Can you wish you had written something even when it’s taking the piss out of you? Yes, apparently:
Also, global warming? Total effing letdown. Americans are no longer believing in it. Do you know why? Not because the mountains of scientific proof aren’t there. Not because it’s not happening. But because it’s not yet happening to us like they said it would in the movies and those worst-case scenario books. Where are the zombies? The ice forests? Where’s the tidal wave crashing over the Himalayas? I want my goddamn apocalypse, and I want it now.
Here’s another:
My God, did you hear that pathetic State of the Union? That guy, that President Obama? Disappointing times a thousand, am I right? What the hell happened to him? Why is he so weak and ineffectual? Why the hell can’t he step up and fix the entire planet in under 400 days like he promised he would, in my dreams and fantasies and impossible liberal grass-fed organic tofu greengasms? Doesn’t he know I put a goddamn bumper sticker on my Subaru for him? I’ve never done that for anyone. Bastard.
He’s only accomplished what, about 100 of the things I expected him to accomplish by now? Big deal. I have, like, 5,000 more. Health care reform has failed. Guantanamo is still open. Wars are still warring. Jobs are still sucking. Gays are still unhappy because the entire human understanding of love and gender in this nation has not completely transformed within a year. Infuriating!
And finally, this one really captures the heart of it:
You have but to take a peek in the comments section below this column, any column, any article on this or any news site whatsoever, to see just how mean and nasty we have become. It does not matter what the piece might be about. Obama’s speech. High speed rail. Popular dog breeds. Your grandmother’s cookies. The anonymous comments section of any major media site or popular blog will be so crammed with bile and bickering, accusation and pule, hatred and sneer you can’t help but feel violently disappointed by the shocking lack of basic human kindness and respect, much less a sense of positivism or perspective.
I remember when we started Brain Harvest and at first we had open comments. Good sweet Jesus what a bunch of fucking tools came out of the woodwork, dissatisfied unto the core of their very beings with the stories they were getting for free, after they came to our site of their own volition, and which no one was forcing them to read. The most surprising thing about the whole affair was how much it _bothered_ me, how much I cared as wave after wave of vitriol and condemnation washed over us for incubating in our hearts the abominable notion of paying people money to write good short fiction.
Ugh. What a diagnosis.
From here via Kottke.