Re: What I find to be really annoying...

What I find further annoying is that in the past 2 to 3 years, several close family members have been taken in by the "race" culture.... sticks in my mind "race for the cure" or "relay for life" or some such is the marketing name of the one that's locally got a foothold in our community and thus the one they've been indoctrinated into. 2 years ago it was just something an in-law got into to try once, but it soon evolved into her getting into all kinds of custom bracelet craft (beads, more beads, all kinds of pretty, sparkly beads) being crafted into apparel that goes way beyond the original plain yellow Lance bracelet. In these 2 to 3 years, a few more family members have been coaxed into the collective effort; their team is on a year-long mission to see if they can out-earn other teams in terms of how much donation $ they rake in. The part that's most annoying is that in the beginning, invivations were made for me to participate. I didn't just politely refuse. I politely pointed out that #1, those relative few survivors for whom the race is supposedly designed to celebrate most likely survived their ordeal DESPITE (amazing as it seems to consider) whatever mainstream cancer tortures they were treated with, and #2) there are countless more millions of those who didn't survive said tortures, they are dead, gone, in a box 6 feet under, and their last living days were made hideously worse by so-called approved treatment....... who is celebrating their cause?.......this of course brought some serious scorn in my direction. Since then I've learned to take subsequent invites with only polite refusal, which has allowed the scorn for me to continue in an unspoken way. On the flip side, their is some mutual annoyance at work here. These same people have become increasingly aware of my anti-establishment sentiments and beliefs during the recent years. It's probably fair to say that they have become as annoyed with my regular attempts to wake them up and draw their attention to some of the obvious fictions in our world as I have become annoyed with their attempts to stay asleep..... a la racing to stay asleep.