ON "SOCIALLY RETARDED PEOPLE"

Jonathan Franzen, Farther Away: Essays (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012) (For several years or so I listened to someone dear to me point out how I seemed constantly annoyed with PEOPLE, some particular people more than others, but still, people in general. So, I have been trying to be more mindful of my attitudes toward other people and on being less annoyed (or at least trying not to show my annoyance). After all, other people are not alive to make me happy. And, though at times I feel as though some of them exist for the sole purpose of annoying me, I know that such is not really true. Anyway, though I am much less annoyed these days--I have changed a little, people are pretty much the same (it is relatively easier for a person to change than for a society or a social norm to change)--, I remain critical of certain social practices. Franzen has deftly captured several of them, including my favorite (or, is it my least favorite?) social practice: From "I Just Called to Say I Love You," id. at 141-160. "Socially retarded people don't suddenly start acting more adult when social critics are peer-pressured into silence.  They only get ruder. One currently worsening national plague is the shopper who remains engrossed in a call throughout a transaction with a checkout clerk. The typical combination in my neighborhood, in Manhattan, involves a young white woman, recently graduated from someplace expensive, a local black or Hispanic woman of roughly the same age but fewer advantages. It is course, a liberal vanity to expect your checkout clerk to interact with you or to appreciate the scrupulousness of your determination to interact with her. Given the repetitive and low-paying nature of her job, she's allowed to treat you with boredom or indifference; at worst, it's unprofessional of her. But this does not relieve you of your own moral obligation to acknowledge her existence as a person. And while it's true that some clerks don't seem to mind being ignored, a notably large percentage do become visibly irritated or angered or saddened when a customer is unable to tear herself off her phone for even two seconds of direct interaction. Needless to say, the offender herself, like the chatty freeway driver, is blissfully unaware of pissing anyone off. In my experience, the longer the line behind her, the more likely it is she'll pay for her $1.98 purchase with a credit card. And not the tap-and-go- microchip kind of credit card, either, but the wait-for-the-printed-receipt-and-then-(only-then)-with-zombiesh-clumsiness-begin-shifting-the-cell-phone-from-one-ear-to-the-other-and-awkwardly-pin-the-phone-with-ear-to-shoulder-while-signing-the-receipt-and-continuing-to-express-doubt-about-whether-she-really-feels-like-meeting-up-with-that-Morgan-Stanly-guy-Zachary-at-the-Etats-Unis-wine-bar-again-tonight kind of credit card." Id. at 148. UGH!! Then again, trying to get beyond the day-to-day annoyances caused by "social retarded people" is a process. A month ago, as I sat on my mat waiting for yoga practice to begin, a woman pulled out her cell phone and made a call. This, notwithstanding a sign on the practice room door requesting that one turn off one's cell phone. This act has to be distinguished from the person who merely forgets to turn off her phone, for this was an act of aggression: She wanted to make a call and did not care about respecting the practice room and the people at practice. The real challenge of yoga is often just showing up for practice, just staying on the mat, just staying focused on one's own practice, just being respectful of the practices of others, and just blocking out the actions of those who do not respect the practice, the mat, or people. That is, understanding that people come to yoga for different reasons, and for many, the spiritual has little or nothing to do with why they come. Learning to have compassion for those who annoy the crap out of you. Learning not to be annoyed. Letting go. Just breathe.).