Mid-West Mantality

Rule #1.

What is it, you may ask? It is the mental capacity and social interactions that take place between men in the Mid-West of the United States of America. These characteristics may exist in other parts of the country, and the world, but my experience is here in the Mid-West. (Kansas City and some of the surrounding rural areas to be specific.)

The first and foremost rule is to be forgetful. This is the most important part of social interactions. (At least for them to work well.) If you are one with a good to great memory you are the rude one. Let me explain. People have the most traumatic, and the most extremely pleasurable, memories in the forefront of their minds at all times. You will easily be able to remember something like a perfect wedding, being shot, or a traumatic car accident. These are always at the very tip of your mind, and this is true of anyone who has lived as a member of our modern-thinking-public. Delving deeply into ones memory is taboo because that takes real thought and mental work to accomplish. So, these few stories that sit in the easily reached part of the mind are told over and over again. It is just easy for the story teller this way. As a listener, if you remember the story and choose not to sit through it again, you are rude. But oddly it is not seen as rude that the story teller is taking up twice as much of your life than is necessary.

My favorite quote I took away from a college professor was, "The only irreplaceable commodity is time. You can always make money, but you can never replace your time."

This will run counter to my professor's wise words, but; the remedy (and aiding substance) for this problem with story telling and listening, is alcohol. This is the perfect elixir for both sides of the issue, and has been used to an extreme in our society.

Alcohol works by filling in part of the blood stream. It does not homogeneously mix with the blood in your veins, but creates spaces in the blood of pure alcohol. These patches of alcohol travel to the brain, and when these patches meet with brain cells (which are trying to receive nutrients and oxygen) they take in the pure alcohol and die. Drunkenness is really only a slow smothering of the brain. Each time one drinks, part of the brain dies, and the part of the brain most affected is memory and cognitive abilities. This must be why bars are so popular in the Mid-West of America. These institutions help us in our social interactions; and most people have spent so much time staring at a computer screen that they have become socially inept.

Without this social drug we cannot interact the way we should. (With social acceptably.) Most find this only to be true during the initial social event. But if one is to look at social interaction much more macro cosmically they will see that alcohol consumption is needed for its long term affects as well. To forget what one is told, watched, or read only helps increase entertainment levels at the next telling, viewing, or reading for all those involved; plus it helps keep management and trainers employed.