Jesus fucking christ, people. SO IT'S LIKE THIS:

The last time I was paying any attention to /r/bestof, it had an embargo against anything from a default. This was useful because it meant you could actually talk in a default without having to worry about being bestof'd. Which is good. Because when you've been bestof'd, you can expect seven million neckbeards with zero interest in the discussion to descend upon you and inform you that you're wrong, that you certainly aren't "bestof" material, that your mother doesn't love you and that they were hating on you before you were cool.

I honestly wouldn't have said a fucking thing if I knew that embargo was gone. Because my inbox has been full of

- "herp failed actor dumbass"

- "LOL tree farts"

- "But I love unbreakable"

- "tiny little detail you fucked up that invalidates every argument you will ever make"

- "I, too, know big words"

And honestly? It just fills you with anxiety. You're in this spot where you thought you were saying "hey, I happen to know a thing or two about this" when in fact you're saying "Why, yes, I absolutely want to spend my afternoon being berated over the fact that you don't remember Bruce Willis' career in 1998."

And you fucking hate it, but it's a sub you mod so you're doubly fucked because you can't touch it. Meanwhile, life goes on.

But here's the difference. There is no one on Reddit whose opinion matters. There is no discussion of any merit outside of closed subs. It is a wasteland of infantilism and assumed self-privilege so while the bullshit is emotionally difficult to ignore, it's intellectually easy.

Opinions here matter.

So listen closely: I am engaged in endless war with commercial brokers, who might not be the worst class of human beings on the planet, but they're certainly the worst class I've personally interacted with. I'm rewriting the same fucking story I've rewritten before, for the seventh time, because yet another person with authority but exactly zero skin in the game has told me I should. I'm spending every waking minute building up my wife's career so that I can burn my own and not starve. On any given day I'm talking to three different professionals, many of whom charge me more than a dollar a minute to do what I'm asking them to do. In between that I'm beta-testing for a public technology company about to go down in flames, managing a toddler who has gone from saying "no thank you" to "NO" to "NO! NO WAY!" and anticipating the joy of moving my entire family a thousand miles just as soon as I'm done spending about 600 hours mixing national television. I'd like to work on my motorcycle but there's a DHL strike in Germany so my parts are stranded somewhere between Pesaro and Nuremburg and when I'm not trying to finish a novel nobody is going to read I'm dealing with fucknuts that can't read an eBay description. How'd you spend last weekend? I spent it with my mother-in-law and five dozen granola home-birthers and then sorted fuckin' $3k worth of donated onesies and babyclothes. My biggest victory of the past six weeks was changing 60 capacitors on an Aphex 104 without letting the smoke out and that will probably be my biggest victory of the year because "win" in this column is spending $70k on a risky business proposition instead of $130k.

I AM NOT GOOD COMPANY RIGHT NOW.

And if I'm on here, I have to be. Because here matters.

And I'm just not up for it.

I'm watching. That's about what I'm good for. But more than that? I nearly put my fist through the backsplash last week and that wouldn't have been good 'cuz it's granite and I woulda lost.

Y'all have my regards but when I say you're fortunate not to have my conversation, best believe it.