Roger Ebert: A Meeting Of Solitudes

[Hissyspit]

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/11/i_had_no_idea_for.html

A meeting of solitudes

By Roger Ebert on November 12, 2010 11:22 PM

- snip -

Day after day these posts arrived after my previous blog entry was posted. I read them and my admiration grew. They were complete statements, thought out, articulate. It was as if the words had been long rehearsed, and were waiting for an outlet. These people had something they wanted to say. I knew the conventional wisdom: The internet has isolated us in virtual worlds. But I realized that these writers might have been just as lonely if the web had never been invented. It wasn't the cause, it was only the occasion. This isn't about the internet. It's about loneliness.

- snip -

So many of you were abused, physically beaten, bullied, called worthless, ostracized because you were gay, or the wrong color, or too tall or short or fat or thin or -- does it matter? The reasons for your mistreatment were not in yourself, but in the minds of those cruel ones hoping to hurt you. As a response, some of you have cut off, shut down, or isolated. From your lives you have learned the lesson to seek shelter.

I read all the time about child abuse. But I was blindsided by recent study finding zero percent of child abuse in lesbian households. That didn't much surprise me. What struck me was more like a footnote: The same study found abuse in 26% of heterosexual households, about half it sexual. How can this be? One in four mistreated by their parents? One in seven or eight sexually abused?

Please, please don't get fixated by the numbers. Assume the study is flawed, if you choose. The bottom line is that so many of you were betrayed by life before you really even got started. How must to feel to be told by a parent that you are stupid, ugly, worthless? To be struck by such a parent? To be hated by the supreme authority in your young life? And then often begged to forgive and understand them? What's that about? The cruelty is clear cut. But the pleas for remorse must inspire pity and contempt. The lesson is that people can be shabby and mean, and not to be trusted. People can be evil. No wonder you live in a shell. I still remember hurts and wounds from my early years, and know they were trivial. How must it feel to be struck by a parent? How can a parent be so cruel?

- snip -

There is no rule that says you must have friends. There is no requirement to be "popular." No one is keeping a scorecard. If living alone makes you happy, you don't have a problem. But if you feel lonely and it's hurtful or bothersome, then obviously you think you have a problem. Only you can say.

- snip -

Reading more than 400 comments under my previous entry, it occurred to me that I was attending a virtual meeting...

MORE

[Coventina]

1. I *heart* Ebert. I think he's one of the greatest writers of our times.

K & R

[Octafish]

2. More light from Ebert.

A great writer, critic and human being: The guy is TOPS.