Most Close-Minded Advocator Of Open-Mindedness…

Over My Hed
(Cable Car)
By The Fray

I never knew
I never knew that everything was falling through
That everyone I knew was waiting on a queue
To turn and run when all I needed was the truth
But that’s how it’s got to be
It’s coming down to nothing more than apathy
I’d rather run the other way than stay and see
The smoke and who’s still standing when it clears

Everyone knows I’m in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She’s on your mind
She’s on your mind

Let’s rearrange
I wish you were a stranger I could disengage
Just say that we agree and then never change
Soften a bit until we all just get along
But that’s disregard
Find another friend and you discard
As you lose the argument in a cable car
Hanging above as the canyon comes between

Everyone knows I’m in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She’s on your mind
She’s on your mind

Everyone knows I’m in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She’s on your mind
She’s on your mind

And suddenly I become a part of your past
I’m becoming the part that don’t last
I’m losing you and its effortless
Without a sound we lose sight of the ground
In the throw around
Never thought that you wanted to bring it down
I won’t let it go down till we torch it ourselves

And everyone knows I’m in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She’s on your mind
She’s on your mind

Everyone knows
She’s on your mind
Everyone knows I’m in over my head
I’m in over my head
I’m in over…

Everyone knows I’m in
Over my head
Over my head
With eight seconds left in overtime
She’s on your mind
She’s on your mind

I never commented on it while it was happening, but it’s always been something that bugged me.  I absolutely couldn’t stand how Shannon was such an advocator of being open minded and all that, when she’s probably the most close-minded person I’ve ever met.

For instance, once I was at Staples with her and we were talking to Mike.  I was saying how great I thought Fellowship was and she immediately jumped to saying no, it was boring.  It was too long.  It took too long for anything good to happen.  Blah, blah, blah.  And she went on to say how Dogma was the greatest movie ever made.  And whether through interruption or just letting my words fall on deaf ears, she was like, "No, no, you’re wrong.  Dogma’s the best.  That’s it.  Be all and end all.  Greatest movie.  Nothing else compares."  And stuff like that.

Yeah, real open-minded towards other people’s opinions, huh?  Automatically discounting a movie that *she* thinks is too . . . whatever, and claiming that of course, because she thinks so, some movie that she likes is the greatest, and everyone else’s opinions be damned.

Another example came with something that Mike and she would "debate" numerous times, including on the day my Nana died!  To backtrack a bit, how many of you are familiar with the music video for the song "Beautiful" by Christina Agulera?  Well, let me just say I hate that song.  They overplayed it far too much on the radio, the rhyme scheme is horrible, ("…you’re so consumed/in all you’re doin’…"  I mean, seriously.  The writer couldn’t come up with anything better than that??) and I just hate how she sings it.  Conversely, I do like the message of the song, being that whatever a person looks like, or whatever lifestyle they lead, whatever other circumstances are within a person’s life, there’s some aspect of them that is beautiful, that they should have pride in, etc.

Yet the music video completely contradicts that, I feel.  At least with one of the people they show.  It’s a girl who is obviously anorexic.  And I remember them debating different things with the music video and the meanings and such of the song, and frankly, I got sick of her stance and one day just turned to her and said, "At this point, I’ve seen the music video.  And one of the people there is someone who’s anorexic, right?  Tell me, what exactly is beautiful about anorexia?  What’s beautiful about someone starving themselves, sometimes to death?  Where, exactly, is the beauty in a life like that?"

"Oddly" enough, she never answered me.

Another aspect of the video that she and Mike were constantly debating was the two guys that are sleeping together, or making out, or some such in it.  Shannon was insisting that "if they’re happy, why can’t everyone else leave them alone and accept that they’re relationship is beautiful because they think it is?"  Open-minded there, I’ll give it that.  But wait.

There’s a manga that I’d picked up a couple volumes of where the main character is something like a fallen angel, cursed to earth in a male body.  And that male character has a sister.  Who he’s in love with.  And she’s in love with him in return.  And as soon as Shannon heard that, her response was, "Ew!"

The day my Nana died, Colleen had called me, saying she heard about Nana dying, (I think from either Mike or Dan,) and she and Shannon wanted to take me out, help me feel better.  I admit, it was nice to get to laugh some of the time there, but I really would have preferred being able to talk about memories I had of Nana, instead of whatever else we did talk about.  But once again, the whole debate of the two guys in the music video and homosexuality came up.  And I just got sick of it because Mike and Shannon had opposing views, yet Mike was giving her fact after fact and her basic stance was, "If they’re happy, who cares what they do?"  Yeah, why don’t we try saying that to all the different cops who arrest those murderers, huh?  Well, if they were happy killing people…  Or how about smokers?  Why do we try to convince people not to smoke?  I mean, if they’re happy smoking, making themselves sick, getting cancer, we should just accept that, right?

So, like I said, I got sick of it and said, "You know, Shannon, I’ve got a question for you.  How can you take the stance of ‘people should just be happy for them and accept it,’ when you’re response at a brother and sister being in love was ‘Ew!’  Why doesn;t their relationship merit just as much credit as one between two guys?  If the guys have a right to be together, then by you’re train of thought, shouldn’t the brother and sister, if it makes them happy?"  Again, I never got a response.  Big s

urprise.

If she was really as open minded to unconventional relationships as she claimed, (because while it’s becoming more and more common, I, at least, still consider homosexual relationships unconventional,) then she should have been able to accept the whole brother/sister without saying "Ew!" right off the bat.

Yet so often, she had no trouble going around telling people exactly how close-minded they were being about whatever subject.  Frankly, I say if you can’t listen to someone else’s opinions on something without interrupting/talking over them to say, "No, you’re wrong, what I like is the best," and not being able to debate your position on something any better than, "Well, if it makes them happy…" then you have no right to be calling other people close-minded.

She’s lucky she was attached to someone when she went sky-diving.  A mind like hers probably would have influenced the parachute enough to stay closed.