“Seeing everything makes you sad.” - J.G. Ballard.
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For reasons, I’m trawling through the twenty years of accumulated posts on my old Speedbird blog, and simultaneously feeling kinda bad for and rather disliking the person who wrote them.
He’s so misguided, so immured in privilege he has no idea how patently ignorant he sounds, even into his mid-forties, but more than anything else so desperately *thirsty*. He keeps reinscribing his relation with a crew of fellow travelers, very few of whom seem to have thought of him as, in turn, a peer of theirs – the record is full of first-name-only shout-outs, descriptions of people as “the great” who turned out not to be. It’s just…sad.
Part of the lesson here is surely to extend a little grace to even the more clueless-seeming among us: he was redeemable, he just needed a kick in the ass, some gentle encouragement and better friends.
Another lesson? Refuse to be a supporting character in the lives of those who, whether through word or unconscious deed, act as though they are the protagonist. Refuse to be drafted all willy-nilly into someone else’s narcissistic display of Main Character Energy. Especially refuse to do the invisible labor required to scaffold such displays.
@adamgreenfield This immediately reminded me of one particular proto-blogger who still has people stanning him long after his best-by date.
@mattmay HAHAHAHAHAHA I *wonder* to whomst’d’ve you could be referring.
@adamgreenfield Oh, I'll never tell. Wouldn't want a cease and desist!
@mattmay Does…does he do that?? I guess I thought better of him than *that*. Crikey!
@adamgreenfield he musta been basically alright. I had speedbird in the ol’ RSS reader, and remember being delighted to learn (elsewhere) that he had a book about smart cities happening soon 🤷
@adamgreenfield Having had some realizations down a similar line not too long ago, I would take this as good news.
It means you've learned, and grown as a person.
@slothrop Let’s hope so. 👊
