Today in a series of replies to FAQ (frequently asked questions) sent to me by fans (and sometimes not so much), I answer the question “What are some of your pet hates?“, asked by Wayne in Johannesburg
Pet hates. Wow.
This question makes me think of someone stroking a pet, rather lovingly. I picture a sort of dragon, or a wild cat that puts up with the attention – and as soon as you stop the petting, it tries to eat you! (I might even use that in a future story!) Pet hates… hmmm…
I’m not sure if there’s a lesson in that somewhere, but like anyone, I do have a couple of ‘pet hates’ squatting about the place, clawing the furniture and ruining the carpets, so here goes! Apologies in advance if it gets a little heavy, but the question does touch on issues that lie close to home! Here’s my direct, forthright response to the question!
Pockets. Yes, you read that right – pockets! Somewhere along the line, the designers of women’s clothing decided that women don’t need pockets in their pants or jackets – this is simply not acceptable. Tops are generally cut too high and pants too low so our equators stick out like we’re produce on sale. Shoes are also on the small side – our grandmothers might have had size 3-5 feet, but today’s women stride in size 7-9, and sometimes larger footwear. (Fix it now, or I’ll deal with you in my next novel! 😉 )
Greed is another, whereby the already obscenely rich seem to get an entire society’s leaders worldwide to bend over backwards to help make them even richer at the expense of everybody else.
The low value of human life and suffering is appalling – where countries spend millions of dollars towards making war against other human beings rather than finding better ways to avoid war altogether, and instead of spending that money on green energy, medical research and scientific and technological advancement aimed at improving the lives of the billions of creatures sharing this troubled yet beautiful planet.
A mere building that accidentally caught fire had billions of dollars donated towards its restoration almost overnight by elitist billionaires in the name of “culture” and religious piety – but the ongoing starvation, poverty, homelessness and suffering of millions of people remains an ongoing feature of “our culture” because “there’s no money for that”. Repairing a lump of stone is more important than easing the suffering of millions of people. Somehow their much-flaunted “piety” heralds zero compassion for the less-fortunate and down-trodden. Where is the sense or humanity in that?
Cruelty pushes my fucked-off meter into the red: seeing the immeasurable and completely avoidable cruelty inflicted by humans against their own environment, on animals sentient or not, and even towards each other – including children – is enough to turn my stomach and hope for an extinction level event to settle the score permanently. Fortunately, humanity’s disregard for their own environment and lack of planning for the future will accomplish that sooner than they think.
Religion is another of my pet hates – not in the sense of the right of people to believe in whatever fictitious deity they like – but the sort of oppressive, fanatical, polarizing, dictatorial, regimented religious insanity that goes around marching in step while waving flags, burning other people’s property, murdering dissenters or scapegoats, and dictating to everyone – not just its own fans – what they’re supposed to think, feel and how they’re supposed to live …and that it keeps on trying to weasel its dirty way into secular governments around the world to force its way.
This is the 21st century – we should’ve been living on the moon and Mars, and driving flying cars by now – not still trying to correct gullible back-birth fanatics who, despite all the evidence available, insist that the Earth is flat and that science is some kind of ‘libral’ conspiracy!
Last on my list of pet hates would be people who simply don’t read, never have, or think they just don’t need to – or who read exclusively from a “holy” book and can recite it back, parrot-fashion.
Those people – and their abject illiteracy – are the most frightening of all things – because at their level of utter base ignorance they reject any real and actual events and scientific facts which contradict their views. They think they already know everything, and they regard anything that contradicts their beliefs as a lie – and there’s no depravity people like that are not capable of.
How does one reason or reconcile with someone so base and depraved that they gleefully employ religious texts to absolve any conceivable crime against humanity?
Well there you go – I warned you this was bound to get a little heavy! 😉 Anyway, I hope this answers this question to your satisfaction!
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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.