The altercation with the objectivist pick-up artist got me thinking about the purpose of this blog. Among my many grandiose delusions was an idea to build the readership of this blog somehow by relating bit of things I've learned since coming out of the closet, which, I think, is quite a lot. Which isn't to say I learned nothing in my depressed, closeted years, but the difference between what I think I know now, and what I thought I knew then still sometimes staggers me. And then, I am further staggered to realize just how much it is I don't know yet. So, you know, lots of staggering. But what I said to the opua applies to me as well, who am I to be telling anyone else how to live just yet? Wouldn't any advice from me be more compelling coming from a guy who's been awake and thriving for a decade, instead of just waking up? Probably, in fact. Which is probably why this blog has a readership of about 2 (hi handsome!). In any case, the taste the opua's blog and modus operandi has left in my mouth has left me wanting to make ANYTHING but that kind of blog. So I've ruled out one possibility: I am not here to be your guru or sell you my shit like it doesn't stink.
I am here, I guess, to share what I think I know, but you can take it or leave it. Because I am also partly here to process my thoughts by writing them out orderly. And believe me, I actually do most of this properly offline in my own notebooks. But I have, and will in the future, sometimes decide that I want to write it out here. It's not that I think my thoughts on anything will necessarily help you, or that you should do just what I write about doing, because that's not my decision to make. Some things I might just want said, and out in the world because I think they are important ideas. Mostly, I'll share these things because I want to be better understood by the friends who read this blog, or at least paint a picture of where I'm at. So if someone hasn't heard from me for a while, they can take a gander at one of my semi-coherent posts and go, "ah, I see. He hasn't called because he's been crazy."
I definitely have an opinion about Things, of course. And the more I wake up, and the more I use my critical thinking skills to process my life instead of passively letting it carry me along, the more I have to say about these Things. And while the ongoing midlife crisis that emerged from my coming out process hasn't yet rolled to a stop, I am still making progress and figuring things out. One of the important things I've figured out, for a variety of historical reasons, is that I have just about zero tolerance for manipulative bullshit from other people. I don't like it when people try to define myself or my purpose from the outside. I don't like it when people mislead others for their own benefit. I don't like it when people tell me up is down and then fall on their fainting couches when I call them on it. I don't like people who slap me in the face (verbally or otherwise) and then get huffy and condescending when I'm not nice about it. I especially don't like other people wildly projecting their issues onto me and everyone else instead of admitting that the problem they might be having is with themselves (something I am guilty of more often than I care to admit). And I will not hesitate to call bullshit on these things when I see them. And these things make me angry enough that I have a hard time sugar-coating them, even though that generally gets better results. I don't like getting called on any of this stuff either, but I'd rather get called on my own odious bullshit then have that stench stinking up my relationships indefinitely. So, occasionally, on this blog, I'm going to call some bullshit out. Even if it just amounts to screaming into the ether.
What I'm going to try and do less, not that you could tell from this post, is use this blog as an online diary. I have notebooks to whine into if I really need to. And increasingly, it has been occurring to me that I might process my stupid shit better by writing it into stories, and posting those on Contents May Settle. That way, I get my emotions processed and thoughts examined and at the end, I at least I have a story that may be worth sharing with someone, as opposed to self-indulgent complaints which, in my experience, don't go over so well as dinner conversation.
As for my delusions of grandeur, I will try to leave them a ways behind. I have ambitions still, yes, but I mostly just hope my friends read this blog and understand more about me. Beyond that, I'm not here to develop a following. And if I do, I hope it's because, after a couple or more years of hard work, I've written stories people want to read, music people want to hear, or programs/apps people want to use. Even then, that's just the potential aspirations for this blog. If it only ever acts as an echo to the real and meaningful life I am starting to build, which will hopefully be rich in other ways, if not in money and fame, then it will have served it's purpose.
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