I have real people who I can talk to. People with who I can share my heart and
soul, people who know and trust me, who make me feel like we share essential
humanity. And I am infinitely grateful for that. But no man is an island, the
aging and physically unimposing still more so. This simple, basic human
contact, this *caring*, has made me despair far less than I would have without
it. Maybe that's enough to compensate for the fact that almost all of my
current "communities" are about as welcoming as a slaughterhouse to a chicken.
That most of the world, as I noted in my last post, has turned into an Emo
Philips joke about religion. But it doesn't ease the pain of those I've lost,
and those with whom my relationship has been permanently and irrevocably
tainted.
"I'd like to care, but I've been priced out of the market."
I'm tired of explaining. Tired of being put on the defensive, constantly
forced to justify my every opinion however subjective the subject. Tired of
being treated like a dangerous lunatic and a ticking bomb by people who have
known me for decades, even for my entire life. Tired of having my carefully
forumulated and diplomatically phrased concerns dismissed as so much petty
whinging and hateful raving. Tired of the childish games from people my age
and older, games that are now so much more destructive than when we were
toddlers. Tired of being lectured and commanded and shrieked at by moral
midgets I wouldn't trust to clean a toilet, let alone preach to me about right
and wrong. And really fucking tired of all these people who thirty years ago
were chanting NO BLOOD FOR OIL, who after 9/11 couldn't possibly scream any
louder about those fuckin' Republicans, but now they live and die by the Holy
Creed of Bush: You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists. No bad
tactics, only bad targets. Everything's a binary for them, except the constant
and unending stream of exceptions that are just too complex and nuanced for my
primitive binary caveman mind to comprehend.
Beyond the virtue of self-control, the only reason to hold my tongue with my
remaining family is to avoid ruining the precious little I have left. It could
be worse, could be the living death of those who implicitly or explicitly
ghosted me, who referred to me in vile terms, who showed no apparent concern
or desire to contact me during my period of grief, choosing instead to send
armed agents of the state to my door who thankfully were far more sane than
the one who summoned them. So there you are, SDF; my confession that I'm one
of Those Bad People, that I'm stupid and evil, you may now all gasp and boo
and throw rotten produce at the designated two minute Hitler as I set ablaze
the few rickety boards I'd put down that haven't even formed a single step let
alone a bridge. Fun times. If only we'd known in the eighties that someday
we'd yearn for the simplicity and containment of the bulletin board flame
wars.
"Got no need to beat you. Just want to go my way."
