Writing Updatery

Posted on June 23, 2015 by tessarnold2

So, what’s been going on with my writing career?

I believe I mentioned, in my last writing update, about having submitted one of my novels to Angry Robot Books. Well, it took a year and a half – mainly due to some kind of email snafu – but I have news.

No joy.

It looked good, but it turns out they had to pass on my novel, Drawn to Flame, as they had another novel with a similar premise already in the pipeline.

Not sure what to say about that except that, if that was the main reason they took a pass, then it’s fairly high praise and a better response than I have gotten from any of the agents I have – in the last 4 years – queried about representation.

As far as that novel goes, I have friends that want me to say, “fuck it,” and self publish. It’s an option I’m keeping open, but for later. Right now it’s back to the agent hunt.

My reason is fairly simple: I just don’t have the time right now to do everything I would have to do to even have a hope of success in self publishing. I have one more semester before I get my undergrad degree and I’m getting married in October. What little time I have outside of all that and work, I’d like to spend actually writing, as opposed to trying to promote my writing.

(Also, regarding promotion, I haven’t seen a single comment about the one story I posted for free, on this site. I’m not even sure if anyone read it. So, it will take just a bit more effort than posting it up and hoping for the best. There’s art to be commissioned, a free-lance editor/ copy editor to hire and have give the manuscript a close eye. Then there is the time to format and promote. And I’m not entirely sure how to go about promoting the thing myself. I have a small circle of friends, but I’m not the most sociable person in the world.) 

So, the Third Eye Detective agency series isn’t dead, but at roughly 70k words into the second book, I’m going to put the brakes on that writing project. I’ll probably finish this novel, but it won’t be my priority.

I am still trying to sell short stories. unfortunately, the story I have circulating currently, “The Gray Lady”, is about 12k words in length. That puts a bit of a limit on the magazines I can send it to unsolicited. If I were a more established writer, with more credits to my name – I could pitch it to a few others, but not having credits, I really have to go with whoever says they’ll take that length without special circumstances.

So, “The Gray Lady”, has already been rejected by one venue and is waiting to be considered at another. This one passes, there are 3-4 more I can try.

Beyond that, I’m working on reworking some pieces that are prequels to “The Gray Lady”, involving the same characters, but from earlier on and from different character’s points of view.

By the way, for those of you that haven’t read it, “The Gray Lady” is a fantasy piece that focuses on the clash between a native tradition/ religion/ magic and an invading culture/ tradition/ magic. It’s got a pre-Christian, Irish flavor to it. I like it, but it’s long.

In other news, I have another short story, “The 13th Hour” which I am currently reworking into novel form. It’s coming along, but it’s weird, even for me. And that’s saying something. So, I’m taking my time with it. It was weird in the short form, it’s getting weirder and darker as I write.

So, that’s my writing update. I’m still writing. Still trying to sell. Still trying to have something for you to read, some place other than here in these pseudo-hallowed pages.

Thanks for tuning in.

Thanks for paying attention.

Leave a comment if you’ve something to say.

Posted in The Writing Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Batshit Quickies

Posted on June 2, 2015 by tessarnold2

I’ve been trying, for nigh on a week now, to write a post about something, anything, that didn’t devolve into some rage-fueled rant-fest. I have not succeeded, as you may have noticed by my lack of posting.

I assure you, it isn’t that I haven’t had anything to say, it’s just that my computer can’t take that amount of vitriol and spittle, at any one time, without shorting out and exploding.

So, why now?

I don’t honestly think I’ve gotten any real distance from the things that drive me bat-shit, bug-fuck, screaming at the sky crazy.

But maybe I’ve been able to condense some of them down into something more coherent. Here then, are a few of the things pissing me off lately.

(Warning: if you came looking for a reasoned argument or observation about something, this may not be the post for you.)

First things first; Spoiler Warnings.

It seems like every-fucking-thing I read on the internet or in a magazine has a fucking spoiler warning on it. Can we just stop this, please? If I’m reading about some cultural thing – whether it be a movie or TV show or book – I am doing so because I am interested in information about that thing. I am also doing so in full cognizance that I might come across information I do not currently possess. Hell, that’s the entire reason I’m doing the reading in the first fucking place. So please, knock it off with all the spoiler warnings. If we don’t want to know, we’ll avoid extraneous information sources. And please, for the love of whatever thing you consider holy, stop using that phrase in conversation. You sound like a Victorian governess telling children to hide their eyes from something that might be untoward. I give a little space for people using the phrase ironically, but just so you know, if you use it more than 200 times in a three minute conversation, you’re no longer being ironic. You’re being tedious. And if you don’t know the difference between irony and tedium, well, there may not be any help for you.

Next up: The Fucking Duggarrrrrs

(I add the extra rrr so no one tries to sue me.)

Here’s the thing: I give no fucks about the people or their reality show, generally. But when you have a group of holier than thou asshats telling everybody what is and isn’t right, and comparing homosexuality to child molestation, and then it turns out their oldest son is not only a child molester, but an incestuous child molester, then I think, as a culture, we have not only the right but the moral duty to tell these fucks to sit-the-fuck-down-and-shut-the-fuck-up. Period.

And the thing that really pisses me off about this little cultural cul-de-sac isn’t even the hypocritical morons themselves, it’s the knee-jerk, reactionary dipshits that have sprung, with religious zeal, to their defense. As if what happened was defensible in any way. Oh sure, he spent a few months remodeling homes – as if that were breaking rocks in prison hard labor – and he’s asked God for forgiveness. Well he has, has he? Isn’t that fucking special. He worked construction for a few months and asked his imaginary friend for forgiveness? Well, that just makes it all better, now doesn’t it?

No. No it fucking doesn’t. And anyone who thinks it does is morally bankrupt and should not be able to make any public statement about anyone else’s actions until they prove to the rest of us that they really do know right from wrong and that people who hurt others should actually be punished, even if they are the scion of the house.

So, let me be perfectly clear, in case the above statement was somehow obtuse:

If you believe that, because he said he’s sorry to God, that this means he should be forgiven in the real world, then your morality is faulty. It’s flawed. Your moral compass does not point true. And if you get your morality from any particular religion, you need to take a long, hard look at that religion, because its morality is also terribly flawed and faulty.

If we, as human beings, can’t agree that a child molester should be punished here and now, in this world, then we are well and truly fucked as a species and it’s long past time to let the cockroaches have a go at this civilization thing we’ve been so hot about for the last couple of thousand years.

And now batting: Religious people, in general, running their mouths as if whatever they believe isn’t actually just as much of a gamble as anyone else who believes any thing else is taking.

Come on people. I know you believe. I get that. But how do you not realize that you believe because you’re not sure?

If you were certain of what you believe, then it wouldn’t be belief, it would be knowledge.

You would know.

But you don’t. So, you believe. You trust. You don’t have Faith, because if you had faith, you also wouldn’t need to believe.

Does no one do any real research into the crap they were told to believe as kids? Does no one even want to bother with trying to figure out if it might be true, or if it might be – in all likelihood – just a bunch of bullshit?

And let me say this: if it was just cultural conditioning, just a get-along-go-along kind of thing, I’d leave it be. No one can choose what they’re conditioned with as children and it’s the rare few who have the self awareness to attempt to change it later in life.

So, if you’d keep it to yourself, it’d be no big deal. But why is it that the religiously zealous seem to think it is not only their duty, but their sacred-fucking-right to try to tell everyone else how things should be done and why they should be done that way?

So, please, just shut the fuck up. You don’t know. You have no evidence. You’re just as in the dark as the rest of us, only some of us don’t pretend we’re holding a god damned flashlight while we stumble.

Batting clean-up: People not listening.

(also, closely associated with this phenomenon, people hearing only what they want to hear.)

Really, people? We’re grown adults, many of us partially educated, and we can’t actually listen to each other. And I mean really listen, to everything, not just that first, middle, or last part that either inflames our sensibilities or proves our point, or just makes us feel smugly better about ourselves.

I’m not even going to begin to try to lay blame here.

I’m just wondering…

…Why?

Do we feel we’re not being listened to ourselves? (probably also the case)

Do we feel we already know what the person is going to say? (Not the case nearly as often as we think it is)

Are we just callous, careless, selfish shmucks who couldn’t give a fuck about the thoughts of others?

Have we, collectively, just run out of fucks to give?

All we have ever had is one another.

Everything you see around you, everything built by the hands of humanity, is because we only ever had each other.

How, if you are at all connected, can you let that slip away, be forgotten, fade into distant memory?

 

We used to be better than that, as a culture, as a nation, and as a species. We used to have the guts, the fortitude, the tenacity to do difficult and uncomfortable things, things that achieved great ends. Now we don’t even have the energy to really listen to one another; to listen and try to understand one another?

Politicians bemoan the state of the world because they say we have drifted away from ideologies.

Religion bemoans the state of the world because it says we have drifted away from God.

But when you look closely, you’ll see that what we have really drifted away from is each other; from humanity.

And for what?

What have we gained?

Does it make up for what we have lost?

Does it?

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A Low Down, Dirty Shame…

Posted on May 17, 2015 by tessarnold2

Since this blog is, essentially, cultural commentary, I’d like to make a comment on something I’ve been seeing a lot of in the culture: Shaming.

This is not an essay on the evils of Shaming or Shaming culture. There  are many an varied articles of that nature out there, written by better people than me. Go read them. They can be enlightening.

Here I want to discuss two things about Shaming that strike me as important to think about:

1) The difference between Shaming and Observation.

-and –

2) What the appropriate place of Shaming in any culture might be.

So, let’s start with the difference between shaming and basic Observation. We all pretty much know what Shaming is. We’ve seen it, been disgusted by it, (even sometimes engaged in it without thinking – let’s give ourselves the benefit of the doubt for a moment.) Basic Observation is a different animal. By Basic Observation, I’m talking about simple, unadulterated statements of fact.

Here’s a for instance: Noting that someone is fat.

Simply noting that someone is fat is not Fat Shaming them. It’s just stating an observable fact. That one’s fat, that one’s skinny, that one’s short, that one’s tall, etc…

There is nothing inherently shameful about being fat or short or tall or skinny, or whatever you choose. Nothing at all. There is also nothing inherently wrong with noting, or stating an observable fact.

But, this where I’ve noticed people often veer into pure Dick-i-tude. It has become a habit, in our culture, to note a fact about someone, and then suggest or state that the given fact somehow contributes to whether or not a person is worthy of respect.

It’s one thing to say someone is fat – that’s just observable, valueless fact. It is another thing entirely to state that someone is worth less as a human being because someone is fat.

For one, the latter is just bad logic. To say someone is worth less does not follow from them having some physical feature.

Secondly, it’s just rude. And it’s rude without reason. 

(Those of you that read my posts regularly have probably figured out that I am not against rudeness, per se, but generally take a dark view of rudeness for no good reason. And trust me, in this me, me, me, objectification culture we live in, there are plenty of good reasons to be rude.)

So, if you find yourself being a dick just to be a dick, I recommend taking a long and serious look at what’s going on inside your own head and heart before you start trying to explore the rest of the populace at large.

This brings me to the second part of this discussion: What is the appropriate place for Shaming – if there is such a thing – in a society?

Let me state that I think there is a place in our culture for appropriate Shaming, that is, when it is used to make things better.

Generally, I think Shaming, as it exists in our culture, is simply inappropriate Ridicule.

So, what then would be appropriate Ridicule?

As I said above, I think Ridicule is appropriate when it makes things better. And it can make things better. Social groups have used it effectively, instead of violence, for centuries to curb antisocial or harmful behavior. Ridicule is a useful tool to help societies maintain cohesion. Let’s face it, sometimes people don’t have better angels in their nature, and sometimes their self interest grows so out of control it becomes like mutant kudzu bent on covering and sucking the life out of everything around them. Times like this, an inspirational speech just won’t cut it, but maybe we don’t want to go with the nuclear option of just killing the selfish, inconsiderate bastard. Let’s face it, sometimes the crime just isn’t worth the death penalty. It’s times like this, where Ridicule, and its effective variations, can and should be employed to try to reign in the more undesirable behaviors of said selfish bastards.

So, Ridicule does, in fact, have its place in a modern, functioning, and civilized society. Sometimes we just have to tell people that they’re being dicks, and we have to do so in a public way.

Why do I think Shaming is inappropriate Ridicule?

Because, more often than not in my observation, Shaming is used to hold people up to public ridicule for things that are not really harmful to our culture or our society.

Being fat, while harmful to that given individual, is not really harmful to the public at large. And quite often, (and I realize this will be a controversial statement), being fat is not something the individual is able to control at that moment.

(Calm down Free-Will enthusiasts. I don’t mean they could never control it, I’m just pointing out the obvious, they can’t control it at the moment. If they could, they wouldn’t be fat.)

In that way, Shaming someone for being fat is just like Shaming someone for the color of their skin. It doesn’t make sense, even if they’re really ashy and blotchy and could maybe use more time in the sun.

The color of someone’s skin, or the adipose tissue content of their bodies, or their sexual proclivities are just facets of that individual’s nature at that particular time. Again I say, if it’s not hurting anyone else, why give a fuck?

In the end, Ridicule is supposed to have a helpful goal. Some people will use that to rationalize actions that are still, obviously, not helpful, but usually we can recognize those sophist fuck-wits a few sentences into the conversation.

I challenge you to watch your culture, the media, the people around you, and your own thoughts. When someone is held up to public ridicule, does it serve a purpose that aims at making things better?

If it doesn’t, think about how you feel about that.

And if it bugs you like it bugs me, take a chance and make a stand. Say something about it. Get people to listen.

You might not change everyone, or anyone, but you’ll change yourself – and for the better.

But maybe you have different ideas. I’d love to hear them.

The comment section, as always, is open.

(Some of my readers comment on social media – where I post links. I’m cool with that, but it’s easier to keep the conversation coherent if you post your comments here, on the specific blog.)

Either way,

Until next time…

Posted in Putting the "Civil" Back in Civilization | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Today’s Little Epiphany

Posted on March 20, 2015 by tessarnold2

So, I’m at the health food store, buying my expeller pressed coconut oil and generally browsing for random shit that might catch my eye, when something grabs the attention of my ears instead.

I’m standing near the check out counter, and this grizzled old lady – like beef jerky in a mismatched sweat suit – starts giving the counter girl a loud, hard time about a product.

(Turns out the old battle axe was returning a product because she had not read what was on the ingredients label before buying it.)

Anyways, this wrinkled old drain-stopper is giving the poor counter girl down the road, but it’s not the direct, personal attacks that so many of us who have had the misfortune to work in retail are accustomed to, no. I’ll quote here, because, why the fuck not,

“This has propylene glycol in it. I can believe you even sell that here.”

Yep, that kind of passive aggressive bullshit.

Like it’s the counter woman’s fault that you didn’t read the fucking label first you frayed, old, mismatched sock of a human being.

Now, me, being me, this sets me off a little, and here’s where the epiphany begins to take shape;

I spoke up. I said, “You know the FDA ruled that propylene glycol was safe, like, back in the fifties or sixties, right?”

To which she begins some strained and louder appeal to authority about why, even that being the case, she was still right. As if I give a damn, and as if being louder will make her point somehow more reasonable and correct.

Well, I didn’t cause a scene, but those out there that know me will have some good idea how I tend to handle irascible assholes like that.

None of this is the epiphany, but it is what leads directly up to it.

Here’s what I realized, not five minutes after:

I didn’t give a shit about whatever junk science informed this dried-out slim jim of a human being’s opinion. What bothered me was the way she was behaving towards the clerk.

As if any of it was the clerk’s fucking fault.

I’ll admit it, I got a bit mad at myself.

What I wanted to do, deep down, was dress the old gristle-bucket down for treating another human being so shamefully and without any reason much less a good one.

So, why didn’t I?

Why didn’t I just lead off with that as opposed to arguing with her delusional assertions?

It’s not because I was afraid. Giving people a good, sharp piece of my mind has never been too frightening to me. (or maybe I’ve always just been too angry to notice.)

It wasn’t because I was afraid of making a scene. The week-old shark-bait-chum in a jogging suit was already doing that.

I don’t know.

I can only think that it was some kind of conditioning that says it is more appropriate to speak to the argument than the character of the person.

And that could just be me, and nothing to do with the wider culture.

But – and this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for – maybe it is okay to start calling people out when they are behaving badly.

Maybe it’s time to resume the practice.

For too long, too many people have been getting away with treating others as objects – not well-loved objects at that – and getting away with it because they don’t yell too loud, or in some superficial way they are, or can consider themselves in the right, or because they don’t cuss at a person.

This has never made sense to me. How is it that I, and everyone else, can clearly see the intention, but because someone doesn’t use certain words, or keeps it under a certain decibel level, that somehow it makes the behavior okay, or at least, beyond public reproach and ridicule?

Does one have to have one’s own news show in order to be justified in taking someone to task for their poor behavior towards others in public?

Shit, I hope not, or I’m going to have to hire a camera crew to follow me wherever I go.

So, in the end, I wish I had just told that stringy sack of aging protoplasm that she was behaving disgracefully, was a discredit to Western Civilization, and was giving the whole of humanity a bad name. Do I think she would have listened and taken it to heart?

Hell no.

But everybody else would have seen it. And maybe the next time they were in a similar situation, maybe it would be just a little easier for them to step in and speak up. Maybe. Oh, and maybe that counter woman would have felt like there were still decent human beings left on the planet.

So, that’s my epiphany for the day.

How’s your Friday going?

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And now for a Moment of Pedantic Rage…

Posted on March 14, 2015 by tessarnold2

I was listening to the radio while sitting in traffic today and I heard a commentator on NPR engage in one of my more recent, thrombosis inducing pet peeves.

Maybe it’s the philosophy training or just that I generally think that words have specific meanings – even multiple meanings in some cases.

But it just drives me fucking nuts when some uses the word agnostic, when the context of their sentence clearly shows what they really mean is: undecided.

These two words are not interchangeable.

Agnostic means one believes that one can neither know, nor not know – to any degree of certainty – the answer to a particular question or proposition.

Undecided means one has just not made up one’s mind at the present moment. And that could be because of a lack of information, or a fear of being wrong, or whatever. Doesn’t matter.

Undecided indicates that one is still weighing the proposition in question, perhaps suspending judgment until new information comes to light.

Agnostic indicates that one has weighed all of the relevant information, and one has decided that the proposition in question can neither be known, nor conclusively not known.

I hope that has cleared the matter up a little.

Now I’m going to go lie down until the vein in my forehead returns to its usual dimensions.

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Time pt 1… and inside look

Posted on February 21, 2015 by tessarnold2

So, for those of you who still enjoy sausages after seeing what goes into them, I thought I’d share what brought my last post bubbling up into the light of day.

It was a couple of weeks ago; three or four at most.

On Friday I got the news that a friend of mine, one I’ve known for twenty years, died.

On the Saturday of that same weekend, I found out that my grandfather had a mini-stroke and had to have surgery. He’s 84.

Other things happened, which, due to concern for other people’s privacy, I will not go into.

Nevertheless it was a royal, flaming, screaming bitch of a weekend.

And pretty much the strictures of the world in which we lived expected me to go on, to continue to perform as of nothing had happened.

As you might have guessed, that didn’t sit too well with me.

And, as opposed to just dumping my shit on you – which is not the purpose of this blog – I took some time to ruminate on my situation and see if I could dig out any larger, perhaps universal truths.

Time pt 1 is what I came up with…

…Well it’s part of it anyways.

Thanks for listening.

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Time pt 1… Continued

Posted on February 21, 2015 by tessarnold2

So, I was talking about how it seems we have designed a world that does not give us the time required to be human beings.

Thought I’d elaborate on that for a minute…

…This will not be exhaustive.

The first thing you need to be aware of is the fact that I don’t think there is one, absolute anything. That is to say, all the talk you have ever heard about optimal states or perfection – all that jazz – yeah, I think it’s bullshit.

I do not believe in the commonly held concept of perfection. You dig?

There is no paragon example, of anything.

If I am correct in my thinking here, it follows that there can not be any one, definitive way of doing things. (As there is no one definitive type of existing, there can not be one, definitive manner in which to exist.)

And yet, we have fashioned a modern world that assumes – as a fundamental principle – that there is in fact one, definitive, dare I say, perfect way of doing things; of organizing our lives, of dealing with our emotions, of having relationships, and of living and growing as a human being.

(Now, I accept that all humans share some commonalities. It only seems reasonable since we all seem to have similar wiring. But there are noticeable differences in any two human beings, and that means that – inherently – there must be a significant range of variance in how to be a human being.)

So, now I want you to take a moment and think about the world in which you live.

Back?

Good.

It’s possible that you are one of the lucky individuals who has the freedom of time, due to the way you make your living, or your age, or your particular state of grace – I have no idea really. You might be one of those people. If you are, take a second to be grateful, and then realize that most if us are not fortunate enough to live in that manner.

There are some common time strictures that we all must endure in order to live with each other inside a society. Most of us recognize those parameters and are fine with them.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about is the fact that the vast majority of us live to someone else’s schedule. It’s entirely possible that those people do the same higher up the chain, and so on – up to a point. We have classes to go to and clocks to punch. We have things we have to do and deadlines we have to meet.

This, in an of itself is not abhorrent to the human condition. But like anything, let it run off the goddamn end of the earth and it becomes a problem.

I don’t think I need to tell you, but I will, that in our culture, if a little’s good, a whole lot must be better, right?

As it turns out, not so much.

Let’s partake in another exercise, to illustrate the point:

take a moment to recall any time in the last, oh let’s be generous and say, six months where you have needed time. I don’t mean time to get the laundry done, or finish the dishes. I mean time you needed to be human; to rest, to grieve, to cuddle, to figure something out, or to just sit in the fucking sun and breathe an unhurried breath.

I’ll bet all the money in my pocket right now that you can remember at least one. Some of you – quite like me – will have more than one instance, and even now you’re trying to rate which was the most important and poignant.

Now, I know the human brain is wired in such a way as to be able to shove things into the background, to be dealt with later. But that comes from a place of having to be able to deal with immediate and unexpected survival situations.

Somehow I don’t think a work deadline, or class, or take-your-fucking-pick should count as an immediate and unexpected survival situation. Do you? When did some objectively trivial ephemera of our daily routines attain the same status as a mugging, or being chased across the Savannah by a fucking hungry leopard?

(File this under: Just because a thing is possible, doesn’t mean it should be the norm.  I mean, we can go to the moon. You’ll notice we don’t make it a daily priority.)

So why is it we have created a culture that makes time for everything else – all these human made constructs – but doesn’t make the experience and process of being human a priority?

Is profit and regularity so important that we sacrifice our piece of mind, our well-being, our very humanity to them?

(I never thought so, but that also explains why I’m not presently rich. Although, I did manage to become dependable, and I have no goddamn idea how that happened.)

And I don’t think I’m imagining this particular state of affairs either. I think most of us working stiffs – and that would be the vast majority of us – are stuck in this culture of “everything else comes before being human”. “Get the job done.” “Get over it.” “The world doesn’t stop turning…” It’s like some kind of sick machismo con game that we all seem to have bought into. We used to say “manly”, but that’s sexist, now we just call it “being an adult”.

If that’s the case, I think we have been listening to the wrong people when it comes to deciding what it means to be an adult.

So, there are some thoughts on that subject.

I told you it wouldn’t be exhaustive…

…Or maybe I’m just exhausted.

Either way, there are plenty of other examples out there to be found.

As Bruce Lee said, “Research your own experience.”

So go ahead and look.

And tell me that I’m wrong.

I’d like to be…

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Time, pt 1

Posted on February 12, 2015 by tessarnold2

So, it is my general feeling that we have designed a modern life that does not allow us the time to actually be human. I’ll expand on this some other time. Right now, sleep is only slightly more important.
Good night internets

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State of the Union 2015…

Posted on January 21, 2015 by tessarnold2

…A quick, encapsulated review of the President’s Speech:

Not a lot of, ‘Go Tell it on the Mountain’ moments, but a good few, ‘I Wish a Mother-fucker Would’ moments…

…And that’s pretty much just as good.

What did you think?

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Bitter: Party of One…

Posted on December 30, 2014 by tessarnold2

My original idea for this post was going to be a sort of year end list of things that are pissing me off. (I do so love year end lists). But the first thing on my list took a little more space than a mere component should. So, to manage the imbalance, this idea gets its own post, and I’ll save the year end list for a post soon to come.

BTW, before you read on I’d like to point out that writing is, for me at least, supposed to be cathartic. So, this little burst of anger is something I do to help in the letting go. Please read it in that spirit…

…

 

I would like to say a sincere and deeply felt Fuck You to every authority figure who ever gave me shit without earning the right to do so.

(Okay, I understand this requires some explanation).

Too often in my life – in my youth especially – I have been subjected to some shmuck who had the power to give me a hard time, and that’s all they fucking did.

Here’s the thing, I can be a slacker, but even in my slacking I tend to get more done, and to a higher standard, than most people. I don’t think I’m some kind of genius, but I’m a damn sight better than average in anything I put my mind to. And I have put my mind to a lot in my short time on this planet…

…And I have run into more than my share of asshats in authority who have taken it upon themselves to dress me down about some perceived failing or the other, but have never done the work to help me get better in any way. None whatsoever. Too many mother fuckers fine with tearing down, but unwilling to do any building up.

I have actually had people only tell me how “talented” they thought I was while in the process of telling me how “disappointed” they were in me. Because, for some sadistic reason, the whole ordeal needed to be more melodramatic than just a simple failing.

“Hey, you’re smart/ talented/ a nice guy/ whatever. And that’s why it’s so much worse that you made this choice/ mistake.”

Anyone else see the problem with this type of statement?

Or did you just have a cold chill run down your spine because you, yourself have foisted this un-reasoning abuse on someone and had never thought about, it in this way, until now?

Here’s the thing: the power conferred by authority also comes with responsibility. Too many people forget that. The power to compel is intrinsically linked with the responsibility to use that power as wisely as one is able, and is part and parcel of why anyone should be granted authority in the first place – that they can use that power wisely.

(as an aside, when I have pointed this out to people – and their failing in the instance, on a one on one basis, they have, almost invariably, fallen back on the excuse of, “Well, no one is perfect.” Oh really? Then why did that not occur to you when you were busy giving someone else shit? – Fundamental Attribution Error, that’s why. But heaven forefend people actually try to understand how their brains can fuck with them and take steps to correct it.)

But I digress.

(Also, by way of digression, I took a couple hours away from the writing of this, because, you know, life. I thought I would have cooled off some, but in rereading the post so far I notice no significant cooling. And so we steam ahead…)

This particular thoughtless phenomenon has bothered me since I learned how to be bothered. It ranks right up there with betrayal and being stood up for a date. Thankfully, now that I’m older, and I know myself a little better, I can look at anyone who tries to offload that type of arrogant stupidity on me and tell them exactly where they can stick it. Hell, I’m old enough now I could draw them a diagram, in a few different languages. Failing that, there’s the tried and true single-finger sign language. People usually comprehend that.

So, why did it keep me up, for any length of time?

Because my memory is a prick, that’s why.

It was one of those – and I still can’t trace the origin or progression – thought processes that shot me right back into a younger version of myself and let me relive a few choice moments that made me near homicidally angry whilst I was laying down for a long winter’s nap. Just my brain’s way of saying, “Hey, you’re not busy. Let’s bring up some ancient shit you thought you dealt with, but only really just happened to forget.”

And, if I wanted to be even vaguely functional today, I could not stay up and process all that bullshit last night. So, I’ve been processing today. Not any easier, but at least I’m not trying to do it as a sleep deprived, nearly psychotic, constantly yawning wreck. Also, it means I’m not a complete asshole to the general world today. So, that’s a good thing.

It’s funny. I’ve never had a mentor. I never had anyone with the time or patience or what ever it is one needs, to take me under a wing and show me the ropes to anything. But I’ve had plenty of scum-fuck sons-of-bitches tell me how disappointed they are that a person of my talent/ intelligence/ what-the-fuck-ever is somehow fucking things up royally.

And somehow, when I process this and get legitimately angry, I seem to be told – over and over by people who I sincerely hope have the best of intentions – that I shouldn’t hold onto things; I shouldn’t be bitter.

Why. The. Fuck. Not?

Why not be bitter when you feel bitter?

Why not be angry when you feel angry?

Why not have an honest and thorough emotional experience in the moment?

Most likely because it inconveniences someone else. And you know what?…

…Fuck Them Too.

You see, I’m not the Buddha or Christ or any saint of any variety. I’m just a man trying to figure out how to do this whole, “being human” thing. (And without much in the way of help, thank you very much.) I’m a person and I have emotions. They’re human emotions. They didn’t drift out of some membrane from a different reality and land on me like radioactive pixie dust. These things I feel, I feel them for a reason. And maybe if someone had told me it was okay to feel them a long fucking time ago, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have random shit jump out of my subconscious and keep me awake at night now. Maybe. You never know.

There is no place to go from this but “on”.

So I’ll go on.

But you know what?

I do feel a little bit better.

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