Navigating avoidant tendencies in a self-optimized society.
Someone I love dearly informs me that he hates when people see something that needs fixing and do nothing to fix it. I sit back tight lipped, my hands gripping the steering wheel tight, and nod my head in quick and false agreement. Though he is trying to make a universal statement about human nature, and this is in no way a pointed passive-aggressive hint, I know that my complacency is the source of his current discontent. I know this because he is riding in the passenger seat of my car, and the lip of the mirror on his side is broken, the magnetic clasp melted from long days spent parked outside in the Texas heat. Every time I hit a speed bump or a crack in the road — and there are many — the mirror flops down and smacks my beloved passenger across the nose. He puts the mirror back up haughtily, then in perfect comedic timing, the mirror flops down again. Another smack.
Unfortunately, I am one of these dreaded complacent people, at least when it comes to the small but fixable inconveniences of everyday living. There are many things that I tell myself I will definitely take care of at some-point, somewhere in the future. That these things will most certainly at some point be dealt with, fussed back into working order. But in the back of my mind, I have little confidence these myriad of mundane failures will ever be properly…
