#maybe try not to talk to your buyers like they are ungrateful children

[galacsin]

I am a reader with a limited budget for books. As a consumer, this makes me extremely picky. Especially when it comes to fiction, because, let's be honest , the majority of books out there are not that great. There is a whole cottage industry around talking about " bad books" after all.

If you are telling the, as a consumer to " shut the fuck up" about common gripes with buying a book, I am just going to turn around and look somewhere else.

There is a lot of talk about "entitled readers" floating around. I am not here to debate the merits of that

Maybe there should be more talk about people thinking they are revolutionary artist , just because they managed to put up a work for sale. Then they get surprised when people act like customers who are spending their money, and not like grateful little accolites who worship at their feet.

(This is exclusively about books for sale. I will forgive fanfic authors all the bad grammar and cringe dialogue in the world)

[antoine-roquentin]

SO, WHAT DO WE KNOW about them, these vocal second-home owners? They worked hard for everything they own. They are clear on this. Their critics, they believe, are often motivated by jealousy. “I’m certainly not ‘rich.’ I’ve worked for my entire life to have the properties I own,” wrote one group member. Like many mountain communities, the Gunnison Valley attracts a motley mix of younger residents — seasonal public-land employees, ski bums who work the lifts, river guides, college graduates who stick around. “Irresponsible, non-tax-paying, bored children who will never plant roots here successfully,” one Facebook comment called them. In early April, a second-home owner from Oklahoma City, described “local adult skateboarders and bikers” picking up donated food at a food pantry in Crested Butte. “These takers need to pony up or get out,” she wrote. “Sadly,” another replied, “there are many entitled ���takers’ here.”

In a phone interview, Moran dissected the implications of the word “rich.” Describing the second-home owners as such was a tactic employed by the media to “divide people by social strata,” he told me. I pointed out Gunnison County’s housing shortage to Moran, who, from 2008-2011, was an advisor of the private equity firm Lone Star Funds — the biggest buyer of distressed mortgage securities in the world after the 2008 financial crisis. After the crash, the firm acquired billions in bad mortgages and aggressively foreclosed on thousands of homes, according to The New York Times. I asked Moran if, compared to locals who struggle to pay rent, people who own two or more properties should be considered wealthy. “I think that’s wrong,” he replied.

Over the summer, I obtained access to the Facebook group. Beneath the anger at the County Commission and the exasperation with the local newspapers and adult skateboarders, a deeper grievance burned, one that was expressed consistently in the group. “Our money supports all of the people in the valley,” wrote one man. “Where is the appreciation and gratitude for the decades of generosity?” wrote another. According to the second-home owners, Gunnison County’s economic survival and most of its residents’ livelihoods depend on their economic contributions and continued goodwill. Their donations prop up the local nonprofits. Their broken derailleurs keep the bike shops open. In late April, Moran sent an angry message to a local server who had criticized the second-home owners, posting his note to the GV2H Facebook group as well. Moran, who had apparently left the server a large tip, called her comments “a betrayal of the good people who have been gracious to you.” Around that time, there was talk on the Facebook group of compiling a list of locals they considered ungrateful. “People who rely on others for their livelihoods should not bite the hand that feeds them,” wrote one second-home owner.

The list, which was posted on Facebook, became known as the Rogues Gallery. It named 14 people described as “folks who oppose GV2H.” The list, which was later deleted, included a local pastor and an artist. Sometimes it noted where someone worked and what they did. Repercussions were hinted at. “One of those big mouths is slinging drinks for tips — I’ll be sure to leave her a little tip — ‘Maybe don’t run your mouth so much on social media when you depend on those people to help pay your bills,’ ” one Facebook commenter wrote.

Amber Thompson, a longtime server at Crested Butte restaurants, was not in the Rogues Gallery, but was mentioned later as a possible addition after several online arguments with Moran and others from the GV2H Facebook group. She gets especially mad, she told me, when a second-home owner cites a big tip as evidence of their authority and value. As a server, she said, her job is simply to deliver food. The demand for gratitude, the resentment when they don’t receive it: “It’s a way to intimidate people, to make them bow down, and I just won’t do it.”

The first name on the Rogues Gallery was Ramgoolam, and he, too, declined to back down. His offence was a Facebook post in which he asked why Gunnison County residents were incapable of making their own political decisions — a thinly veiled critique of the super PAC, which Moran had registered in May. Shortly after learning about the Rogues Gallery, Ramgoolam wrote another Facebook post, thanking the community for its support during the pandemic. It included a picture of him in a red bandanna, carrying a Captain America shield. He intended it as defiance.

“I think (the super PAC) spits in the face of the relationship we have with our neighbors in this valley,” Ramgoolam said. “Whether you are a primary homeowner or a second-home owner, you respect people’s opinions and everyone is welcome to the table, but to overpower everyone at the table and try to take all the chairs for yourself is just wrong.”

For many in the Facebook group, opinionated locals interfered with their ability to relax and enjoy the Gunnison Valley. Fun, after all, is what brings them to Crested Butte. But fun was hard to come by in 2020. People were irate when the county declared a mask mandate on June 8. “We come to decompress, to relax, to regenerate!” one person wrote. “That’s a pressure we don’t need! Or don’t WANT, which isn’t a crime either!”

This came to a head when local demonstrations were held, prompted by George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. One of them took place on June 27, in Crested Butte. After a short rally, a crowd proceeded up main street, led by the Brothers of Brass, a funk band from Denver. Demonstrators then lay on the blacktop for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the time that Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck. Many diners, who were sitting at outdoor patios on either side of the march, paused their meals for the duration. But on the Facebook group, indignation bubbled up. “People come to the Valley to relax and enjoy nature,” wrote one commenter. “This is made impossible when ‘protesters’ are bused in for a photo-op (not to mention pollution, noise, aggravation, and trash).” Several other commenters also insinuated outside influence. (Other than the band, there is no evidence that the protesters were not primarily local.) The Crested Butte Town Council’s subsequent decision to paint “Black Lives Matter” on the main street prompted another wave of irritation. “Crested Butte has clearly forgotten why people (tourists or second homers) like going to the mountains. It’s about escaping the craziness and the BS of the cities,” one of the second-home owners wrote. A few others announced that they would no longer go downtown.

This hostility came as no surprise to Elizabeth Cobbins, the lead organizer of the Gunnison Black Lives Matter demonstration. The second-home owners come to their vacation properties to “escape the real world,” she said. They forget, she told me, that the valley is more than a ski destination. It includes a college that is home to many students of color, and a sizable Hispanic community. The second-home owners feel their opinions matter because of their economic contributions, which, Cobbins said, are important, but, “the people who serve them live here, too, and they live here for the whole year.”

[anundefinedwoman]

Chasing Guilt Away

Guilt - n. 1. the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime. "it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt"

synonyms: culpability, guiltiness, blameworthiness, wrongdoing, wrong, wrongfulness, criminality, unlawfulness, misconduct, sin, sinfulness

2. a feeling of having done wrong or failing in an obligation.  "he remembered with sudden guilt the letter from his other that he had not read" synonyms: self-reproach, self-accusation, self-condemnation, feelings of guilt, guiltiness, a guilty conscience, a bad conscience, pangs of conscience, remorse, regret, contrition, repentance, shame, disgrace, dishonor "eat your food and enjoy it without guilt"

I'm not sure what it says that I'm moving from love to guilt in my free association writing. They are stark contrasts of one another.  In love, I didn't know it.  It seemed out of reach.  Or maybe it seemed skewed.  I still remember the first part of a poem I wrote when I was 15/16:

What is love? How does it feel? Is it good? Is it real?

Where do you get it? How much does it cost? I need some desperately- Before I get lost.

But guilt was never something I was ever lacking.  I'm not sure if that's taught or just innate.  I find myself at this point 2 hours before my appointment with my therapist and I should be a lot further than I am now.  I am not a procrastinator by nature.  In fact, procrastinators annoy me.  I live in a house full of them.  I haven't had any awareness that I am consciously trying to avoid doing this.  It just seems to happen that way.  I have nothing to show this week and I even missed last week because my oldest son was sick.  Then I had days I didn't feel well.  Then my ancestry/DNA kit came back that I had been waiting 8-10 weeks for.  Excuses, you know?

I feel guilty for this, yes.  I probably should feel guiltier, but I don't.

Guilt is a funny thing.  It's a form of manipulation or gaslighting our "loved" ones or friends put upon us when we are helpless.  That seed of doubt.  The mistrust of yourself; making you feel selfish, ungrateful, or foolish for wanting something extra just as an example.

And then you know what happens? The treatment done by others, becomes a learned response that you begin doing to yourself.  I was told how ungrateful I was being during my childhood, I should basically just shut up, take the neglect, emotional and physical abuse and even be happy that I had the roof over my head and got new school clothes.

Those of us brought up in environments like this are conditioned to be co-dependents.  

The way I see it, we can either push everyone away and hold them at arms distance because our lack of trust in others (another byproduct of our environment) or fix the broken we see in everyone else.  Maybe it's easier than addressing what needs to be fixed in ourselves.

 It's interesting, isn't it?  I feel I am getting off my topic of guilt, but I am just going to go with my train of thought here.  See where this leads me.  Perhaps I can tie it back to guilt.  After all, I have always said there have been two thing my life has always been ruled by.  But always first by someone else.  Guilt being one.

But I wonder... Are you co-dependent?  Have you ever struggled with it?  Perhaps you are a "recovering" co-dependent.  that term makes me chuckle a little.  Perhaps you have or feel you have a hybrid form of co-dependency, (because we are weird and sometimes it's just hard to define us & feel like we are understood).

I did not grow up around addiction per se.  I grew up around self righteousness, selfish, angry assholes who neglected their responsibilities of parenthood onto others. I grew up around extreme dysfunction where I was controlled into submission and even jealousy by an imaginary granddaughter name "Debbie H****" who was as mysterious, good and as invisible as Santa Claus.  They used her to manipulate the little child in me.  Soon other family members would tease me about her.  They talked about her as if she were real.  I remember when I moved to England as a preteen, my grandfather wrote me once (and it was so special getting a letter from him) where he spoke about her in the letter. Sometimes I feel like there is this access of evil that runs through my family with all that has occurred to me, my mother and my aunt.  But the part of me that loves my grandparents ferociously wants to defend that they had no idea what they were doing; the damage this could have caused.  Could it?

I lay in bed at night sometimes and I think about perhaps something I said, or didn't say, or how a situation was handled and I persevere on the subject and how it may impact my children especially.  But I do this with everyone.  This is where guilt gets me.  I just want to make people happy.  Even if it means I'm not.  

The last few years I have gotten much better with this, but this has been my downfall.  I put others needs before my own.  Their worth, their needs take priority over mine.  Another learned behavior.  I've always had to.  Growing up my voice never counted.  My feeling never counted.  I guess I learned to push it down.  There were times when I would show emotion and was told I wasn't allowed to cry or feel sad or angry about something.  But I AM an emotional person.  I honestly don't know how I survived my childhood and teen years being so neglected and emotionally and physically abused.  I begin to detach and I ponder upon this.  I fiddle with my lip.  I stare off at the area rug in front of me in the distance and it becomes a blur and soft sounds of Pandora radio with cars passing by with loud sounds of birds chirping become my focus, but I am not there.  I have awareness.  I can come back.  I have control.  It scares me some and I realize this is where I probably should stop and look over the link my therapist gave me last week on what to do on staying in this present and not detaching - I want to push through, however.

It's like those moments when you are trying to concentrate,   i.e. write because maybe you have a deadline and maybe you have ADHD, which I do. (could be an effect of this, but I did take my meds today... huge squirrel moment!!)  As I was saying, perhaps you have ADHD, or are distracted or you are just a deep thinker and you suddenly stop mid-sentence, stare off into space and think about something - deeply, almost trancelike.  You might be 'lost' for a few moments.  Perhaps it may take someone snapping their fingers or tapping you on the shoulder and saying, "Ground Control to Major Tom" (if your name was Major Tom).  Talk about HUGE squirrel moment.  I am not sure why I felt the need to go off on a tangent describing all of this in such great lengths when my focus should be on guilt.  

I saw something the other day on Facebook in the form of a quote meme that bothered me a little.  I know a lot of people will agree with it.  It said:

"You're responsible for how long you let what hurt you, haunt you."

Obviously the person who wrote this has never faced complex trauma.  They obviously don't understand it.  We didn't ask for any of this.  None of this has been our choice.  If we are in therapy seeking help, that is our choice.  But do you know how many times I have been in therapy?  I had reached a point where I felt that my only alternatives were a life of unhappiness which I couldn't bear to live, or death.  I felt beyond broken.  And I have only to this point talked about small pieces of my childhood which is already so fragmented because of my memory or a  self preservation mechanism.  Because I have tried therapy so many times in the past and cannot get passed my past, it is hard not to feel hopeless and dejected.  I don't want to play the victim card, because all of us who have been through what we have are survivors, not victims.  Seeing the above quote written by some person with no understanding only makes those who have tried and tried again and again feel guilty, like it is their fault.  

I recognize a pattern within myself.  I have created this illustration to describe the pattern.

With guilt comes obligation, doesn't it?  To fulfill promises you made to others, even if you don't want to go along anymore.  Vagueness suits me here.  It could be anything.  You choose.

Moms especially (or any parent) know a thing or two about guilt.  We have to juggle so much.  We willingly and gladly put their needs before our own.  But when they start growing up and it's time to start with self-care, going out, an occasional splurge on self, talk about guilt!!!  I have such buyers remorse when I have spent anything on myself.  Guilt and worth go hand in hand for me.  I returned my birthday present this year.  I actually return many of my gifts.  I feel guilty for accepting them.  Like I am unworthy of them.  Especially if someone is giving it to me.  If I go out and buy myself a new pair of earrings or shirt, it’s less guilt inducing for me.  Weird, huh?  I might have to put some thought into that.

Like I have discussed with my therapist, what I know intellectually and in my heart, or viscerally, are two separate matters.  I have enough insight or common sense to know I shouldn't feel guilt over X, yet deep down no matter what I know or tell myself, I still feel guilty, or unworthy.  Is this a case of "the heart feels what the heart feels?"  Or is this conditioning mixed in with good insight or mixed in with results of therapy that knows it on a level that I believe but I just can't stop feeling?  Where does that line get drawn?  The line between belief and feeling?

I think I am babbling now and I am going nowhere productive with my thoughts. I feel there is so much left unsaid.  In fact I know there is.  My thoughts feel muddled.  It's as if when I'm sitting here in my chair writing, I can almost picture an Indy 500 race car shooting out from my brain like some kind of Peter Gabriel video going in dozen of different directions almost simultaneously with contrails following them.  Maybe some things are better left unsaid, huh?

For now guilt shall march on...