Jeff has tagged me, (admittedly, only after I whined about never getting tagged) in his Thirty Things that Don't Bother Me meme.
I like memes. It's like Sharing, only less socially awkward. A few months ago, I was having a chat with Paul Tuns, the edior of the Interim, the "last conservative paper in Canada" (according to Conrad Black), and he (Paul, not Conrad) was telling me that he and Kathy Shaidle were doing a Ten Things I Don't Care About meme. I thought it was a cute idea and started a list of my own.
Strangely, I fizzled on it.
It's because, well... it's hard to think of stuff you don't really care about, because you don't really think much about things you don't think about...if you know what I mean.
Anyway, I told Jeff that thirty's a lot, especially for someone like me who's known to be a bit highly charged about quite a few things, but I'll have a go. (Some of these are a bit Canadian, so bear with, if you don't live above the 49th.)
Things that don't really bother me:
1. The Vocations Crisis - there isn't one.
2. Canada - see note above re: vocations crisis.
3. Global Warming - warmer winters? longer summers? sounds pretty good to a Canuckistani.
4. Women's Rights - actually I do care about this, it's just that I think we should have fewer of them.
5. Canadian Politics - tough to care about the politics of something that doesn't really exist.
6. The Canadian Catholic Church - as note one above.
7. Liturgical Abuses in the Novus Ordo - Can't corrupt something that is itself a corruption.
8. Genetically Modified Foods - humans have been genetically modifying the food they grow for ten thousand years. Too late to worry about it now.
9. The Sex Abuse Scandal - fags do what fags do; if you put a bunch of yippity-skip nancy-boys in the Church, that's what they will do.
10. The Environment - nature is stronger than us. Oxford says: "Environment, n. Surrounding; surrounding objects, region, or circumstances." sounds like the sort of thing that will be there no matter what.
11. Islam - it's a false religion. Truth always wins...in the end.
12. Racism - it's been with us a long time; not going away soon.
13. the Role of the Laity - pay, pray and obey gives us plenty to do.
14. the Modern Dissolution of the Religious Orders - no point saving a house that's already riddled with termites. The sooner it goes down, the less threat it poses to the neighbourhood. With the anti-nuns: the sooner they die off, the sooner we get their stuff.
15. the Motu Proprio - if it comes before the Parousia, we're ahead, I figure.
16. University Dropouts - a sign of mental health if you ask me.
17. Catholics who don't want to move and shake - also disparagingly called 'pew-sitters.' We need more non-activist Catholics. People got enough to think about without obsessing over encyclicals.
18. Ladies who don't want to work/go into politics - Kittens and embroidery, as well as gardening, homeschooling, sewing, pie-making, and watercolour landscape painting are all under-represented in the unpaid labour market.
19. Modern "Art" - the only people who pay for it are corporations and it is only seen in art galleries that only stupid people go to. What's the loss? Beauty is like truth and nature; they're stronger than our stupidity and tend to make comebacks.
20. Gay Rights/Feminism/Demographic Implosion - a problem that is naturally taking care of itself without me having to lift a finger.
21. The Pandas - (or cute endangered species of your choice)- people don't want to save the pandas; they want to keep feeling the Cuteness Thrill and worry they will lose it when the cute animals go away. Plenty of cute furry animals around to trigger the response. Besides, any animal that refuses to reproduce and only eats one kind of food deserves to get voted off the genetic island.
22. The Coming Persecution of the Last of the Faithful Catholics - can't think of an easier way to go to heaven than at the point of a commie rifle. cf. Miguel Pro.
23. Anglicanism - I write a lot about the 'coming Anglican schism'. It almost always makes me giggle.
I tag John and Dale.
4 comments:
If they shoot me fast I'll be pretty thankful. I am assuming we'll be locked up and experiment on.
OK--I'm tagged.
The problem with the whole “don't care”/”don't bother me” meme is that if I have to consider something long enough to determine whether I care or it bothers me. . . .then it will bother me and I will care. It's a knotty problem.
The easy way out is to cheat somewhat. I can open up the sports pages of the Los Angeles Times and start listing professional sports until I arrive at 30. In the unlikely event that they don't quite add up to 30, one can fill-up the remaining quote by adding the requisite number of college sports. (There are, of course, two exceptions. Baseball, the sport of divine inspiration, is the first. Baseball is the sporting version of the Latin language. It is an inflected sport. The team in possession of the ball is not the team that scores. Just as the various case ending and conjugations gradually reveal the meaning of the sentence, so each inning evolves based upon the previous play and the current status of play: the count to the batter, the number of men on base and which base(s) they might be on, and so forth. Wonderful stuff.
Where was I? Oh, yes. The second exception is the Notre Dame/U.S.C. football game in autumn. American football is, of course, an extremely tedious game to watch. (Anything can be interesting to play, though. Even something as inherently soporific as golf.) But if U.S.C. should happen to lose to Notre Dame, this annoys them considerably since they are under the impression that they have lost to a Catholic school. Now, you and I know that this isn't true. But U.S.C. doesn't. This adds great interest and, indeed, pleasure on those increasingly rare occasions when it happens.
But that's not really what you had in mind, is it. You were thinking of Weighty Matters and Things of Great Import. The sort of thing the editorial writers call Issues. If that is what is required, it will probably be easiest to resort to the “don't bother me” version of the meme.
To an extent, though, I can pretty much sign at the bottom of Jeff's list(s). Provided I don't think about it too much, I'm not greatly exercized about any of those things. (Of course, I could sign at the bottom of most of yours, too. But that would be cheating also. No one expects me to care about the Canadian government.) In fact, I actually like some of those things. I may be the only traditionalist on the planet who actually likes the Luminous Mysteries (originally conceived by Bl George Preca, T. O. Carm.) and approves of the restoration of the diaconate. Yes, we've had some sorry examples of the permanent diaconate in action. But it could be a wonderful asset for a traditionalist community. It could mean full Solemn Masses if nothing else. Benediction. Baptisms in the old Rite.
Not what you were looking for, I know. But I can end up being concerned about practically anything if I'm not careful. Why, I even walked in on a news broadcast a couple of weeks ago showing Paris Hilton weeping hysterically because she had to go back to jail and started worrying about her. If that isn't pathetic I don't know what is.
Cheers,
-John-
Great post, I am almost 100% in agreement with you
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