Eccentric Flower:201006/Back Away

With the exception of the next entry, which I have now realized I have to get out of my system because it's been eating my brain for nearly twenty-four hours and I have work to do goddamn it, this journal may be about to go even more quiet than it has been for a while. I make no promises; I've done that before and they always get broken. I could say "hiatus" and then find seventeen things I urgently need to post about. It's happened. But right now, my overwhelming impulse is "back away slowly so no one gets hurt."

The fundamental problem is that you're all (and I don't just mean you personally, but the entire internet collectively) pissing me off. Every day.

Oh, I'm sure some of it is dangerous instability on my part, and will likely lead very soon now to my total breakdown followed by a killing spree ... nah, I'm kidding, but it's not good for my health to get so annoyed so easily all the time.

The internet is an emotional rollercoaster for me even on good days, and right now I'm not having good days when I'm on the internet. (I have plenty of good days - the days I am offline, outside, doing something fun.) It's bad enough when strangers or enemies say something on the 'net that pisses me off, but when my friends do, it's really miserable. I can either fire back and possibly alienate them for good, or I can bite my tongue and hope that I don't explode from the strain of suppressing it.

As I've said before, I don't have a problem with people replying to something I've written in the form, "I disagree with you and here's why." What I dislike is the form "You're wrong and here's why." This may not seem like much of a distinction to you, but it's very important to me, because I am emotionally fragile and without much of a support network. I like arguments, but I'm also brittle; a bad combination, and one which has not worked out well in recent months.

Especially of late, I have begun to get the feeling that many of you comment only to tell me that I'm wrong, read with full attention only when you think it will be one of my tearing rants, and then only so you can pick out the parts where you will delight in telling me that I'm wrong. I am coming to believe that I've become a running joke, "Oh, it's been a while, guess I'll go read Eccentric Flower and see what the rant of the week is, that's always good for a laugh."

(N.B. Don't bother posting to tell me I'm wrong about this. I may very well be wrong about this. That's not the point. I'm discussing my impressions, my sensations, my emotions, not facts. It doesn't matter a dime why you're really here - we are discussing how the back of my brain feels about the matter, and that is a fact-proof situation. You know, I don't like snakes. It doesn't matter if the snake is dangerous; you can't just say to me "That snake isn't dangerous, stop being scared of the snake," and have me instantly stop being scared of the snake. I probably already know the snake isn't dangerous; my reaction is happening on a far more visceral level.)

I also admit that my opinions keep diverging more and more from the state of How Things Really Are (and thus probably appear steadily more ludicrous to you). That's not because of ignorance (nor, I hasten to add, insanity), it's because of idealism. Every day, my idea of What Things Should Be becomes further and further separated from How Things Really Are - and it's not because my goalpost is moving - it's the one at the other end that keeps receding, as the state of the world sinks ever further into horrific conditions. There's only one news publication I trust anymore, and it's not usually a very cheerful one. Some weeks it's all I can do to get through that one lump of news, let alone seek out more of it.

I realize, realistically, that What Things Should Be is not ever going to happen, and gets less likely the worse real conditions get. But that doesn't prevent me from arguing What Things Should Be, from clinging to my ideals, even though they're bleeding to death. I have nothing else. Being willing to work within the state of How Things Really Are would imply that I admitted even the smallest shred of possibility that that state could be improved, which I no longer do. I don't think the world can be fixed - definitely not by someone powerless like me, and possibly not even by the most powerful people on earth. I think all I can personally do, all any of us down here among the rabble can do, is watch it spiral down the drain and try to be reasonably nice to one another while we wait for the end.

It's at times like this I can see why the mindset of the millennialists (AKA the Rapture crowd) is so attractive to them. Of course, their problem is that they all believe they're better than everyone else and so they're calmly waiting because they are all sure they will be blessed, and all the filth will be washed away. I don't believe I'm better than anyone else, and I can't stand people who do. Fuck you, millennialists.

My choices are very limited here. Living full-time in my fantasy world is not constructive. Contact with the real world is not doing my health any favors. Telling me to get a grip is like telling me to stop being scared of the snake. Telling me the world isn't as bad as I think it is will just lead me to believe you're not paying enough attention. Telling me to seek psychological help will just make me extremely angry with you, as to me 1) that means you think I sound crazy and 2) that means you want me to "correct" or "improve" my mindset, even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Right now being depressed/angry with the state of the world is the correct attitude. Any attempts to "improve" that attitude are like deliberately setting one's compass to a false north. Unfortunately it's not a very good attitude - I understand why people try to dodge it - but that doesn't change the fact that it's the right one.

The world can be a beautiful place. There are many beautiful days in my life. But those are, inevitably, the days that I put all this out of my mind and go off to enjoy myself and the world. The word for that is "avoidance" (my primary entertainment strategy)! I could make more days like that, but I'd always have to come back to the facts. Sooner or later I have to come back to the computer and look at the world (because the computer is the lens I see most of the world through), and then the black feeling in my stomach comes right back with a venegance.

The internet is my preferred social contact. I don't do well with people in person, or over the telephone, and anyway most of you I like the best are scattered all over the planet, and so difficult to see physically. What I would like to get, what I most value from the internet, are the glimpses into your lives, and the banter and conversation and daily byplay. I like having friends I can kid around with and exchange ideas with. I like getting things recommended to me from people who have known me long enough to have some idea of my tastes, and vice versa. I like trading bad jokes. I like hearing about your kids. (I love hearing about your kids, actually. It amuses me that some of you are worried you talk about your kids too much online.)

This is important, and it's even positive: Hearing about my friends' lives is the main thing that convinces me there is any value to be had in the world at all. Y'all are the good parts - the bright spots in a black morass of slime and tarnish and filth.

The problem is I don't have a good filter for just getting that kind of stuff. If I open the door wide enough to see how you are all doing, I will also inevitably get exposed to the assholes and the nit-pickers and the pointless fights and the egoboo and the petty posturing and all the other crap that composes most of the noise in the internet's (poor) signal/noise ratio.

If you know one, let me know. Meanwhile, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to shut out some of the good stuff more often than I'd like, just to avoid the bad stuff, because it's ruining way too many of my days right now.

And the side effect of that is, I've got to stop myself from giving opinions on anything even remotely controversial whenever possible (with the exception of the next entry), because I'm just too fragile right now to deal with the consequences when I do.

I'm a little embarrassed posting this entry; even though it's a matter of deadly seriousness to me, I know it will not seem like that to you, and I hate making myself an object of ridicule yet again. Fortunately, most of you will have concluded about two paragraphs in that it's about me and what I think of the world, and so will not actually have read it. I've determined that those are the ones people don't read. If I rant about some definite issue in the real world, such as the firing of a general, people read it so they can tell me I'm wrong, but if it's just me talking about the inside of my head again, I'm pretty sure everyone has been trained to skip it by now.