I mean, I was being honest in one respect, and that's that I really don't suffer from the kind of jealousy that wishes someone else didn't have something just because I don't. I just have the kind that whines and stamps its foot because I want it too. You know, if everybody else can have a piece of pineapple upside-down cake, why can't I?

I do believe some skinny whiny guy once said something like, "you just haven't earned it yet, baby..."

And you know? I can accept that. While I'm not anywhere near brainwashed enough (anymore, at least, thank god) to buy into the bullshit American crap that says people get what they deserve, and deserve what they get ... frankly, I've seen too many rich lazy idiots and poor hardworking gifted people to buy that one ... I do believe that very little tends to come to us by chance, that, to paraphrase my man Emerson, no good grain of sustenstance should come to any of us but what we've worked for. That is, we might wish life could be easy, and maybe in a just world it would be ... but we don't live in a just world, so we're only going to get what we work damned hard to get.

And, it's not like I haven't worked hard. I have. But then, in fairness, so has GBF. He's just worked at different things than I have. (Okay, in the interest of fairness, I'd also have to point out that he started with certain advantages that I did not, and has had some consistently throughout -- but that's beside my current point.) In the currency of the material-driven world in which we live, the things I've worked at are less immediately tangible than the things he's worked at ... but that doesn't really matter, as the payoff for valuing the things that I value are the only true things that concern me.

And the work has paid off. Just in case it's news to any of you, we live in a sick world. Or at least, in a very sick culture. I'm talking the USAmerican culture, just to be clear. Without getting too deep into it, we grew in a culture that was based in genocide and mass murder -- and a culture that has lied consistently about both since the start, and sought to demonize and make less-than-human those it victimized. How healthy could we be as a society, considering this?

We have a ruling class that dominates and subjugates, and we attribute many of the rights we've fought and died for to their inherent generosity -- again, sick.

So yeah -- I'm feeling better. Not because the world has changed at all, but because I can honestly say I've changed ... that is, the world may be sick, but I'm not. Of course, I've heard all my life that crazy people don't think they're crazy ... guess what, tho? Not sweating it. If ceasing to doubt myself means I'm crazy, then I guess I've become one loony fucker.

I'm not worrying about things, and I don't feel like I need to be so fucking serious all the time -- not that this entry would make that plainly obvious. What can I say, I've worked all day and now I'm hungry and need a shower.

Anyhow, ultimately I'm saying it's a good thing, to get to the point where you realize that what you perceive as reality really is -- even if that reality seems fucked up and crazy. I've spent my life getting to a place where I can finally stop asking, "Is it just me?"

No, it's not just me. It's not just you. We're not crazy. The world really is this fucked up.