It must mean something right? Day after day I work on this company, I work on new titles, do everything I have to, pay out money for advertising, pay out money endlessly for this that and the other. It never stops. And me? What do I get? What’s in it for me? Well so far, squat, that’s what. So yes, you bet, I’ve decided to whine a little.
Now I know people have it horribly rough. Every year there are massive floods in India, the land of my birth. And every year people there go through horrors I can’t even imagine. How thankless must it be for them? Of course that never helps. Well it does a little, it helps you gain perspective but it doesn’t make you feel better. One person having it rough doesn’t make up for others having it rough. If we could all have it less rough it would be so much finer.
I was at a café this evening and saw all that food. There’s enough I thought. Enough food for everyone. Ah but no, said another voice. You only get it if you pay. And once again, in an instant, it struck me what a despicable world we live in, if just that fact, of having money means you can live like a pasha while not having it, for millions of others, means to live like starving rats. It wouldn’t matter if some ate decently and a few ate richly, I wouldn’t mind that. That would be ok. But this shit is despicable. The rich eating like there’s no tomorrow. And the rest like there’s no point to there being a tomorrow. Especially since those latter folk are the ones digging the natural resources out of the earth with their nails and teeth, the very resources we then buy so blithely at the supermarket for a price that defies all competition (which usually means a whole range of smaller producers were kicked out of business so this supermarket could offer you that price).
Everywhere the big guy, the stiff with the stuff, the hack with the stack, the shit with the bit gets away with murder. And everyday we put up with it. Maybe we feel we have to. I was like that. For years I struggled against this feeling of non-choice. The silent asphyxiating oppression of apathy combined with boredom that gives you nothing but stale air to breathe, the air of your own coffin. Then I quit. I decided to fight. But look where I am. I work like a worm but make no money. NOBODY’S BUYING THE BOOKS PEOPLE, WHERE THE F*CK ARE YOU ALL??? WILL NOBODY PUT THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS?
Sorry, I’m calm now.
I tell you it’s how I felt today. I felt nothing but spitting disgust and hatred for the human race. I thought everyday they all just go to work like a bunch of mindless dogs, snails, worms with no courage, no backbone, no desire to save themselves. Now if you don’t even want to, know how to, dare to, save yourself, how on earth can you f*cking save anyone else? Ask me, I know how hard it is to save yourself. Your single lonely self. And here I am fighting for other people, authors no less. I tell you, it is as hard as lava rocks. And yes, I do believe saving yourself will save the world. I absolutely believe that if everyone just stopped serving, working for, slaving for and believing the pigs, the whole system would come crashing down. It’s really that horribly simple.
What if all of us simply quit our jobs and did what we wanted and supported each other somehow? I’m sure it could work. But we’re too nervy, screwed up and disenchanted, downright petrified with lazy apathy to do it. We’re also all too afraid and indoctrinated. We look for mass movements. No let him do it. Let’s wait for a leader, a movement, a clearly identified path. Everything’s got to be a mass thing. Perfectly laid out. It doesn’t work that way. Revenge Ink wasn’t laid out before I did it. Nor was my novel. You show me one single experience in life that works out like you’d planned it, IF you had a plan to begin with. The problem with mass things is, mass things don’t reinforce our faith in ourselves. And we cannot destroy this mass thing called capitalism which isolates, desolates and annihilates the individual, with another massified thing which cancels out our individuality. What we need now is to neutralize the evil by relocating our individuality. This means taking leaps of faith and finding our own paths FIRST. Besides, even if we wanted a mass resistance, there aren’t it would seem, enough bravehearts for the battle!
Still, I have my writing. And this means a great thing. My writing now isn’t the escape it used to be. It is an act of war. An act of love and blood-filled vitality. The great thing about Revenge Ink is that it has turned Art into War and that is utterly groovy as far as I’m concerned. And the truth is, the more I fight, the more fantastically happy I become, the more resilient and radiant I feel, the more I love art and writing, the more I want to fight and watch the whole damn shindig come crashing down as good old Henry Valentine Miller would say. So will you help? Or will you stand by the sidelines and watch? Either way I’m not going to back down, never f*cking ever, I will fight till I win. And that’s a goddam promise!
(And yes, this was a shitty day. How ever did you guess?)