High wire

Thursday 10/30/25

Another result of "living" life behind screens is that people are more cowardly than ever. Most are too frightened to be themselves. What ought to be the slightest things--like showing another person how one honestly feels--are now too much of a risk to take on. A result is that a person who is not a coward, and who is aware of what that other person is doing and why, will simply have no respect or regard for them, and a kind of disgust over how small and weak and cowardly they are.

If someone follows me on Instagram, the same thing will happen every time. They are scared of me, because we are not on the same level. They do not see me as "achievable"--in terms of my mind--as we've discussed the term in these pages. They'll be blown away by, say, something they read. The quality of the work. But because of that, and because of their cowardice, they won't hit the like button for that post.

What they'll instead do is find something that has less to do with me and my abilities and mind and achievements, and hit the like button for that, even if they don't themselves like it or have ever heard of it. This is cowardice. And think of the degree of that cowardice. Giving any indication of what they think--because what this other thing is is obvious--to that other person--me--is to much of a risk. What they see as too much vulnerability.

You end up with a world where people can only express things they don't actually believe or feel, because there are no stakes. That's what they require--the absence of stakes, of risk, of rejection, setback, being exposed, called out. People are fraudulent. They are not going to leave the ground where safety abounds--and the fragile ego is protected--for what they regard as the high wire overhead.

Someone will see the dreadful piece of writing by the wannabe writer--who doesn't even want to be a writer enough to work at it ever, to say nothing of the complete absence of talent--and they can effuse about that person, the godawful shit they've posted. Because they're not saying the truth. These words of praise are really no more than pleasantries. How are you? Good, and you?

But if someone reads what they think is the best writing they've ever seen, which is unlike anything else, they almost certainly won't be able to give any indication of that--even so much as a "like," which requires no words of their own, and no words at all, actually--to the person who created that work. And we're not talking face to face either. That's how cowardly people are.

Should I respect a person like that? How could I? With who I am and all I do and what I face every day? Can you imagine me being too scared, too insecure, to unsure of myself, to act as I think and feel? Ever? It's inconceivable.

But, if you are this way, your chances of finding anyone else who is remotely this way, especially now, in this world, are basically nil. If such a person or people exist, the odds of paths ever crossing are impossibly low. So what then? It's hard to willingly become worse. It is impossible for me. It is impossible for me not to become more today than I was yesterday. That's who I am.

I hate machinations. The plotting of perception. Just be genuine.

As a rule with few, if any, exceptions, people who want me to like them will do the opposite of what would cause me to like them. They lead with that cowardice, trying to play it safe. They end up doing things that would be quite offensive, if I didn't know why they were doing those things, which simply end up disgusting me instead.

An example along the lines of what I said above: I can go on Instagram and post a photo of a cover of some obscure book from the 1800s that someone has never heard of. Next to that post may be another containing some words I wrote. Like something from "You're Probably Just Tired." It's very easy to know the quality of those words. Subjectivity isn't involved. It's plain. Or, a post with a link to some piece in what ever "famous" venue, not that that means anything. We know why almost everything by everyone else is published.

A person seeing those two posts, will hit the like button on the book they've never heard of, rather than the writing by me. Because the latter is a matter of direct credit. Praise, in their mind. It's direct to me. They feel vulnerable, lower, at risk. And they're too scared, so this is how they play it.

Now, how do you think I feel when I see something like this? I loathe that person. I have more respect for a bug. A lot more, actually. I don't say anything. Why would I? I may carry on in other regards with them, if that's necessary. But they sicken me.

This is how people miss out on things they both want and that would be good for them. And why they have no real friends, no real connections, no one who truly respects them or even knows who they really are. They help with the blurring, the obstruction to that truth. Depression is assured.

And, rather than try to do something about that, means are adopted to obscure the depression. Because to do something about it--truly do something about it, and not pay it some lip service--requires courage, that thing the person doesn't have, in large part because this is how they live. And the longer you live this way, the harder it becomes not to. It ends up being who you are.