A Past Blast

Oh goody! My first troll has paid me a visit. Probably some disgruntled, bitter person from my past who didn't get what they wanted from me or got way more than they were expecting. Maybe one of Doug's disturbed exxes. Although the suspense is just KILLING me, I'm gonna go out on a limb now and take a stab at who it might be:

Hi, Rod!

(You have some faulty parallelism going on in your comment, whoever you are. You'll want to keep an eye on that tendency in the future when attempting to compose.)

Let's play!

Troll said:

"Writing -- and thereby editing -- is not a game.

Neither is life.

At some point, it might be advisable to take any or all of them as not something you just drift through and fail to care about the consequences of how you and others you *choose* to associate with impact the lives of other people."

Almost very well said, Troll.

I'm going to continue to assume that this anonymous commenter is Rod. Rod has an e-zine that he's very proud of, and as the editor and venerable grand poobah of his stable of marginally talented writers, he takes himself and his craft WAY too seriously. He thinks that his publication is some kind of service to humanity, and that because of the service he's providing so selflessly (if doing something simply for the joy of it--without pay--somehow translates to being selfless; his inflated ego--which forms the outward manifestation of his [inner] massive inferiority complex--is paid hand over fist in strokes of self-importance), he is entitled to special treatment and recognition, not the least of which includes the incredible expectation that his readers will respond to his online Beg Campaigns by sending him money orders so that he can continue to do what he does best: be a reclusive drunk who repels human kindness and, incredibly, expects it to keep being proffered him as some kind of oblation, forming the buoy that keeps him afloat. That he is a pathetic, self-aggrandizing, parasitic drunk with little to no social skills is sad, so pity tends to combine with compassion and motivate bleedings hearts like Doug and me to try and help. But it is impossible to save a person from himself and be the form of grace that such a person relies upon to be saved from himself. Rod doesn't think it's hip to be square; he thinks it's hip to vent his spleen on the people trying to help him. He thinks that he's experienced more suffering than Average Jane or Joe, and his hard, hard life makes it okay for him to demand handouts, then pitch a fit that he didn't get the kind of handout he WANTED. Rod is little more than a child--a child with some major anger repression issues. Luckily for him, he gets drunk on a nightly basis and vents his repressed rage all over the place.

Interacting with a fifty-something-year-old who's always playing the race card against you, while he assumes that your age, class, spirituality and sex indicate your capacities to understand the world and "be" in it are inferior to his, as he frames his dark skin and the hideous legacy of slavery around your fair skin, shaming you for the sin of white privelege you already feel so acutely (and never minding that your roots are working class or that you possess the blood of Irish and Italian peasants). . . it's a bit of a trick. Somehow, in his chemical-addled mind, he is successfully able to rationalize his codependent behavior by clinging to the belief that he deserves to be supported by others--especially by drifting, selfish, thoughtless souls like me and the one I have chosen as my companion through life. I guess it's Rod's way of exacting reparations from The Man who owned and tortured his great-grandfather.

Doug and I were both fools to try to help him. We were fools in the way we went about it. Our own lives were less than stable, but we still attempted to help another in need. Ah well, live and learn.

And Rod? After months of trying to help you, we realized that if we kept paying into the Rod Reparations Fund that we'd never be able to help ourselves get out of the negative feedback loop our lives had become. We kept putting you and your "needs" ahead of our own and kept experiencing the vindictive fury of a thankless wretch (constantly biting the hand that feeds you is not advisable in the future, BTW, if you plan to continue to support yourself through the handouts of others). And we finally realized that we were attempting to help a vampire--an amoral creature whose spirit is as good as dead who kept sucking until we had nothing left to give (and your furious hunger had, for the moment, been sated). And we became aware that we had been played by the mastah playa.

Q: So what do you do in such a situation?
A: Whatever the fuck you need to do to get away from the vampire.

(Don't suppose you've ever had the antisocial personality disorder pinned on you before, maybe co-morbid with something equally fascinating like narcissistic personality disorder?)

It seems that your latest online suicide threat caught you another altruistic bleeding heart (good tactic, by the way). I'd suggest you reign in the drunkenness and, you know, maybe leave your new abode every once in a while. But by all means, keep painting yourself as a martyr for your audience and your current "patron." It gets you by.

Just don't expect your typical behavior to create a different outcome for you this go-round. You know what they say about those in glass houses . . .


# # #

Now if that wasn't you, Rod, well, you still had it coming.

Regarding the comment and anonymous respondent:

I won't even dignify your attempts to insult me by becoming defensive. Your cowardice is reflected in your choice to remain anonymous. Of course, that's your right. And of course, your point of view is less than illuminating, but certainly very curious. I appreciate the earnestness behind it. Oh wait, you were trying to be caustic, weren't you? Hey, chin up--at least you're amusing!

I wonder how many people have laughed while crying at the same time because the drama of the life they live becomes clear for a moment, and they understand the tragicomedy that our lives are, finding it wonderfully ridiculous and so, so sad at the same time.

Life may be more of a game than any of us realize.