If ever there were three words that made me despair of the race, it is those.

I don’t drink. I don’t smoke anymore. I don’t do drugs, and these days I would usually rather have the pain than a vicodin, I was never meant to enjoy that stuff.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still have my demons, and you don’t want to hear about them. Suffice to say that it is only a combination of constant vigilance and the prayers and intercession of people better than me that my demons don’t devour me. And if they did, I would deserve what I got.

But at no point do I ever complain that it’s not fair. I don’t complain that it isn’t fair that other people have no issue with these demons, neither internal nor external. I don’t spend my life railing that my co-workers can eat carbs like locusts and still weigh 190 lbs. I don’t whine that some people make hundreds of thousands and not I, when it they just run around in nice suits in nice cars and I get to make all their dreams come true. (Ok, if I’m honest, I do rail about this stuff among friends, like anyone, but I don’t bust my ass getting a federal mandate to MAKE IT STOP BECAUSE IT’S UNFAIR!)

because life isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that some people are mean to gay people. I don’t care. It isn’t fair that some people are mean to black people. I don’t care. It isn’t fair that some men make more than some women doing the same jobs, I don’t care. In fact that is how I want the world I live in to be. artificially ‘Levelling the playing field” so everyone has an “Equal chance” is the most fucked up thing I can think of. Oh, it’s horrible, smart kids are not being able to fulfill their potential! Welcome to the world. it sucks everywhere. If you don’t win the parent lottery you’re fucked. If you don’t win the born in the right country lottery you’re fucked. If you don’t win the go to school in the right neighborhood lottery you’re fucked.

You are responsible for changing your situation. You are responsible for dragging your ass out of the sewer. You are responsible for yourself. When you use the force of government or public opinion to make people be nice to you or make things “Fair” you can be sure they will make a mess of it, and that’s what we have now.

I’m not a remarkable figure, but I am respected among those who know what I do. Some of what I have has been luck, but I parlayed the luck into success with a lot of hard damned work. You want to be successful/accepted/whatever, the one way to ensure my disgust is to ask someone else to fix things for you.

Life isn’t fair. Grow a pair, deal with it, and move on.