THE UNNECESSARY ART OF BEING AN ABSOLUTE SHITBAG
Jerry's Marginalia — By Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand
An unsolicited dissertation on human stupidity, manufactured suffering, and why the fuck nobody knows when to leave well enough alone.
There is a question that has haunted philosophers, theologians, psychologists, and one extremely pissed-off raccoon for generations:
WHY THE FUCK CAN'T PEOPLE JUST LEAVE SHIT ALONE?
Seriously.
You wake up. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. Somewhere, a cat is vomiting on a freshly cleaned carpet.
Life is already doing an excellent job of being an inconvenient bastard.
And yet, somewhere in the world, a fully grown adult is rubbing their last two functioning brain cells together and thinking:
"You know what this perfectly manageable situation needs? MORE FUCKING PROBLEMS."
Congratulations, dipshit.
You've invented MANUFACTURED SUFFERING™.
Now available in family-size quantities.
No assembly required.
Common side effects include unemployment, divorce, unnecessary arguments, financial ruin, and the sudden discovery that other people have a fucking BLOCK button.
CHAPTER ONE: THE FIVE-SECOND PRE-BULLSHIT INSPECTION
Before doing something monumentally stupid, I propose a revolutionary new procedure.
Ask yourself:
"WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF?"
That's it.
Five seconds.
No subscription.
No artificial intelligence.
No TED Talk delivered by a man wearing $400 sneakers explaining how he discovered mindfulness while backpacking through the asshole of enlightenment.
Just five fucking seconds.
Are you about to insult someone who hasn't bothered you?
DON'T.
Are you about to manufacture an argument because your ego requires constant maintenance?
DON'T.
Are you about to demand money from someone who's already told you they're not interested?
FUCKING DON'T.
And are you about to ask someone whether they're going to block you?
MY BROTHER IN CHRIST, DO NOT ACT SURPRISED WHEN THEY FUCKING BLOCK YOU.
You ordered the consequences.
The consequences arrived.
Why are you standing there like a surprised Pikachu who just discovered electricity?
CHAPTER TWO: THE APOCALYPSE WAS COMPLETELY FUCKING OPTIONAL
Consider three fictional disasters.
A vampire loses his beloved wife.
A monster king loses the woman he loves.
A grieving mother becomes the instrument of an extradimensional parasite with an absolutely dogshit business plan.
Dracula.
Psaro.
Shizel.
Three different tragedies. Three people whose lives were violently interrupted by circumstances they never requested.
And somewhere along the way, somebody decided the appropriate response was to make everybody else's existence considerably worse.
Now, let's establish something.
THEIR SUFFERING WAS REAL.
Nobody ordered their loved ones to be murdered.
Nobody woke up and thought, "Golly gee, I hope today is the day my entire fucking world collapses."
Their anger wasn't the problem.
Their grief wasn't the problem.
The problem was what happened when grief met hatred, manipulation, and the spectacularly terrible idea that everyone else should pay for somebody else's cruelty.
And Shizel?
Good fucking grief.
Imagine losing your husband, having your hopes smashed into cosmic gravel, and then some spiritual parasite crawls into your existence like an uninvited landlord.
"Hello, grieving widow. Have you considered our premium package? It includes transcendence, loss of bodily autonomy, and the complete destruction of two fucking worlds."
WHAT A DEAL.
Somebody get this entity a customer-service badge and a mandatory ethics seminar.
NEREID, YOU INTERDIMENSIONAL ASSHOLE, THE WOMAN NEEDED HELP, NOT A FUCKING HOSTILE TAKEOVER.
And that's the really disgusting part.
Some people don't merely exploit your mistakes.
They exploit your hopes.
Your dreams.
Your love.
Your desperation to believe tomorrow might be better.
They look at somebody who's already bleeding emotionally and ask whether there's anything valuable left to extract.
Congratulations.
You've achieved a level of moral bankruptcy that makes a malfunctioning vending machine look like a charitable institution.
CHAPTER THREE: FRICTION IS NOT A FUCKING PERSONALITY
Apparently, we've reached a point in civilization where some people deliberately make their lives harder because they find the struggle personally enriching.
Fine.
Wonderful.
Go climb a mountain.
Learn Japanese.
Play the piano.
Write your grocery list using a goose feather dipped in artisanal squid ink.
I SUPPORT YOUR RIGHT TO ENJOY YOUR OWN BULLSHIT.
But please stop confusing your preferred inconveniences with universal moral superiority.
Some of us already have enough friction.
Bills.
Job applications.
Unemployment bureaucracy.
Bank accounts performing increasingly convincing impressions of a dying houseplant.
We do not require additional difficulty settings.
Life isn't a video game where you get bonus experience points for selecting NIGHTMARE MODE: NO REFUNDS.
And using technology to accomplish something doesn't automatically mean you've surrendered your intelligence.
A calculator doesn't make you morally inferior.
A GPS doesn't revoke your citizenship.
And asking an LLM to help organize your thoughts doesn't mean your brain has been repossessed by the Bank of Artificial Intelligence.
Can technology weaken skills through disuse?
Absolutely.
Can dependence become unhealthy?
Of course.
But the important question isn't whether somebody used a tool.
IT'S WHETHER THEY STILL KNOW THEY'RE THE ONE HOLDING IT.
I can use a hammer without wanting to become a fucking carpenter.
I can use a language model without wanting it to become my legal guardian.
And I can ask a raccoon to write an angry essay without giving him the nuclear launch codes.
Which is fortunate.
Because I would absolutely press the button labeled PURINA PEPPERCORN EMERGENCY DISPENSER.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE ECONOMICS OF FUCKING OFF
Let's discuss money.
Money is a remarkable invention.
You work for it.
You save it.
You spend it on necessities.
And then some digital carnival barker emerges from the sewer, holding a blurry photograph behind a paywall.
"Wouldn't you like to see more?"
No.
"But I thought you liked me!"
I liked having five dollars.
"Are you really going to block me?"
YES, YOU SENTIENT UPSELL NOTIFICATION.
BLOCK.
There.
The entire conflict has been resolved without mediation, arbitration, a twelve-part documentary, or another goddamn financial transaction.
You don't need to win every argument.
You don't need to convince every stranger you're right.
You don't need to investigate every mystery involving somebody who wants access to your wallet.
Sometimes the answer is simply:
IF IT COSTS ME, I'LL LET IT GO.
And sometimes that means letting go of the person, the conversation, the fantasy, or the stupid little blinking notification demanding your attention.
There are more fish in the sea.
There are also jellyfish, parasites, and whatever the fuck lives at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
You are not obligated to adopt every creature that swims past.
CHAPTER FIVE: STOP MAKING YOUR PAIN EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM
Now we arrive at the uncomfortable part.
People suffer.
Sometimes horribly.
Sometimes through no fault of their own.
And nobody gets to dictate how quickly they should recover.
But pain does not automatically grant someone a lifetime license to hurt innocent people.
Your ex treated you badly?
That sucks.
Your boss was an asshole?
Welcome to the world's least exclusive club.
Someone broke your heart?
I'm sorry.
But the next person you meet did not sign a contract agreeing to serve as the punching bag for your previous disappointments.
YOUR TRAUMA IS NOT A COUPON FOR UNLIMITED ASSHOLERY.
You can be angry.
You can grieve.
You can cry.
You can scream into a pillow.
Hell, you can write a profanity-laden blog post narrated by a fictional raccoon with questionable table manners.
But before you deliberately make someone else's life worse, perhaps conduct the revolutionary five-second inspection.
Why am I doing this?
What am I hoping to accomplish?
Will this actually improve anything?
Or am I just spreading the same misery that somebody else handed me?
Because if your solution to suffering is to manufacture more suffering, congratulations.
You've become the very problem you were complaining about.
And unlike a JRPG villain, you don't even get an orchestral boss theme.
THE FINAL VERDICT: BE BORING, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARDS
You know what's underrated?
Peace.
Not cosmic transcendence.
Not mandatory enlightenment.
Not an inspirational LinkedIn sermon about how getting fired taught somebody the spiritual importance of unpaid overtime.
Just ordinary, aggressively unremarkable peace.
A job that pays.
Food in the refrigerator.
Bills handled.
A working computer.
A decent game.
A conversation that doesn't end with somebody demanding $5.99 to unlock the next sentence.
And maybe, just maybe, a little room to laugh at the absurdity of existence without having to personally participate in every goddamn disaster.
That's not surrender.
That's choosing where your energy goes.
So here's the doctrine:
ACT BROKE.
BE BORING.
LISTEN WITH INTEREST, NOT INVESTMENT.
IF IT COSTS ME, I'LL LET IT GO.
And above all:
THOU SHALT AUDIT THY OWN BULLSHIT BEFORE BLAMING THE BATHROOM CRYPTID.
Because life is already complicated enough without a bunch of self-appointed chaos engineers running around with buckets of gasoline, screaming about how nobody appreciates their fucking matches.
You don't have to fix everyone.
You don't have to save every monster.
You don't have to participate in every conflict.
Sometimes you can simply recognize the bullshit, decline the invitation, and walk away.
And if somebody insists on repeatedly manufacturing problems?
Well.
There's always the five-page manila folder.
Soft.
Flexible.
Bureaucratically devastating.
Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand
Chief Executive Raccoon, Department of Unsolicited Advice
Currently banned from seven interdimensional council meetings.
No universes were harmed in the writing of this article.
Several egos have filed complaints.
FUCK 'EM.