So, hypothetically, let’s say that Raquel and Bernard are two mutual acquaintances. Let’s say that Bernard has poor personal hygiene. Let’s also say that Raquel is the sort of twat that, after spending a few hours around Bernard and the horrifying cloud of stench that accompanies him in all of his travels like theme music follows around the lead characters in a Broadway production, decides that it’s cute and/or necessary to post some state-of-the-art malformed piece of “txt spk” bullshit on her Facebook wall, such as, “omg so excited to take a shower after a long day out!!!! lets hope everybody else is cleaning up too ;).”

Yeah, we get it, Bernard should probably try bathing once or twice a month. You’ve mentioned it to everybody except Bernard every day for the past eight months, Raquel. But whatever, you’re a weapons-grade dumbass, so let’s wade through the aftermath and see how this little maneuver pans out:

1. Bernard constantly checks your Facebook messages, because you’re just so goddamned interesting. He doesn’t realize that he has poor hygiene, because nobody’s ever said it to his face. He won’t realize your message was directed at him, and life will continue — he’ll still smell, and you’ll still be a bitch.
2. Bernard doesn’t check your Facebook messages, because frankly, I was lying about you being even slightly interesting. The only people that will read this are the awful harpies you call friends, and the lot of you will share a brief chuckle about your quick wit the next time you meet up in person, before moving on to whatever useless gossip the rest of the vapid twats in the world are talking about at that particular moment. Life will continue — Bernard will still smell, and you’ll still be a bitch.
3. Bernard notices your message, understands it’s directed at him, and falls into a deep depression when he realizes that somebody he thought was his friend was actually a heinous bitch all along. He doesn’t bother taking a bath, because honestly, what’s the point? Life will continue, etc., at least until Bernard kills himself some time in his early twenties.

Wait, that’s it? There’s no option where you launch a career as a world-famous comedienne and Bernard simultaneously realizes the error of his ways and becomes one of the clean? Sorry, Raquel — those are the only three options. All of them involve nothing changing, and you being a colossal bitch. Maybe next time you could try something productive, like simply telling him, “Bernard, you smell sort of bad and it’s making people, including me, feel awkward around you. You should try bathing more regularly.”

This hypothetical has dragged on now to the point of tedium, so I’ll end it there. I won’t bother getting into alternate contexts, because this sort of passive-aggressive bullshit really isn’t any more acceptable when directed at an ex, or at the jackass who cut me off in traffic yesterday morning. Just stop. Back when I was new to the Internet and thought adding people on Facebook was a good idea, I saw this shit all the time (never directed at me, of course, because I’m fucking perfect). You know what I did? I set the author of every single dumb-ass passive-aggressive note to Ignore. They don’t show up in my feeds any more.* They haven’t for years now. They might have died without me noticing, and guess what? I don’t give a shit. I didn’t give a shit about whatever idiotic squabble they were having with their roommate at the time, and I haven’t given a shit about anything else they’ve had to say since then.

I guess there’s not really a point to this piece. I just wanted to write something, and thought to myself, “You know what I haven’t seen in a long fucking time?” It’s entirely possible that in my lengthy sabbatical from the shit-stain on the Internet that is Facebook, things have changed, and nothing I’ve written here is even relevant any more, but who am I kidding? Humanity’s not getting any smarter.

Keep on keeping on, chumps.

* I also set everybody else to Ignore, but that’s a story not worth telling.

I have a lot on my mind, and my current mental condition grants me limited resources with which to process the mass of information. I decline to allocate any thought to the organization of this tangled web, opting instead to tackle the topics one by one as they drift through the fog that has temporarily replaced my brain.

The first order of business: Is there is a full moon out? There is. This is not the first time that I have made this observation on a restless night, but given that I am neither sprouting fur nor fangs, it is not likely to hold any real relevance. Moving on.

Next up: I need to decide for myself if I am in fact an arrogant asshole, and if so, consider whether or not I should be afforded any arrogance. It didn’t start with my Reverse Job Application, but that was really the thing that solidified it — as I was writing the thing nearly a year and a half ago, I knew I needed to be exaggeratedly pompous in order to get attention, but there was a part of me that secretly understood that there was more sincerity in my “fictional” arrogance than I might like to publicly admit. The resulting page was fairly polarizing, and a lot of the feedback I received was not at all constructive. I laughed off the naysayers though, and still do, because honestly? They were bitter, stupid and wrong, and if thinking that makes me arrogant, I’ll own up to my hubris in a split second. I did get a job with my ridiculous self-marketing tactic, and I’m proud of what I accomplished.

But tonight I’m wondering, what was it about me and my writing that seemed able to evoke such real hatred and anger from people that had never even met me? I briefly consider the possibility that I am a mild sociopath with no real tools at my disposal for understanding the factors that can emotionally charge a situation, acknowledge that this is a fairly realistic option, then return to the question at hand. Why did I make people mad? I almost immediately discard the possibility that I did something wrong, because that sort of moral absolutism is childish at best.

I have a sudden realization that many of the people who were upset by my words and actions were probably really upset with what seemed like an undermining of their values and experiences. These are people that probably struggled through their lives to make sure they could provide for themselves and their families, that put together proper résumés and won their jobs by understanding their fields and being truly qualified. And here I was — lazy, unemployed, yet claiming that I could do any job just as well as they could, without having put in any of that work. Their frustration makes more sense to me when I think about it from this perspective, and I wonder if this feeling I am experiencing is “empathy.”

My feeling of understanding quickly gives way to some frustration of my own, however: I wish I had needed to struggle when I was growing up. I wish that things had been tough for me, that I’d needed to push myself to do well in my classes, that I’d needed to work night shifts at a fast food restaurant to pay my way through college. Because as obnoxious as these people might find me, I find myself completely sickening.

I’m unmotivated, selfish, gluttonous — in fact, you could probably replace my weekly calendar with a checklist of the deadly sins for a more accurate depiction of how I manage my time. And I blame myself for this. As far as I can remember, my parents taught and encouraged me to apply myself and to be honest and responsible, and I would have a hard time blaming any of my faults on the people that raised me and set an example for me. All the same, though, something about my upbringing has resulted in a detestable creature with little to no discipline and self-control.

It occurs to me that none of the angry, hurtful people that professed to hate me back when I was trying to get a job could possibly hate me as much as I hate myself. I hadn’t realized why they felt so angry — and in the same way, they didn’t understand my intention. The reverse job application was never about claiming to be better than other people — it was about asserting my own self-worth.  That, at the very least, was not an act of laziness — it was an act of desperation and necessity. It was a way for me to put the only talents and skills I had ever developed to use in finding a job.

As I think, my frustration grows and grows, and I am struck with a sense of complete and utter envy of all the people that have experienced real difficulty in their lives. After all, that difficulty gave them a strength and character that I now lack, because I was never faced with those challenges. And I hate myself for it. I hate myself for always finding school work and life in general so easy, and for then growing up to be the sort of person that always looks for an easy way to get things done. I hate myself for putting so much opportunity and talent to waste, and find myself wishing that nature hadn’t squandered its resources on me, that it had given my brain and my chances to somebody that would have put them to real use and made a difference in the world.

And then I start to remember what I already knew, that hating myself for being who I am is awfully unproductive. If I dislike myself, I should simply make the changes necessary to become a person I no longer dislike. I should find a way to put my talents and opportunities to use; maybe the real manifestation of my sense of entitlement is that I think that I could make a difference, and then shunt the blame for my laziness off onto some fictional third party that is expected to put my abilities to “real use.”

I almost feel like vomiting at this point out of self-loathing. How many chances have I given myself to reform? How many times have I identified my laziness and resolved to clean up my act, then fallen right back into my old ways? I think to myself that this is how drug addicts and alcoholics must feel at some point, and start hating myself even more for the simple fact that there’s no chemical dependency here. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Yes, I am an arrogant asshole, and the worst of it is that no matter how penitent I feel at this moment, I know in a matter of hours, I’ll be back to lounging around, watching television shows and playing video games in a subconscious effort to waste as much of my own time as possible. Why am I so self-destructive and completely unproductive? I have a vague sense that I might be experiencing a bout of major depression, but am I really supposed to allow some mental condition to define who I am as a person and what I can accomplish?

I want to do and be so much more than I am right now, but I’m struck with the horrifying realization that I don’t know what I want to accomplish. My life up to this point has culminated in such an utter sense of apathy toward everything and everyone around me that there are now no causes I believe in, no problems I want to solve, nothing that I feel I can accomplish. I’m so far removed from orphaned children that I feel volunteering on their behalf would be doing them an injustice. I’m so disheartened by the corrupt, convoluted state of the government that I feel political activism would be utterly meaningless.

The only thing that holds any meaning for me now are my friends and family, and even those I let drift away too far and too long. I now barely acknowledge the people I used to talk to and spend time with every day, and it’s not because I dislike them — it’s that I’ve come to feel my presence is so pointless that I’d be doing them a disservice by imposing myself on their lives. And this makes me wonder — my crippling laziness and lack of motivation, are they simply manifestations of my fear? Is it possible that I’m simply afraid to really apply myself, afraid to try anything new, because then I’ll find out that I’m not as good as I consider myself to be? I think I might be, and I hope like hell I can be brave in the face of that fear. I don’t want to be the person I have been lately.

I want to be a better person. Stupid rhymes about the air quality in Chicago seem a lot less entertaining than they did forty minutes ago.

Midnight (or thereabouts) is my favorite part of the day to be outside. The hordes of sweaty bodies and the slave-driving sun give way to solitude and a cool night breeze. I can run, walk, and think uninterrupted, simply enjoying the outdoors without any of the bother associated with daytime in an enormous, densely-populated city. It follows, then, that this is my favorite time to go for a jog and get in my daily exercise. I’ve been jogging the same route for nearly two weeks now, and have never felt unsafe or endangered in any way. That is, until tonight.

You see, tonight I was a victim of harassment. Not by “gangs” (you will understand the quotes momentarily), but by “police officers” (these quotes are simply meant to be sarcastic). Allow me to elaborate.

I was on the midpoint of my jogging route, which takes me from my apartment to the shore of Lake Michigan, and down the jogging/biking trail that runs parallel to Lakeshore Drive. I like this trail because the nighttime view of the lake is pleasant, and the air is refreshing. My thus-far enjoyable jog was suddenly interrupted by a police vehicle obstructing my view of the lake as it pulled up alongside me. I removed my earphones.

“Son, it’s a little early for a jog, isn’t it?” were the first words that I heard from the mouth of the officer in the passenger’s seat. There were two officers (per standard), whom I will refer to from now on as “Officer Shit-for-brains” (the driver) and “Officer Cockbreath.” After all, our relationship, forged in but a few brief moments, is obviously one in which condescending nicknames are completely acceptable.

As a brief aside, no, this officer was not my father. My actual father was also a police officer, but he died in the line of duty while investigating an actual crime. Not once do I remember him calling me “son.” I also don’t remember him harassing me on a midnight jog, but maybe those are just rose-tinted glasses I’m wearing.

Back to the query at hand: yes, Officer Cockbreath, I suppose it was a bit early for a run. That would explain the lack of other people running, which in turn would explain my desire to run at this hour. Running alone in the middle of the night is far more enjoyable to me than bumping shoulders with an endless stream of sweaty, smelly men and women competing for space on the trail, but I already explained this in the introductory paragraph. More interesting at this point is the fact that you are driving your vehicle on a trail intended for bikers and joggers. This would be illegal for anybody else, but you are the law, so it’s cool to see that you aren’t afraid to break a few rules every now and then.

Of course, polite individual that I am, none of these thoughts found their way past my lips. What I responded with instead was “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that the jogging trail had hours of operation. There are no such hours posted on any sign.” These statements are both true. Officer Shit-for-brains gave me the stink-eye from behind the wheel, but his mouthpiece, Officer Cockbreath, took the lead with the response. “You’re not supposed to be out here until 5:30. There are gangs around.”

I’m going to pause for effect here.

Alright, pause over: there is so much stupid in that response. First, in what sense is a public jogging trail actually closed if there are no gates and no signs indicating hours of operation? Second, isn’t it your job, Officer, to prevent gangs from strolling about and bothering innocent people? Wouldn’t the excuse that “there are gangs around” reflect poorly on your ability to do your job? After twelve days of running this same exact route, I have scarcely seen another person, let alone a gang of them. And I have the sneaking suspicion that a gang down at the lake shore would have far less interest in harassing me than you seem to, Officer.

Of course, that’s nothing compared to Officer Cockbreath’s next gem of wisdom: “Why don’t you take your jog onto the street? You can’t be here for another three hours.”

Holy. Shit. An officer of the law literally told me to stop running on a trail specifically designated for running and biking, and to instead run on a path intended solely for automobiles. Of course, running on Lakeshore Drive (the location the officer gestured to when he delivered this little bon mot) with its speedy drivers, high traffic and lack of sidewalks is certainly safer than running on a jogging trail. After all, at least those drivers are where they should be, and not driving down a fucking bike trail that is not intended for vehicle use, right Officer?

In any case, I’m comforted to know that the fine police officers of the Chicago P.D. are working hard to cure the symptoms of the disease that is gang violence, with no interest in eliminating the cause. After all, if you idiots actually managed to do something right, I’d have a lot more to start worrying about. For instance, “How am going to spend the several hundred dollars of my paycheck that are no longer being wasted on an ineffectual police force?”

The point of this letter? Maybe you need to focus a bit more on punishing the criminals for committing crimes, and focus less on punishing civilians for expecting you to actually do your jobs.

Best regards,
Andrew Horner

The more open you act, the less honest you seem,
After watching a while, I am ready to deem
That all your sincerity’s making me feel
A bit nauseous; you’re forward, but none of it’s real.

I went for a run for the first time in a while tonight, which is an incredibly uninteresting thing to share, save for the fact that it serves as background for a brief revelation I had: it amazes me how closely tied the productivity of my mind is to the well-being of my body. The healthier I eat, and the more I work out, the better I think. The more I sit around and do nothing, the less I find myself actually thinking anything productive. I’ll own up to the fact that my blog posts these past few weeks have been less-than-inspired, and I attribute that not to intellectual laziness, but to laziness in general. I can only assume this relationship extends to other people, in which case my internal notion of most unintelligent people being fat, lazy slobs gains some shred of academic merit.

The weather isn’t cold enough these days for me to use “I can’t go outside” as an excuse any more, so I’m going to make a habit of running and working out every day, which should translate to my having more interesting things to say in this little shit-hole of a blog.

I really fucking hate heartfelt tangents, so now I’m going to change the topic to something more inflammatory and unreasonable (and therefore probably more accurate): there are exactly three types of people. There are (1) the people that come up with new ideas, (2) the people that copy new ideas and add their own twist, and (3) the people that have no interest in producing anything of value. We’re going to ignore group (3) for the purposes of this post, because I think we (by which I mean members of all three groups) can all agree that they should fuck the fucking fuck off.

Group (2) is the one I’m referencing in the post title, and the members of this group entail the vast majority of producers of content for various media. These are your sitcom screenwriters, your video game studios, your cell phone manufacturers. They see a good idea, and try to make it their own. They attend business luncheons, and pitch their “concepts” as “Like X, but better!” Words cannot describe my hatred for them. Everything they make is tainted with the indelible stench of “me-too-ness.” There’s a nagging feeling that the creator was only pretending to be a master at their craft — the end product is marred by a handful of visible nubs where the plastic overflowed the mold that somebody more creative prepared for them.

Honestly, war-time first-person shooters stopped being novel or interesting sometime back in the 90s. Changing the weapons and setting does not make it a new game. Fucking stop pushing these things out; you’re ruining an entire fucking industry. That goes double for the makers of licensed sports games. Who is buying these incremental updates to ancient games with ever-so-slightly modified content packs? I would like to meet them so I can punch them in the face. The reason so many of these jokers strive for mediocrity is that you aren’t demanding quality or creativity. You accept mediocrity — hell, you even pay for it — so why should they bother making anything more?

Of course, the answer to that question brings us to group (1). What reason does anybody have to make new, exciting things, when they could make buku bucks polishing old turds and selling them for the price of diamonds? Standards. Motherfucking standards. Some of us (did you think I was going to pretend I don’t consider myself a member of group (1)?) have a nigh-obsessive concern with putting out shit that meets a certain level of quality. Some of us have a difficult time looking at somebody else’s solutions and seeing anything worth parroting — but a single glance at something completely unrelated gives us insight into how we might approach the problem from a completely different angle.

I imagine many group (1) members were deemed exceptionally bright as children, moved through school without any struggles at all, and never had to try to be good at anything — they simply were. Of course, this broad categorization could be completely inaccurate, and most likely is. After all, the only real qualification to be considered a member of this group? Think different. I don’t know if it’s a skill that can be cultivated, but if my earlier assertion is correct (and now I’ll make a half-assed attempt to tie this rant back to the post’s introduction), there is at least some correlation between the physical condition of your body and the frequency and originality of your thoughts.

Learn how to drive.