riding the titillation wave

Jack Handy once said, "Broken promises don't bother me. I just think... why did they believe me?"

It's funny, I think, because it is so very true. The thing I've been noticing about people the past few years (well, one of the things) is that most of them don't seem to mind at all if they break their word. Mostly it's just the little things. Like, folks will say they want to do something, and then they'll call you up shortly before the planned time and say that, basically, something they wanted to do more has come up. Or they don't call.

My parents beat it into me that telling the truth was super-primo important. Then, in my pre-teen years when I was snarfing down Louis L'amour novels by the dozen, I learned that if you wanted to follow the cowboy way, you had to tell the truth, because "a man is only as good as his word". I took this to mean that once you told someone you would do something, you would go ahead and do it. Or at the very least, if something else came up that would be oh-so-much-more-fun, before you'd agree to a change of plans you would call back the first person and let them know about the new option - to ask if it would be OK to do it and perhaps even to invite them along. It's common courtesy, right? Wrong. Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong sort of people, but the little broken promise thing keeps happening all the time, and with folks who generally seem to be reasonably decent.

Why is this? Well, it seems to me that this is just a dribble-down effect of the self-centered attitude taught with great gusto by our overly individualistic society. If individuals are the most important thing, and I am an individual, then it stands to reason that I am the most important thing. Therefore, if we've planned to hang out fishin' at the old water hole and some ludicrously wealthy uncle drops by and offers to take me out in his luxurious yacht to troll for sailfish, I'm going to say yes without giving you a second thought. Furthermore, since I don't want to jeapordize my chances with uncle moneybags, I won't even think about asking him if I can bring a freind.

This is raw capitalism as an individual's strategy for living. The economics of narcissism preclude commitment. Without commitment, real relationship is not possible, and without real relationship, true community cannot form. The self-actualized modern person, then, floats alone through life, blown hither and yon on the breezes of titillation, blissfully unaware that he or she is little more than a selfish child, an instinctual beast.