A Facebook Précis

The way I wel­comed a bunch of new Coro­natide folks on Face­book, amus­ing enough to share more wide­ly, I think.

For any new Face­book friends, whom I’ve accu­mu­lat­ed over the past few days, (and for some old ones who are more active than usu­al) some ground rules and disclaimers:

¶ I — No, I am not usu­al­ly quite this active on social media. I mean, I post a lot of super­fi­cial non­sense on Insta­gram that gets cross-post­ed here, but no, this is aberrant.

¶ II — Yes, I am this crass all the time. If I wore graph­ic t‑shirts, that one that says “I Love Jesus But Say Fuck A Lot” would be worn pret­ty much every day. It’s a big mood. I also almost exclu­sive­ly talk about God in the 500 year old sacred and litur­gi­cal reg­is­ter of mod­ern Eng­lish. I do not con­sid­er this a hypocrisy. I do not con­sid­er this a para­dox. That is all.

¶ III — No, I will not make the post pub­lic. I will con­sid­er mak­ing some posts open to “Friends of friends” on request, but while my sense of per­son­al pri­va­cy is porous, I do not on prin­ci­ple share pub­licly on Facebook.

¶ IIII — Yes, I have a pen­chant for gal­lows’ humor. Here’s the thing, so do a lot of peo­ple in times of dis­as­ter and uncer­tain­ty. I just treat all of life as an ongo­ing dis­as­ter, but that’s nei­ther here nor there. It’s an ancient and nor­ma­tive relief valve for the down­trod­den many, span­ning mil­len­nia. It prob­a­bly inter­faces with what Aris­to­tle said about tragedy more par­tic­u­lar­ly, “an imi­ta­tion … through pity and fear effect­ing the prop­er pur­ga­tion [cathar­sis] of these emo­tions.” If it doesn’t work for you, unfol­low me now and con­gre­gate with peo­ple whose nor­mal schtick you find help­ful. You do you. Don’t do me. Laugh­ing in the face of death and the dev­il and dis­as­ter is how some of us cope, so insist­ing on polic­ing cop­ing mech­a­nisms is the oppo­site of help­ful right now. This includes pas­sive aggres­sion, cut it out.

¶ V — [For cer­tain per­sons, because there is a ten­den­cy here:]

No, I am prob­a­bly not a dead-ringer for your par­tic­u­lar eccle­si­as­ti­cal pre­oc­cu­pa­tions as an Angli­can – Epis­co­palian. I’m a lat­i­tu­di­nar­i­an Angli­can in the Amer­i­can Epis­co­pal tra­di­tion of William White, with a decid­ed bent toward pre-Oxfor­dian Angli­can­ism and Enlight­en­ment Protes­tantism. That does not make me an espe­cial pro­po­nent of what con­sti­tutes main­stream mushy, waf­fling broad church prac­tice, today, but I am gen­er­al­ly more for­giv­ing of diverse prac­tices and charisms than most of the fac­tion­al­ists. I pret­ty much loathe and abom­i­nate roman­ti­cism and per­son­al­ism, philo­soph­i­cal­ly-speak­ing, think­ing them unfor­tu­nate con­ti­nen­tal accre­tions, but don’t go on about it too much.

¶ VI — [Mov­ing right along:]

Yes, I have a par­rot and am one of those insuf­fer­able peo­ple who speak for the birds, even when the birds are clear­ly speak­ing for them­selves… at great vol­ume. As the great­est Amer­i­can sto­ry­teller and humorist put it, “[He] was not what you would call refined, [he] was not what you would call unre­fined, [he] was the kind of per­son who keeps a parrot.”

¶ VII — Yes, that is more gen­er­al­ly true, as well. I know many of the soci­olects and have a work­ing knowl­edge of most of the man­ners and mores, but gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, I enjoy the know­ing about straw­ber­ry forks more than I do the earnest­ly employ­ing them. The one­time behav­iors of the obso­les­cent upper class­es are joy­ful­ly and iron­i­cal­ly appro­pri­at­ed for the sake of keep­ing mate­r­i­al cul­ture out of the dust­bin and enjoy­ing the real­i­ty that the sta­tus sym­bols of yes­ter­year have been vul­gar­ized through over-production.

To repeat an overused per­son­al say­ing, “No degree of edu­ca­tion, encul­tur­a­tion, refine­ment, affec­ta­tion of mores can obscure the truth that I am of vul­gar issue… ‘Truth be told, I am, in ori­gin and essence, just white trash for­tu­nate enough to know that Chip­pen­dale was a fur­ni­ture mak­er and not just a scant­i­ly clad fire­fight­er at a bach­e­lorette party.’ ”

¶ VIII — Yes, I have socio-polit­i­cal, ‑eco­nom­ic prin­ci­ples and opin­ions. I share them occa­sion­al­ly in this forum, but do so with fair­ly extreme pru­dence and restraint. Use one of my posts as a plat­form for ide­o­log­i­cal squab­bling and it’s a safe bet you’ll get boot­ed to the door or at least sar­don­ical­ly lam­bast­ed. Lit­er­al­ly every­one else will argue with you about these things, you don’t need me. My pol­i­tics are decid­ed­ly local and in-per­son. I remain unapologetic.

¶ IX — Yes, I post a ver­i­ta­ble litany of old things, domes­tic tedi­um, my schmutz-faced chil­dren, my wife, and even — the hor­ror — my din­ner. If you ever found your­self appalled and dis­mayed by peo­ple who are con­tent with the ancient and ordi­nary won­ders of being human, I am sor­ry to dis­ap­point you, but also don’t give a fuck.

Envoi — Enjoy or don’t. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ When you try to be all things to all men, you end up being no one to any one, and sup­press­ing the very grounds of being any­thing even to your­self. Tootaloo.