Tuesday, February 21, 2012

back.

I'm getting feisty in my old age.
 I am very quickly irked, it seems, by everything. Racism, sexism, general rudeness, road rage, people who scam elderly people, genocide, my own intellectual limitations, everything... zero tolerance. And it gets to the point where it makes it very hard to be happy about anything because pretending to be Little Susie Sunshine when everyone else seems to be hurting feels insensitive and fake. I vowed to never use my acting skills to be someone I'm not. There are just so many things to care  about everywhere. So many injustices.
Sooo...what right have I to go on a lovely little bike ride in the sun and read some poems and just feel all lovely and tickled and ignore all the disgusting pride and arrogance and cruelty out there????

Well. It also seems like a disservice on my part to be Little Susie Raincloud all the time, you know? I'm not contributing anything by just caring and getting pissed and being rude to everyone because I think they are just preserving their comfort by ignoring important human rights violations. Oh dear. Listen to me! 

I decommissioned this blog for a while because I was disgusted with myself. I do NOT want to be another post-pictures-of-myself-every-day-so-I-maintain-a-carefully-constructed-illusion-of-what-my-life-is-like-and-everyone-can-envy-me-and-validate-me-with-their-comments-and-giveaway-entries blogger. And since I began to sort of lean that way I pulled the plug. Straight up.

BUT. Here's the point of all this ranting. No matter how much I care, I can't solve the world's problems. No sirree. And by  acting all put-out all the time about things that really are awful, I'll just become a negative person and you just can't keep friends that way, not even the ones that really love you.
What to do then? Well, I've decided to keep caring. Stay human. But a big part of being human, I've decided, is also loving despite things. Not just loving the underdog, but loving everyone. Loving women who PREFER to be controlled and don't want to think about the alternative. Loving grandparents who were raised in the 30's and 40's and really didn't have much of a chance to not be racist. Just loving.
Because, as I discovered, being intolerant of intolerant people is still intolerance. And probably worse since I consider myself so "enlightened." Being narrow-minded about narrow-mindedness is the ultimate hypocrisy, I think. I am going to change.

I am going to keep blogging because words and pictures and pretty things are my life force, and that's okay. If I can make the world a teensy bit prettier by dwelling on the beautiful things I discover, there's no shame in that, is there? Sharing is caring. Or so my childhood taught me.

So. The point is... I'm back. Come back with me?

banana

4 comments:

collette charles said...

well said. i have similar feelings A LOT of the time and it's exhausting, for me and for everyone else. part of this life is the contrast right? and if we can notice the ugly we should also enjoy the beauty.

Laurie said...

I answer your final question with a quote from Jack Kelly, sometimes referred to as Francis Sullivan "Hangin' on your every word."

That sounds kind of intense, what I meant to convey with that was that I love Newsies and I love your blog.

Daniel said...

Sounds like you're getting life lessons all over the place, GOB...

Also sounds like you need either (1) a lot more zazen to help out with your kensho, or (2) a lot more nihilism.

Anna Banana said...

collette: let's spend some time together.
laurie: ditto. plus i love newsies and your blog.
daniel: oh my wise, buddhist brother.

Carry

I want to carry you
and for you to carry me
the way voices are said to carry over water.

Just this morning on the shore,
I could hear two people talking quietly
in a rowboat on the far side of the lake.

They were talking about fishing,
then one changed the subject,
and, I swear, they began talking about you.

Billy Collins


that's all, folks

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