I don’t like bullies; never have, never will. One could go so far as to say i hate bullies, but that person would be lying, i don’t hate - i evacuate. Early on this urge to flee was based on fear, i was young and weird looking - perfect prey in the schoolyards of the incubator of hate which the country of my birth was to become much later · like now. I remember the afternoon John F. Kennedy was shot; the adults vanished into corners and dark recesses to nurse their grief and we children were sent to the play yard. It was not my first experience with moral outrage for i was an ugly human born to a family of beautiful people, but it was formative for its grotesque contrast. One of the other “midget people” came up to me innocently trying to process what was a complete mystery at the time and said to me, “boy, i bet he’s got a splitting headache.” There could not have been a malignant splinter in what he said because he was just too fucking young to formulate such a cruel statement. Sitting here now trying to reflect on what i know about hate, it is clear this 6-8 year old child was parroting something a supervising adult had just said to him - an adult full of glee and gloating about an action s/he may have wanted to do themselves but lacked the courage to say or do up front. The best they could accomplish at that time was to use the now too familiar snarky remark lacking compassion that flavors so much of today’s ‘merican discourse.
To be fair, it is not an American infirmity, the reaction-formation is a planetary reaction which turns our civilization’s blind eye to the world’s wrong course to self-aggrandize and heroizes vacuous gestures of “chest thumping” to replace the hard work called for by those who have “been set apart by wealth” as Leonard Cohen stated so clearly. I accept this behavior is to assuage a refusal to deal with the rape of a planet and enslavement of our home and its people for profit - that does not mean i accept it; so i remain alone. I find bullies tend to cluster because they lack the strength of character to act alone. I learned this having been born into a family of bullies - and not · None of my kin could be described as evil by any stretch of the language or distorted by the pain of having to grow up quiet so close to such grand egos, for the experience has been more than informative - it was thankfully formative. I cringe whenever someone attempts to lord anything over me, not from fear - i’m too old to be animated by that exclusively, but from simple physical repulsion. I yet lack the patience to entertain anyone who demands that i love them more than they are willing to love themselves.
From what i have learned about love it requires expression much larger than my own deficit. My father was fairly brutal in his insistence that i learn to fend for myself; from this Jesuit-like indoctrination - i keep a good account of my ledgers. I am far enough ahead to give constantly more than i take · My mother’s sister - Jane told me in one Jack Daniels’s fueled discourse late one night “leave the world better than you found it.” My aunt had a great influence on me; i could not know at the time that each was using me to say “I am sorry” to the other. It doesn’t matter except for the fact that my Aunt Jane wounded my mother terribly by being a bully i know as sure as i sit on this chair she, my aunt would never have done if she were aware, nor ma - bless her tired soul. One day driving on the 60 Hwy out of San Bernardino toward one our many treks to Beatty Nevada where ma had been boarded out with my grandfather Joe - estranged from his wife my grandmother Maude, ma shared the story about a my grandmother discharging a shotgun in the bedroom of the mining camp room where they were lodged. Maude did this because an acquaintance of Joe’s had made a “pest” of himself on the porch while Joe was gone.
I do not know how old ma was when this occurred, but i know somewhere in her being trembled such that she had to share it many, many years later. As always with such disclosures our journey was not a peaceful one as i had hoped, yet is value her humanity all the more that i was the child of all her beautiful offsprings she opted to share this with - much to my chagrin · sort of. In the scheme of things this bizarre equation of confiding such a personal fear with one in whom she had already instilled vast unnecessary fears demonstrated a perverse confidence that I needed to know such things. There is no doubt (my limitation) that not one of my siblings has any idea about this event, or can begin to understand just how cruel our mother has been. I know that they, like myself run, armed with the only emotional device our family could create out of the maelstrom of confusion that described the post assassination crazy ‘merica of the 60’s - sanctimony of the “industrial strength” sort. To believe oneself superior to those one would hate is a convenience i miss, but am in no hurry to welcome back.
Our world has grown far too small to sustain the weight of hate - it is why i run from haters and the clusters they create. My family is affronted by my presence - the same presence you have read this far into. I cannot blame them, the same as i would applaud you for wading this far into such misery. I do not know of any other way to purge my being of this toxic morass except to explore in deeper and deeper circles that which blocks my naturally loving heart. I do not want to die without getting as close as i can to the child i was before the world demanded i be afraid. It is for this reason i veer from cliques - bodies of humans who seek confirmation of their worth by surrounding themselves in some agreement that must be validated by others. I’d love nothing better than join humanity, but not if it is at the exclusion of anyone who wishes to remain apart for whatever reason. You cannot drag me anywhere i do not wish to go for reasons that will forever remain within my purview. I am alone and will remain so until such time i meet others who accept and expect such. I love you, but will not absolve myself of the higher responsibility of loving myself such as i am - warts and all · it is for this reason and this reason alone i do not hope bad things for the leader of the world’s haters - if i was to give myself over to such a passing inclination, i will have relinquished the most dear thing in my life · a natural and powerful ability to love strongly what i do not understand, lucky me - lucky us ·
jts 26/04/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com se
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