Quoth The Nut: Day 2

And so arrives Day 2 of the Three Quotes, Three Days challenge, or as I like to think of it, using the words of those wiser and wittier than me to take a vacation from thinking up anything clever of my own. Thanks again to Christina of The Wordy Rose for the friendly kick in the butt.

If you’ve already forgotten how the rules work, see yesterday’s post. I’m not rehashing all that shit again just because you weren’t paying attention. Sheesh.

Today’s quote comes from…somewhere. I’ve seen it questionably attributed to George Carlin and Mark Twain, among others (Twain wrote something fairly similar, and Carlin did spend a lot of his time talking about stupid people so I can see why he’d be a logical choice), but nobody can seem to show their work, so I’m just gonna chalk this one up to the Universe. Nice one, Universe.

I don’t generally give much credence to star signs, but I’ll still be the first to admit that I do in fact have all the stubbornness of a Taurus and then some.

Which is to say I learned this lesson about idiots the hard way.

I didn’t have such a bad time of it before the internet came along. But then, y’know, the internet. An endless miasma of antiquated views, religious fanaticism, prejudice, conjecture, and questionable grammar at my fingertips, and I’m just supposed to stand idly by and watch?

Fat fucking chance!

The most painfully accurate XKCD of all time.

Facebook debate about the morality of same-sex relationships? You’re on.
Article questioning a woman’s right to choose? *cracks knuckles* Bring it.
Bigot with two brain cells and a YouTube channel? To the comments!

Just kidding about the YouTube comments. That’s a kiddie pool of crazy even I wouldn’t dip my toe into.

But I was still a sucker for the rest.

I don’t know how many hours of my life I wasted in futile games of cat and mouse with people who were actually proud of their own ignorance, but it was too many. This time, I would think, this time I will find the perfect way to word things so the light bulb will go on in their head and they’ll see reason! And after every “this time” failed, there was another waiting just behind it.

Still, even the most stubborn person eventually runs out of “this time”s.

I was in the middle of writing some stupidly long Facebook comment when I finally snapped out of my delusion. I can’t even remember what we were debating. And I don’t know what was so different about that day as opposed to any other day. But I recall looking at my words, then looking back at the words that had set me off, and having everything just click.

Wait just a goddamn minute… You know what? Fuck this.

There will always be stupid people. And that sucks for us all.

But it’s not your job to fix them.

They don’t want to be fixed anyway. They are far more committed to being stupid than you are to talking sense into them. You are not a lesser person for giving up, you are just making more effective use of your time.

So let it go, go eat an Oreo, and get on with your life.

…

What are you waiting for? GO!

Quickly, before I could change my mind, I highlighted my meticulously worded wall of text, took a deep breath, and pressed Delete.

Immediate relief washed over me. I didn’t feel like a failure. I felt more like a genius. A belated genius, perhaps, but better late than never.

It was so satisfying, I almost didn’t even need the Oreo.

Almost.