(As an aside, I kind of dislike the use of "monkey" as shorthand for a degraded human being. I understand it and it makes sense, but it's insulting to monkeys. Monkeys, the furry, little ones, are clever, possessing an insatiable, thirsty curiosity. Plus, 100% of them are cute, which is more that can be said for some people. I generally don't like the use of animal names as pejoratives. Pigs are intelligent, clean creatures, dogs (female ones too) are loyal and kind, snakes are lazy and harmless if you don't bother them and aren't edible. I could maybe condone calling someone an amoeba as an insult to their intelligence, but hell, those fuckers have been around for millions of years before us, and will remain around for long after Homo sapiens suicides in one way or another. Just my tangential pet peeve.)
What prompted me to think about the subject of this rant was a very minor event, but it struck me surprisingly hard. I'm in vocational school for acting. We get our own very large room for the duration of the classes, with enough space to practice in peace, as well as its own toilets. In one of these there were muddy boot prints fairly high up on the wall right next to the toilet, left during what I imagine must have been one goddamned intense shitting session. Or... what? I have no idea what else could have happened there. I wanted to chat about it with the other folks, so I approached them.
As you could expect for such a girly thing to study, there's around twenty girls to a few guys. It doesn't, therefore, make sense, to leave the toilets gendered, else we'd be lining up for the Ladies while the Gents stood empty. Right? Simple. Well, dumbly arrogant people such as myself tend to assume everybody else has already come to the same conclusions as themselves. In my defense, I really wasn't the only one who used the toilets indiscriminately.
Still, when I said, "You know what I noticed in the gents' toilet?" I was immediately interrupted by the resident Unfunny Guy in that nasal teasing tone: "What were you doing in the gents'?"
"Toilet stuff. There's more girls, so it makes sense to use both. Anyway, there's boot marks high up on the walls. What happened there?"
"Ooh," he teased further, "look how observant you are."
The rest then only glanced at me blandly, then went back to talking about their day jobs (not exaggerating, that was the subject, and no, I hadn't interrupted anybody, there was a lull when I spoke).
Now, I wasn't expecting a riveting conversation, or to actually figure out what was the deal there, but I thought it was curious and interesting enough to wager a chuckle or a raised brow, at least. Something that broke up the monotony. And they snubbed me so hard.
Putting aside my feelsies being hurt, don't you agree that this is strange? Why are (adult) humans so very not curious? This is just a small example, but I'm sure you know how you expect somebody to investigate something past a Buzzfeed article and they don't lift a finger. Show them something they don't know or understand, and they shy away or get offended and rationalize it as unimportant. Why?? It drives me up the fucking wall, I'll admit. A monkey given a new thing will not cease until it is thoroughly sniffed, felt up, shred to pieces and chewed on. Even a fish is more curious! When you put something new in a betta's tank it will puzzle over it for hours, investigating it from every angle. And human children are the same. What happens during a human's growing up process to kill that curiosity? Is it a natural part of maturing for some reason, or is it the fault of modern school, either by the school itself killing every shred of inventiveness with it standardized teaching, or by the oppressively conformist society that forms when you force too many teenagers to spend all day together in what's basically lightweight prison? Am I blowing this out of proportion? Once I was collecting fruit off a tree in a park. The tree's branches were so obligingly arranged that I couldn't help but climb really high and ended up finding a comfortable seat. I spent at least half an hour there, just sitting, thinking and watching, and nobody, out of the numerous people who passed by there, noticed me (that I've seen). Nobody raised their head enough. Nobody paid enough attention to their surroundings. I could have pelted them with fruits/poop and they wouldn't have noticed. When something unusual appears in an animal's surroundings, it will lock on to that in seconds and try to get to the bottom of it. What happened to our species to make us blind? What happened to some of us to have avoided it? Is it necessarily wrong? Am I sounding superior? Is this post as whiny as I think it is upon rereading it? So many questions.
What prompted me to think about the subject of this rant was a very minor event, but it struck me surprisingly hard. I'm in vocational school for acting. We get our own very large room for the duration of the classes, with enough space to practice in peace, as well as its own toilets. In one of these there were muddy boot prints fairly high up on the wall right next to the toilet, left during what I imagine must have been one goddamned intense shitting session. Or... what? I have no idea what else could have happened there. I wanted to chat about it with the other folks, so I approached them.
As you could expect for such a girly thing to study, there's around twenty girls to a few guys. It doesn't, therefore, make sense, to leave the toilets gendered, else we'd be lining up for the Ladies while the Gents stood empty. Right? Simple. Well, dumbly arrogant people such as myself tend to assume everybody else has already come to the same conclusions as themselves. In my defense, I really wasn't the only one who used the toilets indiscriminately.
Still, when I said, "You know what I noticed in the gents' toilet?" I was immediately interrupted by the resident Unfunny Guy in that nasal teasing tone: "What were you doing in the gents'?"
"Toilet stuff. There's more girls, so it makes sense to use both. Anyway, there's boot marks high up on the walls. What happened there?"
"Ooh," he teased further, "look how observant you are."
The rest then only glanced at me blandly, then went back to talking about their day jobs (not exaggerating, that was the subject, and no, I hadn't interrupted anybody, there was a lull when I spoke).
Now, I wasn't expecting a riveting conversation, or to actually figure out what was the deal there, but I thought it was curious and interesting enough to wager a chuckle or a raised brow, at least. Something that broke up the monotony. And they snubbed me so hard.
Putting aside my feelsies being hurt, don't you agree that this is strange? Why are (adult) humans so very not curious? This is just a small example, but I'm sure you know how you expect somebody to investigate something past a Buzzfeed article and they don't lift a finger. Show them something they don't know or understand, and they shy away or get offended and rationalize it as unimportant. Why?? It drives me up the fucking wall, I'll admit. A monkey given a new thing will not cease until it is thoroughly sniffed, felt up, shred to pieces and chewed on. Even a fish is more curious! When you put something new in a betta's tank it will puzzle over it for hours, investigating it from every angle. And human children are the same. What happens during a human's growing up process to kill that curiosity? Is it a natural part of maturing for some reason, or is it the fault of modern school, either by the school itself killing every shred of inventiveness with it standardized teaching, or by the oppressively conformist society that forms when you force too many teenagers to spend all day together in what's basically lightweight prison? Am I blowing this out of proportion? Once I was collecting fruit off a tree in a park. The tree's branches were so obligingly arranged that I couldn't help but climb really high and ended up finding a comfortable seat. I spent at least half an hour there, just sitting, thinking and watching, and nobody, out of the numerous people who passed by there, noticed me (that I've seen). Nobody raised their head enough. Nobody paid enough attention to their surroundings. I could have pelted them with fruits/poop and they wouldn't have noticed. When something unusual appears in an animal's surroundings, it will lock on to that in seconds and try to get to the bottom of it. What happened to our species to make us blind? What happened to some of us to have avoided it? Is it necessarily wrong? Am I sounding superior? Is this post as whiny as I think it is upon rereading it? So many questions.