One more clarification
Based
on the torrent of email I have received since yesterday, plus the
comments to my earlier post, I feel that I really must clarify
something important here, before really signing off completely.
I am doing this completely in my free will to become a much better person than I used to be. No entity whatsoever has threatened me with any kind of consequences for blogging. This is not any kind of violation of my rights or free speech. In particular, if any of you want to start email or other campaigns about this, or in some other way publically accuse people and organizations for having treated me wrong, please don't. I seriously mean this. The recent events were merely a fortunate wakeup call for me to take a good hard look back at what I am and had become. This is not some underhanded attempt to grovel because I am afraid of losing my job or something. Because I'm not, as far as I know. And even if I were, that would be peanuts compared to the idea of the woman you love looking at you and you see how she is disappointed of you, asking you why you would want to write mean things. I would rather shovel shit for living every day than have to come up with an answer to that. Because there really is none.
I wrote quite a lot of stuff during the past year, and as my numerous readers know, most of it was good. And not just good, but small bits of it were damn great, even if I say this myself. I really did make tons of interesting, original and amusing observations about pretty much everything between the heaven and earth, whatever topic I happened to feel like writing each day. But some of this stuff wasn't good, in any sense of this word. I made cheap and cruel potshots to mock people who had done nothing to me, being no better than some little boy who pulls wings off a fly. And that is just inexcusable, even if the other stuff had been the greatest thing since sliced bread, which it certainly wasn't. Occasionally I wanted to snark at somebody whose mere existence had somehow offended me even though they were nothing but words on the screen or enemies inside my head, and it's not like it's that hard to find aspects that are silly or mockable with pretty much anything. The worst things that I did were to thoughtlessly mock some group for no other reason but just to pinch at some particular person in that group.
Even when my observations were true, it is one thing to amuse yourself with observing paradoxical silliness in things such as language or entertainment or the comical woibles of society, but it's just not the right thing to do this with people. In my petty rush to to play this whole blog thing as a stupid game of who is the smartest and who is right I forgot what is really important. And that is just wrong.
I have decided that simply don't want to be that asshole anymore. I'd rather want to be a good person and do good and constructive (or at least non-negative) things in my life. Real things, which is one reason why I will no longer waste my time on blogging. I could try to keep writing just the positive stuff, but I'm afraid that that's just not an option for me and my personality. So that's a definite no for continuing my blogging career, at least until some much later time in the future when I am mature enough, which will probably be about when whole meals can be digested in a pill form and the Net is directly connected into your brain. For the short term, I shall put my creative writing energies to finally start that book that I have been thinking about for the whole summer. I am sure that I will often come upon things and situations that will make me itch "That sure would make such a great post", but somebody else will have to write it, not me.
So to sign off now, I would like to thank the people who inspired me to write good things, and apologize once more to the people who my thoughtlessness has ever hurt. It sure makes a noticeable difference to wake up in the morning when you know that from now on, you are going to be a good person, and all that cynicism and biting sarcasm and automatically fixating into finding weaknesses in things is gone. This feeling is probably the secular version of what the religious people feel like after their conversion. I don't really know how this is going to go on from here, but I do hope that if you ever happen to see my name mentioned anywhere in the future, it will be something positive that I am proud of.
I am doing this completely in my free will to become a much better person than I used to be. No entity whatsoever has threatened me with any kind of consequences for blogging. This is not any kind of violation of my rights or free speech. In particular, if any of you want to start email or other campaigns about this, or in some other way publically accuse people and organizations for having treated me wrong, please don't. I seriously mean this. The recent events were merely a fortunate wakeup call for me to take a good hard look back at what I am and had become. This is not some underhanded attempt to grovel because I am afraid of losing my job or something. Because I'm not, as far as I know. And even if I were, that would be peanuts compared to the idea of the woman you love looking at you and you see how she is disappointed of you, asking you why you would want to write mean things. I would rather shovel shit for living every day than have to come up with an answer to that. Because there really is none.
I wrote quite a lot of stuff during the past year, and as my numerous readers know, most of it was good. And not just good, but small bits of it were damn great, even if I say this myself. I really did make tons of interesting, original and amusing observations about pretty much everything between the heaven and earth, whatever topic I happened to feel like writing each day. But some of this stuff wasn't good, in any sense of this word. I made cheap and cruel potshots to mock people who had done nothing to me, being no better than some little boy who pulls wings off a fly. And that is just inexcusable, even if the other stuff had been the greatest thing since sliced bread, which it certainly wasn't. Occasionally I wanted to snark at somebody whose mere existence had somehow offended me even though they were nothing but words on the screen or enemies inside my head, and it's not like it's that hard to find aspects that are silly or mockable with pretty much anything. The worst things that I did were to thoughtlessly mock some group for no other reason but just to pinch at some particular person in that group.
Even when my observations were true, it is one thing to amuse yourself with observing paradoxical silliness in things such as language or entertainment or the comical woibles of society, but it's just not the right thing to do this with people. In my petty rush to to play this whole blog thing as a stupid game of who is the smartest and who is right I forgot what is really important. And that is just wrong.
I have decided that simply don't want to be that asshole anymore. I'd rather want to be a good person and do good and constructive (or at least non-negative) things in my life. Real things, which is one reason why I will no longer waste my time on blogging. I could try to keep writing just the positive stuff, but I'm afraid that that's just not an option for me and my personality. So that's a definite no for continuing my blogging career, at least until some much later time in the future when I am mature enough, which will probably be about when whole meals can be digested in a pill form and the Net is directly connected into your brain. For the short term, I shall put my creative writing energies to finally start that book that I have been thinking about for the whole summer. I am sure that I will often come upon things and situations that will make me itch "That sure would make such a great post", but somebody else will have to write it, not me.
So to sign off now, I would like to thank the people who inspired me to write good things, and apologize once more to the people who my thoughtlessness has ever hurt. It sure makes a noticeable difference to wake up in the morning when you know that from now on, you are going to be a good person, and all that cynicism and biting sarcasm and automatically fixating into finding weaknesses in things is gone. This feeling is probably the secular version of what the religious people feel like after their conversion. I don't really know how this is going to go on from here, but I do hope that if you ever happen to see my name mentioned anywhere in the future, it will be something positive that I am proud of.
