From: tigger@nbrwh72.bnr.ca (Jeff Skinner)
Subject: Re : Camus is my psychotherapist 
Reply-To: tigger@x400gate.bnr.ca
Organization: Northern Telecom Public Switching, Bramalea Product Tech. S908
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:24:51 GMT



In article <DUKE.92Dec15185437@portal.paperboy.osf.org>, you write:
_]
_]In article <85091@ut-emx.uucp> llama@pooh.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine) writes:
_]
_]   i just wanna talk about being self-indulgent. the stuff i write on
_]   this group is total self-indulgence, and i've never pretended
_]   otherwise. 
_]
_]That's why it's so dull, sine.
_]
_]   but it's well-written self-indulgence, done with style and
_]   sometimes grace. 
_]
_]wow, not only self-indulgent, but self-congratulatory.
_]
_]   and when i get mail that says "wow, you really nailed
_]   it, that's how i feel sometimes," i'm inclined to believe 
_]
_]That they are even worse losers than myself?
_]
_]   it's even vaguely useful. 
_]
_]Wow, and self-important, too.
_]
_]--
_]Angry Duke Robillard, DoD #0130, duke@osf.org
 
 Nice !
 
 I've been watching this conference from the shadows for a couple
of months now. There has been a lot of interesting stuff in that
time, but if I had to characterize the dominant emotional riff
people are vamping on here I would call it (even more than than
sheer self-indulgence, which is a close second, Duke) self-pity.
But then, isn't angst a kind of designer self-pity for those 
who need to believe that their suffering has some kind of higher
purpose ?  This is the ugly duckling effect ( I have a case of this
syndrome myself) wherein one believes that all the pain of rejection
one suffers from childhood/adolesence will one day be redeemed when
you are revealed to the world as the swan you really are. May you
be granted this boon. Not everyone is going to get it though.
 
 Sine's contributions provoke a really split response with me. 
Depending on my state of mind I may find her stuff really a breath of
air and she seems courageous and daring in her bold self revelation.
At other times she sounds like a kind of pathetic aging exibitionist
wowing the kids on the net with her self-congratulatory blather.
I wouldn't dream of proposing either point of view as definitive,
as she is obviously a pretty complicated person . I've found,
however, that complication and unhappiness go together pretty
consistently.
 
 A few years ago, before my current marriage began, I was posted 
out of town by the company I worked for. To save money I 
moved into a student co-op house for a while. The age of the 
house's inhabitants was 18 to 23 and I was, I think, 27 at the time.
I fell hopelessly, madly in love with a young woman in the house
and we shared the most passionate (and doomed ) love affair of my 
life thus far. Through her I came in contact with a whole sub-culture
of graduates from the local Universities who would hang around for
years after their schooling was complete, staying in the student
world and being un/underemployed while they passed the time drinking,
drugging and having doomed pointless affairs. I think they relished
the edge they had in dealing with younger people (actual students)
because they were a bit older and more experienced. In any case,
these people became progressively more sad and pathetic the longer
they hung on in this millieu, and ultimately either made a break
into the big bad world of work and adult responsibility or sank into
addiction/despair. The choice looks scary (I've been there) but 
in many ways its all the choice we've got in 1992. So what I'm saying
is that it appears to me that Deb/Sine is working out of a pretty
delicate, unstable equilibrium. I wish her all the best and maybe
I completely misread the situation.
 
 Re-reading the above I guess it sounds pretty pompous (Listen
to Grandpa, He KNOWS !). I'm 42 and my second marriage is self-
destucting after 9 years so I don't have anything to offer in the
way of pat/permanent resolutions, but I have found out two really
important things in the past 10 years or so :
 
 1) Growing up hurts like HELL and I sympathize with anyone who
    feels despair at having to go through all this. BEING grown up
    , however, is GREAT. The more I have accepted that my adolesence
    is past and have taken on the rewards and burdens of being an
    adult in this twisted unfair post industrial world, the simpler
    and happier my life has become.
 
 2) Has everyone noticed the upswell of pain and bitterness in 
    alt.angst due to the XMAS season ? It seems that a lot of 
    people have family backgrounds that make them suspicious of
    any of the sweeter sentiments. Well, what you feel is what you
    feel, so no contest about what is appropriate. I have been there
    though and there is one event in my life that COMPLETELY changed
    my attitude toward 'sentiment'. It wasn't marriage, because 
    no adult woman could have ever made it through the emotional
    defences/shell I had. My daughter (now 4), however, went 
    straight to my heart of hearts and I now feel that I belong
    to the human club. And believe me, I have been (and still
    am in many ways) a really hard case.(Ask my soon to be ex-wife)
 
 ObAngst : My wife's best friend who has been back in the shadows
           advising her to look out for herself the past few months
           while I was trying to breath life back into the marriage,
           Walked into my home yesterday (I hadn't seen her in 6
           months) and came up to me with a big smile on her face
           , saying "Congratulations on your separation !" If looks
           could kill she'd have left in a body bag.
Newsgroups: alt.angst