The men who sit in high places tell me to cook on high and write on Medium because they believe it will exponentially increase the traffic to my blog.
There was a time where I cross posted between this joint and there and began to see some of the increase they promised but I grew tired of doing the work and stopped.
Maybe if I had seen a larger response or if it immediately yielded financial dividends I wouldn’t have, but it didn’t and I just stopped.
Not unlike my gardener who cashed my last check and hasn’t shown up in weeks.
Now the front and back yards have begun to look like places to recreate the Sanford and Son junkyard so I must buy/borrow a lawn mower and or hire a new gardener.
“Josh, you know if you follow the formula you can build the readership back up and it will lead to more cash from here again.
It will generate very positive results. I know you have your thing going and that some people like it, but you need to get many more to make your style work.”
A shoulder shrug and a silent smile tells him I am not likely to follow his recommendation.
One of the many critics offers another dozen suggestions for what I ought to do and how it should all play out.
“You need to remember I have a simple rule in life, love me or don’t.”
“Josh, you know not everyone is going to love you. That is not realistic.”
“Neither is trying to please everyone or never hurt feelings. It is why I don’t sugarcoat my feelings about the wannabe mobster in office.
I can understand how and why they might have initially voted for him even though it was pretty clear he was going to be a tool.
What I don’t follow is the willful blindness and cognitive dissonance they employ now to fool themselves.”
“Josh, you are being an asshole.”
“I could be softer in my replies and responses but I tend to save that for those who haven’t tried to convince me to smoke crack with them so that I might vote as they do.
Am I angry?
Yeah, I am and not just about this.”
*****
We’re in the midst of a major transition in multiple places and it is making life more challenging than it needs to be.
Got more than just family looking at me for answers and leaning upon me and most of the time I am ok with that.
Most of the time I am strong enough to carry the load, but there are moments when it gets to be a little much and I have to set it down.
Moments where I look at those who seek to climb upon my back and ask if they recognize when they dig their heels into my sides and if they understand they better feed me a carrot or two.
Because I know my limitations and I know how much and how far I can go.
I know who asks me how I am because they want to know and who does without interest or regard for what that question means.
At this grumpy stage of life I have no interest in exchanging meaningless pleasantries. Let’s be kind to each other and courteous but not waste time on things that have no use for either of us.
The blurred lines and spaces and places that are off limits are part of why I haven’t written here as I once did.
Part of why I use other spaces and names because there are those who complicate the already complicated with ridiculous comments, excuses and ideas.
They have given me grief I haven’t earned because they think they have seen things and that irks me because I am direct.
There aren’t many times when you don’t know where you stand with me because I don’t have much of a poker face unless I need to.
But the emails come in and the questions or comments and I don’t intend to engage in certain discussions about stories that aren’t solely mine to tell.
Teenagers roam the online halls and sometimes they google themselves and friends and that has lead to a few changes because teenage girls deserve to have space to create their own digital footprint.
It is a funny thing how some of these changes happen gradually but feel like they took place overnight.
One moment you are looking at toddlers and then kids who are on the verge of hitting puberty and suddenly the aforementioned puberty hits and the gawky stages come…and go.
There are children with the bodies of men and women but faces that belie their real ages.
People who are trying to figure out who they are now and who they want to become and there is us, their parents.
People who remember what it was like to not know and or to think we had answers only to discover we didn’t.
Or the offshoot of discovering what or who was the answer no longer is.
The changes have been ongoing for years–but it is only now that some of them become so bloody apparent you can’t ignore them or pretend they aren’t as far along as they really are.
So maybe the answer really is cook on high and write on Medium, it makes about as much sense as anything.
