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12/07/2003 Archived Entry: "Anger"

ANGER IS A DAMN FUNNY THING. If I get pissed at John Ashcroft or the RFID enslavers, it just spurs me to blog and, I hope, blog with wit and spirit. The last few days I've been angry at myself and some of my friends, and that's a whole 'nother story. That sort of anger freezes me and puts my creativity in suspension.

Not going to go into details. But I've been angry at myself after catching myself in an act of base hypocrisy. I can't abide hypocrites; bad thing to discover that I are one. Well, my hypocrisy was small and un-do-able and is in the process of being undone. But I've also discovered that some people I thought better of will twist their own personal hypocrisy into a moral principle. Not so easily undone, that. Not so easy to reverse direction when you convince yourself not only that wrong is right but that wrong is noble and superior. Not so easy to tear down an edifice of falsehood when that edifice is a fancy intellectual castle you've lovingly built to shelter your own hypocrisy.

Kill a commie for Christ and never mind thou shalt not kill. Destroy the village to save it. Steal in the name of property rights. Gamble and screw while preaching morals. Pop pills while preaching jail for all who do exactly as you do. "It's voluntary; do it OR ELSE." Preach resistance -- for others! -- but give in at every turn in the name of self-preservation. Destroy freedom to save freedom. Preach honesty -- and lie. I thought that stuff was all for folks on the other side of the political fence. But it ain't.

Disillusion. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Get over it, Claire.

I will, I will. And get over kicking myself in the butt for my own part in it all. But in the meantime it's hard to stay focused enough to write.

Well, regardless ... I'm finally starting to write the next book -- the replacement for 101 Things and Don't Shoot the Bastards that isn't exactly a replacement in any literal sense. Some devilishly creative folks on the Claire Files message boards contributed to both the content and spirit of the book. Without them, the book would still be formless and would probably end up nowhere near as good. And webmistress Debra and her husband, Torry, added an extra dash of brilliance. With friends like these, there's hope.

Posted by Claire @ 07:06 PM CST
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