stresskitten

Dear Acolytes of the "One True Path",

You managed to get right up my nose this morning. Generally I'm very polite to you and your fellow door-to-door salesmen of redemption, however you pushed so many of my buttons this morning that I can only hope you get enough negative reactions like mine to make you rethink your "strategy". I have never before closed the door in your faces... it has always been a polite conversation and a "no thank you" and we've both gone on our ways.

No doubt you will not understand the significance of my actions... those who know me know how far I will go to avoid giving offence or being rude. So my actions should have spoken louder. And really I should just let this go, but it's rattling around in my brain so badly that I need to get it out. I wish I knew which denomination you belonged to so I could properly address my irritation... since I don't, it will be in the form of this journal entry.

You approached my door and identified yourselves as "volunteers in the community" and started to talk to me about an article/pamphlet on depression. You opened it and showed me how it listed the various different types of depression, talked about how it was becoming an almost epidemic in our community, and how the article was very helpful in terms of not only how you could help yourself, but also how you could give comfort to others.

I was very receptive, which was of course the point. Mental illnesses such as depression are a very real fact, and one that affects a fairly large number of people I know. I was thinking how interesting, and also how effective, such a campaign by local mental health groups might be.

It was rather a shock, therefore, for you to then ask me "Do you think our Creator would be concerned about how this affects us?".

Your actions were dishonest. If you feel the only way your message would be listened to would be by trickery, perhaps you need to rethink your actions and message. Maybe you believe that the ends justify the means - my beliefs tend to disagree with that in most cases - but in this case, the result was an incredulous me stating that you were peddling religion and you saying "yes, you see, here in the bible, it says..." and pulling out your plain-clothes bible. My shaking my head and saying not interested did not dissuade you, and my sheer disappointment in your behaviour overall led to me closing the door in your faces.

I do not begrudge you your faith, or even your belief that you need to help others see the "one true path". But when you stoop to dishonesty and attempts to mislead people in order to get them to listen to you long enough to bring your belief of what God is into the discussion, you lose me immediately. I feel like you just trivialized a very serious mental illness by making it your smoke-screen... and you trivialized your belief in people's intelligence to feel that this approach would work where others have failed... that someone who needs to be tricked into listening to your message would be likely to accept it if plain conversation fails.

Do not darken my doorstep again. You are no longer welcome.

In sadness,

stress_kitten

Or "Why I wish to disown most of 'humanity'".

This really is thoroughly depressing.

Mind you, I also find calling 9/11 "Patriot's Day" rather... I dunno. I guess it puts me in mind of all the senseless back and forth wars that have started because people martyr those who die, and thus think that killing because of their sacrifice is justified, leading to the other side doing the same thing in reverse until the vendetta is so entrenched in bitterness and anger and death that neither side can figure out a way to stop.

9/11 was a horrible, senseless tragedy... I continue to hope that it isn't the beginning of a new set of eternal conflicts like Ireland or Israel/Palestine or any number of countless others.

Dear Fellow Motorists,

It's Vancouver. We're back to Vancouver weather. The sky is grey. The road is grey. The rain is grey. The spray kicked up by everyone's wheels is grey.

FOR THE LOVE OF LIFE, LIMB, AND LOW INSURANCE PREMIUMS, turn on your headlights! I know it's daylight... but your running lights are not as effective as your headlights for increasing your visibility... especially for those following you. And especially if you are in a grey or silver car (see references above to the colour grey).

Thank you,

An observer of far too much road-idiocy.