Unsafe New York: Part Nine

"IT DOESN'T T BOTHER, THEREFORE IT IS NOT BOTHERSOME": OR THIS ACTUALLY DOESN'T FEEL GOOD

Interesting observation I have made just recently. It was with a friend and we were having what people would term - a discussion. Or rather a conversation. The process of exchange of information has turned into a discussion after the following happening. A friend mentioned drinking warm milk as being beneficial and waited for my reaction. I said that although I am familiar with its healing qualities and nutritional value, I have also heard that it makes some people get a stomach ache, or even worse, fall ill. "Not me," viciously said a friend. "I drink it, and I am ok. It is great for you." "Yes, I know that you are one of the few that derives benifits out of milk past the age of 5, but many people do not, and I..." "Bullshit! It's fine! Nothing happens to me." Being thustly disarmed with impervious logic, I"ve retrieved. And indeed, nothing happens to him: the milk must be great, therefore.
This little story is a prelude to a realization that many things in my life I often considered bad or good based on a prevalent opinion. Not unlike my friend and his conviction, the origin of many a "truth" and a grand "THE TRUTH" WITH ALL CAPITALS AND PREFERABLY DOUBLY SIZED is often a ...personal opinion.
As for out little "discussion", my friend was quite upset and at some point in our discussion he stroke against me on the personal grounds, as apparently we covered a few other points and found out that there were other ways than that of my friend's to react to things. My friend was terribly upset, again. He would have probably hit me. In an ideal universe I would be dead. Then I thought maybe it is my fault: do I really need to keep discussion intelligent? Can't we just swap opnions and be merry? I've attempted that, and to my surprise my friend was even more upset when I stated things I liked and I disliked. To each of my liking was a rule or a code (quoted as religious, but since we were talking about the same religion I've studied as well) deeming them as "incorrect" and my friend's opinion appeared to pose as the word of the God himself! Not every time this happened, but the "word of God" came into play every time my opinion differed from my friend's. It was like a bat with which I got hit when my friend felt he was loosing the ground. It's gotten worse when I continued to persevere in my obsequous desire to think and ponder the issues from a reasonable point of view, like could we really consider all experience a karma and a necessity for learning? Of course, if I've realized my friend was irrational and so beligerent, I would have never considered talking to him, but I have heard stories from him, about him and his friends doing things together, and apparently oftentimes his close friends would have different opinions from him on many subjects. Including religious. Se seemed to profess tolerance and to breathe wisdom. (That's the thing, he only "breathed" it, around other wise people.) So why would he treat our discussion differently? Things I stated were not attrocious. In the first instance they were facts I was quoting, with sources, in the second a matter of a choice of food or a book to read. Why was I always brought back into an arena of "should" and "should nots" like a small child? Continuing listening, I found out that all the friends my friend has mentioned were boys, and whenever a story of a "nasty" or "funny" or "stupid" individual appeared, it turned out to be, necessarily, a ...girl. Woman, actually to be precise. "Girl" is term incorrectly applied to a post-pubescent female human being.
So, the friend and I fought. Of course. And then I remembered my mother's words " nod, smile, don't fight." Indeed, maybe at a work place or in a political arena. But with people who consider themselves my friends, a part of my inner sanctum invitees, fellow artists, what am I supposed to do, nod?! And then again words of my mother came to my mind: let a man have his way.
And suddenly an understanding of what was to become out of that my mother's idea, came to me: a world where people with bigger fists run around and state categorically matters of personal opinion. The other people, with smaller fists nod and consent. And they do so without listening. Listening to someone say "5+2=9" may stimulate some feelings of protest and subsequently merit a blow in the face. These smaller-fisted people are dressed funny and like a defeated in a battle male (in some places after two males fight and one looses, a looser has to shave off his head, or shave his pubic hair or something. In some tribes where women don't shave - therefore to use that example as a proof of feminity would be incorrect, as in "the looser is weaker and therefore has to adopt a feminine role" is incorrect. Simply because the shaving practise is not a practice invented by women and not for women to be pretty. Shaving hair off has to do with the humiliation and putting one in his place: even your body is not your own. I am the master of it and can do as I please with it. Shaving hair is a perfect way to show one's power without inflicting damage to the body. A slave with a damaged body is a damaged slave. The slave who walks around with a sex drive on all the time waiting to be addressed and purchased (smiles, movies, money, blackmail, societal conditioning) for sex should not be damaged. )
When a smaller fist person is in the 21st century and a certain process of evolution has taken place, a bigger fist is shocked, surprised and even isulted by presentations from a smaller fist indentured servant: her job is to consent, stimulate the eye and the organ, and bear the young. She may speak a little just to be entertaining enough, a nice and stimulating addition to her highly manipulated and artificialized form but never enough to "challenge" the "fact" of somebody's divinity or nutritional content. Even if she speaks the truth. Truth and not truth are irrelevant in the condition of small-fisted people. How much so is irrelevant their personal opinions, likes and dislikes?
Who inhabits my body? Why can't I openly say: this hurts me, this is not pleasant, I don't like it. Why I am allocated a narrow circumference where I may state my preferences but as long as they don't "violate" the established norm. Even if this norm be foot binding, corsets, brutal hair removal procedures, rib removal, application of artificial substances upon HUMAN FACE! Are my likes and dislikes limited by what's EXPECTED? Am I not authority on the matters of my OWN body more than some guy out there somewhere?
So this is Why this friend feels that his milk preferences dictate the taste of the world and is not fazed by the fact that milk is bad for many a person. But when I bring up the fact of my physical body needing a walk, a run, a set of exercises, a proper nutrition I get shut up and down with the argument of some "god"? Why must I listen with a smile to a complete nonsense, agree with my slave conditon because it comes from "god," and a with a man who displays non-tolerant and objectionable attitude?
Might make right?
Why was slavery or Holocaust wrong then? In the first case "it's economics, stupid" and in the second some group proved to be impure in the eyes of superior (at the time) strength people and was done away with. How is it different from Indian widow burned ALIVE at a stake after her husband's demise? And treated with terrible disrespect if she chooses to stay alive, and is bound to poverty and begging (a concentration camp-like existence) for the rest of her life?! And the baby girls that get thrown into the Ganges and other rivers surrounding India? Their crime being only that they are not boys? And bound broken feet? And forced marriage, purchase of a wife?
Or we don't see it? No facts?
In the words of the same friend " facts don't interest me."
Indeed.