Oh Crap!

It's blog action day and all I did was talk about myself.

I'm supposed to write something about poverty. I can't even focus on it because when I think about how connected we all are and how, when thinking that, we should all be going to bed hungry, I feel all overwhelmed. Don't believe me? Where were your clothes made? Who picked the fruit and vegetables you eat? Where did the wood that made the furniture you sit, eat, work, and sleep come from?

Poverty touches us all, if we know how to look around and see it. I'm not saying this because I think we should all feel guilty. I don't think guilt is a very healthy motivator. I say it to make you more aware. To make myself more aware. Opening my eyes to the interconnectedness of us all helps me not get lost in my own head. It also keeps me honest. We are all hypocrites, if we look closely enough.

I do not have the funds right now to donate to the cause that will alleviate my guilt for the day. I know, I said not to feel guilty, but the reaction is like breathing for me. So I write this meaningless jumble of words, hoping to open one other person's eyes. Or at least try to.

I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

It occurs to me I have become a misanthrope of sorts.

As I've mentioned before, I am not a loner (though I once thought so until I read this book and realized, "hey! that's not me!"), but an introvert. As an introvert and a quasi-ambidextrous (and therefore dual-brained) person, I take twice as long to process nonsense and crap before I figure out that it is nonsense and crap and therefore not worth my ire. This is very true, for example, of most of what I encounter on the Internet. Seriously folks, if I took every comment I either agreed with or didn't that is posted to every blog I read (talking mainly about The Very Serious Ones here) and responded emotionally to them, I would go batshit crazy in about a week. I just forced myself - forced myself, I tell you - to stop even visiting a certain blog because I had become embroiled in the most inane comment discussion about a certain television show. Don't get me wrong: I love discussing TV I love, or hate, or hate to love, or something like that. What was inane about the whole thing was that the person with whom I was having said discussion and I basically agreed about everything, but were just tied up in the logistics of our own perceptual filters.

I love perceptual filters. They influence everything we see, do , hear, watch. They color every conversation and interaction. And most people aren't even aware of their own and the role they play. Most people don't even realize they possibly - for example - view every mixed-race couple in mainstream media as a relationship of abuse and power, and so therefore the creator of a show which features such a couple is obviously a racist fetishist, because that's what she experienced in her own home. No, this is her opinion, and she is an educated and intelligent woman, ergo she is right and everyone else can just suck her left one.

People like that exhaust me and the Internet is full of them. Every article, popular blog, and flickr photo has someone who has apparently no other venue by which to voice his or her opinion and that opinion must be voiced.

Why? I have opinions every damn second of every day and keep them to myself and for good reason: The majority of them aren't worth the air I would use to speak. Added to that, aside from my obvious slacker-like tendencies today because (see blog title), who the fuck has the time to get that involved?

As I mentioned in a recent post, I have seriously cut down on my time spent in a certain TV-show-based fan forum. First it was all fun and games, but then I was ready to put someone's eye out. I suddenly felt weighed down by the sheer frustration of, oh, I don't know, the pointlessness of it all? Was discussing one particular character trait with someone I felt wasn't understanding the character's motivations changing my opinion of the character at all, and really who gives a fuck? Because when you boil it down, it's a TV show. And the characters? They aren't real. I like them. I enjoy looking at them and seeing how they grow or develop. But other people's opinions of them are no more real than the characters themselves. They are just blips on a screen that I wasted too much time reading. And those opinions I was sharing? As worthless as everyone else's.

Help me, online diary (that I post to in a public forum because in this mixed-up crazy 21st Century world, I have become as exhibitionist as the next assclown with a blog), help me let go of all these other opinions and their (seeming) importance so that I can continue to enjoy my Internet time and not feel I have to go find out what that jerk Anonymous is saying now!

Colleen Mondor Says exactly What the Goddessdster is Thinking

I am so glad I don't have to put the energy into writing this, as she did it for me.

The Goddessdster Expresses a Need

Sometimes I'm not too sure what I'm doing here. By here, I don't mean this blog. I know exactly why I'm typing these words. But here, in the sense that I have no idea what the fucking point is.

Sometimes it makes perfect sense.

Sometimes I feel the pointlessness of it all as an exercise in creating meaning out of nothing. If I can say: I tried to learn as much as I could about the world and treated people decently, then I feel I've lived a good life. I truly do believe that smiling at one person each day is reason enough for a seemingly meaningless existence. Maybe my entire purpose is to be little more than a supporting character for the human race. That's not a knock. I think supporting characters sometimes have the most important roles. They provide the feedback, the reaction, the comic relief, so the main character can develop into a fully three-dimensional being.

Who is the main character? I guess if I were one of those unapologetic Jesus freaks (and that is not an insult, but in many ways an expression of envy - I wish I could believe so freely and unapologetically in something not empirically visible), I would say God is the main character of the Universe and we are all supporting characters. In many ways, I believe that to be true. And yet, as it applies to my small life, I think my supporting character role is reserved for he or she who needs me most. I live my life needing to be needed or I just don't understand what good I am.

How pathetic is that? Except I also believe there is no pathos in freely expressing how one feels.

Which brings me back to my opening statement. Why a blog, when I spent so long mocking others for doing exactly this? Am I finally giving in admitting my own hypocrisy? Probably, but I do that a lot. I am here for what I believe is the same reason you are here and so many others. Because if I don't figure out a way to express how I feel, I think I'll just go crazy.

Welcome to my world.