Friday 11/3/23
Today will be a landmark day of creation with many works across many forms. Weeks for me usually start on Saturdays, but perhaps this should mark the start of one.
Saturday everyone was out in shorts sitting on the lawn at Christopher Columbus Park. Yesterday only I was there, doing push-ups in the cold. Today I had to light the furnace, and I'm by no means an early furnace-lighter, but we got down to thirty degrees and it's November, so I relented. The thing actually worked--for now.
For every op-ed I publish--and I publish more of them than anyone save someone employed full-time to do nothing but write op-eds--I write twenty of them. The people who have those jobs cannot touch me as a writer of said op-eds. They were given those gigs for other reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of their work. What happens is, my work at present generates fewer clicks, because it's not stupid. That which anyone could do, which has no value, which no one likes or actually appreciates, is what generates clicks, because people want to support--and the click is a the lowest form of it--what they could also do. It's comforting to them.
Then I come along to someone's inbox with the latest idea or piece, with an upbeat demeanor, always polite, always professional, and that irritates many of these people. That I don't stop. That I always create. Then I'm just ignored.
I have to force myself to be like that, because these are the worst people there are. But I notice that there are people who think I'm rich and loving life, because if I wasn't, why would I do things like get out there almost every day and run stairs? Only super happy people would do that.
I've willed myself. I don't look like I feel. There isn't anyone alive who could remain alive living a single week like this.
If I don't do it, I'll die. That's the only reason I do it. I have to force myself. There is only pain, misery, and loneliness in my life, and discrimination, and thousands of people who would actually elect to have me die if that were possible.
I was talking to someone the other day, and they said that they'll probably never have anyone who wants them dead. But I have thousands of people who want me dead, because of virtues. They weren't trying to upset me. And believe me, I know. I live it.
There is this one bipolar disaster of a person that I deal with--though they'll ignore me entirely for ten months, as they watch me sink dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of hours into work, all for nothing--who is always on the verge of a meltdown or in the middle of one.
It's a wonder they can hold down a job, but it speaks to how messed up most of these people are because so many of them are like that and they prefer to surround themselves with such people. They don't have an issue with insanity, evil, incompetence, but rather the opposite of those things. The less like them that you are, the more they will despise you. It's with everything. If they can't think of a thing to write and you write constantly, they will hate you with the totality of their being. And so forth.
I've gone out of my way to be kind to this person--not for my own benefit, but simply because that's who I am, which I think is very obvious to all at this point.. This has probably resulted in them resenting me more. I wrote them a very heartfelt letter once, for instance. They're someone who whines publicly a lot. Drama, and a lot of self-made drama, but also this cry for attention and help. There was no pitch, no piece. I didn't stand to gain. As if you publishing the best work you'll ever get in your life is you helping me out, and not really the other way around. I'm the one doing you the good turn offering it to you. It was really just a kind thing to do, with no additional motive. And not so much as even a response, a thanks. Again, that's what you're dealing with with these people.
People hate the entire package. The professionalism, the production, the never-quit attitude, the energy, the quality of every last piece, the expertise, the kindness, even seeing things like the running of the stairs, the non-drinking (so many of these people are huge self-medicators). All of that adds up to envy and loathing, then ignoring and shunning. There's no professional courtesy, no modicum of respect. Nothing here is about ability. No one even thinks in terms of it. It's really just people shitting down my throat, at best.
There are the lack of clicks. That's true. If I was dumb, if I couldn't write, if I repeated what many others said, if I was a bad person, if I was a fat slob, if I was uneducated, if I was average, if I was insincere/full of shit, there'd be more clicks. That's how that works. Until I solve the problem.
You think, for instance, if Dave Portnoy was smart, articulate, funny, insightful, knowledgeable, and kind, that he'd have any sort of platform? Of course he wouldn't. Make Roxane Gay a talented writer, nice, honorable, not a racist, not a sexist, possessed of any actual knowledge about anything, and fit, and what do you have? Someone no one has heard of. No clicks, no platform.
Problem to be solved. But I'll do what I can today.

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