When you put the toilet roll on the holder, make sure the open end rolls up and over from the back towards the toilet, not the other way. The other way is the wrong way. I have just shared with you the right way to put the toilet roll on the holder.
Also,
when you wash the dishes put all the cutlery, with the exception of sharp knives, handle-down in the dish rack. Any other way of doing this is wrong, plain and simple.
Of course, I'm kidding...but I'm not
Do you know what I mean?
Do you ever realise that your preferences have somehow become more than a list of preferences, and have mysteriously slipped into the realm of morality? Of course, if you live on your own, these preferences can secretly be maintained, in splendid isolation, and one can maintain the mask of sanity in this regard. However, when two-become-one, or just share the same space under the same roof for any length of time, one can come to realise how crazy our acted-behaviours and thought-behaviours seem to be.
We can become little behavioural Pharisees with lists of additional rules and regulations, getting all wound up when the others in our world don't comply with the laws that we live our lives by. This hidden frustration can build and build...and initially the Pharisee may just undo the crime, by turning the toilet roll around, or picking up after the criminal. Of course, only saints and martyrs can maintain this course indefinitely. But, for most, this inner frustration and hidden correction, can just add to the feeling of inner tension and stress, and eventually must come out. Venting can come in the form of angry scribbles on notes left for the offender in order to correct their offending behaviour. It can then either erupt into rage against the offender, or a serious conversation can be had, to discuss the offending behaviour.
Have you ever done this? Does this sound like you?
When I put it like this, you would probably be embarrassed to admit it, and yet, I want to stand up right now and claim ownership of that behaviour. I have been that person, and I am sure before the day I die, I will behave like that again to some degree or other. Of course, others may not see anything problematic with their Pharisaic code, and simply wish that everyone else abided by it.
Now, I am not saying all this out of a sense of shame for my own behaviour, or to shame anyone else for the same. I am simply wanting to shine a light, on that little transition from preference to morality, and how we play it out on the others in our lives, and often important-others in our lives.
Unfortunately, we can end up treating strangers better than we treat our loved-ones, as those strangers are fortunately distant enough not to offend us. It is the ones we draw close to, and that we share our selves and spaces with, who end up suffering our angry withdrawals, disappointments, resentments or rage.
How do we live in a world of different others? Others, who live by a different code, by different beliefs about how to live well. These are our own personal cultures, the cultures of our hearts, even if they are more like a history of habits; they are our habits, and their habits, and in as much, they are important to us, as if they were connected sensitively to our fragile identities.
So how do we go about coming close to other cultures? Do we attempt to overlook the difference and focus on an idealised, or romanticised sense of similarity, hoping to avoid the potential points of conflict? Or do we focus on the difference and get stuck in the quicksand of intractable tensions?
There are no easy answers.
But, I do know [read as 'best guess'] that tensions ease, when you admit that your laws are your laws, and that they are preferences that have become idols, and do not need to be the preferences of any other who inhabits this planet. Of course, we may really believe that this planet would be a better place, neater place, more orderly kind of place if we all did things the way we do...but it isn't...so we'll just have to get over it.
I also know [read as 'best guess'], that a lot of this inner tension is made worse, by our feelings of personal significance and importance. We can end up behaving like these things mattered, taking ourselves oh-so-seriously, as if our rituals and mythologies had become all-encompassing realities for the world. Well, they aren't, and we'd do better by getting over that too.
And, I also know [read as 'best guess'] that we often take out our real stresses, in lives that we are too afraid to change, on the more tangible, inconsequential aspects of our lives, by picking on the things you would love to change in others. Things, that when it came down to it, you would probably admit to not considering that important, but, when harbouring deep existential frustrations, or pains, they become the bane of the dissatisfaction in your life. Well, they are inconsequential, and we'd find it much easier if we stopped wasting our energies by focusing on the behaviour of others that are close to us, and using those same limited energies to find our own personal sense of satisfaction, or making our peace with the world-as-it-is.
If the small things in our lives have become more important than they ought, we have probably lost sight of something else...and if we have lost sight of something else, there is a good chance that it is intentional blindness to something that we don't want to see, for fear of us having to take responsibility for our lives and make hard decisions, or a blindness to some of the harsher realities of life that we don't yet want to come to terms with.
Of course, it is far easier to have a go at someone else isn't it, because it keeps them wrong and keeps you right, or more importantly, helps us maintain a blindness toward ourselves whilst fixating on the speck of dust in the other's eye, or their scruffy appearance, or in the position they leave the toilet seat, or the kind of mess they are able to tolerate, or the amount they drink, or the company they keep...or...
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