DAP will ease your mind
Martin Luther King Jr. Day has come and gone, loaded as always with pronouncements, tributes and retrospectives that are all well, good and heartfelt. It's just fine that there's a holiday to remind us all of a very basic lesson in human relations, one that was central to the good doctor's mission. “Treat everybody with respect, no matter what color they are.” I mean, there ya go. You don't have to add any exemptions, exceptions or corollaries. That's it. Nice, clean, simple.
In fact, it's kinda cool that another King, an Angeleno named Rodney, summarized this basic plank of Dr. King's platform for humanity in a soulful and succinct manner when he said, “Can't we all just get along?”
The last year, of course, has been a bit … sticky. We done had us a few flare-ups on the radar, with some folks experiencing, for whatever reason, difficulties in their attempts to “get along.” Chalk it up to the complexities of human interaction, and approximately 362 shades of gray involved in those interactions. In other words, shit happens. (Pink Floyd: "With, without, and who'll deny, it's what the fighting's all about?”)
It's at this point when one should remember, if one wants to make sense of it all, something our media is reluctant to acknowledge. After all, they aren't in the business of berating or belittling viewers/readers with a stiff shot of Truth. But it's a truth that exists and its existence affects us all, every day, in subtle ways. The reality of the DAP—Dumb Ass Planet.
I find that when life gets a bit exasperating on some front, whether it's school shootings or medieval politics or religious weirdnesses, remembering the reality of DAP is strangely comforting. Somehow, the mere act of recalling that I live on DAP is able to keep my personal gyroscope from wobbling too far off its axis. Maybe it will have a similar power in your world.
Let's say that 20 percent of humanity are absolute maroons. Fair? I'm thinking that I'm being very conservative with this estimate, but I'll err on the side of caution here. And I like working with round numbers. According to latest guesses, there are now 7.3 billion people on this rock. If we work out that 20 percent figure, this means that roughly 1.4 billion people are dumbasses. Full-tilt dopes. Big round zeroes. People who are going to act in ways that are not intelligent, rational or reasonable. Big-brained apes armed with dangerous skulls.
That's a lot of dumbasses. People who weren't raised right. Who weren't too big on school. Who aren't real big on volunteering, discipline and sacrifice. Who don't give two fat figs about “doing the right thing.” And just piss-poor recyclers.
When you stop and consider this number, a number that, in all reality, is almost laughably low, you might say, “Gee, with 1.4 billion halfwits, boneheads and imbeciles walking around, it's a wonder there aren't more disasters, attacks and meltdowns than there are.”
Exactly.
