Letters to the Editor
manyctnj
Published Letters: 445 Editor's Choice: 31
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Good grief...
[Read the article: Could our marriage be too perfect?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW-- Talk about protesting too much! What's strange about you is not that your marriage is perfect, but that you frequently discuss its perfection with your friends and, now, with ME, a -- you'll pardon the expression -- PERFECT stranger (oh yeah, and thousands of other perfect strangers who read Salon). That's just NOT normal, any more than talking about how well furnished your house is or how much money you make or how attractive you are is normal. Let me guess -- you have (or will have) perfect kids too, right? I have a sneaking suspicion that your concern about your marriage being too perfect is, in fact, based on your realization that it is NOT perfect. Perfection, I think, would be having a marriage about which you are so happy that you have no need to seek confirmaton of its perfection from your friends or the world. So what you have is, in actuality, less than perfect. Now I hope that makes you feel better.
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Maybe it's you...
[Read the article: I've had it!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find the incivility of others bothers me most when I am stressed or unhappy myself already. It's at those points where my mind turns the dropping of a gum wrapper into a capital offense. I tend to think -- hell, I'm keeping my shit together even though I'm major league stressed, why can't these other assholes do the same thing. Friction, anger, emoting, reacting, retaliation...
I am best able to "let it go" when I'm feeling on top of the world. When I'm feeling centered and grounded, appreciative of the beauty of the world, not trying to compete with the driver next to me for the spot closest to the next traffic light, it's easy to feel more charitable about the weaknesses of others, even empathetic. And it's then you realize that if you stop empathizing and react to each slight as if it's a crime against humanity, the world will quickly devolve into chaos. What keeps us from going there is that there is always a percentage of the population NOT responding with rage at each unpleasant turn of events.
So I think at least part of the solution is keeping your own mind clear, staying on top of your own game, and keeping your own emotional life in order. Live defensively.
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One more thought, not my own...
[Read the article: I've had it!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."
(NOT said after a tough day in the chekout line at the grocery store...)
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Exactly HOW old are you, anyway....
[Read the article: I don't want my husband at my high school reunion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're way too modest. You're still both awkward AND insecure. In order to go to a high school reunion, you have to actually have left high school. So your solution is first to grauduate, then wait 10 years, then go to the reunion. By that time you will have completely screwed up your marriage, your husband will be history, and all your problems will be solved.
Next question.
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Right.
[Read the article: I can't stop picking my nose!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The LW from a few days ago needs a date to her high school reunion. The two of you losers should team up. And Cary should take a vacation. His letter PICKING skills seem to be producing the same quality product as your nose PICKING skills.
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Exactly how accomplished and responsible are you, really?
[Read the article: My family gives me no respect]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This letter just cannot be accurate. No one is as put together as the LW professes to be and has a family who, without any justification at all, treats them like they are a complete loser. Yes, people are jealous sometimes, and families are "dysfunctional", but people rarely attack your choice of house, your job, your judgment and everything else about your life with no cause whatsoever. The truth simply has to be somewhere in the middle (a possibility Cary never acknowledges), to wit, the LW's family is not as bad as she makes them out and she's far more of a "loser" than she admits on paper.
By the way, does anyone other than me think that the word "dysfunctional" is the most overused adjective in the English language, particularly when used with reference to one's family? Whenever someone isn't getting all the stroking they need from their family or there are issues that need dealing with, the family is "dysfunctional". Maybe this is just what "functional" looks like.
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Supersize this
[Read the article: Bite me!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Although I am not vegan myself, what I like about their culture is the degree of thought they give to what they eat and to how food is supplied in general. The food industry in this country is to be congratualted for giving Americans plentiful supplies of fresh food in abundant choices, but abundance has really become a glut. The ubiquity of food, the ridiculously large number of choices in every grocery store, the size of portions, the way food is consumed, the amount of waste, the degree of obesity in the population -- all of this has become an obscentity. Anthony Bourdain can dis Rachael Ray and other chef celebrites if he likes -- but isn't he really sprung from the same food chain? What is he REALLY doing to change the way food is produced and distributed in the world? Get back to me when he has something else to offer besides a foul mouth and "Survivor"-type eating antics.