I’m not angry much. Things people consider “big, angry-making issues” don’t make me very angry. War makes me angry, I suppose. But the minute after I learn we’re invading yet another country, I feel almost instant resignation. What’s the point in being angry about it? It’s a waste of time. What does it matter if I’m angry? I’m just a tiny cog in a machine. Actually, I’m not even that. A machine needs every cog to work in harmony. Every piece of a machine matters. I do NOT matter. I’m less of a cog, more of an ant. I’m one ant in a giant colony of 300 million ants. It doesn’t really matter what I say or think. We’re attacking that other ant-hill, and that’s that. Just like the Queen doesn’t care what any individual ant thinks, no politician cares what I think. I can be safely ignored. So can you.
I suppose I could go out into the streets and peacefully protest. But the politicians already expected lots of us to do that anyway. They thought about it before they announced the war. They factored it in, and decided to go ahead and do some war anyway. Me protesting won’t make a blind bit of difference.
However, I do get angry about very, very tiny, inconsequential things. I get angry when people wear backpacks on crowded subway trains. You should place your bag on the floor between your legs. Why don’t people know this instinctively? Everyone should be aware that wearing a backpack needlessly takes up space in the train car. And even if you are NOT instinctively aware of it, there are signs everywhere on the train reminding you “don’t wear backpacks on crowded trains”.
Every time I see someone do it, I want to say something. I never do. My only actual response is this: when I am leaving the subway car, and thebackpack bastard is staying on, I drop my shoulder and try to deliberately hit the person’s backpack. This results in one of two things:
1) If the backpack is carried over just one shoulder, I can sometimes knock it off their shoulder, and onto the floor. That feels good. That’s where the backpack SHOULD have been in the first place.
2) If the backpack is carried over BOTH shoulders, I can sometimes hit the backpack with my shoulder in such a way that the wearer spins off-balance and almost falls over. This is the best. It makes them look stupid, and may result in them not wearing a backpack in future: punishment, plus potential redemption.
I don’t know how to square this circle. I’m more outraged - and more willing to take direct action to prevent - crowded subway backpack-wearing than I am war. Does this make me a bad person? Or have I just found the only war that I think I can help win?