I love listening to my Nanny talk about how things were when she was a little girl. When I talk to my children, I sometimes hear what I’m saying and I chuckle. I sound like my Nanny
There were no cell phones. No one ‘sent a text. As far as we knew, email hadn’t even been invented yet. But the worst thing was the absence of call display.
Back then, when the phone rang, someone picked it up. It was important to know who was calling and what for. These days, unless I’m expecting a call or I recognize the number or the name, I don’t answer.
The reason for my reticence? The world is full of thieves. It’s not only the phone / online grifters and con hacks attempting to steal money from pensioners to worry about. There are the time and attention vampires who promise that what they say will only take a moment. The reality is much different.
All theft isn’t terrible.
I’ve enjoyed some wonderful stolen moments, stolen glances leading to stolen dances.
These have been some of my most pleasure filled experiences.
This brings me to the most insidious type of thief: Pleasure bandits.
The idea of pleasure bandits was a footnote in yesterdays post. I was asked about it by a couple of people in direct messages.
A warning against this kind of theft is necessary. Pleasure bandits are a product of emotional and spiritual poverty. I have a lot of tolerance for a lot of people. Pleasure bandits? Not so much.
Pity?
Sure.
Tolerance?
Meh.
If you hear yourself saying any of the following phrases to someone:
I hate to rain on this parade but…
Not to be a wet blanket but..
Here is a simple step by step guide on how to address your issues:
Remove your shoes
Dredge them thoroughly through the warm, sulfurous, slurry-like discharge of a local hound suffering from acute, garden-variety dysentery.
Place them directly in your mouth.
Ingest them slowly, swirling the notes around the palate with the solemn, contemplative focus of a master sommelier attending to a magnificent new vintage.
Unless the person you’re talking to is an immediate physical threat to you (not a threat to your belief system), a direct report at work, or a child in your care, disrupting the pleasure of another adult is the most duplicitous, wormlike form of dominance under the sun.
Common fools think their dominance ‘comes from a good place’.
Common fools believe that for one reason or another that they ‘know better’.
Common fools are as appealing as vacuum sealed bread.
(oh dear reader, my wife once tried to vacuum seal bread. It did not go well)
Are you a common fool dear reader or do you aspire to be a remarkable one
Remarkable fools know that they don’t know any better than another person and that we’ll arrive where we’re heading one way or another.
If you want to convince someone to change a behaviour they appear to be enjoying, let it go. It’s not your job to show them the way.
So, run away from the pleasure bandits. If it’s their pleasure to advise, dominate and critique, stare at them blankly without saying anything until they go away.
You are not obligated to sacrifice your pleasure for theirs.
Stay stinky, you fools!
