My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

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Archive for July 22nd, 2011

Self-pity? No. Self-loathing? Sure!

July 22nd, 2011 | Category: Life

So, I got this beautiful comment from a reader right here in Tampa…

mike, i don’t think you are so tough.  we are all dealt the hand we are given in this life:  so what?  deal with it.  be thankful that such HUGE resources were dedicated to keeping your ass alive.  under any obamacare-style healthcare rationing you wouldn’t have the shelf-life of a hard-boiled egg. quit wallowing in self pity and live your fucking life til you die

Where to start? The child-like grammar? The “”Obamacare” non-sequitor? The general warmth of the writing?

I wonder if the person knows how to read, at least at the proficiency of a toddler, or understands the definitions of certain words…

I mean, I know I’m not tough, or brave, I’ve written about it before. Tell me something I don’t know.

I’ve also written many times that I’m thankful for everyone who keeps me alive, for my assistants, for all my technology, just for life in general. I’m really very lucky, and blessed, I’ve written, and genuinely meant all these things. So, again, not sure where that came from.

I write about a lot of things here, including being very down. I write about fearfrustrationlonelinesssaddensoptimismromancesex, zombies, sex AND zombies, I kind of cover  the gamut of human (and undead) experiences.  The one thing I don’t think I write about is pity, not in my life, not in my fiction. You could say a lot of things about me, but self-pitying really isn’t one of them. Self-loathing, absolutely, I’m definitely not someone who unceasingly likes himself or regularly pats his own back. If anything, I take personal responsibility for everything, for every failure, for every mistake. Do a search of the blog for “my fault,” see how that goes. I even blame myself for things that probably aren’t really my fault. Like, one time, it started raining rather hard, rather abruptly, and Lauren (my assistant) got caught in the torrent getting me and my stuff into the house from the car. She looked like a kitten who just climbed out of a swimming pool. She covered me with a blanket, she’s good like that, I was fine. So, I apologized. If we’d left the coffee shop fifteen minutes earlier like I originally planned, we’d have beaten the weather and Lauren wouldn’t have gotten unexpectedly drenched. Really, I couldn’t see outside, I, like most people, don’t have one eye always on the doppler radar, and I definitely didn’t stay the fifteen minutes knowing what would happen. Still, I felt responsible and I apologized. Self-loathing, self-criticism, that’s me. Self-pity’s like, “Why’d God build me so broken? Why are all these bad things happening to me? What’d I do to deserve this? Make it stop!” Thoughts like those don’t cross my mind, I really had to think about the definition of self-pity just to write those examples. I just don’t think that way. I really don’t see how someone could read this blog and say I wallow in self-pity.

As for dreaded “Obamacare,” yes, and under Obamacare, if your adorable grandma breaks a hip, her doctor will take her out back and shoot her in the face. I’m so sick of people saying stupid things about the health care bill. Stop being stupid.

I am living my life. I  keep breathing, and doing, and writing. I’m just writing what I feel, honestly and in the moment. The thing is, I write all my moments, dark and sunny, I don’t see how feeling darkness for a spell equates to not living my life.

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