RAT Re: Flanders

[josh@whirl-i-gig.com]

Last night, after a reading I gave of some of my fiction, a
twenty-something ultra-yuppy lawyer approached me.  This is what he said:

"I want you to know that I had to leave the room halfway through your
reading.  It was so...depressing--I mean, I thought I liked it until I
thought about what you were saying, and then I was...I just don't want to
hear about that stuff.  Why don't you write about happy stuff?"

I thought about answering him by saying, "Because I'm not Flanders"
Instead, I smiled ingratiatingly and asked him to elaborate; what
specifically was so depressing?

He couldn't really say.  What he did say was that the most disturbing thing
about my reading was that I seemed to be happy to get this distressed
response from him.

And I have to admit that I was.

As I left, he cornered me one more time.  He asked for my phone number.  He
asked me if, given the right situation, I would be willing to put my work
up for sale.

I said yes.

This made me happy as well.

I'm sure he will remember my work.  And to me, that's what it is to be not
a flanders.  A flanders is someone who's so actively trying to be
inoffensive as to offend the seekers of wisdom--no matter how myopic and
homerlike these seekers are.

The world is not a happy place and acting like it is will not make it
so--it'll just leave you less prepared for the stab in the back.

Up with People kills more souls than it saves.

Joshua Furst
Self Centered Pit Bull