Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Once again Stephanie at Be Kind Rewrite has invoked another short piece of fiction from me with her weekly prompts, Inspiration Monday V.

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Don’t Believe Everything You Think

I’m a real people person. I think everybody is entitled to their way of life, no matter what. When people do bad things, it’s not their fault and it’s not fair to judge them. Who says they’re bad anyway? It’s our birthright as humans to act in any way we wish. Who are we to tell people how to behave? Sheesh!

Why should people have to follow some dumb law they didn’t make? We don’t need laws, we need complete freedom to do as we please, it’s a free country! And any religion has the right to practice any level of it they want, in any venue—it’s their religion and we must respect that.

Everybody deep down has a good heart. When we think people are mean or hypocritical or phony, that’s just their nature. It’s wrong to have expectations of people! We should strive to be accepting of every single person or group, and help them express themselves in any way we can.

The kids that killed that dog and hung it from a flagpole in town last year are so misunderstood, they were just having a little fun! And the hoarder in Phoenix who had 200 starving dogs in her house, each to his own! Jesus, people, have some compassion!

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Existential Nausea

Rants

Most left unsaid. I’m usually disconsolate, but try to squeegee off deathwish before attempting dialogue—I am not anonymous and surly soliloquies are best spoken to myself. I never contemplated the downfall of western civilization so much until Facebook. Sharia law is evil.

Politics and Religion

I do not believe in God, but neither in atheist websites. Agreement is no good reason to suffer feral presentation. I’m liberal but flinch at the left, I’m conservative but recoil at the right. Read between the lies. Sick to death of arrogant manifestos and evangelical devotion to ideals that don’t work. They want approval, they get the opposite—I’m fully alienated. I still subscribe to several to keep the hate alive. Even longhaired town hippies disappoint in their conformity as they hiss “fascists!” rendering further discussion futile. (Criticism of chained dogs or piles of garbage in my neighborhood is forbidden.)

Blogging

Struggling to co-exist in same body with my rants without suppressing soul. I have strict policy against tracking unsharpened mud across comments sections. Bloggers who leave same generic message for all: “great post!!!!!” when finally overwhelmed with indifference, spring into action by unclicking “notify of follow-up comments.” If I become comatose, do not insufflate. Give me substance-syringe or pull plug. I thought blogging was about writing. If you don’t think your comment is worthy enough to check back on, use Facebook. If I spend 15 minutes writing a thoughtful comment and you don’t have the courtesy to respond at all, then disable your goddamn comments so the rest of us don’t waste our time.

Lists

Guilty of refusal to fatigue you with laborious lists (see Facebook). My prototype for lists would include such questions as, have you ever been in a torrid love triangle? Did you break someone’s heart? Does the sound of your partner’s breathing ever make you want to put a plastic bag over their head? Do you waste your time because you think you have to please people? Is your enthusiasm embellished? And they would be essay questions.

Tag Surfer

Kafkaesque. I seek enlightenment from the undeceived, the skeptic’s sweet talk, midlife confessions and observations on personal unrest. I avoid pregnancy chronicles, recipes (I’m safe around stoves), and new-age bloviation. Request the pleasure of your ennui-defying feats of sensuous sentences. Curses courted, regrets revealed, jealousies acknowledged. Passion without persecution, but rage required for honor killings, animal abuse, and blood of innocents. Questions: why why why. Discuss.

Helping Others

Not for love. Not for money. Not for fellowship or familiarity or fraternization. But Karma is a debit not credit Kard—penalty for exceeding withdrawals will drain account. My random acts are not of kindness as defined in the dictionary, but of hope receiver will be less angry. We are all obligated to contribute to the society which contains our sorry carcasses. To leave it better than we found it. I do it to live with myself, or there will be no life in me.

I’m No Good

I want to be good.  Domesticated.  Housebroken.

Young misfit, age 4

I turned fifty-something this week and a full personality makeover looks unlikely. There is nothing my weary psyche would welcome more than to embrace peace, love, understanding and its accompanying arrogance. I want to be detached. I want to meditate and travel and make enough money to afford hummus.  My journey has not been serene and never will be. If only I could have found some way in my life to cash in on my alienation, I’d feel successful and thus more comfortable with it.

Where I live, the expression about “having hatred in your soul,” is a popular put-down for anyone whose opinion is different from yours.  It’s an all-purpose cheap shot that covers just about any subject. I can’t seem to spit the words out even when I really want to insult someone, because it’s just too lame, and how do I know I wouldn’t respect that person? It’s a fine line.

I know people who have sold their soul to serenity by trading it for their personality (like what happens to some people in AA).  I would gladly give up the personality I came with, which is apparently defective, to be swathed in the protective cocoon of new-age coolness.  An acquaintance who teaches school recently said to me that kids who get bullied in school send out signals that make other kids bully them. If you’re like me and bullying enrages you…well who wouldn’t be envious of this self-protective viewpoint? Isn’t that what we all strive for? To dilute our anger? That’s pretty impressive to not even have hatred in your soul for bullies! But while you’re brandishing your superiority, I’m feeling intimidated and no longer know what to say. (I sure have a lot to say about it now though, after thinking about it.)

Yes, there are ideas, actions and people in this world I hate. But for a person with hatred in her soul, I get a lot done.  Good things, that help people and animals and my community and my little ragtag family of refugees.  Maybe my hatred of one thing evolves from a compassion for another. I don’t know but I’m facing life head-on every day and keeping it all afloat for those who depend upon me.

I Did it For the Laughs

I married two men who weren’t really suited for me because they could send me into fits of hysterics with a few words. I think back on them with affection because I could never be truly mad at someone who made me laugh that hard. Though the marriages didn’t survive, the friendships did, or would have if subsequent wives hadn’t been so bitchy. Nobody in the world could make me laugh like my second husband—but he is forbidden to have any contact with me. How ’bout that—laughter generating that kind of  jealousy because getting someone’s jokes can be more intimate than sex itself, yes?

I couldn’t live with a sourpuss for the fattest of checkbooks. No amount of comfort or luxury could take the place of shrieks of laughter—at least I’m assuming this since I’ve never had actual comfort or luxury for comparison. Boys without a sense of humor didn’t last long with me. They could be dirty, impoverished, have issues, be antisocial, have substance abuse problems—didn’t matter as long as they were funny. I made a lot of bad choices for the sake of yucks.

Wry, witty, and sarcastic are my favorite types, but lower forms are absolutely welcome. I like to have a laugh at someone else’s expense (it’s human nature) but not as much as I like to make fun of myself. I’m suspicious of people who do not appear to have a sense of humor.  Nobody in this world should take themselves so seriously that they can’t laugh at themselves. Laughter is the birthright of all human beings, and we are doomed without it—it’s cathartic, empowering, liberating. Laughter should be a universal language, and if I ruled the world, it would be mandatory, damnit.

The old saying about laughter being the best medicine has been tested by many new scientific appliances and the benefits well-documented. Laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces stress, increases circulation, triggers release of painkilling endorphins, and boosts immune function by raising levels of infection-fighting antibodies. And you don’t have to wait for results, they are immediate.

Think back to the worst times of your life. If you’re like me, you still had laughs, bitter and morbid though they might have been. The laughs at these times are often just in our own heads—maybe, like me, you don’t want to inflict your gallows humor on others—but it’s all OK. My sense of all that is weird and funny in our world beckons me to indulge it at the most awkward times. Cynicism and pessimism are good targets for some depressive humor. Life doesn’t stop being funny because bad things happen—that’s when we need humor the most.

Laughter is defiance, and we may as well make the best of this dark world, because as Woody Allen said, “life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering—and it’s all over much too soon.”

A Good Quote for Your Arsenal

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What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.

Hecato of Rhodes, Greek philosopher

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Not much is known of Hecato’s life, and little remains of his writings. But this quote lives on and speaks volumes to me. It has stuck with me over the years because I think it is some of the most useful and practical advice to come out of two thousands years of philosophy. It somehow gives me solace to know that people were discussing this depressing but important concept thousands of years ago. I hope they still are. Well I am, right? And I hope you’ll join me.

I think this quote gives power to the small steps we often have to take. When looking back on the darkest times of my life, it is only me that could have pulled me out. The times when I’ve most needed help are also the times when I am at my depressing worst. I become devoid of personality and the only thing sparkly about me is the glint off the daggers I’m throwing. There are times I do not like myself—my bad habits or my opinions or my limitations. Sometimes people can reach an arm into the abyss and try to grab my hand but I drive them away with a slap of surliness. Sometimes others have caused me pain, sometimes I have caused the pain to myself. But in the end it comes down to how soon I am willing to release it, grow from it, and give myself some credit for taking a baby step in being a friend to myself, because if we can’t be friends with ourselves, then who will?

Knowing that I am a work in progress at all times helps sustain me and keeps me moving forward. Or least moving. Sometimes it’s all one can do.