Planetary Plague: Ludicrous Lack of Self-Awareness

Today is Earth Day. I’d planned to write about it and myriad environmental issues addressed in my Other Worldly novels. But I recently attended a homeowner’s association board meeting in my over-55 community and realized what a microcosm it is of everything currently happening in greater (or not so great) society. One might even call it a pathological plague on Earth. An insidious kind of noise pollution.

In the past six years, it seems like all human decency has eroded to the point of absurdity. Some like to call it a lack of morals, I prefer dearth of personal ethics. People incapable of speaking civilly to each other, coupled with the selfish me, me, me immaturity of supposedly full-grown adults who nonetheless like to blame others, including younger generations, for anything that’s got them in a twist.

Then there’s the blatantly ignorant and proud of it. I witnessed more of that from audience members at this HOA meeting than I really wanted to know existed. These are people living in my community, after all. Our little speck on Earth.

But the absolute worst are those consumed with hubris and utterly lacking in self-awareness. The hapless buffoons grandstanding for attention. They seemingly have no clue how utterly ridiculous they appear, with no consideration for how they poison any environment they inhabit.

There’s the man in a muscle shirt with barely contained rage ranting about how laws were being broken—because folks like this just love to erroneously cite laws. When told his diatribe was off subject for what this meeting was scheduled to address, he stomped out in a huff. Meaningless disruption was obviously his ultimate aim, but good riddance. Because the vibes coming off of him were downright toxic.

Next up, the guy who commandeered a mic and proceeded to interrogate a board member with questions fired like he was some sort of self-styled prosecuting attorney on cross exam.  Actually, his queries were bald-faced accusations, which, had he learned to practice law by means other than watching TV, he might have realized he was merely making a fool of himself.

This dude wasn’t the only one playing lawyer but, seriously, why are there so many of these rude clueless posers proudly prowling about our planet? They’ve portrayed doctor and scientist during this pandemic, they like to tell women how they’re supposed to think and feel about sexism, and they gloatingly advise people of color that racism no longer exists—in their highly self-exalted estimation. They apparently live to pretend to be experts on anything and everything.

Like the woman who, along with the aforementioned males, was so very adamant that she knew more than anyone else about HOA rules, bi-laws, board actions, Nevada law and more—because she talked a lot.  Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

When a female board member with superhuman patience calmly replied, proving each of them wrong on every blowhard assertion, it became farcical.

The guy-who-would-be-district-attorney in his own mind didn’t get the answer he wanted after accusing this board member of breaking a law, no less, so he reverted to blustering about how he was just looking for some common sense.

That might have been his only partially accurate statement of far too many made at this meeting. Because common sense was something he was definitely missing, a fact on blatant display while he wasted everyone else’s time and continued to unapologetically preen, appearing quite proud of himself.

All in all, it’s clear that just because someone is over 55 doesn’t mean they’ve grown up, and there will always be folks who think they know more than those doing the job. Unfortunately, in this day and age, they tend to be more disruptively vocal about it, reveling in their public display of spewed verbal garbage. It’s exhausting and depleting.

Earth has enough issues. Does it really need this plague of petulant pests mucking up every resource for the rest of us inhabiting this planet?

It’s true that some people just need to be heard, or understood, but at what point do we stop pandering to caustic cretins, allowing them to consume all of our time as they seek to suck any and all positive energy from a room for no reason other than an egomaniacal sense that the world revolves around them and their petty, spiteful alternate reality?