I understand your pain, but recently I had an experience which changed my mind.
I was sitting reading Boing Boing, posting mild-amusing contexts and then watching the screen for hours to see how many hearts I got, because my therapist said that was the best way of improving my self-esteem. I decided to eat a banana, so I went into the kitchen.
As soon as I touched the banana, before I could even just look at it, an apparition appeared before me. “I AM THE XENI OF THE BANANA,” she said, in a voice that sounded like someone playing Iron Maiden on a Tesla coil. “THERE ARE THREE BITES TO THIS BANANA,” she said. (It was a small banana.) “BECAUSE YOU ARE VIRTUOUS AND SOMETIMES CLEVER, FOR EACH BITE I SHALL GRANT THEE ONE WISH.”
“Please stop using all caps,” I begged, “it’s hurting my ears.”
“Okay,” she grumbled.
Now I’ve read all the folk tales and “The Money’s Paw” and I know anyone who is greedy or who tries to lawyer their way out of the consequences is just asking for a world of unpleasantness. When people wish for things, it usually turns out they didn’t know what they really wanted after all. So I thought about it pretty hard.
“Oh Xeni of the banana, tell me - what is the single thing that is the greatest barrier to my happiness?”
She didn’t say anything. “Err…”
“You have to bite the banana. It’s in the rules.”
I bit the banana. It was actually a little tasteless, but that’s my punishment for buying them green and eating them before they were ripe.
“Your wish is granted! It’s Mark Frauenfelder spamming ukulele videos.”
While there are much worse travesties in the world, like the price of sour cream, I didn’t like sour cream and so I didn’t buy it. But it struck me as wildly implausible that ukulele videos were really that much of a problem for anyone.
“That’s risible,” I said. (I learned that word as an English major, and since I paid so much for the education, I try to get as much out of it as I can.) “I just scroll past them anyway.”
“Your time on this Earth is precious,” she said gravely, “and just on a side note, it’s a good thing you didn’t wish for immortality because then I would have had you six ways from Caturday. But think about it - everyone’s time is wasted, just for the sake of a few. Do you think you’re the only one who hates those things?”
It was a small step in the right direction, at least. “Xeni of the banana, please remake the world such that no one ever needs to suffer through a ukulele video again!” I took the second bite of the banana.
“Your wish is granted!” There was a glimmer to her eye that I really should have taken to be some kind of foreshadowing or something, but I thought it was just the new LED lights I’d installed with my dad’s help. (Actually, I’d just eaten a sandwich while he put in the lights, but he still did help, technically.)
I saved the rest of the banana, because I read on TVTropes that you should always leave a spare wish just in case you got reamed by the other two.
On Saturday I went to see my friends at a restaurant. The restaurant is so crowded, hardly anyone ever goes there any more, but the food is good. We sat down and ordered our food and just looked at one another.
Everyone else in the restaurant was just staring at each other, too.
Someone said "n tb thr s ths hlrs ct clld Mr. Another person said “Wht s t bt twrkng nd Ml Crs nw?”, but then gave a look like her eyes were trying jump from their sockets and use the optic nerve as a bungee cord.
I said, “'v bn plng Krbl Spc P-”. The feeling I got I don’t think I could describe without hitting this forum’s spam filter, but …it was like suddenly the whole world was spam, noise, a tale told by an idiot, signifying MAK YR ORGAN GROOOW.
And while I was happy I wouldn’t have to hear from D___ about the latest offense against men’s rights, or from N___ about how many metric tons of crap she had to put with that was caused by her never tolerating a gram, I really did like hearing what my friends had to say, and besides I wanted to make a joke about there being video proof that fairies existed in Iceland because Bjork was on Google+.
Around me, people were now discussing, stiltedly but without being disemvowelled, the economic crisis in Indonesia. Someone tried to say something about a crossroads, but that was disemvowelled too, because it was a Simpsons reference.
In that moment came the realization that Boing Boing was just like my table of friends. I went there to hear what they had to had to say, and maybe say something myself. Sometimes Cory’s posts were a little bit less measured than his Guardian columns, and my own personal hell will always be that scene in Clockwork Orange only with ukulele videos. But I put up with their personal tics, because what goes on in Boing Boing is generally pretty interesting.
I ran home to the magic banana. (I’d put it in the fridge, but it was going brown.) “Oh Xeni of the banana, please, please, undo my previous wish!” I crammed the banana into my mouth.
“Your wish, and my wish, is granted!” she cried out, in a way that really isn’t PG-rated.
“Your wish?”
“My wish was that if you didn’t like Boing Boing’s content, you’d realize maybe some people don’t care about yours. You can vote with your feet, but if you wanna read the stuff you’re interested in, you’ll have to scroll past the stuff you’re not.”
“Please, great Xeni,” I begged. “I ate that banana peel and all. Can I have a unicorn chaser?”
“That would require a fourth wish,” she said, and disappeared from my life forever.
