Thursday, August 17, 2006


Pissing on the public

How do you demonstrate a lack of respect for yourself? How about by unzipping your trousers and dangling your donger in front of everyone?

The other day I was walking through the bus rank in town. I hadn’t got very far before the stink of pee hit me. ‘This is disgusting,’ I said to myself, ‘don’t people know how to use toilets?’ I veered away from the smell—and almost collided with a man who was busy urinating against one of the big metal rubbish skips that are stationed at the station. ‘Well, that’s what it’s all about,’ I thought, wondering idly how the man managed to keep his pee from painting his shoes.

How do you demonstrate a lack of respect for everybody else? How about by spraying your urine around in public? Yes, I know dogs do it and cats do it and cows do it and I’m sure warthogs do it; but men? Aren’t men superior to dogs and cats and cows and warthogs?

Apparently not. At least the lower animals have an excuse for not being so sharp in the brains department.

The day before the other day I was in my garden and noticed that a car had either broken down or run out of petrol in front of my gate (both are common occurrences, since I live at the bottom of a steep hill). I was wondering idly if there was any way I could help when a woman sitting in the back of the car wound down the window and threw a newly-empty KFC box and bag out of it. The rubbish bounced off my fence and landed on the grass. ‘This is disgusting,’ I said to myself, ‘don’t people know how to responsibly dispose of their rubbish?’

Apparently not. After the car had gone (the owner had returned with a plastic of petrol) I went outside and retrieved the rubbish and dumped it in my rubbish bin.

The only way we will make this world a better place is by changing ourselves. At this point it is clear that many people have no respect for themselves and no respect for others and are totally unaware that they are fouling up our shared environment.

Do you want to see a trail of trash? Just follow any bus route and look at the roadsides. Do you want to smell a stink? Just walk through any bus rank.

Then there are the graffiti gangs. At least we can hope that the urine artists and the litterati do what they do because they don’t stop to think. The graffiti artists know what they are doing—they feel so insignificant as individuals that they want to leave their mark on walls and rocks and bus shelters so that the rest of us will at least notice that they exist.

Actually, even though they’re using pens and spray-cans, they’re really no different from the pee-artists or litterati or even the lower animals, for all of these actions seem to be nothing but examples of leaving a dirty mark in places that the rest of us also use. Probably that’s also the reason why husbands beat their wives and boys rape their girlfriends and why Kelly flashes her butt—we live in a world where most care for nothing except leaving their mark wherever and whenever they can.

Leaving your mark is just so basic. It’s an ‘I only care for myself’ attitude. It’s a corporate/commerce/ multinational/promote my brand—me/ attitude, and I don’t care what bankers and CEOs and accountants say, it’s killing community; and by killing community it’s killing us all. The Golden Rule is about putting others first and viewing the world with respect, care and compassion. We’ve already lost the respect and as a consequence we’re fast losing our humanity.