Sans Fig Leaf
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"Self-made"
5 December, 2003
One time when I stopped in to visit an acquaintence during the month of December I was surprised to see a strange thing in one corner of his living room. He had spray-painted several orange crates black and arranged them in a sort of pyramid shape. He had a string of red chili pepper lights wound around them. He had clipped stories and editorials out of magazines about various things groups like Focus on the Family were promoting and stuck those at random points on the crates. At the top of the pile he had placed an 8 x 10 color print of a painting of ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev. Finally, over the whole mess, he had scattered condoms in little gold packages like confetti.
I commented on his unusual piece of artwork. "It's my anti-christmas tree," he said. "I absolutely hate christmas and especially all those hypocrits who put so much time into decorating and present buying, but never do anything to help the poor or sick." Then he went off on a bit of a rant about hypocrisy, cultural oppression, and related topics. He proceeded to tell me that he spent all year planning his anti-christmas tree. How one year he had bought one of those gag coffins and filled it with obituaries of people who had died due to AIDS, and topped it off with a picture of Ronald Reagon with devil horns drawn on it.
His feelings didn't come as a surprise. I had been treated to his angry rants about politicians he disliked and such before. What I found interesting, as I recalled how many times I'd heard similar rants before, was just how much of his time and energy went into thinking about these things he couldn't stand. Being angry at these things occupied almost every waking moment. So much so, that he didn't get much of anything else accomplished. He was constantly apologizing for not finishing something he had promised to do, for example.
When I first met him, he seemed to have lots and lots of friends. As I got to know him better, realized that almost everyone he associated with were people he had met relatively recently in whichever activist group he was currently hanging out with. He would make frequent references to scores of other old friends, but it seemed he had lost contact with them all long ago. He also talked about ex-boyfriends a lot, but I soon learned that most of these guys didn't consider themselves ex-boyfriends. Most had only dated him once or twice.
As one told me, "It was obvious he would never be as interested in me as he was in The Cause -- whichever one he was pursuing at the moment."
One of the topics he frequently ranted about was how intolerant some groups were, refusing to listen to those who disagreed with them. Of course, if you tried to disagree with him about something, he would get angry and verbally abusive. He was prone to sweeping generalizations when discussing these "bigoted groups." In short, he was as intolerant, bigoted, and unwilling to listen to reason as the people he railed against.
I hadn't really put all of those facts together until I was confronted with the anti-christmas tree. Some people accuse me of being a bit crazy with my holiday decorations, but he put far more time, effort, and thought into his anti-christmas statement that I have ever put into decorating. He wasn't protesting christmas, really, he was aping it, just as he was aping the attitudes he claimed to disdain. Because although he was constantly joining community groups protesting this or that social injustice, he never really did anything but fume and gripe and argue. Any time someone was collecting money for a charity, he conveniently had forgotten his checkbook. He agreed to do things for these organizations he joined, but almost always failed to follow through.
I've seen the pattern repeated in the lives of many others. They complain most loudly about the behavior of people who act precisely the same way they do, completely unaware of the irony. The most disturbing times are when I've caught myself doing it.
When we spend a lot of time thinking about something, it colors our perceptions of other things. The more of our time is spent in that pursuit, the more pervasively our perceptions are distorted. Soon, the very things we despise control our every thought and action.
The good news is that it's true for good things as well as bad. We can counteract the ill effects by consciously spending more time thinking about the things we love. It sounds simple. It isn't. It takes work and determination. But I know from experience, that it is more than worth the effort.
--Charles Dickens, Great Expectations