|
My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
|
1:06 p.m. - 2012-05-23
I've been thinking about this for several weeks now. Every few days there'd be another little nudge toward clarifying it for me. A book review, a comment on a news story, a comeback on FB. Mick and I got into a go-round about it the other night. Anthony Bourdain's been a huge help. What I've realized is how thoroughly sick I am of the tyranny of mean people. There's no virtue in being cynical, sour, sarcastic and snarky. There's no moral high ground in negativity. The cultists of neg would have us think that being a cranky spiteful contrarian, a nitpicker, an eye-rolling smirker is to be a righteous one. Yeah? Not even close. Know why? Because it's easy to be an asshole. It's just that simple. To snipe and deliberately look for problems, to assume the worst, to mock, to goad and loathe and disparage, it's the refuge of the lazy and the cowardly. Oh, the cowards like to paint themselves as 'honest' and 'courageous'. They tell it like it is, baby. They don't let kindness or decency get in the way of speaking the truth. I beg to differ with the chickenshit naysayers. You know what takes real chops? Love. Love is the most dangerous game, my mean mouthed friends. It takes all kinds of mad courage to love someone or something. To love is to risk it all. It's pushing all your chips into the pot and playing what you've got in your hand. So while you snarks are safely on the sidelines hiding behind your comfortable armor of world weariness, stroking your egos over your refusal to engage in anything except the cheapest of digs, the easiest of the potshots and calling yourselves the cool ones and the smart ones, the real heroes have stepped out onto the field and are doing what you won't. They're in. All or nothing. Faith. Belief. Happiness. These are not just nicely padded playgrounds for the unenlightened na�fs as you claim they are. I'll use myself as an example. I'm no stoopnagel. I've been around and I've seen plenty. My life has been no cakewalk of kindness, safety, and approval. Starvation, beatings, deprivation, homelessness, cruelty, prejudice, rejection, injustice, abandonment...I was forced to partake of that buffet from Hell since ever. And no one who's had a hand clamped over her mouth and a dick shoved up her ass at age 7 can ever be called naive. So don't. Don't ever go there with me. Do not dare to call me a rube or a dimwit because I love. Because I have faith. Because I believe in the power of good. I have looked into the face of evil and refuse to join the wallow in the filth. I dare every single day. I dare to believe in my country, in true love, in the redemptive power of happy endings, and that kindness is more powerful than a nuke. I believe in these and more. And you know what? I am nobody's schmuck. It's Presidential election silly season and already the hate and suspicion and bitterness are piling up. The catcalling and the swift-boating. The distractions from our real needs by the clever use of wedge issues which mean little to our everyday lives but do so, so well to harden our faces and turn us against one another. Despicable playing on people's last remaining areas of choice. We can't fix our broken economy, or reinstate the Constitution, we can't bring down the corporate ownership of Congress, we can't seem to wrest back our rights and dignity from an amok TSA and jackbooted police with carte blanche to murder, but boy howdy we sure can do something about those homos and the sluts who want abortions. Right? We can't really do anything to clean up the water or rebuild New Orleans or get the sludge out of the Gulf. We can't bring our soldiers home from Afghanistan. But we can prevent a girl from going to her prom in a tuxedo. We can go gaga over the size of J-Lo's ass and Lindsay Lohan's drug use. We can buy into the dumbass idea that seeking out the flaws is inherently superior to enjoying something for what it is. We can insist on perfection and reject the honest effort to try anyway. Bullshit. I call bullshit. Tell me, naysayers and cool kids, whatcha got going on that dopes like me are missing? Are you happier in your cynicism? Are you fixing anything with your snark? Are you making anything except bad feeling and more divisions? Truly. Do you sleep easier at night when you piss on someone else's parade? How has your own teeny ugly life improved after you've done dirty to someone? Did you get a raise? Did you go on a cruise? It's dead easy to tear things down. The effort required to build anew is exhausting. All you need is one finger on the trigger of an obnoxious air-horn to make a big noise, but to really play you have to invest your whole self. You have to be willing to lose. You must expend the energy toward an unknown conclusion with no guarantee of profit or satisfying return. Who's really the brave one? The critic or the creator? Who's putting their energy and heart out there? I think you know. So this is what I've been thinking about the last few weeks. And this song, go ahead and call it trite, be your selfish loser self and mock, this is what I believe and how I live.
|
