I was going to start this newsletter with the paragraph in italics below, just to give it some oomph and shock value, but even I thought that might be a bridge too far. So when you read it, keep in mind it is a bit of the inner Tim. Think of it as the inner angry little person inside of all of us who, despite your goodwill toward your fellow man, you can’t always concern yourself with what others think. Imagine, if you will, you have your family with you and you are in a dangerous situation. Something dire. You know, in your heart of hearts, that you will do whatever it takes to protect them. You know that despite what others may tell you, you know you are right. To hell with the consequences.
You aren’t afraid, you’re angry.
With that in mind, read on…
We feed birds. And squirrels. And deer. Raccoons, possums, you name it — we feed it. So if you are going to tell me that it’s bad to feed wild animals, then this is where I tell you to fuck off. I get it, you may have some valid points and you might even be right, I don’t know. I can and might make the argument in my defense at some point, but just know I do it and I don’t much care what you think.
This is not the touchy-feely Tim you may have gotten to know. This is the old Tim, dusting off his old ire and anger and wearing it like a badge of honor. Maybe just for today, maybe for a month, maybe forever. I have been feeling mellow lately, passive, and low-key. Then a few postings by my brother Rick on his Facebook reminded me of where I came from. I was embarrassed and a little ashamed to realize just how apathetic I had become.
Rick, by all accounts, was/is a hippie, if you can still be considered one when you are pushing 70. He’s 13 years older than me and I idolized him and my brother Bob (9 years older) growing up. And still do. I’ve said before it was like having 4 parents instead of two growing up. I learned most of what made me who I am from all of them. I come from 4 fiercely independent, autonomous, self-sufficient people who did not take bullshit from anyone or anything. Ever.
And we were bitchy, or pissy, or angry, however you want to put it. If one of them saw an injustice or a wrong, they would point it out and try to do something about it.
But somewhere along the way, I lost that fire. Maybe it was because my rearing was relatively cushy to theirs. My parents grew up with little. They married young and got out in the world on their own, away from their home lives, and built their own. And they had my brothers young, too. Sooky (my mother) would say they all raised each other. But by the time I came along, they had managed to carve out a better life for us all, to afford things they never could. I had it much easier than they did. So maybe this accounts for my recent level of passivity.
Friends will say I still have that angry edge to me, but they don’t know just how edgy my brain used to be.
But no more, folks. I’m going to try and return to the old me, the one who finds the things that piss me off and actually try to do something about them, not just bitch about it.
Case in point — I have Grammarly set up on my computer. I got it for my other, paid professional writing. For those of you who don’t know, Grammarly is a cloud-based writing assistant that helps with grammar, spelling, punctuation etc. in real time. So as I was writing this, it was underlining things in red or yellow, with suggestions and corrections. The problem with Grammarly is that it follows certain rules of the English language rigidly. It hates modifiers and wordiness. But that is how I fucking write and I don’t need some goddamned computer telling me not to use the word “really” or “just”.
I’ve lived with it for years and done nothing about it. Well that changed this morning. I got up, started writing and saw the red and yellow marks start to appear and I cursed in the early dawn, loud enough to probably wake my neighbors half a mile away. I stopped what I was doing and got rid of Grammarly. I didn’t just disable it, I eradicated it from my computer, took every fucking trace of it out and now I “really just” don’t have to give two shits what it thinks.
A small step I know. But a step.
Why do I bring this all up now? It’s not really about the feeding of animals. That’s just one aspect of it. It’s about not being afraid to stand up for yourself and for what you think is right. It’s about not being afraid to yell “Fuck” in the shopping center when you drop your ice cream. It’s about perspective, as well. My dad once told me, when we would chide him about changing clothes in his room without stuttering the windows: “It’s my goddamned window. They don’t want to see this, then they shouldn’t be looking in the first place.”
It’s also about not being afraid to go after what you want and to believe in yourself. All this passivity of late has made me feel afraid of things. Well, it’s time for that to end. I’m a grown ass human and it’s high time I started acting like one.
To butcher Psalm 23:4, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, because I’m the baddest sonofabitch in the valley.
That’s all folks. Go out there. Be brave. Be bold. Start a business. Write a novel. Wear socks with your sandals. But for the love of all that is sacred, turn your fucking radio down at the stoplight. Even I don’t go that far. :-)
Thanks for indulging me,
~ Tim
Insight is a good thing, especially when focused on the self. When focused on others, it becomes a potent weapon which can only be used for good or evil.
Rick Burns, Latent Hippie
I've always put you down as a fiery, fervid, untamed kind of man, Tim, with a soft, gooey, chocolatey center.