Memoirs of the Misanthrope
Volume One:
August 11, 2008
Entry One:
Who does this guy think he is?

Need I define Misanthrope? Dare i assume the masses are too stupid to know or too ignorant to use the dictionary? Oh, but i must: misanthrope:

(Taken from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misanthrope)
Main Entry: mis•an•thrope
Pronunciation: \'mi-s?n-?throp\
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek misanthropos hating humankind, from misein to hate + anthropos human being
Date: 1683

: a person who hates
or distrusts humankind

Who am i? You couldn’t care less. What you want to know is who do i think i am to be mouthing off and why do i believe you should bother reading it, right? First off, don’t read it, see if i care. No really, go away. Please. The guys at HackNYC.com post plenty for you to do around NYC, so go. Get out of here. No?

Ok. Won’t lie, wish you had gone but at least you realize i can teach you all to embrace your antipathy, or perhaps to be a bit less despicable as you all are. Yes, NYC is a wondrous place, i’ll give you that. The problem is the people. But here i am, finally with a forum for my bitching and moaning, expecting those same people to read me complaining about them. Oh, the human condition. What a hideous image when depicted.

Sometimes i’ll be specific. Sometimes not. Take it seriously or don’t, either ways just fine by me. But never call me a snob, cause i don’t think i am “good” per say, no not at all, never have, but shit man, i sure as hell ain’t as bad as you all. As far as credentials, nothing more than a lifelong New Yorker with a MA in English from Brooklyn College. In truth, a wannabe author is all. An underachiever with hardly any work experience (cause work is for suckers). i am no one special. Just like you, maybe? Sick of them all-- the idiots who think it is OK to eat buffalo wings on subway cars; hipsters whose styles make them look even uglier than when they started; the suits who chase the buck, the artists who claim authority over aesthetic; the system that entitles very few, permits only some and dismisses and forgets the rest. Qualified? Depends who is in the room i guess. Don’t like it? Go elsewhere then. i certainly couldn’t care less cause i didn’t like you anyway.

i wasn’t always like this though, a skeptical cynic who suspects all and believes in less. i used to love people, parties, gatherings of all sorts. i’d go to shows and see bands; go to museums and stare at statues; go to ball games and pray for just the right foul-tip to send it up my way so I could snatch it right before it hits the glove of the child sitting beside me; to amusement parks and weddings; to readings; to the cinema; i’d do it all. i even went to church as a kid; Unitarian Universalist so not too sure if that really counts. Don’t go anymore. Almost twenty years. No co-pilot on this flight. No one to blame but myself. Well, and all of you.

Anyway, for one like me personal responsibility in the world’s betterment can be put to an end since such resistance is futile in a struggle against the invincible agenda of the State. And beyond that the State sure as hell ain’t looking out for global health, unless betterment means no whammies and stoppin on the Big Bucks. And who makes up the State? Not one government anymore; not just one country anymore. Globalization. The good old World Bank swoops in for the kill and shreds the carrion until there is nothing but debt bones. So who makes up the State, i ask again? We do. All of us here are accomplice in one way or another. Our shoes. Our glamour enhancers. Our dead animal dinners. Corn. Through the pacifying products our resultant placation. Our white teeth and the lie of happy endings. Some more than others buy in, but us all in there. And regardless, any action, positive or negative, can be made exempt from moral judgment since it can simply be explained or excused by manufacturing it to be the result of oppression rather than from acts of personal achievement or detriment. This culminates in the feeling that an individual lacks control even over one’s own life, subjugated by the State’s secular domination. By crushing the belief that an individual cannot affect his own life or the lives of those around him, hope quickly eradicates. Despondency breeds despair which triggers inactivity and/or malevolence. Resulting in the misanthrope.

While despair is the result of the sociopolitical conditions that necessitate revolutions, it is hope which facilitates the resolve to rebel by inspiring the conviction that, through rebellion, a better world might emerge. By falling under the spell of despair, the population becomes unable to see rebellion as a resource for societal betterment and instead adheres to the image that the State presents of rebellion, as the destroyer of all things good.

So i wait. i wait for that day, the day of revolt. Blood, like Lenin says? Dunno. Hope not, enough already. But when it comes, that day i will be a brother, husband, father, son, cousin, friend. But not today. You all ruin it for me just like my mother tells me I ruin everything. So no not today.

“I was born with a passion for contradiction. My whole life has been nothing but a series of dismal, unsuccessful attempts to go against heart or reason. An enthusiast turns me as cold as ice, and I fancy that frequent contact with a languid phlegmatic would turn me into an ardent idealist.”
…Mikhail Lermontov from A Hero of Our Time