Tender Mercies

There's a disturbing, newly-defined medical condition out there, and it impacts children. It's called, Compassion Deficit Disorder and it develops when children grow up with little social interaction with other living things. Technology makes it possible for a child to spend all of his or her time in front of a screen, or pressing buttons, or something along those lines. It's almost like growing up in isolation. While I appreciate the irony of the Internet leading to a breakdown in human interaction instead of increasing it, I find it terribly sad. The story I read about this phenomenon spoke of a 3 year old child who would throw a ball at an instructor's face and then act detached and indifferent while the instructor made it clear that the ball caused her pain. The child acted the same way if the ball was thrown against the wall or onto the floor. In other words, the child saw no difference between another human being and an inanimate object. That lack of empathy, or even sympathy, is at the root of something very ugly.

It would certainly be strange for a luddite to keep a weblog, and I'm no luddite. I see this as a very real problem with poor parenting fundamentally at fault. Granted, it must be tempting for a parent to put a kid in front of a video game or computer and allow the wonders of modern technology to act as an inexpensive baby-sitter. But intuitively, any human being (parents included) would know that isolating a toddler in such a way is a bad thing. If your intuition, or own ability to be empathetic, is so poorly developed then you should not be having children. Compassion is at the core of every well-adjusted, decent, scrupulous human being. And the inability to put compassion above principle has led to countless atrocities. The world is cruel enough without creating a generation of psychopaths.

My tooth is throbbing. Not literally, but that's the style of this particular pain, which stretches from an infection at the base of a premolar down into my jaw. What a production they have planned on Monday morning. Either that, or they'll just rip the bugger out. I'll also find out on Monday when my orchiectomy is to take place. I'll bet that they get it in before the holidays, and that's a good thing. The constant ache of this tiny testicle has been going on long enough. J'accuse!

I have a dark sense of humor and that sometimes fuels an opinion of me that isn't true. That I'm a bit of a jerk. I'm really not, though, for anyone who cares, I just choose to appreciate absurdity rather than being offended by it. I wrote a short story many, many years ago and I described the protagonist in a way that made him seem insane. But I felt a strong affinity with the fellow, who was "down and out" and bitter about it. I don't like to judge people who have found themselves in a rough spot, and that's because I know with all my mind that anything that can happen to one person can happen to another. Knowing that creates a feeling of comraderie with my fellow human beings. And since I'm familiar with my own potential to be a prick, I'm aware of yours. And a homeless person isn't someone to be looked down upon as a failure. Instead, he or she is a human being that took a different path than, say, you or I. And it could've happened to me, and still could, or you. Because the universe has the capacity to crush any one of us without an ounce of pity or hesitation; it is totally indifferent to your hunger, pain, happiness, sorrow, guilt, pleasure, ennui, libido, envy, or your preference for Coke over Pepsi. It just doesn't give a fat fuck because it doesn't even know you exist...it doesn't know anything. When you really understand that, it brings empathy and comraderie together into one thing. We are all alone, but at the same time there is nothing separating any of us. That's both a truth and an absurdity. See how that works?

That's why I chuckle at some things that really aren't funny. It's a fantastic comic pairing, without equal. The universe and the living. One is enthusiastically concerned with every detail; from getting food to avoiding pain to not being eaten. The other is totally indifferent to everything, literally. Here they are, together at last...will the laughs ever stop? Another important consideration is that after I laugh, I stay up all night asking myself how to make it better. I really, really do care about my fellow man. That's gauche these days, but true.

Some of you out there believe in god. If that's the case, I don't know why you're reading this blog. And a belief in god turns this sad-comic spectacle into something very different. In case you haven't noticed, if god exists, he or she is a total douchebag. Really. And there is nothing funny about a bully beating the shit out of a kid who just wants to be loved by that bully. That just pisses me off, and crushes my hope for a better world. At least in an indifferent universe, we can set the rules to some extent. But with a douchebag sky-king, we're all explicitly fucked from the get go.

Years ago I was in a hotel room in New York City and I was reading Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Truly Outstanding book that my father threw at me and made me read. Anyway, there is a scene in the book where the protagonist, who is living in abject poverty, is heating up some milk in a pan for dinner. That's all he has to eat. As he's waiting for the milk to warm, he spots a roach crawling on his arm. Disgusted, he flicks it away. The bug arcs up through the flat and lands square in the pan of milk on the hotplate. I laughed.

"That's really not supposed to be funny." my father told me.
"I know it's awful, but I think it is supposed to be funny." I replied.

But that left an impression on me. Is there something wrong with me for laughing at the cruel little things life does to us? I hope not. Otherwise, I might seriously lose my mind.

One last thing about the short story I wrote. The character's name was Curtis Garret, and his "I give up, I hate life" comment that struck the teacher as nihilistic was this: "Curtis had grown to hate life and every living thing in the four days that had passed since he moved in with his brother. He had acted out of kindness, to get him off the street. But Curtis wanted none of it now. He was tired of gratitude and found his desire to go on living to be merciless and tiresome. 'Tonight," he thought, 'I will burn my winter coat in the barrel under the 14th St. bridge with the other bums.' His mind raced manically, 'And that will leave me coatless on a freezing night, and I will not return to Jack's place, or the shelter. Instead, I will listed to the fleas pop in the fire as my wool/acrylic coat burns, and the cold will take me when I find seclusion with the wind.' There wasn't any sadness in this decision, and he genuinely found comfort in the knowledge that those irritating little fleas would die before he did."

The flea thing had a setup through the story, so it was oddly amusing. But this was high school, and teachers at that level are really worried that you're going to suck on a tail-pipe. Perhaps that hurt her appreciation for the story. She knew I was a radical lefty and loved me for it. During the semester we watched Norma Rae and Dances With Wolves and I made all the comments she liked. So the story worried her a bit. She was afraid that her fat, socialist student would fling himself off the gymnasium. I didn't seriously consider that sort of thing for several years.

That's that.