Whether I turn on the television, the radio, open up the newspapers or travel online, the same questions keep forcing themselves on me. These questions have one thing in common: I never asked to spend my time thinking about the answer. Most of the time, the answer is redundant and the question useless.
Do I want Össur or Ingibjörg to lead Samfylkingin (Social Democrat Party)? The question is ridiculous in its entirety. I don’t belong to Samfylkingin and not only do I loathe politicians, I loathe any form of public debate that’s shown its weary, sleepy-eyed, hippie-haired, horn-rimmed glassy head since at least the day I learned to read. Whatsoever.
Public opinion is something that creeps up on you, like a fierce telemarketer that just won’t take “f%&$-off” for an answer. And so I stand, pondering whether Össur or Ingibjörg is a better politician, without really even having any grounds for a verdict. From afar they both sound equally pathetic, with their smiles, vague opinions, bleak attire and other political whatnots. Screaming at the television doesn’t seem to make a difference, one way or the other. Oh, you apathetic appliance, applying your under-orgasmic apathy on my bare-fisted soul!
So what about Oprah, you might ask. Was Svanhildur right when she said Icelandic women aren’t sluts, despite their slutty behavior? So what then, one might ask, constitutes a slut? Is the word purely derogatory, or does it have its own meaning, namely that a slut is someone who doesn’t regard sex as an ever-holy means of transcending love through the use of reproductive (and other) organs? I will frigging get off, right, by any frigging means necessary.
And yet again, I look up from my newspaper and ask myself the million dollar question: Why the hell do I care one way or the other? This isn’t something I have any time, or an inkling of longing, to make up my mind about.
How would you rate the coolness of the latest Pepsi Max commercial, on the scale from one to ten? I’ve literally been asked this. Is this the best use we can find for the human mind? I felt like throwing up down the receiving end of my phone. But it doesn’t do any good.
At the best of times I’ve uttered the phrase that any man can be master of his own destiny. That we’re all to blame for our own fuckups, that guilt-free is a useless and misleading concept. And yes, very well, I could turn off my television, I have the god-given liberty to burn my books and have my telephone line closed. To bury myself a hole to live in, free from public, or official, opinion. But something tells me I might be a lesser man for losing the benefits of phone and press. And besides, they’d probably just plaster their polls on the walls of mountains – the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing as the saviour once put it – were I to abscond from the battlefields of the Össurs and Ingibjörgs of the world.
I don’t think it’s as much of a coincidence as it first might seem, that the public debate articles in Morgunblaðið are right next to the obituaries. It’s all about the dying. Össur or Ingibjörg, you ask? Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
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