1) Settling for second. “Settling” full stop. If it’s not good enough to be your first choice, then why are you fucking bothering with it? Are you seriously telling me that despite that fact that you’ve only got one go at this, you’re willing to populate your life with substandard experiences, people or things? Are you seriously telling me that you can’t find something else to occupy you, in another avenue of life that *is* your first choice?
2) Lack of ambition. Related to the first. I don’t expect everyone to be the best at whatever it is they do. But I expect them to be the best they can, and to strive to better themselves, daily. Again: we’ve only got one lifetime. What’s the point of hanging about?
3) People who want to be famous. I have no problem with anyone who wants to be at the top of a profession where fame is a side effect. Acting, being in a band, film-making, writing, being an artist of any kind: this is good shit. It’s people communicating what’s inside their heads. It’s imagination made manifest in the world. It’s what makes us human, rather than animal, and anyone that encourages more of that is a hero in my book. But if you’re just doing it in order to be famous, or because it’ll give you an easy life, then you should fucking stop now, because you’re devaluing the contributions of people who actually have something to say at worst, and at best, you’re taking up airtime/attention span that could be used for something good. (This is why I hate boy bands and the like – these are not people who have something to say. These are idiots who want their fifteen minutes and an easy life. It is not a co-incidence that Robbie Williams and Will Young have both grown on me as time has passed, and they’ve started to speak for themselves, while just about anyone else that’s come in to the culture by their route is still on the “castrate with rusty implements” list. Warhol was full of dangerous ideas, and that whole fifteen minutes business may have been the worst…)
4) People who can’t communicate. If you’re speaking to me, you’d better be lucid. If you’re writing, you’d better be able to spell and punctuate. I don’t expect everyone to be perfect at it all the time (christ knows, I’m not by the time I’ve had a few drinks) but if you’re asking for my attention, you’d better be able to do something with it.
5) Lies. I don’t mean the little white social ones that stop us all from killing each other. I mean big ones of sort that politicians come out with, or like creationism. Again: who has the time to waste?
6) Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them A Good Thumping.
7) Thinking about things I hate. Life’s too short. (But I’ve written this now…)