lovethelifeyoulive.

That time you confused a lesson for a soulmate.

I think the press really conspires to play down the carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. This gets to what the Great American writer and academic Ed Herman called worthy and unworthy victims. The Iraqi’s are not worthy victims so we can play down their deaths, because if we accept the reality that there are more than a million dead, it’s largely our fault. And so for instance, the US Press will talk about 200,000 to 400,000 dead in Somalia, those victims were worthy victims because they were killed by people that we don’t like.

how to lead a fulfilling life:

I rarely answer my telephone, often forget to check voicemail, and can take a shockingly long time to return phone calls. So sue me. The telephone is intrusive, especially for introverts, whose brains don’t switch gears all that quickly. When we’re deep in thought, a ringing telephone is like a shrieking alarm clock in the morning. And we often give bad phone—awkward, with pauses. We struggle without visual cues, and our tendency to ponder before we talk doesn’t play well on the telephone. Being stuck on a too-long call makes me want to chew off my own leg to escape. Sometimes, if I’m feeling devil-may-care, I’ll pick up calls from far-flung friends who want to catch-up, But I more often let them go to voicemail and then make a date (via email) for us to talk. My friends understand. Dislike of the phone is often presented as a moral failing. But honestly, it’s not the people on the phone we dislike, it’s the instrument of delivery.

This is the breaking point in a human life, right here. But my whole life had been leading up to this, hadn’t it? From day one it was like society was this violent, complicated dance and everybody had taken lessons but me. Knocked to the floor again and again, climbing to my feet each time, bloody and humiliated. Always met with disapproving faces, waiting for me to leave so I’d stop fucking up the party. They wanted to push me outside, where the freaks huddled in the cold. Out there with the misfits, the broken, glazed-eye types who can only watch as the normals enjoy their shiny new cars and careers and marriages and vacations with the kids. The freaks spend their lives shambling around, wondering how they got left out, mumbling about conspiracy theories and Bigfoot sightings. Their encounters with the world are marked by awkward conversations and stifled laughter, hidden smirks and rolled eyes. And worst of all, pity. Sitting there on that night in April, I pictured myself getting shoved out there with them, the sound of doors locking behind me. Welcome to freakdom, Dave. It’ll be time to start a Web site soon, where you’ll type out everything in one huge paragraph. It was like dying.