OK? If we could all stop acting like winners and losers in some crucial beauty pageant, some apocalyptic talent show, a whole lot of this global tension would disappear in a puff of goodwill and self-recognition.

Stop it. Just stop it. Relax. Be amused. No matter how seriously you take yourself, this life is hilarious.

With faith in my fellows and well-meaning impatience I remain,

Yours Truly,

-BothEyesShut

The Finest University in Your Apartment

The strangest thing about school is that everyone takes it so seriously. Now, don’t get me wrong, when you’re paying two-thousand dollars every three months or so, it’s as serious as getting heart surgery for your cat (which is cheaper, I think) but people don’t speak of vets the way people speak of universities. The way people talk about places like Princeton and Oxford, you’d think Jesus Christ had taken a leak on them on His way home from the bar.

There’s nothing holy about getting a college education. It’s much more respectable to get a damned library card.

Anyone can do exactly what they’re told to do for four years, or even eight, should one happen to be especially susceptible. Convicts and soldiers do it all the time. Consider, though, the steel nerves and iron will of the person who, having selected the maximum number of books allowed by civic law, swipes that card in the slot at the front desk like it’s the sword of St. Michael, and gloriously enlists in the war against his or her own ignorance. Sole commander! Solitary soldier! Persevering hero!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you — the autodidact.

Seriously, did you really finish all those books in high school, or did you study Cliff's Notes and ace the test? Exactly.

University students act much the same as grade-schoolers, eating fast food three times a day and loving it, their rooms like poorly maintained thrift stores, grumbling and shuffling their way to classes, yawning their way through hours and hours of mostly pointless homework. They have no love for their professors unless late papers are acceptable, and no respect for the authors of their books, because most of their books cost more than a decent video game and read like a real-estate agent’s pamphlet on recent foreclosures.

Appropriately, most graduates take from their schools a heartfelt, lifelong pride. In their school’s football team.

The brave autodidact, though, drives out of the way after work to visit the used-book store, where (wonder of wonders!) paperbacks of classic literature and manuals on electrical wiring peacefully coexist on majestic, dusty shelves, twenty-five cents a’piece. The autodidact’s bookshelf is an autobiography: The Hobbit (sophomore year); Dracula (junior year); Catcher in the Rye (senior year); The Picture of Dorian Gray over summer, Beyond Good and Evil in the fall, and so on, and so forth. The Idiot’s Guide to Carpentry sits on a sawhorse in the new shed behind the house. Medicine and Hydroponics lies beside a row of potted plants in the closet . . .

Having completed college, the graduate concludes his studies. Having concluded his study of Bauhaus architecture, the autodidact takes up arc welding.

The autodidact, rather than hoping that something comes of next semester’s required courses, selects desired knowledge like a street racer buying high-performance auto parts, plugs it in, and crosses another finish line in the grand prix of life ahead of the competition.

Meanwhile, grad students pay eighty dollars for some hackneyed hardcover book that’s three-weeks on back order. They’d buy a used copy, but the professor’s requiring students to buy the twelfth edition (there’s a new edition every year) and guess who wrote the damned thing? Oh, look, the professor did.

“I’m not learning anything from this stupid class,” one pupil complains.

“I know,” gripes another. “I can’t wait to get the hell out of here and go to work in the field, where I can actually learn something about being a psychologist.”

Three years in and well on their way to graduating magna cum laude, even the students know that if they really want to learn something, they’ve got to hit the library on their own. It doesn’t take long to figure out that learning to study from books in college is like learning to screw from porno on the Internet.

In many areas, there's just no teacher like experience.

Anyone can tell you, the aim of college is a higher tax bracket, not a higher education. That’s just something they put on their letterhead so Random House will give their professors a shot at publication. You can’t count on a random team of experts to tell you what you most need to know. They don’t know what you’ve got figured out and what you haven’t got figured out, and even if they did, their method of education is to force you to read their recommended books under threat of scholastic failure. That’s like force-feeding a teenager mashed peas because they’re healthy.

You know what you want to learn. You know what you want to learn, and you know right where to go to learn it: the goddamn library. You really wanna show off? Take four or five classics to your favorite bar and channel change for an hour or five. Socrates, or Hemingway? Even better! Socrates, then Hemingway! Learn Spanish. Learn graphology. Phrenology. Egyptology. Amaze your friends!

And if ever you do decide you need a college degree after all, take my advice . . .

Go easy on them.

With half a care and a whole smile I remain,

Yours Truly,

-BothEyes