Vinegar

Wednesday 11/6/24

Today I'm seeing people say that they had a drinking problem, stopped, were sober for X amount of time, and now they are drinking again because of the election results.

Great. Totally worth destroying your sobriety.

I can't imagine letting myself be less than what I am or am trying to be for anyone or anything. I just can't conceive of that personally.

People don't seem to realize this, but social media is primarily a performance space.

It doesn't exist for discourse, for the saying of intelligent things. It's not community, it's not affection, it's not legit affirmation, it's not validation, it's not concern, it's not interest in others. It's not for communication, it's not for change, it's not for the greater good, it's not for any good.

It's indicative of what's happening in the world only insofar as it's a barometer for how narcissistic people are, how ignorant they are, how lonely they are, how lacking they are for purpose, how weak they are, how much they love to complain, how angry they are, how self-pitying they are, how defeatist they are, how poorly they express themselves, and how bad they are at reading comprehension.

I've read probably less than ten intelligent things in my life on social media where there was any value in those things being said. And like three of them were about mid-century radio dramas from people in their eighties who recalled something interesting.

Here's something I just saw from a gay man: "My husband said it feels like we are mourning the death of a loved one and I said no it feels like we are mourning the murder of a loved one."

The lack of perspective. The murder of a loved one? Like your child? Your parent? Your spouse? Your best friend?

You have to be so sheltered and so privileged to draw that comparison. Sometimes I wonder if anything has ever happened to people, in terms of real loss, or if it has and they're so dead inside that it was like it didn't.

The murder of a loved one?

Can you imagine how today would be if your loved one was gunned down yesterday? Your kid was shot in a school?

Fucking hell, brother, I'd not want to be your loved one, if that's all my life would mean to you.

People have so little fight in them. Such a capacity to complain, but so goddamn little fight.

What are you doing about it? What have you dedicated your life to? How are you using your time? How are you using your available time?

The amount of hate I've seen today is staggering, but predictable. The people who hate the most are often the people who tout themselves as being one of the good ones. Empty words. So many declarations of war on white men. Because they're white men. "I'll never buy a book by a white male again," "I'll never date a white man again," "I'll never frequent a white male owned business again." Etc.

Does being that way on the inside--I'm not even talking about putting these things into practice--seem like a good way to be?

Does anyone ever ask themselves that? "Is this a good way to be?"

Is. This. How. I. Should. Be.

Ultimately, we answer to ourselves. You need to have a moral standard for yourself. That's where you start. That's what you return to. You cannot let anything corrupt your moral standard.

One of the chief corrupters for people is anger. You have to put your anger to the side. That is, you can have it. But it can't overrun other aspects of you. It can't take from you. When you become less of a person because of your anger, your anger has gotten the better of you. It's defeating you. (And if some other person--the villain of the piece--has caused that anger, and you are allowing that anger to defeat you, then the villain is defeating you.) It must be mastered. It can be used--but first it must be converted into drive, energy, commitment, strength. You don't want just raw, untreated anger.

Quote from a woman who is terrible at writing: "Wow. I feel like I was in a car accident."

Not surprising that she can't write. She has no perspective.

Were this person in a car accident, she could lose her health. She could be paralyzed. Helpless. She might lose a limb. Brain function. Or maybe "only" laid up for a while.

Your health is a big deal. You wouldn't know it, given that most Americans are fat slobs, but lose your health, and you lose a lot.

Is this really that hard to understand? To imagine? You need to have empathy, you could say, with possible outcomes, for that future version of you who has yet to deal with any of them, just as you need to have empathy for those who are dealing with those outcomes now.

People are so unimaginative. They're bound within themselves in the here and now. Sherlock Holmes once said to Watson that this particular Scotland yard inspector was decent at what he did, but his biggest problem was he lacked imagination. Holmes solved cases via his imagination. More so than the accumulation and connecting of clues.

We have to get outside of our everyday, prosaic thoughts--our everyday, prosaic existence--in order to have a clue about the world around us and our own lives. And with what has not happened to date in our lives.

I saw this quote from someone with 160K followers. I think she's a comedian or something, though this wasn't meant as a joke:

"My mom apologized for bringing me into the world last night."

What the hell is that about? You think this is good? Your mother told you, basically, that it's a shame you exist--my bad for making you exist--and you're like forty and then you put this on social media for points?

I'd be like, What the fuck, mom?

What is wrong with people? They're what's wrong with them. Them. It's not all of this other stuff. That stuff can really suck, but when this is how you talk/perform/think/behave, you're the problem. It was there in you all along.

This isn't a thing to tell your kid. This isn't a thing for someone's kid to brag about for points on social media.

Where is the pride? The self-respect? Stop whining. Stop looking for pity. Fight.

From another woman, speaking about herself and her wife: "All day today, our minds have been on keeping our marriage intact."

Maybe you shouldn't be together then. Or maybe you should grow up. Because if you love someone and they love you, I'm sure you can find a way. And I'm sure if you really love each other, you can love each other more and better no matter what. Because that's how love works. It gets us through things together.

What is the explanation for people automatically believing every damn story and claim they see on the internet? What is that? I've seen so many people lying their brains out today about things that never happened. They obviously never happened. For every 5000 things that people claim happened, maybe one thing did. Sort of. Or like one thing from that story might have been true.

One guy who looks exactly like I'd think he'd look and whose bio has all of the stuff I'd expect it to have, wrote, "Harris has to win because I'd like to stay alive."

This is why I wrote "The Hanging Room." Just go down into the hanging room. Be done then if this is all you're going to be.

Honestly. If I was like these people, I'd have quit decades ago. I'd have quit writing like three days out of college. If that. I can't conceive of bitching like this and doing nothing about it but bitching some more. If you're not doing everything you can to fix the thing you're bitching about, then shut up about it.

Where is the vinegar in people? Productive vinegar. Not hate-vinegar. Rise up. Don't let someone take you down.

Someone else: "At this point I don't care about being alive. Too much torture anyway."

If these people were pitchers in a baseball game and the manager came out to take them out of a tie game, they'd be like, "What took you so long? I couldn't wait to get out of this contest."

Then there are all of the people begging for love on social media.

"I came here for love, send me your love."

"As a (blank), I need love today, show me love."

That's not how love works and that's not what love is. No one loves anyone on social media. Everyone is there for themselves. Everyone says what they say with the goal of getting things for themselves. They tailor what they say based on what they think that will get them.

In the process, and because they're online so much, they lose themselves. They become this way away from their phones. They can't shut it off and on anymore. And that happens fast and is almost impossible to undo.

All of these people today saying "I guess I was in an echo chamber."

Of course you were. That's what it is. That's how it works.

People are now echo chambers unto themselves.

I would never let anyone else or anything else make me a less than what I am, what I've made myself to be. And I'm in a bad spot, to say the least. But I am able to look at myself and know I am fighting, knowing that there is no talk without walk in my life, and I have grown in the most trying of circumstances because I have insisted that I do so. I demanded it of myself.

People have horrible attitudes. You should endeavor to never feel sorry for yourself. To shake that right off. Because it compromises you. You undermine yourself when you feel sorry for yourself.

Life can be hard enough with lots of other things trying or poised to undermine us. You cannot be one of those things.