The Best of the Worst

August 1st, 2022

This is your semi-annual reminder that my posts are personal opinions made by a very, very flawed person with little-to-no common sense.

It can be hard for us, especially once we designate something or someone as “good” or “bad,” to remember that everything is actually somewhere in the middle.

This feels especially true of me.

More often than I’d like to admit, it happens like this: I write a series of essays. Someone reads them, and finds that they all mean something positive to them. They may even comment as much or click that agreeable “like” button.

Then something else happens. I write something absolutely opposed to the core of who that person is or what they believe. Cognitive dissonance hits. I no longer get them. I no longer speak for them.

Which is funny.

Because I only speak for me. Always have.

Then unsavory things are said about me, depending on the kind of things you find to be appetizing. Backlash follows. Unfollows occur. I die.

Or something like that.

But I live in the gray, which is hard for a guy who just wants you to like him.

I do it all the time in my fiction work, too. In my first book, Them, I knew that I wanted Kim to make decisions that most people would not make. But maybe understand.

In the Faribault Daily News review, her actions were criticized for a lack of motivation, though most male-driven action movies give us nothing of the sort. John Wick’s dog was killed and we got three films and counting (bodies or otherwise).

If you read the last page of Brushfire and felt a weird pit in your stomach as the plan was laid out, good; the gray area between good and bad is on full display.

I know my position on guns is, and always will be, controversial. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a responsible gun owner, because humans and guns cannot peacefully coexist. Do you know how many gun-related deaths there were before we invented guns? Zero. You know how many after? All of them. The objective facts back my sentiment, but don’t bring facts to a gun fight.

You will be shot in the face.

And I go on like this forever, an ocean of word waves and sentence sea life.

I want to remind you that these are all my opinions. But you can agree AND disagree, it’s okay!

And I also want to remind you that my opinions are based on my love for humanity. I listen to people like my mom and scientists and Jesus and comic book superheroes. The best of the best.

And I am just the best of the worst, doing the best I can, drowning in radical empathy, trying to make sense of what sometimes feels like a senseless universe.