Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Bathroom Monologue: "How can you be militant non-stamp collector?" -A.C. Grayling


It takes some effort, much as it takes some effort to turn anything you don't do into an annoying hobby. Just imagine.

The first step can be as simple as looking where people get stamps. Whenever you see someone purchasing, applying or even mentioning a stamp, engage in vitriol over what a loathsome thing it is. If you tire of berating hobbyists, you can also harass your local mailman or protest federal funding for the post-office (it's not the primary form of communication and doesn't deserve privilege). There's such an easy thrill from being against something, especially from the safety of not being for anything else, that soon you'll wonder why all the other non-stamp collectors aren't militant.

With the help of bestselling literature you'll find ways to believe that stamp collecting poisons everything. And once you learn to look at the world selectively, you’ll be able to take offense anything stamp-related. Before long you'll establish a dogma against arguments those stamp apologists always use, and you'll be able to bring up counter-arguments before they even finish voicing an opinion. They become less like conversations and more like exhibits of your superiority.

Being right is hard, though. Find a supportive community in the world around you or on the internet. You might think that seeking social solace for non-stamp collecting is psychotic, but you’ll find that after pornography, the internet was invented for hating things (including hating pornography). You'll enjoy countless hours of blogging about how dumb some stamp apologist was in the news today. Seem far-fetched that any group could dig up something every day to take umbrage over? Then you have underestimated the willpower of angry people in groups.

Once you get into it, you'll realize non-stamp collecting is a vast hobby. You can research the neursoscience behind why anybody is dumb enough to like stamps. You can become a stamp historian and cherry-pick resources to prove how stamps have always been a bane to human society. You can embrace futurism and promote e-mail as the righteous and pure way humans will ascend above postage. If you’re feeling uninspired, just go to the comments section of anything on the Huffington Post and go nuts. All this and much more asinine hatred of other people's passions will be available to you through whatever modes of expression you desire: books, blogs, billboards, music, Youtube channels, Twitter feeds, podcasts, documentaries and conventions. Take it far enough and you can start your own non-stamp collecting university. Do it right and you'll make quite a living.

Thankfully, there aren't many militant non-stamp collectors. Anyone like that would be insufferable.

5 comments:

  1. "...you’ll find that after pornography, the internet was invented for hating things..."

    I can't remember the last time I read something so concisely true.

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  2. I feel compelled to write a comment about how horrible this post was and how horrible people are that like it.

    But I can't. I love it. There is a lot of truth buried in this one.

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  3. Typical ignorant anti-atheist hate.
    The person your describe is being a militant opponent of stamp collecting. Not a militant non-stamp collector. There's a difference. Go ask your imaginary friend.

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  4. Elise, I wish it wasn't, but it felt like something worth broaching.

    Chuck, that's the spirit!

    Hamburglar, it's almost as though there's some connection between being an opponent of something and militancy. I'll leave it to you to get the dictionary out.

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  5. Hi there John -- I'm with Elsie -- hate plays quite the part on the internet and concisely said, though it probably comes third to folks ripping off media in all its forms. St.

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