I don't vent often because it doesn't make for good reading, but I needed this today...

Whenever I look at my father, and I do so rarely, all I feel is wave upon wave of revulsion. It's been that way for as long as I can remember. Often, there is a splash of hatred as well, blinding anger, and even murderous rage. To look upon him is to look upon complete and utter defeat, no grace could ever save what little is left of him. To look at his face, directly into his eyes, which I can hardly EVER do, is to be confronted with the notion that there is such a being a "Father Time", and that he will take a shovel to your face if he sees fit. Imagine, Michaelangelo's David or the Mona Lisa, works declaring the triumph and beauty of humanity, working in reverse-- describing, with every small detail, the absolute lowest a human being can go while still being alive. This is how I know my father, this is the only way I have ever known him.
What is it that can drive a man from his natural inheritance to this?
What can turn off the natural will to achieve, to add positives to life?
It is not even an issue of someone who is out to destroy, to turn positives into negatives--it is a person who seeks only to do enough to zero out.
It's so foolish, how my father thinks that he is a burden to no one, that all is forgiven, and that he needn't worry or feel guilty at all. Or does he feel worried and guilty all the time, and this is the source of his impotence?Is it that he is so scared of responsibility, of any sort, that he is compelled to simply rot away his years with hi elderly parents?
I'm so angry because I come home every day, and there he is, just around and about. Having to constantly see something that is so pathetic, so loathsome, and realize that you will be associated with it for the rest of your life is almost too much to bear. It shouldn't be, because i shouldn't even care about who will associate me with something i don't associate with. but the feeling is still there.
Is it that a lifetime of depression has made it impossible for him to get up and move? Do I have the right to despise him the way I do if he is simply suffering from something I once suffered from?
The only difference between us is that when I could take it no more, I sought help. God knows i'm a proud, proud, stubborn man, but I hoped that there was better living for me and I went out in search of it.
What has he done? He's watched so many years of tv, read so many reams of local newspapers and exposed himself to so much literary trash that his mind is a soggy purse of useless, often outdated facts, generalities, assumptions, vulgarities, half-digested biblical proverbs, pre-recorded polite behaviors, drug-addled memories, racist paranoia, half-baked schemes and a vague but inescapable guilt that he struggles to hide under a thin veil of innocent snafu, as if he's no worse for the wear and tear of life than anyone else. I'm not surmising, these are just categories of things that fly out of his mouth from time to inappropriate time.
If there could be any irony to this situation, it would be that I want for him the very thing he wants for himself--non-existence. if he could amble and hitchike his way to the edge of the earth one lonely night when no one would notice, and fall off, quietly, with no fuss, no mess, I might feel a twinge of respect for him. As it is, where there should be absolutely no feeling at all, there is a bitter disdain that we must actually breathe the same air, share the same reality. i long for the chance to feel, at least, the sadness of a father lost early in life, or a father that i loved and admired but who didn't love me back, or even a father who simply hadn't even wanted me to be born. What I have is one that steals, and warns me to beware of people who only want to use me, who takes advantage of the fact that he is allowed to live unemployed, rent and board free at the age of 50, but warns me that my sour attitude will get me thrown out on the street, whose own mind is so rotten that he can't understand that 50 is no longer childhood, but admonishes me to stand up and take responsibility, whose own body is so broken from decades of needless hard living instead of hard working and disease that he can barely walk, but who preaches that i ought to MAKE time for excercise, as if he knows what it means to be truly busy and to have made all the time one can out of a 24-hour day, AND WHO HAD THE AUDACITY TO TELL ME THAT HE ABANDONED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS CHILDREN BECAUSE HE WANTED THEM TO BE "FREE" OF THE STRICT 2-PARENT FAMILY MODEL HE SUFFERED WITHIN, AS SOME SORT OF FUCKING EXCUSE. This speck, this fucking diletante of life, of living itself, this wretch who hangs on the thread of indiscriminate grace dangled by society, this leech who has not even the eyes to see that he is a parasite and advocates it as a good way to get by, this sycophantic moron who thinks he is making some kind of contribution by doing menial, unsolicited favors like washing the car or the dishes or doing my laundry or holding the door open for me every time I walk in the house, as if I ought to be struck by his kindness, who can't even take the hint of my coldness and disregard for his life until i deny him a couple of dollars he asked for ever so politely, at which point he goes doe-eyed and befuddled, because no one ever says NO to a fucking panhandler, especially not one so sincere, and who, so simply and predictably, drops the act and remits to his useless, vulgar self the very instant i express my complete lack of need or desire for any of his tiny works of fucking "charity".
That speck, that leech, is no longer within my circle of concern. Although he lives in the living room, he exists to me the same way that any random encylopedia trivia does--an existence for which there is no need for skepticism or devotion, only pure, impractical knowledge. My emotional connection is exactly the same for both.

yeah, that's about it.
i feel much better.
except for the tendonitis

State of the Union

If you've ever wanted to see a collectivist openly, honestly, and empirically describing his values, you got your wish tonight, you 'n me both. El Presidente has been sounding the alarm on social security like crazy in the past few weeks, as if he actually understood what the problems with it are. In his adress, Bush actually gives up the mathematical breakdown of the SSS's impending bankruptcy-- at its inception, there were about 15 workers paying into SS for every single beneficiary.(aka Old folks) 13 years from now, the ratio of workers to beneficiaries will be about 5:1, and 20 years from now, 3:1. (i might have some of the numbers a tiny bit off, but they are about that drastic, look up a transcript of his speech) My point is that he demonstrated, in no uncertain terms, that in this country you WILL work to support your elders--and as many others as possible. This elicited a unanimously positive response from all present, including a standing ovation. Black, White, Hispanic, Democrat, Republican--alll were pleased, and all confessed a common, fundamental, disgusting premise. YOU--your very person--are a part of this country's capital. Any debt the government incurs, on your behalf or someone else's, will be paid with YOUR life and work. Later on, Bush goes on to say that he is committed to maintaining human dignity in scientific progress, i.e., no cultivation of embryos for organ or cell harvesting. "some lives should not be sacrificed for the benefit of others", he was somehow dumb enough to say after telling every working citizen (with or without grandparents) that they owe money to everyone else's grandparents for no particular reason.

People who have problems with the government at large, objectivists included, are often accused of extremism, drama, and hyperbole. Well, there' s nothing anyone can say now, when it comes to objectivists anyway. Pardon me, I'm a little naive, a little young-- this new openess strikes me. Certainly the country has been in trouble for a good while now in the area of individual rights, but now, I'm alarmed. It's become real to me. Does anyone else feel the same way?