Eccentric Flower:201103/This Is Important

I'll post later today about dangerous topics, but it occurs to me that it's not going to be a happy positive entry, and also, I posted something on Twitter a few minutes ago which I feel needs some comment and elaboration.

The problem with days like this is that all I have to do is sit and think, and really, you don't want to be around me when I think.

Now, I want you to all sit up and pay attention, OK? This is not rhetoric. This is an important clarification, and for all I know, it may affect whether you continue to read these pages, or join the vast crowd that have already given up on reading them.

All of my personal fantasies, whether they are G- or R-rated, dirty or clean, or anywhere in between, involve one of two scenarios:

1. I am in charge of a structure which has enough sneaky power to quietly go about the slow business of shaping the world to suit itself - in other words, I know that I can change the world to something I think is better, given enough time; implementation ability is not in question;

2. I am placed into a situation of utter mindlessness, completely under someone's control, in a mental state where I don't have to think or make decisions of my own.

The utter contrast of these two scenarios - secret puppetmaster vs thrall - may confuse some of you. It won't if you think about it hard enough. What it means is that the world, as it stands in reality now, is so appalling that I see only two choices of fantasy: Either I can remold the world into something better, or I can abdicate all responsibility to think about it - or anything else - at all.

You will notice that there is no third path in my fantasy realm that involves any degree of living with the world as it is. Why? Because that's what I have to do every single day in my non-fantasy realm. And frankly, I don't care for it very much. I do it only because I have to.

My good moods come in periods of triumph or escapism - times when I have temporarily gotten the upper hand on this sad, horrible world, or times when I have managed to temporarily leave it for a while. I don't post about the former because I assume that to write about my minor glories will diminish them.* Only my wife ever hears about my minor daily triumphs. And I don't post about the latter because I'm off doing those things and not posting in my journal. What you get here is the days when things are going about as crappily as usual and I don't have enough work to distract my brain from thinking about the world and the state of reality and the people in it. Whenever I do that, it always goes badly, and then I write a journal entry to try to get rid of it.

I'm getting really tired of the allegations that I am a huge crab all the time. (If you find that sentence hilarious after the preceding paragraph, then SIT UP AND PAY ATTENTION AND GO BACK AND READ IT AGAIN, because you're doing it wrong.) People who see my Twitter feed know that I post a generous amount of daily frivolity and distractions there. (This is why I actually hope that some of the new friends I've made through Twitter don't wander over here.) People who encounter me in person - all too rarely - know that I don't walk around under a storm cloud all the time. But the thing is, for me "frivolity" and "distraction" have become synonymous. "Fun" is now defined as "what happens when you manage to avoid the state of the real world." And that's all there is to it.

Furthermore I am not really interested in changing because I believe this view is accurate - that is, I adhere to the philosophy of the bumper sticker which says IF YOU'RE NOT OUTRAGED, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION. My answer to "Why are you crying?" will always be "Why are you not crying?" You are not going to change this, because like the old joke, the lightbulb has to want to change, and I don't. I think I see things with great clarity.

If you are not prepared to accept that, then go away. Many of the people I loved seeing here already have. You can break my heart a little more; what's an extra drop or two in that bucket?

Of course, if you do choose, masochistically, to stay here and ride the swells, you may always maintain the release valve of telling me how and why I'm wrong - which is why I don't seriously try to stem the pigpiling that happens whenever I talk about certain subjects. Sometimes I even am wrong. I get a lot of the fine details wrong, and I'm happy to admit when I do. I don't fact-check my opinions nearly enough and I like being called on them. But in terms of larger, overall, general outlook on the world? Forget it. You're not going to sell me. If you think the world is a majority-good place with majority-good people that is, in general, moving in a positive and progressive direction, you will never convince me to think anything other than that you need to remove your rose-colored glasses, stat.

Next: More on why Americans suck.

* Writing about anything diminishes it. As soon as it's put coldly in visible text, it gets smaller. Ideas which glowed in the brain become a cheap hunk of slightly rusty tin when they are shown the light of print. On the other hand, demons which grow in the brain turn into laughably tiny imps when pinned to the specimen page. Good thing, too, or I wouldn't be able to use this space to vent frustration as I do.