‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
‘It didn’t work out,’ I explained. ‘None of my ventures. None of my experiments.’
‘Did you put all your eggs in one basket?’ she went on.
‘No,’ I continued, ‘I put all my eggs in five baskets, which I admit doesn’t in and of itself mean any of these baskets were any good, but at least I tried, I gave it my best shot. I’ve tried to help others when in need, but no one was interested in reciprocating, well almost no one, only three or four were thoughtful enough to help, most snubbed or disregarded me.’
The moral of the story, the conclusion, is that there is nothing to be gained by being nice to people who don’t deserve it, because they won’t return the favor, they will turn their backs on you as soon as look at you. They will badmouth you regardless of whether you share March Madness pool winnings because you’re in a good mood or trip them on their way out the door because you’re in a bad mood. Those three or four, though, I can’t thank enough for extending common courtesies.
Here’s to you Nooner, I gave you not one but two opportunities, the latter when you were running out of money and desperate. Have one on me, I can’t picture you having a when in Vegas nooner, but have one anyway. This is “fuck you and the horse you rode in on” gallows humor, which surpasses toilet and dental humor, though not his gallows humor, for he doesn’t own the monopoly on cowardice. I won’t donate a thumb’s down emoji for his benefit, just as I’ve grown to hate many emoji’s I associate with those who have caused me distress. Why don’t I just send him a fistful of dollars through the mail? I’ve taken the difficult decision to humbly apologize for going out of my way, bending over backwards on your behalf when you were running out of money, not once but twice. If it was a difficult decision I wouldn’t have done it. I’m constantly on the lookout for friends and rivals I can assist in any way now that I have the time, no less those who deserve it, but I won’t snub the desperate, even those who don’t deserve it.
Nearly 20 years ago, I was in the position of giving, pre the concept of “giving back,” and I was glad to be able to purchase a wheelchair for a disabled Bosnian boy, parents impoverished thanks to the pointless Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, so that he would not have to sit on the floor, and did I say it’s not so comfortable to sit on the floor when you’re disabled? Never have I seen a picture of a boy so happy, even if he won’t be cast as the rotten and ungrateful child in any Netflix pilot episodes. What a contrast with those who are entitled and know it, and what prevents me from praying they will enjoy downward spirals of their own? And what frustrates me about this episode is that the charity worker sent the photos of this boy and his family to a work email address, and I didn’t forward it to a private account before I departed.
I began to explain the early 2000s horseshoe theory, which postulates how much the far left and far right have in common with each other. To wit: populism and “resurgent hostility.” The theory was refuted by the left but overlooked by the right, which was too busy attacking 1) the left and 2) those portions of the right – the so-called Itty Bitty Shitty Committee - with which it had fallen out, which more or less proves my point. The far left and far right are subsets of mankind, which in this instance is an oxymoron, because they are anything but, kind that is. Cicero would have labelled the two sides Ipse and Dixit, if he psychoanalyzed them during his cursus honorum duty. They are their own useful idiots, and there is no more purism.
The refuters claim it is not possible for discredited movements which on paper are distinct to bear similarities. Their academic apologists extrapolate from single data points, from isolated examples, and highlight trivial instances where the far left and far right aren’t in harmony, but their PhDs are not in understanding the difference between the phrases “more in common” and “everything in common.” I arrived at my version of this theory separately and independently, but many have noticed the tendency, for example for “resent-driven behaviours to coalesce around unifying themes,” and that the far left and far right would make perfect BDSM partners, although without predicting which would be in which role.
To give credit where credit is due.
The apologists point fingers and inaccurately claim it is the center which colludes with and supports the far right, as a marriage of convenience to oppose the left, but they are blind to reality. The center despises them both. The far right purports to espouse libertarian thought, but in practice is as authoritarian as any smug beret wearing lefty, for instance Jean-Luc Antoine Pierre Mélenchon, and for whom not even a personage such as Carole Delga would give the light of day. Carole was no ordinary free radical.
Go, as in go away.