From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Not So Secret Secret (was Re: Culture)
Date: 10 Oct 92 04:31:05 GMT
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison


In article <1992Oct9.211845.751@netcom.com> jfh@netcom.com
(Jack Hamilton) writes:

>In article <mattm-091092093527@mcmelmon.apple.com>
>mattm@apple.com (Matthew Melmon) writes:

Jack:

>>>Matthew, why are you so nasty to people?  What do you get
>>>out of it?

>>Having sampled this 'news' group for the last year (which I
>>full well realize does not include the sum total of it's
>>existence) - it has seemed, to me, to be one long stream of
>>contempt.

I think Jack is doing you a favor, though I don't agree with
him on all points.  For instance, I don't think you're
especially nasty.  On the scale of nastiness, you're toward
the mild end, and getting milder almost by the day.  It
doesn't seem to me you could be charged with anything more
serious than a mostly brittle stridency and a sometimes
breathtaking lack of awareness.  

On the other hand, and I personally see this as a mitigating
factor, you clearly do have a sense of humor about life and
about yourself, in my opinion more than some of our cohort
of longer standing.  

That said, you really *are* way too old to be saying many of
the things you say, and this is part of what I expect Jack is
picking up on.

But -- if what you say here is an accurate representation of
your approach -- it does seem, as Jack says, a rather
narrow-angle view.

>I think you are viewing soc.motss through the wrong mental
>filter.


Well, Jack, I think he's right, in a very limited way.  But
it seems to me he reacts -- even to that limited perception
-- in a rather bizarre fashion.  What he seems to discount
completely is the notion of self-fulfilling prophecy:
expecting to see contempt, contempt is what he sees.
Expecting to see little but scorn, he finds it even where it
isn't.  And more curiously, he *acts* in a high degree of
conformity to the ethos he perceives, rather than to the
tenor that overwhelmingly prevails.  But, it's what he gives
himself permission to do, the same method the rest of us use
to manage our affairs here.

>There are some people here who are curmudgeons, or angry at
>the world, or upset about something which doesn't have
>anything to do with us,

Plus a very large number of variations you didn't bother to
detail, but the main thing that strikes me in his responses
is their rather two-dimensional nature, as though there
couldn't even possibly *be* a world behind the one he
imagines he sees.  It's not that he doesn't look around --
he does -- but only though a long tube about the diameter of
a toilet-paper roll, and he never seems to grasp a bigger
picture.  Nor apparently to see any need for a bigger
picture.  This last is what I find so bizarre.

>but the great majority of the regular posters actually do
>like each other, and we want to get along.  That's why the
>cons happen.  That's why we have dinners for out of town
>visitors.

That's why a *lot* of things, including jests and jibes,
and, I would say, more than a little forbearance for one
another.  Without laying it on too thickly, I think it very
probable that *most* of us find about nearly *every* other
regular poster here at least one or two things that we would
never in a million years embrace for ourselves.  Much of
this patience comes from familiarity in the common sense:
we've been around each other long enough to "know" each
other.  We know what to expect, within limits; we accept what
pleases us and for the most part ignore what doesn't, in our
friendships.

>I'm sorry -- for your sake, not that you want my sympathy --
>that you don't see that.

Well, I suppose that says it, more or less.  But in this
same posting, Matthew said things about older people that
beggar the imagination, in a way, that amount to such a
tilted worldview concerning what older people are like.
It's that paper-roll telescope in action: he may have a few
data points (certainly limited to negative ones, to hear him
tell it) but no way to connect the dots, which one does not
with a pencil but with imagination, not with a line but with
living mass, not with intellect but with heart.

I have a good friend here named Dan.  I've known him for
over ten years.  He was 19 when we met, now he's 30.  So
he's only a little older than Matthew is, and some of what I
read of Matthew reminds me of the Dan that used to be,
mutatis mutandem.  Dan was so power-mad, using his truly
amazing beauty and mysterious aloofness to entice and then
jerk people around.  Apart from these things he exuded very
little charm, and he was much less educated and articulate
than Matthew is.

If he hadn't been the boyfriend of one of my all-time great
heartthrobs, I doubt very much I would have put up with him
more than about 20 minutes, and that would only have been
for a quickie in the bushes.  (Paul and Dan are leaving for
Tahiti and Bora Bora in a couple days; I hate them!).

I guess it was three years ago, at our annual LGB picnic, a
pretty good-sized event for this region, when Dan and I
ended up together near the head end of the beer-truck line.
But then he took hold of my arm and pulled me a little way
off to one side, which didn't thrill me because naturally
the long line immediately closed to fill the gap we'd left
and it was hotter than billy-be-damned.  I was even more
startled when I faced him and could see tears forming in his
eyes and he enveloped me in a *huge* hug (this is a very big
and very powerfully built man we're talking about here).  He
held me quite a while, and I hadn't a clue what was going
on.

When the hug ended, he said, "C'mon" and started to walk
away from where the throng was.  After maybe a minute of
walking along slowly together, he said (still walking),
and I think these are very nearly his exact words:

"I've been so awful, to you and to a lot of people, but
 especially to you, and I want to say I'm sorry and to ask
 you to forgive me if you can.  I can't explain any of it,
 because unlike you and people around you, I don't express
 myself very well, and I really don't know what my feelings
 are about half the time.  But I know I've been a colossal
 shit and a giant pain in the ass for Paul, for you, and for
 just about everybody that knows us.  I don't know how you
 managed to stand it for all these years.  You've always
 been great to me and Paul, even when I've acted really
 dumb, and I noticed that and I appreciate it.

"When we were both laid off and were worried about being
 able to keep this huge old house, you were about the only
 one would would drive out [about 25 miles from Madison] to
 see us and try to cheer us up, go for walks with us and
 the dogs, be interested in what we were doing with the
 house, the yard, and all the rest.  

We stopped.  He was crying, hard.  I took his hand.

"I don't know what else to say, but I wanted to say that.  I
 want you to be my friend too, not just Paul's friend.  And
 please don't tell him, he's never seen me cry, OK?"

What could I possibly say?  What I did say was: "First off,
the most important thing: thank you.  I guess I always hoped
that one day something like this would happen.  All I can
really say is, I'm glad it did.  The great secret to being
friends is letting the other person in.  I can see that
you know that now."

I doubt it needs to be spelled out in great detail.  This
guy has no high-tech future, with just a GED and working at
a General Motors assembly plant.  Compared to you, Matthew,
he's very disadvantaged in a lot a ways.  But not in his
heart.  

When Jack asks: what do *you* get out of it, I think you
should realize that he's giving you the space to widen your
view, rethink your options, and create in this part of your
surround a more habitable space not just for yourself, but
for the entire enterprise here.  

What you do or whether you do makes no difference to me
personally; unlike Dan's case, the probability that I will
ever lay eyes on you is quite small and getting smaller.
More likely you will meet Jack.  My advice, when you do,
would be to thank him.

And do some homework between now and then.

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
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