Grace Me Up Right Now

This meme seems like such a mild, reasonable request. And yet, few humans until a couple decades ago would have imagined any entitlement to mercy when showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. We easily recognized that even if you're there by invitation, with a mission of helping, even that wouldn't earn you a guaranteed pass ("No good deed goes unpunished!").

The notion of deserving grace is quite new, but it's so thoroughly baked-in that I seem like quite a jerk, objecting to a nice plea from a nice person who just hopes to be treated nicely. This only proves how entitlement has swollen to a point where all perspective has been lost.

Perhaps you'll see my point better if I diagram it for you:

"I didn't kill a bug once. I ask in return that I be allowed to waltz through life's landscape in a state of elevated grace". Hey, not too much to ask!

FWIW, your kids and grandkids won't even parse that stark diagramming. The point wouldn't penetrate at all. Entitlement, you see, is self-sealing.


Note, I originally posted this on my Facebook feed, where I tacked on this parenthetical comment: "In 1997, i invented food blogging. In 2026 I invented reposting treacly memes to rank on them. I am like a fountain of fresh obnoxious behaviors."