Congratulations. That's about the seventh time you've posted a day (or hour) or two after sending me a message or an email saying that you were leaving or never posting again. Your consistency is commendable.
This message is a lie. First of all, I have never sent 7 messages saying that I was leaving or never posting again. I may have sent a message like that years ago, when i was much crazier even than I am now. But even then I received several private messages from forum vets apologizing for me being treated roughly, so I tried to stick around. Second of all, I did not send a message recently saying that I was not posting again. What I said was that I would steer clear of the conversations (because they trigger my rants, which noone appreciates), but that I would still post small things here and there - a song link, a pdf of something I dug up at the library, etc. I am making an exception in this thread, though, since it obviously concerns me and my reputation directly.
Did anyone read this post from mjp?
Everyone except you, right. You're enlightened because you don't make enough money to participate in consumerism. How convenient.
One of two things will eventually happen to you (because they eventually happen to everyone like you); you'll end up making more money and all of your charming, youthful "radicalism" will dissipate and be forgotten, or (more likely), you'll never make more money because you're too fucking crazy to even fake being normal, so you'll always have 20 or 30 year old everything, and you'll die thinking you were a better person because of it.
But really it's just a justification for failure. You'll die a delusional old kook who everyone avoids. Right now you're a delusional young kook who everyone avoids. So you can look forward to more of the same.
That's today's look into the crystal ball, brought to you by Google and Amazon.
You're welcome.
This is a venomous personal attack. I got structural lung deficiency that has always prevented my body from oxygenating at more than about 70% of what the average person is working with and ear surgeries when i was little threw my balance off-kilter in a serious way that if i don't do an hour or two of taichi every day to open my chest up and refind my center i don't have the wherewithall to get out of bed. So, like he says, maybe i will die young of frustration or never publish a culture-shifting book of essay and prose. Don't go sending me get-well cards, i don't care for pity. But I do know from experience that compassion and understanding go hand-in-hand.
That said, regardless of my personal future horizons, if he or anybody else has or had a problem with the style of my or anybody else's posts, a private message is a simple way to address it. Public slander of forum members is only going to foment negativity - and might explain where there are so few long-time posters still active in the forum.
As for Ponder's claim that my posts are narcissistic, the opposite is true. If anything, they are overly altruistic and compassionate. I feel for people and their struggles. The oppression and pollution and habitat destruction are maddening! Expressing that frustration and trying to understand and demystify those struggles is part of my process. Behind every critical utterance is a fundamental intention to somehow improve the situation.
But I realized that I had entered into an addictive mode of participation in the forum and needed to impose some distance on myself. Hence my emailing mjp to apologize for being at times too wild, and to communicate my intention to alter my behavior pattern. Any kind of acknowledgement of that message on his part (even something as simple as 'whatever dude') would have spared him from having to hear a 'your mom' joke.
I've looked at old forum posts and I know that people posting in full sentences and even an occasional paragraph is not unheard of around here - in fact it used to be commonplace. Taking the time to try to clear up a misunderstanding or express a complete consideration is important every now and again. I'm as into bukowski (and current literary subculture) as anybody else around here so being in the forum makes sense to me. Plus I've had good correspondance with a few forum members and I've just gotten some milestone award for going over 50 likes, in spite of mjp campaigning against me - obviously not everything i do is loathesome to everybody.
i remember when a couple people made sincere posts about their situation in real life in the last month or so and at first i was put-off by it, but then upon reflection i found that hearing that backstory gives the forum a little more heart. here's to that. and as always, any moderator can delete my post if it's unseemly. a few short mundane ones have been deleted in the past, but then the ones that make people mad get left up there and lambasted. not sure how it all works ... obviously.
