And if you wake up in the morning saying, "I will not tolerate having a plate of spaghetti thrown in my face," you'll have a very bad experience here.
Sure enough, most people have a very bad experience here.
It's a hallmark of aristocrats to eagerly draw red circles around the Unacceptable. They're accustomed to having their preferences coddled. Others come into more frequent contact with unavoidable friction, providing opportunities to perhaps stumble into acceptance, while aristocrats persistently assume they have a veto over how things work.
At this point everyone in the First World is an aristocrat, and thus entitled to draw red lines that God, the universe, or whatever must respect, even though, hilariously, they never do.
If, on the other hand, you lick your face and exclaim, "Mmm, spaghetti!" — or simply accept the experience neutrally — then you'll have a much better time here. And since we have free latitude to interpret anything in any way, one might even decide that an abrupt delivery of spaghetti is the Universe's notion of a beneficent gift, like the lovely fresh oxygen and life-giving sunlight (which the perennially irritated might frame as oppressive, as well).
But we're not taught to do that. Quite the contrary! We live in a world of people who feel they deserve better than to have a face full of spaghetti. Which makes the spaghetti-in-the-face result all the more uproarious.
Despising the spaghetti began with an arbitrary — even whimsical — choice. Another hallmark of aristocrats is the lavish accounting of despised things. The litany proudly defines them, and anything disrespecting those sharp borders is declared unacceptable. First on many lists: surprise and disruption.
So one must be super nonconformist to go, "Mmm, spaghetti! Delicious!"
You'd look like a fucking lunatic.
There's social stigma there. You'll be far more in step with society if you sputter and curse and fume and rage continually as the world vexes you, like the bully in a silent film comedy.
Everybody imagines the world compels their response. It does not. We respond according to our own framing.
Hypothetical Person: How could I not erupt into fury with a face full of spaghetti?
Narrator: The world throws spaghetti in everyone's face every day.
Hypothetical Person: Yes! And I fucking hate it!
Narrator: Well, then you hate the world.
Hypothetical Person: For sure. But the world compels my hatred!
Narrator: No, it doesn't. Your high-level policy decision to hate spaghetti in your face compels your hatred.
Hypothetical Person: Who could possibly enjoy having spaghetti thrown in their face?
Narrator: Well, you see, that's the conformity problem right there.
Hypothetical Person: The what?
The "Verses on the Faith Mind by The 3rd Zen Patriarch" (aka Hsin Hsin Ming) is an astounding bit of medieval Chinese wisdom, but it was written in a very different era for a very different culture, making it more inaccessible than is necessary. Here, I'm trying to take the gist and modernize it.
Have a taste of the original:
The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The "spaghetti-in-your-face" trials and tribulations are sufficient to leave a majority of the population in sour aggrievement. But what about worse stuff? Here's my take.
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