Living with Flat Earth people, etc., in Arizona in 2021


It's Thursday, April 29th, 2021, and on Sunday I'll have hit fourteen days since my second COVID-19 shot. My risk of getting this nasty disease will drop tremendously, although it will never be 100% (that's not how it works), and I will continue to mask and social distance as I wait for my juniors to catch up with me. And then, of course, some people never will, and I'll just have to live with them.

I've lived in Arizona, and Southern California, for all of my adult life, and I've lived with a LOT of people who don't share my beliefs. It could be something like having a different religion, or it could be the conviction that asparagus is an appropriate food for breakfast. The list goes on and on, and I've enjoyed living with these people, and have learned how to keep my distance if necessary, but it's rarely necessary. It's fascinating.

And don't worry if you yourself have never done this, I can accommodate you, too. Yes, I know that profiling is wrong, but I can make some pretty good guesses about your world view based on if you've never lived anywhere other than where you grew up, or if you're an avid reader, that sort of thing. Many people tend to always want to "stay with their own kind", whether it's skin color, or a particular cultural thing. And I've never kidded myself that I could "blend in" with different people. I would present myself, with limitations that I couldn't control, like my blue eyes, and do my best to show respect, often by trying to speak a different language, talk about their religion, that sort of thing.

There are, of course, limitations to what I'll put up with in terms of independent thinking, but it really has to be extreme, like believing that the direction that you drive on the freeway is a matter of personal choice. I also stay away from people who insist on twirling their keychains near me, as I'm convinced that when the chain breaks, the keys will fly into my face. There's really not much I can do about this, other than staying out of the way, like when someone lights up a cigarette near me.

As for Flat Earth people, I put them in the same category as people who somehow never seemed to "get it", but are otherwise harmless. I've never actually stood and listened to a Flat Earther, but I would try to keep the "what lunatic asylum did they get you of?" look off of my face. But I'm intellectually curious, and would like to try to understand what their thought process was that brought them to that place.

Yes, of course I know that the standard behavior is to always shout over these people, slam the door in their faces if they want to talk about their beliefs, and wind up with fisticuffs to prove that your world view is right. And it's what most people do, but doing that that doesn't interest me, and never has. I like living in a fascinating and colorful world, as anyone who is a regular reader of this blog knows. And if someone wants to explain, for example, what Bifrost is, I'll listen. Take me there!
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more