The Suckage Factor

This week is dedicated to the readers. I posted a Readers Revenge challenge last week where I invited the readers to tell me what they wanted me to write, no topics were out of bounds. Fortunately Lelo had the only embarassing request which I will run later this week.

Being that Mother of Three wrote on this topic yesterday, I will open with this to keep a good thing going:

Portosan asked me to write on people sucking.

One might ask why it is perceived that people suck. What have they done to earn this distinction? Do people really suck?

The act of sucking takes many forms. We are all familiar with what is generally known as sucky behavior, aggressive driving, being mean, being loud and rude. Each of us are guilty of infractions that piss someone off elevating us individually to the “suck” status.

This is all fine and good, but what Port is getting at is pandemic suckatude, and this is akin to what Catholics refer to as “original sin.” These are the sins we are born with that can only be erased by baptism. Yes, we are all born sucking. There are many examples, but I will use only one. Though we may not think we suck individually, we suck as an entity on this planet.

You are reading this article electronically. You are using electricity. Your electricity is being generated by coal, natural gas or hydro powered dams. The thing that suck about that is that the dams flooded native fishing lands and killed many salmon. Coal burning fills the air with sulfur and greenhouse gasses. Strip mines alter and scar the earth in ways that can’t be repaired. Natural gas comes from countries that we have philosophical difference with. By purchasing their gas we in effect support their causes, which is being against us and wanting to kill us. So by using electricity we end up collectively sucking.

If you think you are above sucking you will have to look at everything you do to see if there is a suck link. If there is one you must baptize yourself against the infraction. In the case of electricity you can pay less than 10% more for your electricity bill which is used for renewable resource power. Check out the Blue Sky option for more details.

But there are sucky things we really can’t avoid; like taxes. We pay our taxes and the government does sucky things with it and yes we are responsible for that as well, but to avoid that you would have to live off the land in a cashless society, but then if you are living off the land you are taking the earths resources and fouling the ground with urine and excrement. It’s unavoidable, we all impact our planet and one another with every breath we take.

What can we do to alter the course suckatude? Simply do anything. Do something to make it better. Spend an hour picking up trash. Turn of unneeded lights. Turn off all the lights in your house and meditate for a half hour a day. Make a commitment not to drive one day per week. It all makes a difference.

So maybe if we can suck a little less, our actions will inspire others to suck less as well. Trust me, people will still continue to suck, but maybe we will be able to tollerate it more.