Brutally Honest Rant - 06/21/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: The Self-Important Person
Audio Transcripts
06/21/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

I want to start off tonight’s rant with a Sphinx Riddle.

Now a Sphinx Riddle comes from the ancient Greek and Egyptian mythologies. Believe it or not, both Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian mythos had a similar fictional creature with the body of a lion and a face of a man, and both would ask challenging riddles to spare the lives of the humans they encounter.

So here is a riddle worthy of the Sphinx…

What is worth more than all the treasure in the world to only one person, but is absolutely worthless for anyone else?

I’ll let you think about that for a bit. Believe me, the answer will blow your mind.

We’ve got a lot of annoying people in this world. We really do.

A few weeks ago I did a rant about a bunch of really annoying people who think that they have every right to interrupt a very sad ceremony for fallen US Servicemen just so they could spew their hatred for gays and lesbians. And while what they did sickens me, I had to defend their right to express themselves and point out that they’re nothing more than just opportunistic, attention-starving pricks.

My father, who doesn’t always agree with me on these issues, basically offered a rather brutal but effective solution to the problem… which was to get a bunch of people together with lead pipes and beat the crap out of those protesters.

And believe me, there are plenty of times when I WISH I could seriously smack some folks up with a two-by-four… especially the dickheads in Washington! BUT WE CAN’T! Do you know why? Because it’s against the law. And because we live in a society where that kind of simplistic solution just isn’t tolerated. It’s not "civilized".

But you know what? There are a lot of people who NEED to be smacked upside the head. They are in sorry NEED of a reality check! And when I say they’re in "sorry need" of a reality check, I mean that they will MAKE US SORRY until they get that reality check. And if WE can’t deliver that reality check ourselves, then we have to put our faith in something much larger than us to do the job. We have to put our faith in God, or Jesus, or Buddha, or karma, or some other sense of cosmic justice to carry out what we ourselves are prohibited from doing, and then HOPE that the person in question is simply too arrogant or too cocky or too careless to not wiggle out of it.

That’s why we have people ready to snap at a moment’s notice, folks. THAT’S why we have something called "road rage" in America. It’s not because of some fictional psychological disorder, but because there is growing frustration and an apparent lack of real justice in this world.

We see people who know how to manipulate the system get away with just about everything under the sun. We WANT them to get their just deserts, but they always manage to escape justice. Most recently, we have both Karl Rove and Cynthia McKinney beat the rap for their abuses of power. And we know… WE KNOW… that if it were anyone else… if it were you or I… that the justice system would have no mercy whatsoever.

So we know that the system is screwed up, and that there are people who are intentionally and systematically abusing the system for their own benefit. And that only contributes to our frustrations.

But you can take any big-name out there… any politician, any corporate executive, any professional athlete or Hollywood celebrity… and I assure you that their torments are not the real source of our aggravation!

The REAL source of our frustration rest with the people who are often complete strangers to us.

We may not know who they are, but we know they simply PISS US OFF! And sometimes it’s even done intentionally!

Most of these people I call the "self-important people". These are people who seem to live in a world all their own, and we’re not just there for the ride.

These aren’t just self-centered people, mind you. These aren’t just the folks who live in their own little quasi-autistic environment. There’s more to it than just self-centered or ego-centered behavior. These are people who expect that the world revolve around them.

If you want some celebrity examples, I’ve got a few of them.

Donald Trump quickly comes to mind. Whether you like him or not, whether you watch his TV show or not, whether you read his books or not, you have to admit that Donald Trump just can’t let something go without putting his personal touch – if not his name – on it. And I’m sure that the people who know him will probably just say that’s just his "public persona", but if that’s what the world is seeing, then that’s what they expect the man to be like at all times.

Another great example of a self-important person is Paris Hilton. Now WHY THE HELL should anyone care about Paris Hilton? What does she do other than show up at every event that has a photographer? That’s pretty much all that she does. And that puts her clearly in the category of a self-important person.

But you don’t have to be a celebrity or a millionaire… or even a fifty-thousandaire… to be a self-important person. There are self-important people EVERYWHERE!

You can see a self-important person the minute they leave a building. They can’t take two steps outside of a building without reaching for their cellphone! They can’t stand to be alone for two minutes without having SOMEONE to talk to on a cellphone!

THESE are the people for whom all of those fancy cellphones were designed for. You know, being able to text-message and voice-message and take pictures and video and surf the Internet and download music and put in those stupid ringtones. And if you’re just passing by and you hear them talking, you don’t know if they’re talking to you or if they’re talking on the cellphone. In fact, they’ll pretty much be on the cellphone EVERYWHERE. They’ll show up at restaurants and get their order WHILE on the cellphone! I saw one self-important person actually carry out a very loud and VERY profane argument with his daughter over the cellphone while ordering food at McDonald’s.

Of course they also can’t drive without having a cellphone in their hand either. They have to prove to the world that they can multi-task while operating something that really wasn’t designed for multi-tasking. It makes them look important. "Look at me! I’m conducting business while on the way to work! I’m important! I’m special!" Of course they don’t look all that important when they inevitably get in an accident BECAUSE of their multi-tasking, BUT they can’t worry about that, because it only happens to OTHER people. NEVER to them!

It’s not hard to find a truly self-important person either. Just look at the car they drive! Three letters: S-U-V. You won’t see them driving around in little itty-bitty cars! After all, they won’t have any room for their little bumper stickers. You know which ones. "I’m a proud parent of an honor student", or "My child is an honor student at Numbnuts Elementary". Either that or that STUPID "Soccer Mom" magnet. Plus they can’t get in front of other people with a little itty-bitty car, because THAT is what they feel they must do. They can’t let ANYONE get in front of them, either on the road or at a stop light. You’re turning right and they’re turning left? Well it sucks to be you because the self-important person will intentionally edge out in front of you so you can’t make that right turn until the light turns green. If they can’t leave, then YOU can’t leave!

Self-important people aren’t hard to find at work either. They’re the ones who refuse to read instructions. You spend time and effort to come up with a policy or a series of instructions of how to do things, and they’ll be the first ones to ignore it and then come to you to PERSONALLY show them how it’s done. "Customer Service" or "Technical Support" to them means just one thing: "personal servants". They’ll take up conference rooms just so they can be on their cellphones. And they have no qualms about STEALING a conference room reservation either. They’re the ones who came up with the concept of a "pre-meeting", or having a meeting BEFORE the meeting.

Find a heavily-trafficked location in a building. A hallway or a corridor, or someplace where the passageway is very narrow. Or someplace being worked on. Someplace with a parked mail cart or maintenance cart. You’ll find a self-important person standing RIGHT THERE with their friends just talking up a storm! They’ll be by the elevators or the stairs, not having to use them of course, just talking about the weather or what was on TV last night. If they’re walking, they’re filling up the ENTIRE walkway, and they EXPECT that if you’re coming up the other side that you DAMN WELL get out of their way! "Right of way" to them means THEIR right of way, not yours!

Of course it’s the hypocritical stances of these self-important people that really get under the skins of others. They believe in structure and rules… but only for THEIR structure and THEIR rules, not for anyone else. These are the people who will drive in the breakdown lane during a traffic jam at high speeds just so THEY won’t be late for work. They’ll show up at the express counter of a busy grocery store with an overflowing shopping cart and DEMAND to pay for it all with a personal check. They’ll use the bank drive-through and ATM machines for a twenty-minute banking transaction that would otherwise be made by getting out of their car and walking INTO the still-open bank office. Traffic lights and speed limits are only SUGGESTIONS for them as long as there are no cops around. "Tax the rich"? Sure! Just as long as THEIR money goes untouched.

And as for my personal pet peeve… THESE are the very people that become moralists! These are the people who go on crusades to get the whole world to baby-sit THEIR children. Parental guidance? They don’t have the TIME for that nonsense! Ratings? They don’t have the TIME to figure out what’s acceptable! They’re too busy, and, besides, they feel that THE GOVERNMENT should be doing that stuff anyway!

Hey, you want to know why call centers are either going to India or Bangledesh or else are being replaced by automated services that will guarantee that you will never EVER talk to a human? These are the people responsible for it!

But let’s get brutally honest here… WE ALL have those moments in our lives when we think that the world should rise and set by our permission. We all have those moments when we get extremely selfish and self-centered. The difference is that at some point, we either came to the realization on our own that the world doesn’t revolve around us, or we had that lesson handed to us HARD by other people.

You want to know why people like Karl Rove and Cynthia McKinney get away with their crimes? Because we allow these ordinary self-important people to go on their merry way, hoping that at some point, they too will screw up and get what’s coming to them. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t work that way. And the people who are able to get what they want in life will always befriend and promote like-minded people. That’s WHY the system we all live in is so screwed up.

It’s one thing to develop your own sense of self and individuality and do a little self-promotion… hey, I’m guilty of doing that as well… but it’s another thing to operate on the premise that the world is here for your benefit instead of the other way around. Sometimes a little bit of humility helps temper the ego.

(Computer – a few appropriate clips)
(Fade Music In – "Heretic, Hero" by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

And before I close things out for this week, here’s the answer to that Sphinx Riddle…

What is worth more than all the treasure in the world to only one person, but is absolutely worthless for anyone else?

Well the answer to that is rather simple. It’s YOUR BELIEFS.

Think it over… you’ll see what I mean.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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