(or Approachably Reclusive Part II: THE NEXT DAY)
Usually if you write, and say something interesting, I'll
write back, even if it's just a quick thank you.
If you say
something not-interesting, for
many years I have had a few form letters always ready to go, which I use in
cases where it is obvious to me that no thought or effort should be wasted on
my response. Somehow copying and
pasting those doesn't seem to require nearly as much effort as admiring someone's photos of their
cats in person.
To save us all time, I guess, if you suspect that what you
are about to send will be eligible
to receive one of these form letters, just skip sending in the first
place. (There are doubtless
countless blogs where they will welcome you with open arms, particularly if
they have mastered aikido).
The ten form letters I have sent out most often in my
working life could be summarized as:
1.
My, how cleverly you are able to paste together Republican
talking points.
2. Actually
you like some words I wrote a long time ago, and not only am I not your soul
mate, you would perceive this instantly if you met me, because the person you
seem to be writing to doesn't resemble the person sitting here reading your
note. Thank you for liking my
words, I hope I will write other
things that please you in the future, and no, let's not meet.
3.
Yes, it is my job to
try to depict people like yourself in my stories, and I'm sorry that I didn't
do it to your liking, and will take what I understand from your letter into
account and try to do better next
time around. You are not only
entitled to your anger, but I am going to ask a big favor of you: in all seriousness,
please be sure to denounce my work publicly. If I am misleading other people about your kind of people,
they need to be told, and I have already demonstrated I'm not the one to tell
them. It is, of course, possible
that we are both wrong, in which case your people and the general public deserve
a chance to decide that, and to decide, they need to hear both of us. My take is already out there; please
put yours up somewhere. If by any
chance you are looking for a retraction, however, I don't usually
do that. I draw what I see and if
I see something different later, I
draw that then.
4.
I don't know or understand a thing about your life but you
already are writing about it very well and I can tell it's interesting. You don't need a co-author, you need to
sit down and write that.*
5.
Thank you for urging me to say more of what I am already
saying, but please, staying real, let us not make any point of my courage here:
I'm in a historically privileged group of people living in a milieu with a
tradition of individual rights.
Therefore I can state almost any opinion I am likely to have, without
much of anything to fear, and where there is no rational fear, there is no
courage. Rather than congratulate
me on whatever you thought it was dangerous to say, take charge and work
through that danger yourself. Fear
breeds fear, and if you think it takes nerve or guts to say what I've
said, then if it is at all
possible for you, please say it in public yourself, and experience – or make,
if necessary – your own freedom first hand. Courage also breeds courage, but
you have to start with some of your own.
6.
You have mistaken my character's opinions for mine.
I make people up; just as they are not all me physically, and a good
thing too for the sake of the sex scenes, they are not all me politically,
spiritually, esthetically, or socially. Thanks for letting me know I drew a
character well enough for you to mistake him/her for a real person that you
detest. If you were to meet me you
would in all likelihood detest me for some reason entirely different from the
one you think you do.
7.
My, how cleverly you are able to paste together Democratic
talking points.
8.
Get help, for everyone's sake. No joke. Your
letter is a symptom, but I'm not a
doctor.
9.
I do, in fact, have a religious faith, which I take seriously,
and which I believe to be a better approximation to the truth than what you
have sent me; it is one of my faith's tenets that God does not damn anyone, which is why I will not attempt to rescue you from
the peril you are not in, let
alone accept that anchor you have tossed me in your mistaken belief that it is
a life preserver. God, I believe, does condemn certain ways of occupying oneself –
businesses, we might call them, in the old sense of "what people stay busy
with," such as concocting and distributing malice, distrust, and anger –
so I trust it will be clear when I say God bless you for your concern, and my
spiritual welfare is none of your God-damned business.
10.
You have not misunderstood me. I do think exactly what you object to. You will not stop me
from saying it merely by telling me you don't like it.
*an observation for which I have no explanation: the
letters I get from people who want me to help turn their interesting
experiences into a book are inevitably well-written and tightly focused on the
interesting parts; at a guess, this is because finding what's really of
interest in your own life is the hard part, and once that's done it's just a
matter of setting it down.
