Writing is one of the most satisfying things I know.

It's satisfying partly BECAUSE a lot of what I write sucks.

Suckage is only the beginning. When a thought or feeling matters, you keep coming back to it.

What's more satisfying than - shade by shade, degree by parsec - realizing the truth of the feeling deep within that a thing mattered and you had this thing to say and could say it? At first your efforts proved it didn't matter and/or you couldn't say it.

But you kept fingering the scab the world had placed over this expression. Sometimes the scab arrives before the wound. Sometimes clear skin becomes a scab, and then blood, and then a cut, and then flint, and then an arrow fired in tune.

That's what saying something well is like.

It's satisfying to realize you have such good aim. As it were. The thunk of the arrowhead in the tree, split in the center of its found knot, resounds through the whole clearing for a sentience listening.

The annoying thing is, I'm inspired by genius, not really by keeping up with the Joneses. Most people's concerns are things I empathize with, but do not myself prioritize.

At the end of the day, you need a reason to get up in the morning. What is it that'll get you out of blankets in the morning?

I want to be a genius. It's stupid. Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds to say? You do.

But that can get me out of bed in the morning.

I'm not for cancel culture, as you might have noticed. But I'm not against what it's about accomplishing, at all. I'm for that.

Boycotting can be super effective. We vote with our pocketbooks and our eyes and ears. All that makes perfect sense, and a well-placed, well-communicated, well-delineated, forward-thinking boycott is possibly the best means of social change we have at our disposal. That's saying quite a bit, I think.

So we're all free to boycott anything we want to boycott. And if we get together and express why, clearly, then that just brings more power to the effort. It's great.

I am very much for good boycotting.

The way I'm not for cancel culture is simple - it's just about philosophy, namely my own.

I'm not treating a human as not a human, because a human is a human. Pretending otherwise is a lie. Because I personally don't consider that lie useful, I'm not going to be lying. That's all. I have compassion for all living things, and that includes all humans, however you feel about them. It isn't a comment on your or any situation that I have compassion for a person. I just do. That's how my heart and mind work naturally. It isn't difficult for me. It makes perfect sense and helps in all kinds of situations and all kinds of ways. If you stabbed me in the stomach, with a knife, I could probably still see your perspective and have compassion for you. Please don't do that.

And don't think I can't fight. I can. Have you ever broken someone's rib through a chest-guard? Maybe a recently-ex-army dude, ten years older than you, bigger? Well I have, by mistake. I was maybe 15. It was just a good kick. (A jumping back kick to counter a roundhouse kick... maybe the best timed and landed one of those I ever did.) It was automatic, actually. It felt like lifting a glass of water and taking a drink, or those first few moments of sprinting that just happen - easy, smooth, satisfying. A reflex that hit the spot. Before that, my brother and I fought tooth and nail hundreds or thousands of times, and of course there was all the sparring practice in class.

I know my way around a scuffle. But just like that guy whose rib I broke managed a "Nice KICK!!!!" through gritted teeth while bent double, I think I could still reach for your perspective and have some compassion for you if you stabbed me in the guts and stood there watching me bleed out with a grin on your face. I wouldn't let that happen. And I'd do the same to you first if it meant saving an innocent life. But I wouldn't lose compassion. Or only for approximately the instant needed to save a life.

So no, I'm not losing all compassion for whoever offended or scared or even hurt you. It's just not me to be like that. You know? I'm sorry that this upsets people, genuinely. But I feel it's a misunderstanding. They think it's a comment on them or their situation. No, it isn't. It's something about my core that you aren't changing.

So anyway, go ahead and cancel people, ignore them, act as if they aren't human, twist and exaggerate and otherwise misrepresent their words and positions and motives. You have the right to do those things, as do I. But I have the right not to, as do you. That's all. Does the completeness of that simplicity make some sense?

Public hazing of miscreants may be for a sufficiently good cause (it is), and sufficiently effective (is it?). This is quite possible, and I defer to any evidence. But I am not entirely convinced so far - I think a good boycott, even here in the realm of egregious prejudices and outright systemic murder in some rare but real cases, would work a little differently (on the basis of the science on boycotting and also on deterrents). The principle of a good boycott is that it needs to be what I mentioned: makes basic sense, well-placed, well-communicated, well-delineated, forward-thinking. When people can understand that you're working for a better world rather than attacking them or their beliefs - even if they totally disagree with you - they tend to get more accommodating. A good boycott is conditional: We will forsake this institution unless and until A, B, and C. It isn't declaring anathema and making the sign of the cross every time the hated item (previously human or otherwise) appears. That's just garden-variety hatin' on.

Which I deeply, deeply, deeply dislike. So if that's what I feel what you're asking me is about, then I will politely (or occasionally impolitely) decline.

Change is afoot. Take all the above with grains of salt. Waves of protest against Trumpism, the forward steps of #MeToo and BLM and the like - I don't necessarily know what's working and what isn't. But something is working. I believe that. More needs to work. So... how? What are the best approaches? What does science say?

You've got to live on your own terms.

It's all taken away at the end, some forever, some given to others. You rarely know anything much about the end, either.

So where does that leave you?

There is a hole in the universe for you to create.

This is what you give. What do you give?

You write something - an email. You see issues, ways to make it better. You do so. Now it's worse because it's no longer natural. You're interrupting yourself with parentheses to clarify. You're saying more than the recipient will probably want to know or think about right now. You can't go back. It wasn't good enough. But now it's worse. And you can push forward, but it's unlikely it'll ever feel as natural as the spontaneous version. At least... ok, eventually it can, but there is no way whatsoever to tell how long that will take, and the only good way to make sure is to put it aside for a week or two and read it with fresh eyes.

This is my life. Between spontaneous and polished, there's the undefinable sea of awkwardness - and saying too much and too little at the same time.

One of the things about "being yourself" when you're a guy is that you know this can scare people who needn't be scared.

To some extent that must be true for everyone.

My wish to just "be myself" competes with my wish to be understood as I am. Those are two different things, sometimes.

Typical example: you have a crush on someone. So you talk to female friends about it, because you feel it's this pressure and you wish you could just name the elephant in the room. But they're always like, "Oh no! Don't say that! You'll freak her out!"

Uh, ok. Fine. But it misunderstands me to be freaked out by that, and naming how I feel - and there's nothing wrong with it - is being myself.

Women often develop - thanks to society, etc - this idea that sex is bad and they'll be seen as inferior or immoral. It's tragic and unfair.

Ironically, guys can actually develop almost the opposite idea - that feeling a lot of affection for someone is wrong, creepy, possessive, crazy.

Things can go wrong - reality is kind of harsh sometimes, and that's as serious as can be - but affection in itself is not any of those things at all, and it's hurtful to present that attitude.

Something sort of unpredictable has happened in recent times. A small phenomenon. Not that important, but curious.

I have a few kind of flukish health issues. Yes I can also be a bit of a hypochondriac, but what many women say about doctors is true - sometimes doctors simply dismiss what you say. If you're a woman, that's more likely. And if you have anxiety, that's more likely. I can see when I get profiled as a person with anxiety. So I've learned to be more careful about how I reveal to a doctor that I sometimes feel anxious. I'm not interested in having the things I say waved away - evaluated, given an expert opinion on, fine, absolutely, and if it's reassurance I need, then that's what I'll welcome. But waved away or ignored - no thanks, not why I go to see a doctor. So I sympathize with women who feel ignored by doctors.

Anyway, the little phenomenon is just that since I went through cancer, surgery, and chemotherapy, people who know me well tend to respond to comments I make about health with "Well, you've been through a lot" or "Chemotherapy really does a number on you" or the like. Yes, I'm aware of both things. Quite true. But actually cancer was not the beginning of my life. There were issues before I had cancer. In fact, most of them. I'm very aware of things that have started since and likely as a result of the treatment.

A good example is the RSI I got in both wrists in 2016, which made me really afraid I wouldn't be able to use a computer normally again. Since 2016, I've basically quit guitar. It's sad. But guitar is too rough on my wrists.

Note: cancer treatment did not cause my RSI. I had it before. But it would come and go. Then I pushed things a bit too much in summer 2016 and made it a lot worse, and to this day I have to be careful. I no longer use a mouse or trackpad. I use a pen/tablet. That's my mouse.

But again, that wasn't cancer or chemo. Chemo did hit many of my tissues pretty hard. So it probably made me a little more vulnerable to RSI. Maybe significantly. But I already had that issue. I'm an introvert and a big computer user and typer and spend most of my life at that. There's nothing weird about getting RSI from that in your 30s, especially if you weren't very informed about ergonomics and good practices.

Anyway on the bright side I know quite a bit about the subject now and how to manage/avoid RSI.