Attention: Reality Ahead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe I've figured it out, and you're all just batshit insane. Or perhaps I am. Not entirely certain which.

So today's little lesson, or maybe it wasn't just today, it's kind of the culmination of the last little while, is that everyone hates reality. But they each seem to hate reality, their own personal flavor of it, and they like it flavored with their own personal quirks. They take their insane little bubble-psychosis in their own ways.

And no one wants to deal with reality, not really. They pretend that they're facing it, and claim that they're acting accordingly. But it's a lie. And that lie causes them to be assholes. On both small and huge scales.

While dealing with reality, you have to deal with people and things that you don't necessarily like and enjoy. And to deal with those things, you have to make what are called accommodations. You accept that things are not always going to please your personal tastes, and you modify your behavior accordingly. You act like a human being, and you sit quietly in the boring waiting room, through the boring movie that you wouldn't necessarily enjoy, you put up with the play that makes someone else happy, because in the real world, someone else has made that same accommodation to make you happy at one point or another. You got your turn, now they get their turn, and both parties have reached being happy. Maybe not at exactly the same time, but it still happened.

Yes, each was bored for >x< amount of time, while the opposite person was delighted because they got theirs. That's sort of how it works. I'm sure that while you were washing the dishes, you probably weren't ecstatic. But in the end, the kitchen got cleaned, which would mean for a nice, neat room, which would make the reality of living there all that much more pleasant.

The lie factor here? Is that everyone says they live in the real world, and they don't. Because if they did, they'd deal. To make other people happy. To have the clean house. To have the happy partner, even if they were bored. Even if it meant doing some of it themselves, instead of bitching to have it done for them.

But nobody wants to step out of that extremely self-centered zone, where life revolves around their own happy place, wherever that happens to be. Because people are jerks. It doesn't matter that someone else is unhappy for a little while, as long as you're not bored, even for a couple of hours. As long as you don't have to be frustrated, or aggravated, or anything else. As long as you don't have to be uncomfortable, or leave the bubble-zone, because it's all about you. And they don't see it. They've lived in their own head for so long, that they genuinely never look around and see from any perspective but their own, so that fake reality has become real, and no amount of reasoning will sway them.

Or I suppose that might not be it. It might be genuine unconcern, because they want it all their way, all the time, and just don't care that being bored for a few hours might be worth it. That it makes them like the rest of the human race, to step back down with the rest of us, to make someone else happy, for no other reason than that. It doesn't have to be all your own way, all the time. To take note of what others do and give for you, and return the same courtesy, however small. To see from someone else's perspective.

No one is correct about everything, all the time. And no one shares the same world view about everything. But insulating yourself and being unwilling to do, and see, and experience anything at all that makes you uncomfortable, or bored, or that you find uninteresting, or that you dislike? You have at the same time shown to someone else that you devalue their opinion and their interests and their views. By being unwilling to see things from their perspective you have shown yourself to be removed from reality, or just uncaring about anything but what you like, with no regard for anything they like.

On common sense

And life skills. Which I suppose are generally more or less the same thing. At least, they are to me. Common sense dictates life skills. Or at least makes living life more pleasant most of the time.

Example A: You know that you're going to need clean clothes for work for the next week. You know that you have (x) amount of pants/shirts/socks/etc. You know that you will run out of pants and socks before the end of the work week. What do you do?

Well, if you're me, you look at the amount of clothes versus when you'll run out, and you go start doing the laundry. If you lack common sense, you wait until the night before you're out of clothes, and then frantically throw in a half load of a pair of socks and a pair of pants, so that you have one clean outfit for the next day. Nevermind the fact that you could have washed six pairs of pants in one load. You only need one pair for tomorrow, why do an entire load? And better yet, why bother doing the laundry several days in advance, if you're only going to be one pair short?

I don't get that. If I know I'm going to be cooking a fairly complicated meal, I make sure the kitchen is clean. And I don't wait until 15 minutes before it's time to start cooking to check whether or not it's clean.

Common sense rules. Keep an eye on what groceries are or are not in the kitchen pantry. Keep an eye on whether or not there's enough toilet paper. Know how much laundry detergent is left. Don't wait until the milk is *gone* to go get more. It's very hard to eat cereal without milk.

And that's more or less how I order things around me. Is there enough shampoo for the rest of the week? There's not? Then chances are if you check the closet there will either be a new bottle, or it will be on today's list for something to pick up. Rarely will the entire bottle be completely empty before the replacement is in the house. Got cat food? Even if the containers are empty, there's a very good chance there's a refill bag of food *somewhere* in the house.

That's just me. So it thoroughly puzzles me when nobody can plan for things. As though they figure the magic brownies are going to appear in the night and solve the problems that might come up. Let me assure you, the fucking brownies don't solve household issues. They're not the ones remembering you're going to need toilet paper and deodorant.

I just don't get it. I'd say it's a man thing, but I know that's not true. Not all men are incapable of the whole "plan out what's going to happen" thing. I've known a few who can keep a running table in their heads of household-related things. So what's the deal? What is it inside people's heads that make them so different from me when it comes to organization? What am I missing?

Do I have a few too extra bits in my head, or do they have a few too few in theirs? I wish I knew.