thankiN'

Of course it all comes down to one little thing:  to know that you matter.  

Funny.  I've been told that I don't matter in so many ways, on so many occasions, that you'd think I'd have gotten the message, curled up, died, and blown away long ago.  But I guess not.  One of the images that keeps cropping up in my writing is of the man who is spiritually and emotionally dead, but keeps on walking.  That could be seen as brave.  It could also be seen as stupid.  When should you give up?  Certainly there is a point at which perseverance is just a pretext for masochism, right?

But there's some stubbornness inside of me, some idiot savant whose sole talent is to get back up again.  

My inner child is Cool Hand Luke.  

There have been many times when women have treated me like shit.  There have been many times when friends have ignored my pleas for help or even just attention.  There have been countless times when strangers or bare acquaintances have done their damndest to cause me pain.  And don't even get me started on (most, not all) of my  former students.  Just picture an Atlantic Basin-sized crater filled with two-hundred pound infants, all squalling and heaving handfuls of their own feces at you 24/7, 365 1/4th, and you've pretty much got that one covered.

I have come to conclude that this world is mostly comprised of shit, and that there is almost no possibility of living a life with any meaning, dignity, or value.

And then I take a deep breath and I make a joke about something that is actually quite horrible, and I laugh at my own joke.

"Is the ocean supposed to be on fire?"

&

maybe it all comes down to one gigantic, echoing thought, a thought so powerful that it is ever resurgent in my psyche, a thought which cannot be drowned, poisoned, hung, burnt, freeze-dried, evaporated, or scattered:

Fuck 'em.

Just

FUCK 'EM.

'CAUSE I AIN'T GONNA BE NO SQUAREHEAD.