How to dehumanize someone

View them through a piece of glass. Be it a lens, a screen or a window.

I wasn't going to write a blog today, but felt compelled to after seeing what I saw this morning on the way to gym.

I walk to gym - it's close by and seems silly to drive. I had to take a different route into the shopping complex this morning, as a taxi had crashed into the wall and the main entrance was blocked off by ambulances and police cars.

I don't want to see people dead and dying, so I turned my head when walking past. Unfortunately, a few other people didn't seem to care about that, and were gathering around like social media vultures, snapping away with their phones.

Someone died this morning in that accident. Two are critically injured. But you just HAVE to take a photo for Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/what ever, don't you. Who cares that the EMTs are working their asses off to save someone's life? Who cares that those victims have families, and coming across those photos will be a very nasty shock to them? As long as you can get those likes and comments and retweets, right?

It's disgusting.

It's unfeeling.

It breaks my fucking heart.

Uniboob

So, I'm chestily advantaged. Which means that when I work out, I need to wear at least 2 sports bras, lest I wind up with my own self-grown jump rope by the age of 40.

Last week I bought a super-uber-holy-shit-this-is-IT running sports bra. It promised minimal bounce.

There is some bounce. But that's not the main issue. Bras that talk about minimal bounce deliver on that promise by basically strapping your girls down. This results in a uniboob. It's not attractive, but I can still live with it.

That is, until I climb into my car and strap on my seat belt. You see, boys and girls, when you wear a "normal" bra, it follows the natural lines of separation between your badoinkies, which means there is a little valley that the seat belt can naturally rest in. No problems.

The uniboob resulting from wearing a compression bra, however, results in that lovely valley being filled in by squished boob-flesh, creating a nice hill on which the seat belt slides up and attempts to slit your throat. Your drive ends up being like this:

Get in car.
Put on seatbelt.
Choke and desperately claw the murderous belt away from your throat.
Clip the belt in.
Start the car.
Choke and desperately claw the murderous belt away from your throat while your annoyance level rises.
Drive.
Choke and angrily claw the murderous belt away from your throat.
Drive some more.
Choke and angrily claw the murderous belt away from your throat while spewing out some rather creative swear words and cursing the seat belt's inventor, their children, their neighbours and their dog.
Drive some more.
Choke, and violently undo the belt and say "fuck it!" and drive the rest of the way home beltless.

If someone could invent a solution to that problem, I would...probably buy the product, but I think that's about as far as I would go really.

To leash

Or not to leash. Incidentally, is it just me that wants to say that with a Sean Connery accent? Yes? Oh...ok...

Anyway, a few days ago, I saw a woman, probably around my age, with a baby and a toddler. The toddler had a kiddy-leash on him, and my first thoughts were "I need to go to Woolies to buy bananas."

I don't care if people choose to leash their kids. Frankly, I don't get why such a big huge fuss gets kicked up about it. Just like not all parents do time-outs, but instead sit down and explain why the Tot did something wrong, or not all parents just hand out toys, but expect the Tot to ask nicely and say thank you; not all parents are anti-leash.

I was leashed as a kid. Now, this was a few decades ago, and my Mom made it very clear that I was to stick to her side like scandal to a politician, but when you're that little, you literally have the attention span of a puppy. I dimly remember my thought processes being "Stay with Mommy...Stay with Mommy....TOYSTOYSTOYSTOYSTOYSTOYS!!!!" The leash was only necessary until I realised that staying with Mom is a good idea, since if I behave, I don't get The Look (TM). Anyone that has gotten The Look (TM) from my Mom knows what I'm talking about...

As any parent, babysitter, grandparent etc can tell you, toddlers are magicians. Conjurers. Sorcerers. Especially when your back is turned. You may turn for 3 seconds to grab the dried thyme, and ALAKAZAM! your toddler has disappeared. They're fast with those tiny little legs. There should be a Toddler Olympics...

And frankly, if you're a lone parent trying to do grocery shopping with two little ones, you need all the help you can get. You need to juggle your shopping list, your cart, your handbag (you never leave your handbag in your cart - asking for something to be stolen that way!), the bag with the things that toddlers need, plus the toddlers. You can't put both in the trolley, because you're doing a big monthly shop, and you can't just put one in the trolley seat because the other one will have a tantrum.

Not to mention that if your kid is leashed to you, it makes that much harder for someone to kidnap them. So don't make a big deal of it. Don't judge the mother or father with a leashed child.  At least they're trying, unlike that "I've given up" parent in the tinned goods aisle, with a little boy running around and nearly tripping people. You know the one. They look at you with empty, emotionless eyes because the nappy ads that showed kids being cute and giggly and well behaved right out of the uterus were all lies, and they either don't know how to reign their kid in, or just don't care to.

On Forgiveness

I'm generally quite a forgiving person. I wasn't always, but one of the advantages of growing older is that you realise a few things.

For example, forgiving doesn't mean that you're erasing the past and giving someone a clean slate. It means that you let go of the resentment you have against that person. Continuing to hold a grudge means that not only are you still expending energy on that person and what they did, you're letting them squat, rent-free, in your head and memories.

Forgiving that person doesn't mean you now need to become their closest friend, but it does mean that you can carry on with your life without expending any further emotional or mental energy on that person.

It also doesn't mean that you must now forget what you've learned in that experience. There's not much point in repeating that over and over again. Think of it this way - you don't hold a grudge against the stove for the burn you got on your hand, but you remember that touching it's hot elements is not a good idea. Know what I mean?

The reason why I bring this up is that a little while back, someone that I cut out of my life tried to weasel their way back in. They were under the impression that forgiving is the same as being friends again, which it isn't. I forgave this person only because I realised that by holding onto the grudge, they were still in my life in some form, even if it was resentful memories. The moment I forgave them, I barely gave them another thought.

I always like to think that love and hate/resentment are two sides of the same coin. You might not like that person, but you're still expending energy on them, aren't you? The best revenge is a life well lived, with indifference to the person that hurt you. Not only can they see that you're happy, content and doing well, they can see that they don't feature in any part in your life, thoughts, actions or emotions.