THE WRITER’S LIFE
It’s queer how a few days can change things, sometimes like a flipping of the table with life. On Friday night, I found myself in a position familiar to many with depression, regularly staring into the void: Imagine you’re in a room, with no visible means of exit (and there’s no light). How do you get out? It happened four years ago, when I found myself drunk and on the street. I wasn’t drinking this time, but I needed to detoxify my environment.
I’ve written before: you can stop imagining, or you can use your imagination. And it was doing that, which made some of what I thought I could only imagine, actually happen. In a way, I made a wish. I wished upon a star and the universe answered.
We’ve all got it, and in most people it’s there to be found. It’s as obvious as being the most world-weary person around, then a two-year-old hands you a toy phone, and you say “Hello?” Anyone, from the humblest hobo to the queen, would answer that phone. To not do so, is to not be human. Some people don’t even get that, let alone their universal connection to everyone else. And all I did was in the logic of science, applying transcendent psychology. I rose above the situation to view it from the outside. It’s like being a stage director to actors.
The real clincher was when I cracked for a moment. With so much to do for so many people, and with no-one to do it with, I felt more alone than normal. I also longed for one of the people I was helping to ask how I was (because people don’t tend to, usually worried about getting too involved with a depressive). I didn’t cry, I got angry with people who hold a personal grudge with me, trying to turn those I was helping against me. This is advice for others as much as a relating of my own story.
Before I did some physical damage by proxy to another human being (used here in its widest, most inclusive context), I stepped back.
I was reminded of something I myself said to someone, and it was they who repeated the words back to me (they’d already asked me how I was). Then I spoke to another (to check facts) and it was the same: Some people really are so stupid and ignorant (not only through lack of schooling, but of life) that they can’t be educated. Sometimes I can’t see the obvious, or more importantly, why I couldn’t help. It’s hard to comprehend, but some people really are – sometimes through choice – so arrogant and selfish, blinkered by their own conditioning, that they can’t see beyond their personal bubble. And that’s always the weakness.
Because of that insular bubble, even those around them (with a few equally delinquent exceptions) – the ones they think are closest to them – actually mock them behind their backs, just as they themselves speak ill of others unfairly. It was quite a revelation, and I didn’t even have to say it. It wasn’t me putting words into the mouths of others who can see for themselves. I don’t need to slag people off behind their backs, when those people do such a good job of discrediting themselves (and I have a blog).
The advice to anyone else? You’ll never lose a real friend, because those who believe what they’re told about you without checking, aren’t worthy friends. In believing all they’re told and not questioning, they’re as ignorant as those who tell the stories. Just don’t feed the animals in their personal zoos.
For me, why worry about it, when it seems to be taking care of itself? It was quite literally like wiping the shit from my shoes on their doormat (I hope I left a lingering stench). The problem (someone else pointed out), was that I was too busy being nice and I’d forgotten how to be nasty (but only when it’s deserved, when everyone around can see when things are explained to them in full, that mine is the superior moral side).
Incurable fascists are incapable of reasoned debate. Ignorant ones will always lose an argument, but they keep on whining, a dying wasp on the pavement to be trodden on or kicked into the drain, or simply left to flounder. When something lacks the basic life instinct of knowing when to give up, they’re best left to suffer in their own company.
I thought about others in my life and about myself, and how we’d changed and progressed over the last four years. Some of those who’ve stuck with me have done well, while others got left behind. The ones still with me then, are the only ones to move forward with and further away from those who couldn’t keep up. There’s only so much you can do for some people before you have to give up, for your own sake.
For my part, I’ve sobered up and written five books (each successively better than the last). Because of that and other achievements, I’m happy with what I am, as are those still around me. I made a mess of my life and I sorted it out, with the help of others (and I thanked them). Then I helped others with their own problems, and they remained friends.
It seems that some people are incurably deluded, and not a little jealous, when they themselves are stuck in the same place. But it’s of their own making and they’re best left with their own kind, a gradually diminishing, near-extinct minority sub-species.
I said in a previous post that I’d start to separate the fact from the fiction this year and to exorcise some more toxins, so this was a good start. I’m a writer and a blogger and I’m left-wing, so I can say what like (within Amnesty’s definition of free speech as a human right), about the right-wing, the religious zealots, the abusers of power, sex or trust, or anyone else who might be looking for themselves.
All but the most fortunate can see their own third, inner self. The really unfortunate ones are those who can’t see the first or second either. They don’t see how other people see them, nor how they themselves look. They are delusional, like the witches in classic fairy tales, who looked in the mirror (and each other) and only saw beauty staring back at them. A truly false reflection.
To those still gazing inwardly, some advice: If a two-year-old offers you a toy phone, there’ll probably be someone on the other end. Try it, then you might know what it feels like to be human.
David Bowie taught me it was okay to be different and to speak out. Sometimes I still wish upon the dark star. Happy birthday Starman.
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