Well, no; they don't. This is about that.
I'm getting increasingly aware that I have a visceral thing going on about assuming that I will be attacked by people I like.
It goes back a long ways. I think it got created by bullying, partly.
I don't really want to get into some kind of self-psychoanalysis here.
I'm just putting this out here.
I know there are a bunch of people here who keep telling me I'm wonderful. That kind of freezes me. It doesn't make sense.
I have to examine that. Why doesn't that make sense?
Because there are other people who are mad at me or don't like me?
"Why" is probably a bad word to start a question with. Maybe I should move on to "what."
What is it that makes me so unwilling to believe people might actually like me? Respect me even? Think I'm cool? Think I'm talented? Appreciate my work?
Another writer here posted a piece about Omelas today. Omelas is an Ursula Leguin piece about a happy society that thrives by virtue of keeping a kid in a cage.
Lithium Cola wrote about Omelas, and did a good job of it. Then he walked away.
Omelas resonates with me. I am that kid. Not in reality, but in the darkest places of my mind.
I am that kid, that scapegoated kid, who is locked up in a cage and tormented, so that the rest may thrive.
I am that, in a part of my mind.
It's not all like that, though.
In fact, nobody has tormented me for a few years now. Because I decided to not let that happen anymore, and I had the good fortune to have the resources to change that.
And of course, perhaps they thought they were not tormenting me.
That's often the case.
Oh well. Too bad. I'm done with them.
Now I have people like y'all.
Actually, mostly I have y'all.
You and my family. omg, I never thought it would come to this.
But you are wonderful. Thank you Kossacks. You help. You always help.