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Jun. 13th, 2009 10:03 amIt strikes me this morning, as I watch Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness in the background, how difficult life can feel at times, as if we were all climbing up this slippery slope of ice, thinking as we do that everyone is way ahead and worse still they flew there. Envy is gnarly thing...a cancer on the soul, that eats away from the inside, causing one to lash out at all around but ulitmately just slashing at oneself.
I don't know if you have been following the saga of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yuko_onna? The skinny - is she is a struggling writer in Maine, whose fiance got laid-off, and can barely eck out a living. So, instead of burying her head in the sand, she decided to try to get money through the self-publishing of what amounts to an Young Adult e-book on the internet. A book of original fiction that only she can write. The response was amazing. And touching. Within hours, she was able to make enough to pay three months rent. It is not the first time I've seen this response on the net. Nor will it be the last. I myself have benefitted from this awesome generousity of spirit (not money wise, but in other ways) and have also, been a part of it on occassion. I've seen people on the net donate generous sums to people, receiving nothing but a general thank you in return, forcing me to rethink my stance on the inherent selfishness of the human spirit.
When I read yuko's posts, I felt many things, including, I'm sorry to say a touch, just the barest touch of envy. Not, mind you, at her situation per se, but more at the sheer number of people who have come out of the woodwork to embrace her. And for good reason, she is a lovely writer. The fact that not one but two established and popular sci-fantasy writers promoted her art and passed the word. And that she has such a loving partner and such, from her journal at least, a beautiful home. But I pushed the envy aside, thankfully never uttering it aloud except perhaps here - breifly to make a point...reminding myself of things and speaking to someone who reminded me of still more. Such as the many many times people have done the same for me. And I know having read your journals, many of you can say the same. As isolated as we all feel in our own little hovels, we are like it or not, a community in this place called cyberspace - interconnecting voices that at times press against each other fighting for room, arguing like angry children in a schoolyard debate over a ball, at others coming together like a chorus..with the words distinct, yet in harmony, embracing a common cause.
The other thing I reminded myself of is this: do not compare yourself to others, you do not know the journey they are on. Also, if we were all to throw our troubles into a grab back, we would quickly grab our own back again - steering clear of everyone else's.
While it is tempting to envy someone like say Joss Whedon, Ann Rice and/or Stephen King, what we forget is how hard they worked to get there. King was a janitor, a drunk, and had spent many years struggling in horrible jobs and no pay. Rice lost a child and could barely eck out a living for many many years.
And this year, I lost a 25 year old friendship, in part, due to envy. There were other reasons, but that is the one that sticks in my gut and haunts me still. My friend envied me. I did not understand why. And to a degree I envied her...but not in the way nor to the degree that I now realize she had envied me. Our mutual envy ate away at our friendship the way fungus eats at the roots of a tree, until there is nothing left but a dried out rotting shell.
So here, this morning, I read this post:
http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/488927.html
And felt numerous things. First less lonely. And oddly comforted. Second a bit wiser.
Why? Not for the reasons you may think. I have been to the metaphorical island that yuki is located on. It is not an easy place. To graduate with a BA in English and a minor in Cultural Anthropology, with no prospects and the decision not to try graduate school - because languages so not my thing. To spend four years floundering. At that time, there was little to no internet. And my folks had just moved more than a continent away. I was in a word - alone. And I could not make my writing work. I ended up going to law school and no, it did equal instant jobs. It equaled another year or so of soul-breaking unemployment. I moved to NYC, and eventually got a job - only to leave it six-seven years later, without another one in place and in a recession. I spent the next twenty-three months unemployed again, living off savings...or rather depleting mine. During those years, I learned quite a few things, things that my family, my parents specifically will not allow me to forget. One of the major ones is that people do want to help one another and will, whether you ask or not.
In 2002, I went on the internet, starting with discussion boards and moving towards livejournal, which I like to call my correspondence club. On the net, the following things happened: when I felt I had no one, a woman in Japan sent me flowers and her husband who was in the navy stopped by when he was on shore leave and took me to dinner. I remember asking why. Feeling quilty. I had nothing I could give and she had not provided an address. He said for keeping my wife sane. For giving her companionship. For reading and responding to her beautiful letters.
Out of the woodwork, a poster on a discussion board emailed me and asked me if she could set up as a school project a website hosting my Buffy and Angel essays which I posted on discussion boards. I'd been asked by others how to get them and was getting hundreds of emails requesting them, because they had a tendency to disappear off the voy board I posted them on in less than two days. I said sure, go ahead. She did. And years later, emailed me that she was now making internet movie trailers for a company in California. Designing my site helped her on her way. It was a stepping stone.
In 2003, when I was struggling to stay afloat. Depressed and alone. Two of the people I met on the net, who lived in my area, and I'd become friends with, arranged a birthday party complete with limo.
And later in 2004, before I got employed finally, and I was so physically depressed that I could not stop crying...the people online sent their support and advised that it could be a medication mixup - it was.
I have received so much love from the internet. Yet, for some reason, it is not the love I always remember or dwell upon but the rare moments of judgment, of isolation. The critiques. The verbal slaps. The flame wars. The judgements. The moments when I get no responses at all and feel like a solitary bottle slopping across the sea containing a unread, albeit lengthy message inside its depths. But these are rare and do not happen that often. For every person who has defriended me, ten have. For every person I've offended, many I have not. And for every long post like this one that gets no replies, I've written many that have gotten dozens.
Why do we hear the critiques so loudly? Why do they outshout the compliments? And why, I wonder do we often provide critiques over compliments? Reading yuko's post, made me realize I'm not alone in that. And made me wonder why. I dwell on the wrong things. I think at times we all do. And the worst are the critiques that we already heard inside our own heads. At least that is the case for me. I tend to get the most angry and the most upset at those critiques that I've already given myself or that someone close to me has. If, unwittingly, someone sounds a bit too much like my kidbrother in their response, I will most likely rip them a new one. Since I can't do it to him. Realizing this, makes it less likely.
Reading yuki's post reminded me of what it is to be human. To be flawed. And scared. And uncertain. To feel as if you are floundering inside a dark wood, surrounded by wolves, the birds tweeting at you too far above your own head. And reminded me that I am not alone in this journey. That there are folks wandering this dark wood with me and occassionally if I stretch out my fingers they will brush theirs. If I stretch a bit more, I may I just may touch, and then clasp their hand.
I don't know if you have been following the saga of
yuko_onna? The skinny - is she is a struggling writer in Maine, whose fiance got laid-off, and can barely eck out a living. So, instead of burying her head in the sand, she decided to try to get money through the self-publishing of what amounts to an Young Adult e-book on the internet. A book of original fiction that only she can write. The response was amazing. And touching. Within hours, she was able to make enough to pay three months rent. It is not the first time I've seen this response on the net. Nor will it be the last. I myself have benefitted from this awesome generousity of spirit (not money wise, but in other ways) and have also, been a part of it on occassion. I've seen people on the net donate generous sums to people, receiving nothing but a general thank you in return, forcing me to rethink my stance on the inherent selfishness of the human spirit. When I read yuko's posts, I felt many things, including, I'm sorry to say a touch, just the barest touch of envy. Not, mind you, at her situation per se, but more at the sheer number of people who have come out of the woodwork to embrace her. And for good reason, she is a lovely writer. The fact that not one but two established and popular sci-fantasy writers promoted her art and passed the word. And that she has such a loving partner and such, from her journal at least, a beautiful home. But I pushed the envy aside, thankfully never uttering it aloud except perhaps here - breifly to make a point...reminding myself of things and speaking to someone who reminded me of still more. Such as the many many times people have done the same for me. And I know having read your journals, many of you can say the same. As isolated as we all feel in our own little hovels, we are like it or not, a community in this place called cyberspace - interconnecting voices that at times press against each other fighting for room, arguing like angry children in a schoolyard debate over a ball, at others coming together like a chorus..with the words distinct, yet in harmony, embracing a common cause.
The other thing I reminded myself of is this: do not compare yourself to others, you do not know the journey they are on. Also, if we were all to throw our troubles into a grab back, we would quickly grab our own back again - steering clear of everyone else's.
While it is tempting to envy someone like say Joss Whedon, Ann Rice and/or Stephen King, what we forget is how hard they worked to get there. King was a janitor, a drunk, and had spent many years struggling in horrible jobs and no pay. Rice lost a child and could barely eck out a living for many many years.
And this year, I lost a 25 year old friendship, in part, due to envy. There were other reasons, but that is the one that sticks in my gut and haunts me still. My friend envied me. I did not understand why. And to a degree I envied her...but not in the way nor to the degree that I now realize she had envied me. Our mutual envy ate away at our friendship the way fungus eats at the roots of a tree, until there is nothing left but a dried out rotting shell.
So here, this morning, I read this post:
http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/488927.html
And felt numerous things. First less lonely. And oddly comforted. Second a bit wiser.
Why? Not for the reasons you may think. I have been to the metaphorical island that yuki is located on. It is not an easy place. To graduate with a BA in English and a minor in Cultural Anthropology, with no prospects and the decision not to try graduate school - because languages so not my thing. To spend four years floundering. At that time, there was little to no internet. And my folks had just moved more than a continent away. I was in a word - alone. And I could not make my writing work. I ended up going to law school and no, it did equal instant jobs. It equaled another year or so of soul-breaking unemployment. I moved to NYC, and eventually got a job - only to leave it six-seven years later, without another one in place and in a recession. I spent the next twenty-three months unemployed again, living off savings...or rather depleting mine. During those years, I learned quite a few things, things that my family, my parents specifically will not allow me to forget. One of the major ones is that people do want to help one another and will, whether you ask or not.
In 2002, I went on the internet, starting with discussion boards and moving towards livejournal, which I like to call my correspondence club. On the net, the following things happened: when I felt I had no one, a woman in Japan sent me flowers and her husband who was in the navy stopped by when he was on shore leave and took me to dinner. I remember asking why. Feeling quilty. I had nothing I could give and she had not provided an address. He said for keeping my wife sane. For giving her companionship. For reading and responding to her beautiful letters.
Out of the woodwork, a poster on a discussion board emailed me and asked me if she could set up as a school project a website hosting my Buffy and Angel essays which I posted on discussion boards. I'd been asked by others how to get them and was getting hundreds of emails requesting them, because they had a tendency to disappear off the voy board I posted them on in less than two days. I said sure, go ahead. She did. And years later, emailed me that she was now making internet movie trailers for a company in California. Designing my site helped her on her way. It was a stepping stone.
In 2003, when I was struggling to stay afloat. Depressed and alone. Two of the people I met on the net, who lived in my area, and I'd become friends with, arranged a birthday party complete with limo.
And later in 2004, before I got employed finally, and I was so physically depressed that I could not stop crying...the people online sent their support and advised that it could be a medication mixup - it was.
I have received so much love from the internet. Yet, for some reason, it is not the love I always remember or dwell upon but the rare moments of judgment, of isolation. The critiques. The verbal slaps. The flame wars. The judgements. The moments when I get no responses at all and feel like a solitary bottle slopping across the sea containing a unread, albeit lengthy message inside its depths. But these are rare and do not happen that often. For every person who has defriended me, ten have. For every person I've offended, many I have not. And for every long post like this one that gets no replies, I've written many that have gotten dozens.
Why do we hear the critiques so loudly? Why do they outshout the compliments? And why, I wonder do we often provide critiques over compliments? Reading yuko's post, made me realize I'm not alone in that. And made me wonder why. I dwell on the wrong things. I think at times we all do. And the worst are the critiques that we already heard inside our own heads. At least that is the case for me. I tend to get the most angry and the most upset at those critiques that I've already given myself or that someone close to me has. If, unwittingly, someone sounds a bit too much like my kidbrother in their response, I will most likely rip them a new one. Since I can't do it to him. Realizing this, makes it less likely.
Reading yuki's post reminded me of what it is to be human. To be flawed. And scared. And uncertain. To feel as if you are floundering inside a dark wood, surrounded by wolves, the birds tweeting at you too far above your own head. And reminded me that I am not alone in this journey. That there are folks wandering this dark wood with me and occassionally if I stretch out my fingers they will brush theirs. If I stretch a bit more, I may I just may touch, and then clasp their hand.
