It doesn’t seem fair that today if you do something bad, you’re just—stuck. Like, you can literally make “Ignition (Remix)” and people are like, nope, still a bad person. And you’re supposed to go away forever. Forever? That’s like, multiple minutes. I’m just supposed to sit underground forever where no light shines, like some kind of albino mushroom or a woman’s career?
I’m not denying that I did something that was wrong. I do understand that. I feel bad. I have felt bad! I felt really bad for a really long time! People yelled at me, and I had to sit there and listen to them tell me that I made them feel bad, and I felt bad. That is a terrible feeling. I don’t want to overstate this, but I think it is literally the worst feeling in the world, having other people tell you that you did something wrong.
Although, are we 100 percent sure about this whole right and wrong thing? I’m just asking! I’m just putting it out there! Science, I feel like, science has figured life out, it knows about cells and things. But philosophy is just sort of like—we have some theories. No one’s like, well, we’ve made a big breakthrough in philosophy, we’ve figured out definitely what is and is not moral to do, you know? Like, the ancient Greeks, they were maybe the best at philosophy, but to get to the philosophy you have to wade through like a whole framing device about courting a young boy. Before we reach the metaphysics, it is very urgent that I give you these tips for hitting on adolescents! Which doesn’t make you feel great about philosophy, going in. So maybe there is no right or wrong! Maybe nothing I’ve done has any impact on anyone! In which case I have definitely put in enough time.
I want to do my task. I want to be like, I’ve atoned! I went down to Hades and I walked a dog, and I also slew this big beast with like eight heads, more heads all the time! I had to singe the necks! It was incredibly difficult! And then I put a microphone on my shoulder and I walked until nobody knew what it was, and I lived there for up to six entire weeks, so Poseidon isn’t allowed to still be mad.
Everyone’s like, why did you do that? Did you ask the people affected by your behavior what they wanted, and they said to do that? Did you read the suggestions that people came up with for what you could do to make this right? No, no, I just did the beast thing, because that is what you do to atone. I think we can agree that it was very difficult to do what I did with the beast and the dog, much more difficult than talking to the people I hurt, who are, for the most part, nice people who are easy to talk to. What I did was the harder thing. I decided that.
And I get that some things you should not be able to ever atone for. Not ever. Except, maybe? Maybe if the thing you do is really difficult? Like, if I got rid of malaria, just eradicated it completely, I feel like people shouldn’t get to still be mad at me. That’s cutting off your not-having-malaria-as-a-species to spite your doing-bad-things guy. I think if you do something like get rid of malaria people should have to forgive you. I did not do that, but it’s okay because I did the next best thing, which was nothing. For a few months. Which is like forever.
So, I atoned.
August 29, 2018
Without the Swimsuit Part of Miss America, When Will I Be Able to Judge Women’s Appearances?
OH NO! I, A REASONABLE MAN, am devastated to learn there is no longer a swimsuit portion in the Miss America competition! And the evening-wear portion is now whatever the contestants want to wear, which could be anything at all, and which might be a bulky and functional tarpaulin that would delight my eyes not one whit!
This is egregious! If there is no bathing-suit competition, when can I hope to judge women on their appearance, except on dating apps,
or when they appear on television to talk about the lifesaving surgery they just performed on a pair of conjoined twins,
or when they are serving me at a Hooters restaurant,
or a regular restaurant,
or when they’re bringing me a cup of cranberry-apple juice on an airplane,
or when they are applying for a job,
or when I am reading their scholarly research articles online and there isn’t even a picture so I have to Google the name and cannot even be sure that the appearance of the person I am criticizing is the relevant person,
or when they make a YouTube video,
or when a man does something awful to them and they appear in court to testify about it,
or when they are running for office,
or when they are on television telling me the weather,
or when they are trying to ask a question during a news conference,
or when they are representing the country at the Olympics,
or when they are walking in front of me on the sidewalk,
or when they are my colleague,
or when I am suggesting that they reallocate their sexual resources in a rational manner (I suggest this completely dispassionately with no self-interest whatsoever, and I have devised a complex numerical system),
or when they perform music on national television,
or when they are engaging in activism to end gun violence,
or when they are the first lady or the former first lady,
or when they are in a Star Wars movie and I didn’t like the Star Wars movie,
or when they are on the receiving end of sexual advances from the president,
or when they work for the president,
or when they work against the president,
or when they appear on the cover of magazines,
or when
