Everyone’s Got Their Carol Baskin
By: Joe Duncan
Tags: Self, Philosophy, Mental Health, Relationships, Psychology

Everyone’s Got Their Carol Baskin

Not Everyone is Going to Be Nice to You…

As America watched a series that kept getting weirder and more bizarre by the moment, unable to take our fixated eyes off our screens, trapped in our homes during a global pandemic with little recourse for doing much else, we stared in wonder at what is arguably the weirdest story of the last century. For those who missed it, yes, I’m talking about the docuseries Tiger King, with its wild cast of characters, a show that follows Joe Exotic, the owner of a private zoo as he acts out his frustrations against his arch-nemesis, Carol Baskin. Carol is nothing like Joe.

Joe is a loud-mouthed, gun-toting, mullet-sporting, gay Oklahoma man who’s not afraid to announce his displeasure, even if it means talking about hurting or killing other people openly. Carol is much slower and more calculated and, without giving away too much of the plot, we can say that the story hinges on an ongoing feud between these two central characters who are plainly incompatible. Joe wants to keep his private zoo, Carol wants to destroy his private zoo, there's not a lot of common ground between these two viewpoints.

But I didn’t come here to give you an unnecessary review of the Tiger King series. I came to discuss the fact that everyone, yes, everyone has their Carol Baskin — and it’s nothing new. Everyone has that one person who’s just hellbent on destroying them and their prospects, their ideas, their goals, their dreams…The same games we see cast before us on the world stage, as we clutch our fleece microfiber blankets and stare with wide eyes at Tiger King on our screens, what we watch has played out many, many times before, from the annals of Rome and the rivalries of Pompeius the Great and Julius Caesar; to Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, wherever there have been people, there have been brutal contests over one person or another’s success or failure. Generations come, generations go, there’s nothing new under the sun…you know the rest.

The point is that everyone has that one person who wants to see them fail. They’re sitting there, right now, watching your social media feeds, scoping out your internet presence, they might even be seething over your very existence, right now, in this moment. You might even be one of those readers of mine, my at-an-arms-length personal version of Carol Baskin. We wonder why such people exist and feel the need to waste their time with us in the first place. It’s baffling. Grudges make zero sense to me.

Honestly, I’m not much of one to ramble on about “haters” and consider such culture as what it is, which is paranoia culture. A lot of people, usually people who smoke arguably way too much weed, tend to falsely conclude that the whole world is after them. This isn’t true, it’s just a way for them to magnify their own self-importance in their own eyes — they have hierarchy complexes and it shows. But it is true, what Machiavelli once said:

“Because of the envious nature of humans, it has always been no less dangerous to discover new methods and institutions than to explore unknown oceans and lands, since humans are quicker to criticize than praise the deeds of others.”

People are, well…people. Flawed, natural, human, and yes, sometimes petty, jealous, and catty. If you think you don’t have your Carol Baskin, guess what, you’re kidding yourself. Everyone and I mean everyone, has their Carol Baskin. It’s what you do with your Carol Baskin that matters.