Texting

Usually depression comes upon me for no discernible cause. There's a fragility deep in me, that I go to extraordinary lengths to protect, because I know how I am, and little things can set it off, and if I weren't bound in iron it would consume me. I've said it before, how, loathsome though the fact is, we need other people. Not only do I not want to need other people -- I don't want to continue living. There's a part of me that's like that. But when the car accident almost but does not happen, we are thankful and relieved. Life goes on. Hurrah. We accept these inconsistencies, of need and independence. Life isn't supposed to make sense.

Someone I know had a business inconvenience the other day, and communicated to me that it was my, uh, not fault, not responsibility ... my failure. I needed to do a better job. Well, that's an infelicitous phrasing, but maybe it's true? I am very proud, arrogant in my way, but I doubt many can be found who, objectively, are more diligent in communicating information, which was the issue, so it is easy to imagine that I do not agree with the unfavorable assessment of my general or specific performance. Take this, combined with my aforementioned fragility, and it won't be surprising to see me plunge into despair. I'm too canny to give credence to an emotional tenancy to catastrophize, but I've been betrayed in some pretty calculated ways, so while I stay rational, I brood.

The best I know to do is keep my mouth shut in such cases. But that's my pattern, and it's not always so healthy. So last night I texted, something along the lines that it had bothered me, this questioning of my ability to convey information. I didn't do it lightly. I waited for hours, to see if it needed to be done. Communication is supposed to help. And there is a difference between a lack of respect, and disrespect itself -- between criticism and condemnation. I had enough blame in my formative years to unhinge me to this present degree. So blame had better be deserved, when it comes.

"Bothered" -- an emotional word, self-revealing. I don't like anyone to know what I'm feeling. But it's a human thing, to communicate not only about information, but about feelings, person to person. It's also very dangerous, an invitation to ridicule, an unguarded house all swept out and waiting for demons. I expect to be judged and condemned, when I let my guard down even a little. I am a profound fool, for this, but there's nothing I can do to not be a fool. It's what I am. Like God himself, I am powerless.

So another piece of garbage has acted on his nature, killing a dozen and wounding scores at the Batman opening. Thank goodness he only used guns. Oh, you disagree? Guns are the worst thing he could have used? A flamethrower would have been both more dramatic and more effective. Spraying that crowd of teens and twenty-somethings with napalm would really make a statement. As it is, the joker only got three score and ten. Yeah, he identified himself, per one report, as The Joker. My store of indignation has been used up on self-pity over my own incomparable tragedy, you know, about how I'm not sufficiently appreciated, so I may come off as a tad indifferent about what monsters do to strangers thousands of miles away.

It's so easy to be a villain, and there are no superheros. I have lost sons, sons, to deliberate evil and deliberate betrayal and inevitable craziness and inevitable corruption. There comes a point where pettiness becomes as important as matters of actual substance. What hope, then.

I just don't understand it. What's the point? Everyone dies, mostly in pain, and those who remain, for the moment, feel grief, spite, indifference or triumph. It's just a matter of when. What fills up our days and lives? Communication? Emotion? Information? It seems completely pointless. Life is the time spent being betrayed, thinking about betrayal, and avoiding betrayal. We think we're going to the midnight premier of The Dark Knight Rises. Instead we get splattered with brain tissue. What a stupid world. My bitterness with God and his incompetence is boundless.

J