I don’t know if it’s a healthy impulse. It’s one I have more often these days. When confronted with encroaching chaos I am a raging pyromaniac. When faced with corruption my fingers twitch, craving a lit match. When epic stupidity rears its ugly head, burn baby, burn.
The cleansing fire needn’t be actual. Destroying unworkable systems, though, especially those which hem you in – that’s satisfying.
I’ve been reading James Altucher lately. That guy knows how to sling a tale. (Cracking open the RSS feed of a good storyteller is one of the best remedies to a nearly two years’ long case of writer’s block.) When he talks about dealing with crappy people, I think he mostly gets it right. Except that some crappy people just won’t be ignored. Sometimes you can’t. You have to work with them, you have to live with them, you have to pay their fines or listen to their sermons or suffer their incessant self-aggrandizement during meetings and conference calls. Sometimes there’s no choice but to smile and pretend you don’t want to set their world ablaze.
Sometimes the fact that you have five kids and live in someone’s basement and want to find a place to call home more than you’ve ever wanted anything means you just have to deal.
Sometimes I think that’s why God invented alcohol. Even though I know that’s how the crappy people win.
Steve Skojec is a husband, father, storyteller, writer, and podcaster who dabbles in photography, filmmaking, and graphic design. His commentary has has appeared at outlets such as The New York Times, Foreign Policy, USA Today, The Washington Post, Fox News, and The Washington Times. He lives in Arizona with his wife Jamie and their many children.