From: llama@tramp.cc.utexas.edu (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.angst
Subject: Re: Why I'm such a shit
Date: 24 Dec 92 18:26:18 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5


first, i should explain that i have a screwy newsfeed and that i get
things via a news-to-mail gateway set up for me by a friend, but
sometimes there are delays in that. sigh. and i guess my server being
prone to weirding out doesn't help the gateway, either. so i have read
access on nyx and can catch up on stuff there, but it's hard to keep
up sometimes.

so i've been reading the whole duke explaining to the rest of us why
we're intellectual midgets thread tonight, and i can't capture any of
it cause i'm on a lab terminal and not at home. so i have to work from
memory.

it seems to me that what duke wants to recreate/create here is a
coffeehouse atmosphere, where we all sit around clutching well-thumbed
copies of Important Books and feeding each other our pet concepts. you
know, the sorts of conversations where you say one of my trigger words
and i blurt out my set piece on the subject, and that in turn triggers
you to say something... it's like picking tracks on a cd with a remote
control, intellectual dicksizewars that don't have any relation to
life.  there i'd have to agree with you: what's the fucking point? 

okay, beyond duke's basic claim that i'm stupid and dull (which i
think we've all heard, dear, no need to reiterate endlessly), we have
the claim that this group isn't about angst, not in an intellectual
way. and this accusation is made by a man who, when he's put up
against the wall by someone who's actually read the authors duke
quotes, backs down into saying he's only familiar with the fiction of
these paragons of angst. my, how intellectual.

i gave up insight as a contact sport years ago.  i can talk about
philosophy; i've done the reading. but how many times can you define
angst before it gets boring? how many times can you trot out the same
names and say the same things about their works?

so i talk about my life. i talk about the things that happen to me,
about the way i'm trying to fight my way out of feeling that life
doesn't fucking matter, of the way i'm trying to create meaning in my
life. for god's sake, the whole point of existentialism *wasn't* that
life doesn't matter. it was that life contains only the meaning you
choose to give to it. what's being espoused here is nihilism. sheesh.
i'm writing about anti-nihilism, being as honest as i can about my
struggles. 

and then i'm told (not by duke; i forget who said it) that i'm not
genuine, that the things i say aren't really about pain or whatever
the feeling i'm talking about is. i'm really glad to be informed about
that. it makes me feel so much better to know that when i posted about
how the bottom had dropped out of my world and how i couldn't breathe
for fear of the pain, that wasn't real. what's the complaint? that i
like for the words i use to convey precisely the pictures i see in my
head and so i choose them carefully? that i'm not bleeding publicly
enough? i've got the trauma, but i like to think my past is mine. i
choose to share it with people i want to trust with that part of
myself.

who the fuck died and made duke the judge of what's real and what's
good? i'm so fucking tired of being argued about. it's pointless. i've
gotten enough mail telling me to ignore duke and his intellectual
masturbation (someone else's words, not mine, btw) that i'll probably
do that. if whoever reads this really thinks i'm infecting this group
with some virulent strain of sentimentality and tripe, then join duke
in putting me in your kill file and fucking off. 

it's been pointed out to me that something i've said must have hit a
major nerve somewhere to trigger this onslaught. i dunno. i just know
that it's been a shitty month (a move, a breakup, a death, an
epiphany, a cinderella experience) and i don't need this.  it's
stupid. and of *course* not evverything i write is good. jesus fucking
christ, is *anyone* *always* on? gah.

this whole thing is just so disgusting. maybe duke should propose a
split in alt.config, to alt.angst.philosophy and alt.angst.experience,
maybe. 

bleah. just bleah.

-- 
sine | deb 
or perhaps we should just have a cfv on my continued
existence here.