before i let go of the subject, i'd like to make one general observation on what we've suffered through over the past few months: that bullshit comes in grades, and your response to it has to be calibrated accordingly. in my life to this point, what has been fed me -- by teachers, the singapore government -- has been bullshit with insight, purposive if you will, crafted. for example: a country, any country, is worth defending. "to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality". if you do well in school, your happiness is secure. and i'm not saying that you should react in any particular way to this -- i guess most of it is benign -- but getting angry would probably be a legitimate response, thus suffragettes, we shall not be moved. if the bullshit is exploitative, and if you rise to the level where you can see it for what it is, then indignation and outrage are surely the way to go.

but then you have your low-grade bullshit, the kind that follows not logic nor direction, unpremeditated, bare-faced and desultory, spouted by fools trying to be wise. and much as you want to become angry when you get hurt by it, the trick is to see this: that it's beyond your control, that there's no mens rea -- you accomplish just as little as getting angry with a tree for falling on your car. there's no sense railing against what cannot be changed. and -- let's face it -- there are crooks out there, but for every one crook there are a hundred stupid people, a hundred people who don't even realize what they're doing when they stab you, who will blithely wreck your life and not even be aware. and there's no point getting angry, because then they've won.

your options? (1) get very rich. (2) take sweet, dispassionate revenge.

and that's the last i have to say about that.