arrogance.

i am an arrogant bastard.

while working with children and commuting on a crappy-yet-meticulously-dedicated singlespeed and hanging out at children's parks and generally observing 'the public', i have come to the conclusion that i am arrogant. i imagine that this arrogance was begun during my primary years, fostered further by my immigration to this glorious country and all its smalltown prejudice against my first country, capitalized upon during the undergrad years, and finally left to slow-burn in my hardwon adult idiocy. i think i'm better than all of this.

i think i'm better than most of this. i shouldn't be so poor. i'm smarter than the advertising that lines the roadways. television that i catch glimpses of is beyond categorization in its stupidity and profound lack of meaning. textbooks i work with provide no answers (kinda cool) and terrible questions (not cool). my employer has no idea how valuable i am. people in my profession get surplussed after 4 years of 'permanent' work. everyone else's bike is too fast, too slow, to shitty, made out of too much carbon or steel. no one seems to know how to inflate their tires properly. it's amazing that the drivers out there ever managed to get licenses. i can't believe that so many people ride on the sidewalk and think it's okay. i rent a mouldy house full of drafts and no insulation on a block of $600, 000 homes. my utlities bills are about to head through the uninsulated roof. i sell things on craigslist to buy groceries. i've had bronchitis for a month. i hate the suburbs. i think i'm better than so much of this.

i'm an arrogant jerk.

my arrogance, however, is not necessarily an attitude wherein i believe that i am always better than my own situation, but that i am more conscious of all of it than anyone else. i see more, feel more, understand more, and thereby, get pissed off at a lot more. my bike is amazing and nice and wonderful and custom and ti and a 'dentist bike' and full of italian components. my commuter is not nice in any way other than it does its job relatively well and doesn't cost so much that i'd be that pissed if it got stolen. but with either bike, i feel like i know and am conscious of more of their quirks and clicks than the chubby guy i pass on the way up yonge street, as he huffs and puffs his colnago through the lights. i hear that lady's tires squishing all over the pavement as she spins slowly to work and it bothers me knowing that she's running 20psi lower than proper pressure. i hear kids in the halls talking about what 'happened' on tv last night, and it saddens me that they think it's real, that it matters, and that they have authority over it because they picked the channel. doesn't anyone see?

regardless, it is a fine thing to be an arrogant jerk in this uber-conscious kind of way. even oscar wilde thought so when he said that thing about all of us being in the gutter but some of us looking at the stars.