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What I found when I went on a cross-country travel and volunteer program/trip (the
Katimavik Program, if anyone's curious) was that lots of places are very similar. Once you settle into a groove you can get used to brand new things really fast. I went from having my own room with a large bed (the bottom half of a bunk bed) to having three roommates with beds that were barely wide enough, and not nearly long enough. And this was in a house with 11-12 people. I'm now living at home with my Dad and brother while commuting over an hour to a university. The point is, Humans are very adaptable, and you probably deserve to give yourself more credit.
On the subject of burning things, a few days ago I took a can of bacon grease out to a plot of dirt in my backyard and set it on fire. It's a bit hard to light (I was using paper towels as the wick), but once it gets burning it's good. No smoke or spatter. For the most part it's a respectable yellow flame, but it does smoke a lot when it finally goes out. I didn't even notice much of an odour in it. It's a surprisingly well-behaved fuel source. Just have a shovel of dirt at the ready to put it out.
What made me sad today was when I talked to a couple of people and mentioned the recent news story about a woman drugging her husband, tying him up, waiting until he woke up, cutting off his penis, and tossing it in the garbage disposal. This, because the husband asked for a divorce. Then I mentioned that there was a talkshow (the view, I think) where the hosts were making fun of the guy and cracking jokes. The hosts and the audience (all women) were laughing their asses off.
The first person reacted to this by smiling and chuckling. When I pressed him on the issue, he started justifying why he didn't consider it a big deal. (Well, violence happens to women too). The second person's first reaction was to say that they guy probably did something bad enough to deserve it, and he didn't seem too bothered.
This casual disregard and mocking of a human being who was just mutilated is making me frustrated. Combined with the knowledge that if I, or any of my other male friends had this kind of thing happen to them that the response would be the same is making me have a much lower baseline opinion of people.