Complex Numbers

Constipation

I think I'm becoming evil in my old age. Well, more evil, anyway.

These past couple of days, I've been hearing about people who decided to ignore evacuation orders and stay in a hurricane zone.

Now, I'm a gambling man. But it's one thing to risk a few bucks at the blackjack tables, and entirely another to stay in a place that has a good chance of being flooded and/or blown away on the wind. Not that I don't understand, at least to some extent. Someone tells me to leave my home, hell, I might even make the same choice.

But then... then some of these people started asking for help. And that's where I draw the line. So I say: Fuck 'em. Now they've not only put their own lives at risk - their choice - but also those of emergency responders.

And then I think, well, there are at least three situations I can see where it makes sense to have a bit of empathy for their plight. One story I saw before the hurricane hit was a mother who stayed with her three children. Why make the children suffer for their mother's choice? They didn't decide to be born unto an idiot. And emergency responders made their choices, too.

Yeah, I know, the storm wasn't as bad as predictions indicated. But that could have gone either way, really. Like I said, a gamble. No sympathy for the stupid, here.

But my lack of sympathy doesn't stop there. Today, a retail clerk asked me if I wanted to donate to some children's charity. I refused. Then she rang me up and proceeded to try to get me to sign one of those little "I donated" signs they hang up in retail establishments. "I didn't donate," I reminded her.

"Oh, that's right," she replied, thus adding to the extortionist tactics in front of the other people in line.

I tell myself it's because I donate to whom I choose, when I choose, and I'd rather pick organizations that have low overhead so the money goes to actual victims, not charity organizers. But honestly, children's charities are at the very bottom of my list, behind disaster relief, pet rescues, and casino owners. Partly because of the overhead, yeah, but partly because I just don't give a damn.

I also turned off Amber Alerts on my phone because I simply don't care. I tell myself it's because I'm rarely in a position to do anything about it, and the notification is annoying, but I have weather alert sirens turned on in the damn thing because that could affect me.

Now the only real question is: can I live with being ethically constipated - that is, utterly failing to give a shit?

Maybe. We'll see. I do know I'm not actively seeking laxatives for it.