Feels vs. Reals

I’ve always hated internet trolls. I never really understood the appeal, and would think, “the fuck, you have NOTHING better to do than this shit?”  But now I get it, now I understand. Oh GOD, do I understand. I understand the crack-like high of trolling (to a point, even I have limits) on a nearly ORGASMIC level.

I quoted a Tweet along the lines of “4% of people executed for crimes are innocent” and added something along the lines of “So, a 96% success rate?  Where I come from, that’s an A+!!”. It was barely a nanosecond until the PitchFork Mafia™ scrambled to sortie and deployed, en masse, furiously typing angry responses to my heartless, evil, clearly right-wing, Hitler-esque heinousness until their fingers were bloodied!! “Oh my god, you’re SO DUMB, SO heartless!”. How dare I "equate execution of innocents to a fucking EXAM?!?"

Guessing the young’uns are generating reactions based on their own narrow world views, where everyone is a Uni student, Mom still does your laundry and you’re 127% morally and factually correct in everything you think and, more importantly, FEEL. “I feel a certain way, so that must mean it’s absolute truth!!”. Why do you equate how something makes you feel with your perception of that thing being absolutely certain? Because you’re a late teens to 20-something, and that’s what your biology and neurology, at this juncture, have likely directed you to believe.

The joke’s on YOU fuckers! The reality is that I’m an acerbic, bitter, vodka-soaked, nicotine-dependent, host-of-other-challenges-that-are-NUNYAFUCKINGBIZNESS, middle-aged fuck who is definitely old enough to be your mom. Or your Aunt. No, not the superficially nice Auntie who always has candy for you - it’s always the fucking gross stuff you hate, like that detestable Christmas-y ribbon candy, the creator of which must have really loathed children.  Probably the Austrians.  Ribbon candy looks like something you’d find in the Alps. [turns out, it originated in Europe, but no one can remember where or when. Today, though, its sole US producer is the F.B. Washburn Candy company, out of Brockton, MA. Shout out to my homies in B-Town!].

No, not that Auntie, the other one - the raspy-voiced, chain-smoky one with the ubiquitous vodka tonic in her hand, who buys you and your friends a case of beer on the down-low so you can sneak off into the woods and drink it. That is, if you fucking pussies even still do that - sneak off into the woods with your friends to drink your illicit, piss-like water-beer, shoot the shit around a campfire and revel in your youth in glorious ways. You probably don’t though, because you’ve been conditioned since birth to fear and loathe the outdoors and all of the scary, icky, dirty things that you might find or that could happen to you if you were to venture out into that wilderness.

You lot sequester yourselves in your rooms, your apartments, your Moms’ basements, your faces glued to phones and tablets, obsessively scouring the internet (likely your only connection with the outside world, NTTAWWT), for something, anything that will elicit the rush of norepinephrine that accompanies the “fight or flight” reaction to perceived dangers or, as the kids now call it, TRIGGERS. Once you’ve scored that, engaged yourself in the “battle” to vanquish your “oppressors” (in a way rivaled only by Quixote himself), it’s then time for the spoils of your victory! Cue the blissful euphoric, highly-addictive 1st place trophy of dopamine, pulsing from your neurons and bathing your brain in its own specially-manufactured heroin.

What a disgrace you kids are now, with your first world problems and messed up YouTube addictions. When *I* was a kid, we smoked the ditch weed out in the barn, snuck “Faces of Death” or “The Wall” into the VCR when no one was looking and we LIKED it. But now? Fucking HELL you kids can’t go 3 minutes without wanting something, feeling entitled to something, demanding something, crying about something, inventing a new set of pronouns for things or being outraged about something. THE FUCK?

There was a time when we used to think our curmudgeonly, Great Depression-era Grandpas were total dicks, and SO fucking weird, with their gruff demeanors, their basements full of shit with lights and dials and wires, their whole “we don’t pay people to fix anything that breaks, we do it our goddamned selves, pussy!”  Remembering that generation in the spectre of what is ubiquitous in society today? Oh my FUCKING god. You have no fucking idea how good you have it today, in many ways. Then again, maybe that's the problem?

Do you feel sad, pressured, bullied, depressed, lost, alone, excluded, unloved?  Do you feel like a square peg in a round hole, or like you should have been born in a different time, a different era, a different place, with different people? GREAT!! Here’s a newsflash for you: WE ALL FEEL THESE THINGS; you’re NOT fucking special. But more importantly, you’re also NOT ALONE.
If you think your terribad experiences are 'Literally The Worst Things Ever', I have fantastic news for you!  First, believe me when I tell you that someone, somewhere has it so much fucking worse than you do, to the point where your head would explode if I showed you THEIR horror-show cluster fuck of a life. I promise you, your shit COULD be worse.

Second, and probably more importantly, for those of you who waste time delving into like, feelings, and shit (why? honestly!!), you’re not alone. I absolutely PROMISE you, you’re not alone. Somewhere, there is someone either just like you or maybe completely different from you who either has or is or will feel the very same feelings you are feeling right now. Been molested? You’re SO not alone. Had drunky / druggie parents? Yep, millions of people can relate. Abused by a parent, a priest, a friend, a spouse or fuck, someone you trusted? Nope - still not alone. For better or worse, there are (again) millions of people who truly understand how you feel. Seek them out, because as fucked up and scary as it may sound, it turns out that talking about shit with people who have gone through or are going through the same shit you are is TREMENDOUSLY validating; take my advice and use that validation to help you grow your goddamned spine back. If you don't, I promise you that you will live a miserable, lonely, broken life, filled with endless days of blaming everyone and everything else for your every problem, your every disappointment, your every failing. Unfortunately, the only person truly responsible for all of that is YOU; not the meanie, not the bully, not the person you trusted who fucked you over. YOU.

Right now, I'm sure you're feeling a tremendous sense of discomfort given the challenge I've put before you, maybe even butthurt. The gauntlet has been thrown down, the edict issued for you to take the reins of your goddamned life back into your hands and ride that fucker into a better place, a better situation, a better life. Stop your whining and for the love of god, give a fuck about YOURSELF enough to grow up, stand up, throw some bandages on those wounds and move forward.
How the ever-loving FUCK did I get off on a tangent about FEELINGS and shit?  FUCK!  I was in the middle of a totally awesome story about my Twitter trolling, and how people freaked out at some rando comment I made. Tee hee, FUUUUCK you!  Boo hoo, I triggered you because I didn’t enable the too-common "Pity me, I'm so damaged!" coping mechanism, if it can even be called that - it's really more aptly termed a "Refusal to Cope Mechanism". Sorry fuckers, seen and done way too much to play that game; I know where the Self-Pity train reaches the end of the line, and it's Loserville, Population: You.

You know what? There really was a time where we didn’t get fucking TROPHIES and ribbons and awards for shit like “Showing Up” or “Doing Shit You’re Expected To Do” or even “You Didn’t Fuck Up THAT Badly, YAY!”. Fucking whipper-snappers. Eat a bowl of dicks. I have vodka to drink, a cig to smoke and you to purge from my fucking zeitgeist.

Codicil: I can *already* hear you whining about how mean my words are, how I "so don't understand!" and how triggered you are. You're likely already searching for the comment section where you can furiously bang out your impotent and misplaced rage at me. Toughen up, buttercup. You'll earn your hugs and accolades when you can come back with, "it was HARD, and it took a long time, and I was scared as fuck that I'd fail, or that those awful memories would never leave me, but you know what? I DID IT!".

I'm The Actual Fuck outta here. While I'm gone, have your mom teach you how to do laundry or some or any viable fucking skill that you already should have had by now. I have shit to do, and these crack rocks aren’t going to smoke themselves.