Merde melancholic…

The campaign against my dysthymia goes on. The ‘ups’ are more frequent, and on the whole, the norm. However, they’re differentiating from the ‘downs’, so much so that I’m starting to get an idea of what circumstances precipitate my occasional bouts of depression.

Not surprisingly, these are for the most part, things that touch tangentially upon topics I’ve raised before. In the interests of my sanity, and your patience, I’ll try not to be too repetitive in this catalogue of frustrations.

Allow me to regale you with a few observations…

***

Excessive self-regard. In 2003, I took part in the protests against the Iraq War, not because I thought that Saddam was alright, not because I hate America, and not because I thought it would match a bohemian wardrobe. Truth be told, my father was in palliative care at the time, and died quite soon after – I had other things on my mind.

So, taking time out from seeing my father, to attend to something else I thought more immediate and serious, what did I come across?

I remember this horrid, rent-a-crowd lady, appointing herself as the natural leader of a newfound throng of protesters, instigating an impromptu ‘Altogether now! All we are saying…!’ I’m glad to say that rather than enable her self-importance, those in earshot were in an appropriately sombre mood, and rebuked her celebratory command with stern expressions.

Indeed, this is actually the clearest memory I have of the march.

Yet I got the impression that most people in attendance were of the view that the cluster-bombing of Iraq, and the interruptions to utilities, would take a terrible toll on the Iraqis, and that on balance, this was too high a price for the removal of Saddam. The ‘woo look at me! I’m so moral! I’m taking a stand!’ crowd, while loud, seemed thankfully minimal.

Cluster-bombs aren’t a cause for celebration.

I feel much the same way about, and think as much of, people who take advantage of any other cause to promote themselves. I distinctly remember an incident on Twitter, where a self-declared ‘activist’ gave the kind of patronising advocacy for mental health that only someone who didn’t know anything about it could give – followed by a celebration of how he (not the issue) was trending.

(Seriously, it was about as ill-thought-out as telling someone with depression to ‘cheer up’. And the dude wants recognition as an ‘activist’. Fark!)

Observation: Twitter needs an #UnfollowFriday for these parasites, and anyone foolish enough to enable them.

It doesn’t always work out for people who have to live with depression, but the really important thing is that depression works out well for ‘activists’, right? (Sarcasm doesn’t depress me).

***

Grandstanding ignoramuses. So, you want to lecture people? You want to deliver exposition in the most didactic method possible? How about you do a little reading first, eh?

I was at a gathering of poets at Gawler the other weekend, when some bloke recited an ‘Ode To America’. I don’t normally mind the phrase ‘you just don’t get it’, at least not above and beyond its status as clichéd, but this guy was supererogating supererogation in his overuse and overemphasis of the phrase.

Moreover, in his list of crimes committed by America (a good number of which I’m not happy about myself), there were factual errors – such as Saddam’s regime being largely created by US support. If you’re going to address a gathering of people as if you’re capable of schooling them, you first need to do enough homework to be able to safely assume you know better than them.

Having an uniformed opinion, and bleating on about it as if you’re some kind of guru is cheap and easy, and I guess, easily accessible to stupid and lazy people. I found the poem more depressing that a shit sandwich served up as gourmet appétit.

(Yeah, I was supposed to be supportive, so I clapped two fingers together).

I have a similar, related response to self-aggrandizing conspiracy theorists, who in being infallible, what with their ‘evidence’ always being unavailable, manage to expect to be taken seriously while at the same time shifting the burden of proof to their audience. What arrogance!

It’s not just paranoid, or credulous, it’s totally devoid of work-ethic; ignorance elevated to the stature of philosophy, with the maximum of taking one’s self too seriously as a source of wisdom.

***

People who cultivate a troglodytic public image in the hope of adoration. It’s not enough for me to say that I don’t like being expected to play along with the game of treating misogyny as a defining trait of masculinity. I mean, I do encounter lads who are okay with my not joining in, but still expect me to be somehow vaguely impressed.

This usually occurs with the out group being belittled isn’t in attendance. I’m treated as if my opposition to misogyny is just an act to be entertained, there for the benefit of ‘the girls’, or ‘the Abos’, or whoever else.

As soon as my ‘act’ is supposedly over, I’m expected to be a supportive mate, so much so that whatever I seem to say, gets contorted into words of praise via some of the most conceited of mental gymnastics I’ve ever seen.

I guess they’re projecting their own two-facedness onto the rest of the ‘blokes’ (it’s usually guys, but not always). My mistake perhaps, is in being too specific, analytic, and measured in my responses, in the hope that they would be less defensive, and more able to learn from criticism.

It doesn’t seem to ever work, and it’s just stressing me out.

And laughing at them, because I think they’re pathetic, always seems easily misconstrued with laughing with them. Even when I explicitly mention that I think the point of contention is pathetic.

‘Go fuck yourself, racist/sexist/misogynist’ is gradually working my way to a permanent position at the tip of my tongue. If they aren’t going to learn, that’s their own responsibility, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to take responsibility for their self-esteem.

Really, is it reasonable to expect, that on top of whatever other damage they’re doing to whoever else, I should pay a price in depression just so they can feel better about themselves? My patience shouldn’t, and can’t be endless.

***

People who monopolise group spaces for their personal, comparatively trivial, shit. You could have someone wanting to talk about being tortured, or raped, or mutilated, or beaten, or whatever else, and there’ll be some selfish arse who comes along to whine about their own existential crisis that arises out of some non-trauma. Often, it’ll be the same existential crisis the same time, over and fucking over, like a broken record (apologies if I’m doing this – in my defence, I have been tortured before, not that I really want to talk about it).

Look, I don’t have a problem with their expressing their issues per se. It’s just that in a shared, finite space, priority is a necessity every responsible adult in a group needs to consider. If some things won’t be able to be talked about, then you’d better get the serious stuff done in short order.

‘Whaaa! My father once mocked my collecting of baseball cards! Am I really a man?’

Please, spare me.

***

The list goes on, but there’s one I’m anticipating from those who can’t read the signs, or listen to the warnings. Eventually, when depression isn’t as much of a dampener to action for me as it is now, I’m going to be more aggressive about these things.

I suspect inevitably I’ll be up against a tirade of ‘well why didn’t you say something?’ / ‘I thought you were a friend!’ / ‘BETRAYAL!’

Yeah well, I think I’ve spelled it out well enough, at least for anyone smart enough to know better, or anyone smart enough to deserve my attention in the first place.

I’ll not be handing out tissues. I’ll not be doing much mourning over lost friendships.

This is shit, up with which I shall not put.

~ Bruce