The Human Conditioning.

If you are hip deep in shit, it must smell terrible.

If you've been hip deep for a week, you probably don't smell anything.

If someone takes some of that shit away, you thank them, even though they haven't helped you back to your previously shit-free state.

I find it amazing how we can condition ourselves to accept almost any circumstances, and that continuation of acceptance then becomes the new status quo. We are grateful for any slight lessening to our circumstances, even though it's still not as good as it was.

Take gas prices for instance. Around here they were at about $1.14/Liter for ages. Now people are raving because it's down to $1.02 or even $0.98. Don't they remember three or four years ago when gas was almost half that?

There's always the example of abusive relationships. Sometimes a man will physically & mentally abuse his wife, girlfriend or significant other and yet she still stays. She'll even say it's better, because he's not hitting her anymore. So only half the abuse is okay? Why not carry on back to the days when you weren't hit at all? Why settle for anything less?

Look at how we as a people deal with our governments. We are so accustomed to them lying and cheating and overall general incompetence that when they occasionally do the job they are supposed to do people get all excited and feel that it's all working great. Shouldn't they have been doing that good of a job all the time? Why do we accept the lowest common denominator?

I'm not foolish. (Really, I'm not.) I don't expect everything to be perfect, or for people to give 110% all the time. But it seems to me that we used to reward excellence. Now we reward competence. I don't think it's fair.

I don't have the answers.
I'm not even sure where to begin fixing it.

But godamn it pisses me off.

Later.