As of now I spent two months feeling unusually good after discovering Buster Keaton and four months feeling unusually bad after his fans (among others) dumped on me--twice the time!

What happens, I guess, in these cases when I experience something interesting enough to temporarily snap me out of my long-term depression (and I call four and a half years by itself long term not even taking into account that I was depressed more often than not during most of the preceding years) is I see some kind of chance that maybe I am not utterly hopeless and I may be able to survive and even prosper in this world. That would be great if whatever I saw inspired me to create some awesome work of art with no contact between myself and the subject which inspired it or anyone related to it (i. e. fans). But I don't seem to have the impetus to do this in a vacuum so to speak so I do attempt to make contact either with the subject or with individuals connected with the same interests. I am then pretty quickly put in my place as far as being told I am unacceptable and that try as I might nothing I can do will fix this.

This makes me review every previous occasion (that I can remember!) when I was deemed unacceptable and go over possible reasons why. As far as the creative aspect of it, I don't really know if I am just impatient having felt so bad for so long wanting to feel better, and this impedes my progress, or if I've spent 40 years trying to bleed a friggin' stone. Maybe I really do try and the ideas are not there, or not good enough, or not original. (I know, it doesn't stop most filmmakers these days, does it!?) If I do have a talent and certain forces are holding it back I can live with that while I do my best to overcome the circumstances but I really don't think I can live with finding out I don't have one. Of course, others mustn't be the judge, but without others you really are working in a vacuum as who is to judge whether what you do is any good? Then there is the question of commercial success which involves (at least) hundreds of thousands of people. Can I possibly feel all right just on my own?

quote:

Can I possibly feel all right just on my own?

Possibly absolutely!

Re: Buster Keaton. Who are Tune-Yards?
http://www.rollingstone.com/mu...short-films-20120412

Don't know but thanks for the interesting link!

Okay, the symptoms are worse now than in the period leading up to the brief respite in October. I'm not just irritated and uncomfortable, I am experiencing physical pain for which there is no remedy. It just burns me no end that I had two really good months out of a period of 2-4 years and to some people even that amount is too much and too "good" for me. They would seek to destroy my enjoyment in the thing they claim to promote because I am not "worthy" to enjoy it. I don't do this here even when people come on and openly insult me. Fie on them.

As I mentioned awhile back, I watched two of the Chaplin "essentials," "The Kid" and "City Lights." Thursday night watched Buster Keaton's "The Cameraman" again for the third time. Sunday night watched four Harold Lloyd films, "Ask Father," "Among Those Present," "Haunted Spooks," and "Get Out and Get Under." Well, Chaplin and Lloyd were funny and I did laugh, but there is absolutely no comparison, although Chaplin and Lloyd were way, WAY more popular at the time--and until recently Chaplin was still more popular--though Keaton is now rapidly catching up. My favorite author, Ray Bradbury, has said that he liked Keaton but greatly preferred Harold Lloyd, but still, Keaton is my man. I am unquestionably convinced of this.

(That is the movie review. The rest of this is a rant if you want to skip it.)

But I have something stuck in my craw, and stuck bad, and all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot get it out.

Until I discovered fandom (1992) and the internet (1999) I didn't have any like-minded people with whom to discuss interests. Not that I didn't try, I would talk about things, just people would kind of roll their eyes and not talk back much. If anything it made me feel more unique, that I must have some really special connection to the things I liked making them really mine because no one else I knew liked them.

Even when I got on the official message board for my #1 interest, Ray Bradbury, and eventually became a moderator (the only moderator for the first ten years), my experiences were mostly positive. Trolls were fairly few and far between, and I only edited the really objectionable comments and allowed much more than I have seen on other boards. Only recently did the attacks get really vicious and personal and that was from visitors unlikely to return. There have also been forums where I have never had a problem and ones where I had nothing but trouble.

With Keaton's fans, trouble started pretty early on. Now, I don't know if any of you have had an experience like this, if you have discovered something you REALLY love that you would have loved anyway regardless of who else did, and found a structure already in place telling you
a) you were wrong to love it (as you weren't doing it "right," i. e., their way), and
b) if you did love it, it didn't matter anyway, as you weren't good enough for their guy to wipe his shoes on let alone for you to love him.
(Actually, this would be my guess as to why there are at least 300 different Christian denominations but enough about that.)

NOW THERE IS ONE THING OF WHICH I AM ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED. I don't care if people tie me down and torture me with tasers, I think a HUGE part of any artist's work is THE EFFECT OF THE WORK ON THE INDIVIDUAL experiencing it. Strangely, we have never had a problem with this on the Bradbury board--people come on and offer the most effusive praise and I have never once seen one of them trolled. I have been beaten about the head and ears with hard, sharp, and heavy objects for trying to describe the effect Keaton has on me, which I am now even more convinced is genuine.

Only one little problem, I can no longer enjoy it. I had two really happy months, my longest consecutive time in at least four years. Over the previous year I had given up and resigned myself to being at a certain level of discomfort at all times so it came as a real shock even to be as happy as I was for what little time it lasted before it was brought to an abrupt and violent end.

So now I have had to live with some degree of discomfort every day for four months (twice as long as the amount of time I was happy), although I belong to three other Keaton groups. Technically, I know there's been a ton written on him and almost any question I might raise could be solved by reading. (And a few people have even sent me books and films!) If we had a REAL poser that no one on any of the groups could answer, well some of them belong to the "real, official" group and if the "experts" on there could not it probably doesn't have a knowable answer. So I don't feel anyone is (or could!) keep information from me, but I am extremely graveled by two things: one, that I can't even find the time to do all the reading I want on Bradbury, even if I did nothing else (which I do plenty else) and two, that I am just considered NOT GOOD ENOUGH to be in the "real" Keaton group with the "experts" regardless of how much more fun and nice the other groups are! (I also have dirt on these "experts" from people who KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE I am FAR FROM the only one to have a problem with them, but it doesn't change how I feel.)

For the record, I don't think I like Chaplin and Lloyd any less because I'm depressed, I'm just sure I don't like them as much as Keaton. I have an absolute and total identification with Keaton that's difficult to describe. At times it's like looking in a mirror. Only now, it is all clouded over and obscured by this thought that I'm not "good enough" to like him. This burns me no end. I don't think anyone can get to me this way using Bradbury because
a) No one would try and
b) Bradbury knows I like him and is cool with it which trumps all other opinions.

It's just a shame that I've discovered Keaton after he and his wife and kids are all dead because there's no one who can give me an informed opinion and all these trolls lie in wait ready to tell me he'd have hated my ass.

So the question is, what should I do?

1. Totally give up watching Keaton, in which case, the terrorists will have won? (This has happened in a few cases with music I couldn't listen to for ten or twenty years--but do now.)

2. Watch him anyway but be in pain? Which I will be anyway if I don't watch him?

I am almost to the point of seeking professional help about this, which people have been yelling at me to do for years (long before I started watching Keaton.) The reason I don't is I really don't see throwing time and money down a rat's hole for someone who won't help me and may make me worse. Medication has made some improvements but it's just not doing the job. I'm at a loss here. Thanks for listening.

What I wore to church on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. (Yes, I was the only one.)

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
Well, Chaplin and Lloyd were funny and I did laugh, but there is absolutely no comparison,

For me, too! Chaplin is the greatest of the three. I also consider him the greatest filmmaker ever. But I can see why you love Buster - his genius is certainly obvious.

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
...So the question is, what should I do?

1. Totally give up watching Keaton, in which case, the terrorists will have won? (This has happened in a few cases with music I couldn't listen to for ten or twenty years--but do now.)

2. Watch him anyway but be in pain? Which I will be anyway if I don't watch him?...

Option 2, definitely. But preferably without the pain. And I recommend an expression from the late Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard
Feynman: "What do you care what other people think?" Meaning: you do what YOU want, not what other people want.

Yeah, I suppose it's the usual thing. When I get overwhelmed with one thing too many, I get annoyed at everything, then I get seriously peeved because I don't like being annoyed.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
- Confucius

Quickest explanation I can give is when I discovered Buster I was suddenly uplifted with the emotion that I might be all right and be able to make my life turn out after all. (Goal since late 1971: make my life turn out. Serious setback with the discovery in 2006 of developmental disability.) I also thought I could finally watch something and actually enjoy it rather than thinking, "Wouldn't this be great if I didn't feel like crud?" When I was told I was not good enough to even ask questions or offer comments on said subject it seriously impaired my enjoyment because I then had to think, "Wouldn't this be great if I weren't too inferior to appreciate it?" As for the amount of time and effort it would take to attempt to be adequate and probably still not succeed, screw it--I just have to settle for being inadequate--but I still hate it. And hate is not an emotion I wanted to associate with Buster.

Anyhow, the reason people are yelling at me now is because I won't see a counselor when I don't know any, couldn't afford them if I did, and am afraid I am such a unique case they couldn't help me anyway. I feel so bad now that I am almost ready to sign up for the torture. I know someone who knows somebody who may know something and am about desperate enough to ask.

Repeat after me:

I am not too inferior to appreciate Buster Keaton.

[Anyone who says you are is a bad person and doesn't deserve any space in your head.]

[They may not want you in their forum/living room/territory, but that's a whole different thing.]

In safety classes I teach to individuals of all ages, I try to re-enforce the idea "You are the most important person there is!" This is not to make them believe they must have an inflated ego, to think themselves better than others, or to suddenly become aware of some new source of "self-esteem" that has been suddenly bestowed upon them. On the contrary!

Each of us is very significant in a myriad of ways. We may not get our name put up in lights or have our picture on wall screens every twenty minutes. However, we are a part of the lives of everyone we know: family, friends, peers, business persons, and random daily exchanges.

If an individual within one of those settings poses a sudden or ongoing conflict against our well-intended direction, that creates negative energy (or possibly a risky situation). Therefore, we must decisively do one of two things. Address it head-on forcefully and confidently, or move away from it quickly and effectively. Thus, distance becomes our greatest ally.

Here is a quaint book that may offer some introspective light and allow for that sense of personal importance everyone needs to experience daily so as to remain safe and healthy.
f

http://books.google.com/books?...#v=onepage&q&f=false

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fjp451,

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
Repeat after me:

I am not too inferior to appreciate Buster Keaton.

[Anyone who says you are is a bad person and doesn't deserve any space in your head.]

[They may not want you in their forum/living room/territory, but that's a whole different thing.]

Phil, you are a wonderful human being and so good to me.