Sep 19 2019 Another dead author is poking around in my compassion / guilt complex. "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" by Kurt Vonnegut is a powerful tale of kindness, social justice, wealth inequality, alcoholism, mental illness, greed, and evil. I love this book. You should read it. I hate this book for shooting more uncomfortable arrows into my already overactive guilt complex, which I've been doing quite well managing with my therapist recently, thank you very much. Readers will note that one of the major themes is weaponized psychiatry used against Eliot's wife (among other characters) to placate her back into the fold of the insanely wealthy. The plight of the common folk of Rosewater, Indiana has caused her great distress and the psychiatrists of the wealthy are adept at treating that condition with drugs and a repugnant moral compass wielded by the Rosewater dynasty. This too, I find an uncomfortable parallel with my own life, though as far as I know my therapist tries to guide me to my own happiness, whatever level of charity that entails, decided by me. Or so I think. But who's to say where ideas come from when the whole point of the profession is to pay someone to pilot you through the twists and turns of your own brain? Eliot is a World War II veteran. He inflicted and suffered a specific, unspeakable trauma. You can read all about it. That experience would break anyone, I assume. Eliot is an alcoholic. I've never had a problem with alcohol, and my life has been a very comfortable one compared to all the suffering in the world. The vast majority of my traumas have been perpetrated by me, inside my own head. I'm doing quite well managing these with my therapist recently, thank you very much. I will continue to repeat this mantra, because during my good days I believe it to be true. I do not have access to millions of dollars on a whim like Eliot does. I do not have the backing of billions of dollars to bail me out of any trouble I encounter. But I do have thousands of dollars I don't personally need to survive. Eliot sets up the Rosewater Foundation headquarters in a squalid office in Rosewater Indiana with a hotline so people can call him 24/7. He gives all callers unconditional love, and conditional, tiny (from his position), amounts of money. For the severely depressed he offers "what's the rock bottom price I can pay you so that you don't commit suicide today?" The unconditional love he offers the lonely, depressed, and desperate people who call him makes me cry. Lawyers scheme to take his money by declaring him insane. Many chapters later he's off to the big city for a sanity defense hearing and several characters from the book who have talked to him on the phone daily for years come to see him off, destroyed that he's leaving. Eliot doesn't remember them. I cry again. So what shall I do with my thousands of dollars I don't need? I'm currently continually striking some sort of balance between being able to retire modestly and comfortably in my dotage and giving people money and assistance. In America my version of "modestly" is an unachievable amount of wealth for many, and a laughably pitiful stash for some. Every weekend I'm at home includes ~10 hours of volunteer food distribution. I support several charities, artists, and friends financially. On my good days I think this helps make me "a good person." But the need is vast. I have a friend with overwhelming medical problems and no money. They have a lifelong need for housing, extensive medical care, mental support, food, and clothing. I've helped some and try to feel good about it. But the professional helpers are running out of their short term solutions to offer. I could take over their entire life and run it for them. I choose not to, so far. There are, I assume, hundreds of similar people in Omaha. I could open a shelter and support... maybe 5-6 people full time before all my money was gone. I feel very wealthy until I consider a spreadsheet of trying to support a dozen people. Any cancer treatment out of my own pocket would bankrupt me. Well, maybe I could afford 2 such rounds before hitting $0 net worth. I could quit my job and live very modestly and retain some sort of savings account for my own dotage while working at a much larger shelter helping hundreds of people. I worry that sometimes my help is helping, and sometimes it's not. I worry that my attempts at unconditional love conflict with my selfish desires for how I envision my own idealized life. I feel guilty about my own envisioned happiness. If I were religious I'd be a nutcase. If I were a Christian I would have long ago cast off all material things and... what, exactly? Spread the good word, I suppose. From abject poverty. Which I suspect would not help many people except through the lens of an afterlife. I hold a rather extremist interpretation of Christ's message for humanity. I have fantasies of quitting my job and helping people full time. I have a specialized skill set that might be valuable to millions of people in a very small way. I have fantasies of giving up on humanity and living in a hermit shack writing terrible books and making hobo nickels under a microscope and kayaking with whales and scuba diving with sea creatures who don't know or care about the anxieties of the evolved apes busily destroying the planet until they destroy themselves. I feel better having written this. I'm 44. I've got a few decades left on this tiny blue dot in the vastness of space. I'll try to be "a good person." I'll continue to try to figure out what that means. You should read "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" by Kurt Vonnegut. I hope you struggle with it, as I am. Oh, and here's a poem I ran into recently that is worth your time: I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish you enough hello's to get you through the final good-bye.