So, family members heavily indoctrinating younger relatives against gays....
It's fascinating in the same way reading about a horrid disaster is and for the same reasons. Hearing those words from those I taught, because their parents couldn't be bothered to.... Whatever was on TV at any given time appeared more important than their children, it seems. None of them apparently really know how I really am. Countless: the times I've bailed them out, and the unprintable things I've heard.... And, as usual, I should bail my ignorant relatives out again. This is, of course, the incredibly abridged version of events and relationships....
Best yet, I have a fair number of thugs begging me, or trying to hide the fact that they are begging me, to save them from jail, but you, cousin, you impetuous bastard, are actually demanding it contemptuously while condemning what I am? You ignoramus. Tell me, how does the hand the feeds you taste? I wouldn't know. And, I just stand there before him, straight, controlled, like a sentry in a storm who knows that they have to take it and have to remain there even when they can take it no longer.
If I don't save you, then I forsake my nieces and nephews (who depend upon you for support).
If I save you, then you will forsake me.
I find myself laughing, just laughing uncontrollably at all of it, head tilted back straight into the sky in a mixture of surrender and challenge to my inevitable destruction. I am to be forsaken by my kin, who are somehow holier than thou thieves and several other things. And what's the worse to take, I could be so much worse than they are if I wanted to. It isn't a question of opportunity, ability or certainty of getting away with it for me to be a shithead. I absolutely could and I absolutely don't wanna be. Hell, the sheer about of corruption I could engage in without even trying is staggering, but even more staggering is that I don't. Somehow, through all this, I'm the one who's a sinner in their eyes, or I would be if they knew....
Speaking of knowledge, if I really, truly wanted to obliterate them, I would tell them the whole, total truth--about me, about them. Most people have several fissures in them and they use those to pretend they don't know they are lying to themselves about who and what they really are. I act as the world demands one should act, only I can't do it half way. If I explained to them, in true words, aimed precisely, forged of persuasion honed by years of it, exactly what they are, it would probably destroy them. I don't think they'd be able to go back to what they are currently if I took that delusion away from them. It wouldn't be taking anything they had, but rather it would be taking something they never had, which I grant you is worse....
They say the worst thing you can do to someone is to kill their self respect. No, the worst thing you can do is to kill someone's pretense at it.