Honesty

Just watched a documentary on Charles Bukowski.  And there is one thing I deeply admire about him.  He did not live under the illusion that other people were too fragile for him. He was not worried about other people’s feelings being hurt by the truth,  That is respect.  Did he sometimes go full asshole?  Maybe.  But he told the truth and that’s how you respect people.

I could never write like Charles Bukowski and I don’t really want to.  For one thing, I do not long to hang out at the race track or to spend inordinate amounts of time in bars.  (Mostly.)  That honesty though.  The respect.  Those are things I wish I could copy. Realistically, I am a manipulator.  I don’t play to others' strengths.  I attempt to manipulate them at their weak points.  And here’s the thing.  Manipulators sometimes make you feel better about yourself than honest people.  Honest people rattle your brains and burst your bubbles.  They knock you to the ground and ask if you want to get back up again and go another round. They make you fight and they make you strong. What honest people do is painful and annoying.  And it’s good for you.

I don’t want to say things that may disturb others’ serenity.  Sometimes it seems easier just not to make other people think.  Sometimes I’d rather not think myself.  There is a great deal of uncertainty bumping around in this skull. The pretense of certainty is much, much more comfortable than the questions.  Hooking back up to the matrix is preferable to reality.  It’s tempting.  So tempting that many people do it without a second thought. 

What people want from writing most of the time, is a simple reflection of whatever illusion they have managed to spin around themselves, glitter added and some soft spun feelings in the shape of fuzzy bunnies and sunsets.  I know…that’s what I want sometimes as well.  There’s a price to pay for listening, for walking out of the warmth of false certainty into a reality that is bigger than you are.  And perhaps there is a time and a place for the warm haze of illusion.  But it seems to me that as a society we are becoming more and more likely, and I mean all of us, not certain parties or certain religions, to opt out, to find a group that gives us comfort and to live inside heavily fortified city walls.  We fight to stay out of the reality wars.  We plan the siege that traps us in our own city. 

Maybe we need more people who are willing to commit to the jail break.  Maybe I should be one of them.