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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Short Essay on Planned Hopelessness

April 3, 2012: Owing to the abbreviated Connecticut winter, everyone's coming forward with their new and strange predictions for the coming summer. My neighbor, who I don't really know and who I'll certainly take steps to avoid throughout the warm weather, was recently -- just last week, in fact -- expounding on the great number of deer ticks we can expect in the coming months.

"It's gonna be a bad year," she said, eyeing the automobile in our driveway as if she were considering how well it might serve her to develop a relationship with our family.

The thing is, nobody ever seems to predict GOOD years. It's never going to be a great year for people who dislike bugs, or a mosquito-free season of sunshine. These amateur prophets all seem to operate with a Nostrodamus-like leaning toward doom and hopelessness, and never offer portents of positive possibilities.

It's the same with cold seasons and flu. People love to declare, "Something's going around" and "Everyone's sick!" but no one ever observes, "Gosh, have you noticed how well everyone seems these days?!" Aren't there ever times when things AREN'T going around?!! Can we ever marvel at how healthy our community is feeling?

Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide how aggressively I should continue the marketing of my new e-novel SPACE CASE, which as you know is dirty and violent and the perfect book for our disturbed, voyeuristic culture. A friend suggested that I create a "page" on Facebook, and saturate all my "friends" with postings, as this is the way of the present. It all seems terribly rude and intrusive to me, and yet -- as I'm growing more and more fed up with mankind and its failure to save trees, halt text-messaging, and stop making movies with Will Farrell -- I'm beginning to think my noble, self-conscious efforts to save people trouble and intrusion are being wasted on the wrong species.

Interestingly, it may just be my own negative projection that's making this so hard for me. Perhaps I need to stop assuming my marketing scheme is riddled with the tick-like parasites of importunity. Perhaps I should let go of looking darkly toward the future and trust in the process ... and E.J. ... and these in no particular order ...

Hmmm ... Perhaps I'll just go and make another chocolate cake. Ticks and success have waited this long ...




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