fairness or not

One way in which I never really grew up is that, in my heart, I still hope or wish things were more fair.

And okay, granted, a disclaimer first: I recognize that by and large, things are "unfair in my favor," as that old Calvin and Hobbes strip hinted. I could have been born in the 18th c., which would likely mean I never made it out of childhood. I could have been born in a country where women are openly and actively mistreated. I could live in serious poverty...

But, all that aside, I think we all look at certain other people and ask ourselves, "They do not deserve what they are getting so why are they getting it?"

I am thinking in particular of various individuals - from the Equifax leadership on down to the person in my town who added to others' misery by shredding their water payments and then claiming they had not paid* - who do wrong and wind up either with no punishment, or a slap on the wrist, or, in some Big Corporation examples, a golden parachute out of there.

(*And yes, I cannot quite let go of that yet. WHY DO IT? No one benefited from the action - it's not like the person cashed the checks to their name - and it caused agony for a lot of people.)

And of a different sort: an individual who became a meme, apparently because of slurred exchange on Dr. Phil or somewhere, now has a recording contract or some such. And yeah, I suppose in a way that's maybe cosmic justice for having to BE a meme - something that would be kind of awful and I feel bad for the Chubby Bubbles Girl or the Bad Luck Redhaired Boy or all the random people whose stock photos somehow wound up that way (though apparently Chubby Bubbles Girl is kind of grown-up now, and seems to mostly find the thing amusing).

But it does seem, all too often, that people who in some way don't seem to "deserve" it get lionized, and big checks, and attention, and perhaps even adulation. And it's especially easy for me to think that on a Thursday, when I've driven into work as it's still kind of dark (fall is coming even though it's eleventy-hundred degrees out right now) and behind some guy in an old and ill-tuned pickup truck whose fumes gave me a headache. It's easy to feel like "I labor in obscurity, and no one cares, and the only 'feedback' I get on my work is either, "Hey, I didn't get my lab done can I give it to you tomorrow?" or "The instructions on this assignment were not clear [so instead of coming to your copious office hours and asking, or even e-mailing you, I did it how I wanted to, and you're not allowed to downgrade me for doing it 'wrong']."

And yeah. As much as I can't sing, and even if I could, would probably resent the loss of privacy and stupid petty criticism and stalkers and everything else that come with any kind of fame, it's really, really easy to wish for a life where you had legions of fans, and where people screamed with joy upon your arrival somewhere. And yes, that's very much an emotion-vs.-intellect thing, I know: my intellect tells me, "It would be worse than the life you have now" but my emotion tells me "I want to feel like I matter. I want people to be happy to see me when I show up somewhere. I want to be the one people do things for, rather than the other way around."

And part of this is it's Thursday, and I'm tired, and I'm trying to Tetris together the things I have to do for next week but still have a little time "for myself" and also have time to get to Sherman to buy some better groceries (and also a couple things I canNOT find locally and will need very soon). 

And of course, what "personal" e-mail do I have this morning? a comment notification. But not a real comment, a spam comment, featuring some kind of "enhancement" product for a body part I do not possess. I know I shouldn't take these things personally but just as I get so few "real" phone calls (as opposed to "UNKNOWN CALLER" or someone spoofing a number) I get very little "real" e-mail and that's another way in which I feel sort of invisible, that I'm just an entity to be marketed at or a potential "mark" for ripoffs. 

And yes, again, intellect tells me: you have a good life in most ways, don't knock it. But emotion is a powerful thing.