Or why the world is falling helplessly into the hands of the cult of the amateurs and the social justice warriors who do not know the first thing about justice and fairness

You’re not excused from being personable because you’re shy.

You’re not excused from trying to be positive/productive or from trying not to be such a bore or a burden to others because you’re depressed (Hell, in this world, at a time like this, who isn’t?)

You’re not excused from trying hard enough because you just can’t, because it’s not you, because you’ve had enough, because saying no is the new yes, because all this world is “me, me, me, my time, my life,” meaning “you, you, you, your time, your life” (I mean hello, your mother might have taught you all that crap and might let you get away with it, but not this world, which should teach you the meaning of commitment another, harder way).

You can’t just wallow in your weaknesses, especially if you are weak at your core duties, because you have other strengths (The hell with that sense of entitlement!).

More than skill or talent, what is essential to life’s pursuits is the ability to withstand pressure.

You can’t disengage from your social duties (unless you can afford a cave) because you have social anxiety or because you can’t stand small talk or because your plate is full (and so is the plate of everyone else) or because social media already does it for you (that’s the root of all these problems).

You can’t not mind the rules because you are a big picture guy or you are bored with details or you are ahead of your time because James Joyce might seem to have mocked all standards of syntax, semantics, morphology, composition, even spelling but outside of his seminal, groundbreaking works and, yes, at the invisible core of everything he wrote, he was a true master of words and grammar.

And no you can’t just do whatever it takes to get to the top. Stepping on other people’s toes isn’t something you get used to doing as you clamber up the ladder. That’s so cheap. Stepping on other people’s toes or going over their heads is the last thing you want to do if you don’t want to get to the top only to find out, while looking down, that no one is looking up to you or reaching out their hand to you.

You can’t just cancel people because they might have said the wrong thing or they might have made a mistake or they aren’t as perfect as you think you are. Or you can cancel them but you can’t just go to social media and demand that everybody else cancel them too because you have decided they are guilty without enough evidence, without subjecting them to a trial, which is their human right, without giving them the chance to defend themselves because your rants are enough to gag them. This cancel culture is a mockery of justice, which you pretend to champion, turning the public space of social media into a high court or a death chamber or an arena hungry for blood or decapitated heads or torched skin or eyes plucked out of sockets.

You can’t just quit because you’re tired. You can’t just walk out on people because you’re offended. You can’t just stay where you’re safe, where everyone likes you, where everyone agrees with you, where you agree with everybody. You can’t just paint a picture of a perfect world and discard everything that doesn’t seem to belong there. I know the songs and the movies and your mother have told you in every way they can that “Yes, you can! Yes, you can!”

But life says otherwise or, at least, it emphasizes, “not always.”