Wednesday, April 23, 2008

High Maintenance

Dear PatioBlog Readers:
 
It's been a while since I've added to the profundities, so if nobody reads this I can only say that it serves me right.
 
I want to speak on the subject of high maintenance friends.  I am one.  Those of you who know me know that I can be difficult, even as I can also be funny, loyal, compassionate, and so on.  Another friend of mine just sent me some homespun fluff about a wonderful guy who made a choice every morning to confront the day in a positive attitude.  During the day, when things pissed him off, he made a considered choice to ignore that--to let it go.  He was like that all the time.  Amazingly, this positive guy wasn't from California--he was too engaged for that (see what I mean about being high maintenance!)
 
Anyway, I spent about five full seconds thinking that's the way I ought to be until I realized that I didn't really give a shit whether anyone thinks my attitude sucks or not.  I don't like this positivity anymore than I like god, the devil, or any other psychological system that attempts to drive conformity.  Where would we be today in a world of conformists?
 
In the USA, we'd all be working for libertarian candidates, deregulation of all food, safety, and environmental legislation, and buying SUVs!  Oh, like you misunderstood that the past 8 years have been about conformity.  Hillary Clinton guarantees that the next 8 will be the same, for Bill did little more than prepare the way for Bush by moving democrats to the right.  How was Al Gore or John Kerry suposed to win when Clinton basically established that the progressive wing of the democratic party would be served by the Greens, not the democrats?
 
And with Hillary dishing out that Ohio Valley vitriol--I'm a huntin' me some rabbits so's I kin sew my own clothes and shoes from the skins, and that thar eleetist Harvard boy don't know nuthin' about us plain folks--Barack, ever the gent, simply chooses not to fight back, even though his supporters--of which I am two--want to shake him by the lapels and yell, "Kick that fucker's ass!" he's still not having it.  No, Barack has found that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but that's only true because flies aren't racist and petty, and they have no stated opinions as to whether the ends justify the means.
 
I applaud Barack's nature--his positive attitude.  Who can deny we'd rather be around Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton.  If one's an eraser, the other's a hasp!  But Barack is calm and collected by nature--it seems he's been cultivating those skills since childhood, as opposed to since an enlightening Oprah experience.  He's not the sort of positive thinker I'm talking about.  He's not the guy who has inspirational books by business gurus around his house without also having his share of Kafka works.  He, I'm sure, prefers a print of Van Gogh, or deKooning to some field of rising, colorful hot air balloons with a scripted message about rising high, or some such crap.  He's who he is, and Hillary, I'm afraid, is whoever she needs to be, depending on the audience demographics--I'm sure she ain't talking woodchuck skinning in Beverly Hills.
 
We live in interesting times, as the old saying admonishes.  So, you see, in these times where the stinking, poxy, rich sit around picking their toes and drinking tea like Saudi bureaucrats (don't hand me that shit...I've lived there), attitude is an important commodity.  The rich have plenty to keep positive about, from their personal trainers, to their shares in a successful IPO, to their large houses and golden retirements.  A positive attitude is also how we train the poor, heartbroken, and disenfranchised to cope with their lot.  Jesus Christ!  Sounds like religion, huh?  Well, maybe it sounds like it because it is it!  If it looks like a duck... (you know the drill).  And, it provides societies a vaccination against social change.  Hillary, taking on the look that people are used to, satisfies them that she'll be different, but not too different.  That would be scary!
 
I want you to be consider the following wise words: MONEY IS THE ARMOR THAT PROTECTS US FROM LIFE.  I suppose at some level it's great to have enough money, but I am committed to the idea this statement avows.  If you want to be protected from life, then go ahead and devote your life to your own self aggrandizement.  Just understand that one of the protections that money cannot buy you is protection from me.  If you're behaving like an idiot, I'll tell you--I'll also let you say the same to me because I don't require protection from life.  If I'm too high maintenance for you I apologize because I really don't mean to be; it's just my nature.  And as Clapton says, "Before you accuse me, have a look at yourself."  I do, all the time.
 
Best wishes to you all in everything that you are trying to do...
 
T.