The laundry room in my building has been liberated. There is a tenant in my building who tends to leave his clothes wet in the machines overnight and often for two or three days. This person has some disabilities. He also attends university. Go figure. Some of the tenants here are almost ready to form a lynch mob. Our building manager says they are monitoring this tenant, but it may take a long time before we see any meaningful change. I don't know this person well. He is not a nice person to begin with, claims to be a Christian and we even attended the same Anglican parish church for a while where he managed to guilt the rector into letting him participate in the service of Holy Communion, so he could parade, or hobble around in liturgical robes like a self-important and sanctimonious little pharisee. This person is also in the habit of forgetting his keys and has to rely on others to let him into the building. Only when you bark out "You're welcome!" does he actually squeeze out a grudging "Thank you", and only with all the enthusiasm of Gollum letting go of his Precious.
Now I don't hate this tenant. I don't even dislike him, though I did for a while, since he just isn't that likeable. But people who aren't likeable tend to get trapped in a vicious cycle. Being already socially inept introverts often means that they are going to be misunderstood as unpleasant losers, are going to be treated like unpleasant losers, and in time are going to behave like unpleasant losers, thus further alienating others and keeping them ensconced in the kind of social isolation that kills people. He might actually have friends. perhaps other unpleasant introverts, and why not? One would hope that he might have in his life people who understand him. I really know very little about him, and there are details I am intentionally omitting in order to protect his privacy.
The Duchess, whom I have also referred to as the Queen of Candela Place, is ready to lynch him. I don't blame her. At least our common annoyance with this poor wanker has helped make us friends, in a way, but I'm not about to accept her line that if he can do well in university, then he should also be trusted to do his laundry like a real adult. Um...not so fast, Petunia. I am reminded here of that very dumb and very American saying, "If you're so smart, then why aren't you rich?" Oh, let me count the ways! Let's see, I was diagnosed (I say diagnosed because to me it is an illness) as a gifted child, and my IQ tends to err on the high side, putting me on the dumb end of the genius scale. Yet, I never made it through university, have always worked for a low wage and now live in social housing. On the other hand, I am responsible, self-disciplined, very capable on many different levels, and also a decent writer and not a bad artist.
Gentle Reader, the human trajectory is always going to be uneven. Even the gods of Olympus had their very human flaws. They were jealous, possessive, manipulative, vindictive and petty. We need to do better than they. We need to be better than they. We have to be patient and gentle with one another. because we are all such a flawed and uneven lot, kindness is so essential, and as things get even more difficult with the fallout of climate change and frightening despots, kindness is going to be all the more essential to our very survival as a species. Perhaps we need to do more to accept and celebrate this imperfection that we all share in common. Especially in this highly competitive era of toxic perfectionism!
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