Heads

Alright, well here’s the thing. A long time ago, in a very strange period in my life, I started a website. This would have been before the whole blogging craze took off. It wasn’t even a blog, really, more of a weekly column sort of thing. That is, if we expand our definition of “columnists” to include stupid, self-absorbed teenagers who’re too confused about the changes in their lives to actually confront them like adults and instead start ranting and cursing at a whole world that they mistakenly blame on a website that no one even visits, like they’re a character in a book or something. Obviously, not a proud moment. It was a long time before I actually came to my senses, but fortunately it only took a month or so before I gave up on my little online experiment. Truth be told, I think now that I’m the only person who even remembers. I hope so, at least.

Then about a year later, blogging got big, and I got involved with that. That was short-lived, too. After the novelty wore off, it just became another way for me to bemoan my problems. But it offered no solutions, nothing positive or constructive, so I abandoned it as well. A year or two after that, coming out of what I consider to be a bit of a down period, I started yet another page, this one acting as a sort of weird confessional/therapy session. That was close to being something. It was still a little self-involved and silly, but I think in its own way, it did some good by forcing me to really examine myself and write my conclusions out for people to see. My heart was finally in the right place. But then things got rough for me again, and on one really bad day, I deleted the whole thing, all of it, down to the last word.

Now even though that represents no great loss to the world or our collective culture, I have always felt bad doing that. Because a central part of my character, or rather what I hope and strive to hold as a central part, is my honesty. And I don’t believe that you can be honest with yourself without owning up to your past and to your mistakes. Maybe you don’t obsess over it like I do, but you accept it. That’s important. You don’t get to erase your mistakes in life. I’m not even sure you should be allowed to. I say when you screw up, forget erasing, just deal with it and keep moving down the page. That’s how you learn, by remembering.

I say that to let you know-- whoever “you” might be-- why I am not deleting my entry from last week, the one immediately prior to this one, though I have every reason to. That was a mistake, which we’ll get into in a second. But for me to erase it, or to pretend it didn’t happen, would be just as big a mistake, and we’re trying to grow a little here. I doubt anyone else’ll learn from this but I damn sure plan to.

So I think if you scroll down and look at that hateful, self-pitying little rant before this one, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the kind of thing I was hoping to avoid when I started this up. I have no use for the vast majority of personal websites, which seem, like my own early ones, to consist largely of whining and meaningless teen angst. I can’t stand teenagers, so why do I want them on my computer? The blogs I’m interested in, as I wrote in my first entry last June, are the ones that offer something universal, something creative, something lasting, beyond whatever the latest melodrama happens to be. “Blogging as art”, I wrote. And so that’s what I set out to do, to write about things that were beyond me. I wouldn’t say that I removed myself from the equation, because that’s impossible, but I did try to keep it on a broader level, and not get bogged down with autobiographical details. Keep that for conversations, and letters, and times and places where I could have an actual dialogue, rather than the monologue of the personal weblog. I wanted something that didn’t need my name or background information to be relatable. Hit-or-miss, I guess, since I’m not really a writer, but I think on balance I was doing okay.

Then, sad and angry and far too tired to think things out like a rational adult, I sat down last Friday night and started to revert into exactly what I didn’t want, what I had done before. I let my personal problems leak out into the world, with no filter or explanation or context, no conclusions drawn, nothing of value offered. It didn’t help me, certainly didn’t help anyone else. It was just melodramatic, self-indulgent, silly kid stuff. I don’t need that and neither does anyone else.

Yes, I have anger, and yes I have hate, and obviously in my struggle with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder and the occasional heartbreak or personal loss that we all go through, I’ve let the bad parts of my personality take hold. And in doing so, I’ve behaved horribly in the past, and have become more than once the absolute embodiment of everything I dislike, everything I find wrong in the world. I know this and I take responsibility for it, and I have, to the best of my ability, tried to make amends wherever necessary or appropriate. Yes, I have a great, deep anger, but it does not own me. I own it. I am a free person, not bound or cursed by fate, and with each year I get a little better. I am a rational being, with self-control, not a coin to be flipped by some vague metaphysical force. I believe that end the end I will win my personal struggles, sure as I believe that the sun will rise in the morning.

If I ever say or do anything that indicates otherwise, if I ever appear to doubt my ability to change, to evolve into someone better, pay me no mind. I may give into despair or anger (and by extension, hate) from time to time, but those moments are tiny battles lost. The war is much bigger, and I will not lose it. Talk sense to me if you like, but one way or another, I’ll get my head on straight; I always do. And in the end, hopefully, I’ll be a little bit better off than I was before. For instance, after my ridiculous electronic hissy fit last week, I’ve learned to stop and think before I pollute the internet with moments of personal weakness.

So having said all this, I apologize. Not to anyone who might be reading this, because I’m not convinced that anyone actually does, and because I think those who might are smarter and wiser and knew better all along. Rather, I apologize to myself, for being stupid, for acting like a child, and for forgetting hard lessons already learned, which is one of the greatest crimes you can commit against yourself. I should not have known better; I did know better. In my weakness I forgot. Fortunately I’ve got a blog entry to remind me.

(Upon further reflection, I will apologize to any potential readers as well. You certainly didn’t do anything to deserve all this. If you’re still reading by now, I’m deeply sorry. I’ll try to make the next one less stupid.)