[914] Teat Fed

I'm entitled. Hey! Stop. I can hear the collective yawn and not-so-under-your-breath "duhs."

The Google definition of "entitled" is "believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

Some of you may recall that my mother used to like to refer to my brother and I as "Serbian princes." My old-world Eastern European relatives were always cooking for us, offering compliments, and just generally being fawning old people. My mom, who was routinely ridiculed for her body (I saw a picture of her skinny as shit once) and mentally abused as a child, did not do a solid job with her resentment for that.

I should get it out of the way to say that I agree. I do feel entitled to some things. I feel entitled to things I consider "basics" like food, life, and respect. One can get lost in the weeds of what really constitutes any of those things, or "enough" of those things, but most people I think would fall within a reasonable mean provided they were from the same culture and class.

My favorite kind of entitlement is what I call "pretty girl complexes." All women certainly suffer from what might be understood as a "barrage of dicks," at all times, but pretty girls could build a calendar out months with, perhaps even otherwise committed guys who they also found attractive. That lends itself to a kind of confidence and attitude I haven't found a comparison to. Even the prettiest guys can't necessarily get the prettiest girls.

I think I'm entitled to the access and use of my "stuff." My things represent countless hours spent otherwise wage-slaving at unfulfilling and often demeaning tasks. I think I've worked for everything I have and am thus entitled to as far as I can stretch those things. There is a parallel universe where I am entitled to months of sitting on my ass reading, playing video games, watching TV, and playing my guitar. Just by the math, no extra ideas about the objective/subjective value of doing so.

If we return to the definition offered by Google, I'm perplexed by the word "special" treatment. Pretty girls might flirt with a cop or whip a titty out to get out of a ticket. The presumed idea being that they are worth more in entertainment or looks than the rule of law. I wonder as well, special with regard to what? I don't apply to jobs like "Apple CEO" or "machinist 1st class" even if they pay what I think I'm entitled to as wages that might keep with inflation and productivity. I've never demanded more time to finish a test. I don't kick doors in when I'm told the restaurant is closed.

I also think it's healthy to inherently think you deserve privileges, at least the exercise of them, if they've been earned. I might be misunderstanding how it's speaking to privileges in the definition, but I think everyone should presume an inherent deserving of *something* related to the universal nature of experience and connectivity. Certainly legally you have entitlements bestowed upon you.

More abstractly, I feel entitled to a certain kind of attention or recognition. I work. You work. We all work. Some of us work because we have to, hate it, and the idea of not working suggests many significantly worse layers of hell to fall into. Some of us work on things we like in really hardcore ways that may sometimes detract from what we like about it. Some of us work with the idea of what more work there is to be done and others with the idea that they never want to work some kind of way again. Surely we've lost or so degraded our sense of what's worthy of attention that it's all but obliterated our ability to act upon the necessary entitlement to basically survive. Anti-maskers should be literally bitch-slapped.

I think whether or not I get the attention or recognition for what I do, I'm pretty aware of my motivations and strategies I adopt. I know that I go about life in a way that often rubs certain kinds of people the wrong way. Namely, the ones who either think they do anything less or anything more than I do. I choose a degree of aggression, zest, and antagonism, and find myself fairly well moving the needle. They, perhaps patient, polite, and tight-lipped, are wondering just where the hell I get off. But, I can only speculate so much. I make a habit of leaning into the things I enjoy, as I'm perfectly aware of the otherwise "even" deadness space I've existed in for long periods of time.

Entitlement, like all mere adjectives or judgements, isn't inherently bad or good. It's whether you're aware of how it manifests, whether it can be tempered, weaponized, or tucked between things. For me, I tuck it between the amount of work I do and the spirit of openness with which I explore ways and whether I may choose to change how I go about expressing myself. I believe you if you levy the charge. I'm then entitled to as many questions as I see fit in examining how you came to it. And I never disagree with how you feel about it.

I hope your sense of entitlement makes you fight viciously for what you've earned. I hope you have a sense of it at all. I hope if you're watching mine manifest in ways that don't jive or you see to be a problem, you're willing to spend as much time owning what you have to say about it as I am.