Entitlement

So I don't know exactly how I want to structure this, but I think I'll start off with a bit of personal information, much like my last post.

I don't care much for smoking cigarettes. I've always been passionately, but quietly, against smoking cigarettes. I have my very thought-out rationality for thinking like that, but we'll leave that out. I have best friends that smoke cigarettes, and the most I would ever consider doing is making jokingly snide remarks about their imminent death. I'm not going to tell somebody what they should or should not do, partly because I know fully well that others would view me as a hypocrite, but also in part because I know fully well that I do a vast amount of "things" myself that would intrude on others' beliefs. People are meant to live their own lives and see things how they want to see them, and if they want to make change, they will ask for it or talk about it with whomever they feel comfortable with. Until then, people should keep their personal matters to themselves, partly out of respect, but mostly because we should all be a little more defensive of our rationality being challenged.

If you were to ask anybody you know that smokes cigarettes to explain their rationality of why they started, I'm willing to guess that most of them couldn't tell you since it was so long ago, or a simple "because." They just didn't have a reason for starting it. It's something that just happened, and they now do it. No thinking in between.

I let people smoke cigarettes in my car. I let people smoke cigarettes around me. In fact, I think the smell of a freshly opened pack of cigarettes smells delicious. Then again, I also think gasoline smells delicious, but NONETHELESS, I really don't blame anybody for picking up smoking if they said, "it seemed enticing to the senses." I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, but from what I've discerned, yeah...cigarettes do appease the senses and offer comfort. In fact AGAIN, I don't doubt that I would have smoked cigarettes myself if the situations in my life hadn't come around to make me think otherwise. I just had my own experience, and I fought through that experience myself.

If somebody were even to ask me to lend them a lighter so they could spark up a cigarette, I wouldn't hesitate. Perhaps I am technically "aiding" them in their endeavor to smoke cigarettes, but it's a common thing, a lighter is. The person is going to smoke that cigarette whether or not I give them a lighter. So let's all be friends here, yeah? The thing is, the only thing I really refuse to do is go up to a gas station and buy cigarettes for people. There's something about the monetary exchange that is so enabling for us to make things easier on ourselves. We are able to attain things without much questioning: where did this product come from? How was it made? What does it do that could hurt or help me? We don't need to ask those questions in most monetary exchanges, because the relationship between consumer and seller goes without question just as well. The seller gives you their product, you take it because you obviously want it, and that's it. You are gone, and mean nothing to them. It just happened "because it did," much like a lot of economics function.

Yes, I do buy all of my stuff from distributors that don't give a rat's ass about me. Here's where my hypocrisy shows through in one area. But I suppose I don't really feel any particular way about that stuff I buy. For cigarettes, I do have particular feelings so it's a completely different story. Thus, I don't feel like contributing to the notion of "just because" if I were to buy somebody cigarettes. Let alone the fact that I hear it enough from smokers when they warn, "Don't ever start! Smoking's horrible!", if they want to make the struggle to attain their "just because," I'll have them make that struggle by themselves.

However, inversely, here's where shit gets interesting. I have a friend who made a mistake. He accidentally got a girl pregnant, and neither of them want the kid - for now, at least. The pregnant girl already has one child, and despite that both of the parents are willing and wanting to get an abortion as soon as possible, it goes without saying that a female is free to change her mind with such matters. The only problem with "willing and wanting as soon as possible" is that my friend cannot accrue the necessary money until the thirteenth of October, and then after that, they have to worry about scheduling an appointment. To make a safe estimate, by the time the abortion can happen, the baby will probably be about three months along. Therefore, I don't blame my friend for being a little antsy, and wanting the procedure done as soon as possible. As the pregnant girl stated, the baby would have fingers and a heartbeat by then.

Tomorrow, which is Friday, the first of October, my friend said there is an available spot for this girl to go in and get an abortion. Obviously, not being the close to the thirteenth, my friend won't have the money. Knowing that I have a dependable portion of my own money stashed away, I jumped in and offered. I am paying for a large portion of my friend's abortion. Essentially, I am providing, for my friend, the abortion.

Now, I know there's a sea of pro-life people out there that find those words up there absolutely appalling. I'm sure there are people out there that would cringe in delight over the thought of taking me up by the ropes, cutting my windpipe open with a rusty pair of scissors, and railing my ass to pieces with dozens of expensive vacuum cleaner accessories as I squeak my way into atonement. Now, I don't think I see it as THAT bad when people smoke cigarettes. A far cry. But if you take my perspective of cigarettes and apply it to somebody who disagrees with abortion, it would be just like if I gave a person money to go buy cigarettes themselves. "I wasn't the final link in the chain, from cigarette distributor to cigarette consumer, so therefore, I wouldn't be guilty. I just gave him the money and he was free to spend it on whatever he wanted. I just happened to know he was one cigarette away from needing a new box. That's all."

And in fact, I won't be there on Friday if and when the abortion happens. I will be riding along to Chicago to see some of my friends. Would it be any different if I were asked to stay in the clinic with them while it happened? I answer you: no. Would it be any different if that money were given to me, and I was the one performing the abortion, and giving a product to this pregnant girl, which are my services? I answer you: maybe. I don't honestly know if I could ever gather up the heart to perform abortions myself. Perhaps my whole beliefs about abortion are all bent to hell from displacement and disposition. But I'll tell you this: I think I would be more emotionally bothered if I were to puff on a cigarette for my very first time tomorrow than I know I will be while riding, happily, I might add, on that train tomorrow to Chicago.

Yes, a potential life is ending because of me. And yes, in many ways, I should probably flat out tell my friend, "You're a fucking idiot. Either you wait until you have enough money yourself, or suffer the consequences." This is the second time he's made this mistake, after all. And I mean, that would adhere to my previous remarks about wanting people to fight through situations like this for themselves, wouldn't it? That whole "no interference" thing I was talking about? He didn't even think about asking me for any money. I offered that on my own whim, with no instigation but my own will.

Everything that happened to create this death-row baby was done from "just because." There was alcohol involved, and as controversial of an element that alcohol can be in figuring out motivation (drunk words are sober thoughts, they say), these two parents don't love each other. Their act was simply out of lust. Lust and bad or misdirected decisions. They don't want to be together at all. Their families hate each other, she already has one child, she currently has a boyfriend, and he doesn't want any children at all. I'm not joking when I say that my friend and I pretty much have a pact going between us to go get our balls snipped when we're 25. He does not want this kid.

When a child grows older, they begin to observe and analyze things a lot more carefully. They ask questions. "What was this put here for?" "Why do those things do that?" And that other one, which any adult even has no idea the answer to, "Why am I here?" Some people decide to tell their kids the straight-forward truth to answers. Some people decide to fudge up some things to defend the "innocent little ears" until an appropriate age is reached. Regardless of tact, I think common sense points toward "just because" as a horrible answer to an inquisitive child.

There is nothing saying you can't build a life around "just because." After all, I think we are all products of a huge "just because." We live in its threads, and accept a lot more things than we think without question. Some of us might understand this, and some of us might not, but depending on our specific characteristics, humans adapt to each other and adapt to the ideas or questions that are better left unspoken. When people are called out on a "just because" with no defensive answer in mind, they are caught in extreme discomfort.

It's a rather dismal thought indeed to think of everything as a "just because," and what kid wants to hear that? I sure didn't like learning that all humans die when I was a kid. It's better off to hold tight and wait until you have a well thought-out, defensive answer if a child asks, "Why am I here?" Because in the moment when that child asks you, you're trapped. Comically, you can imagine the scenario: "Wait a minute, is that my car alarm? Gotta' go check!" *darts out the front door, leaving other parent and child alone* But even then, what of the innumerable cigarette butts scattered upon the earth? Although you don't need to deal with them yourself, something else, some other force, must take care of them. You can't just drop a child like you can drop a cigarette after it is born.

Maybe my life is a hypocritical swirl in the abyss of "just because" I find myself surrounded in, but I sure as hell don't wish for my friend's life to be overcome with the pain of forcefully pushing himself through boundaries in desperate search for answers and for a solution. If he does that, he could very well miss the mark completely. He needs to fight through it for himself, but I don't think many people see that common statement for what it really is: everybody needs just a little help.

Tomorrow, I'm killing a baby.