When I was in my teens, I coined a phrase that I’ve been using ever since.
“You can be right, or you can be popular, but never both.”
While every rule has its exceptions, for the most part, I think the phrase stands up impeccably to the realities of the human animal.
I’ve taken a lot of shit from people over the years, and while I have certainly been wrong at times, most of the shit I have taken has come at times when I’ve been right, yet merely unpopular.
For quite some time, I’ve opined that the weather-bitching of Seattle transplants is a learned behavior, not necessarily one borne of true conviction. To support my claims, I’ve pointed to places like Finland, Ireland, Iceland, England, Japan, and Pittsburgh, and I’ve noted that they complain far less about their weather, even though they all get less sun than we do. In some cases, dramatically less.
When I had a residential stint in Las Vegas, I used to complain about the weather all the time, and when I did so, most people grew quite irritated and informed me to move if I didn’t like it. Eventually, I took them up on their advice, and moved back to Seattle, where I began relaying the advice that the masses had shouted at me mere months earlier. When those around me complained about the weather, I told them exactly what I had been told hundreds, perhaps thousands of times before … “if you don’t like it, move.”
Ohhhhh … they didn’t like that, though. Not one bit. Oh no. No no. Once again, they started yelling at me.
But, how could this be? Did it make any sense? After all, I did what they told me to do. I was merely following their own instructions. Why was I wrong … again?
Then, I remembered my own personal cliche’.
You see, when the herd gives advice, it’s not meant to be accurate. It’s not meant to be truthful. It’s not meant to be logical. It’s not meant to be right.
It’s meant to be popular.
Everything a group of people ever advised me to do, has always, ALWAYS been for the conveyance of one, single message: “Be more like us!”
“If we’re complaining … complain, if we’re complaining about complaining … stop complaining.” It’s just that simple. It’s the entire point. Fuck facts, fuck reason, we is Amerkins and you is either with us or with the terrrrrrrists. All the world’s a popularity contest, and if you even think of growing a brain and questioning conventional wisdom, well, you’re going to get shit on. If you dare take a position contrary to the loudest cow moo’ing, you better make goddamn sure you’re not alone. At the very least, you better make sure that you never, ever, EVER go first.
Apparently, I got this bovine edict a little too late in life for it to become second-nature, but the readers of the Cliff Mass Weather Blog have no such problem.
Bulls and Sows, I give you the following URL for your fuck-you-I’ve-been-telling-you-this-for-years-while-you-shit-on-me reading pleasure:
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7478606652950905956&postID=3616242552575206966
Well, golly jeepers … folks, does that sound familiar?
Why, who knew?
If you’ve been watching any Seattle TV station, or reading any Seattle weather website for the past million years, certainly not you. No way.
While the article is hardly news to yours truly, and thus tells me nothing, what is most interesting is the comments below the article. Check those out.
Have you ever seen so many rain-lovers in your life?
“I have that!”
“Me too!”
“Mooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
I mean, when Lisa Van Cise pulls out the vibrator and shakes into full-blown orgasm at the mere mention of the word “sun”, and her husband equates rain-lovers with terrorists, you don’t hear a peep out of these people.
When article after article after article is written shitting on Seattle’s climate, as if that’s going to change it, nary a word of dissent is heard from anyone.
But now … now that the local celebrity meteorologist says it’s okay to like the rain, and that maybe, just maybe, you’re not such a weirdo after all if you like a few clouds in the sky … well Katy bar the door cause there’s about to be a stampede.
Moo.
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