Rejection...Why I am quitting Facebook

In the Introduction of my recently published book Leftovers, I write about what Nietzsche calls one's greatest weight. Everyone has this weight or burden although most haven't characterized it as a meme in their lives. You might hear somebody say, "Why does this always happen to me?" That's their great weight. You might call it a chip on their shoulder. Many laugh about that chip as if it were some kind of psychological quirk or paranoia. But, remember the adage, even a paranoid person has enemies? Others who are semi-conscious of their meme might blame their mothers, bad luck, or the lack of fairness in the world.  The cause of this weighing down is not necessarily due to bad habits, most often the weighing down is due to one's boldest strivings against a world that might think we are overreaching. I remember being turned away from a junior high school dance at the Coatesville Country Club because a guy at the door didn't like my hat. I've never gone back to the Coatesville Country Club

I think I have been rejected, especially in my hometown, because of where I come from. Mother functionally illiterate, father handicapped. I like to describe myself as trailer trash with a brain. Those of us from the dregs of society are a threat not so much to the upper classes but to the bourgeoisie who need to step on others to get a peg up on the status ladder. This is why the nouvoriche are so detestable and old money understandable. 

In horse racing, a horse must carry a specified weight based on factors such as past performance, so as to equalize the chances of the competitors.  Rejection equalizes the chances of my competitors. I think we can make an analogy between the conditions put down for a horse race and the human condition especially in a world that wants to draw us downward to the mean. This weight of which Nietzsche speaks might be the world's way of keeping our feet bound to the ground so that we don't think we can soar with the gods like Icarus.

For Nietzsche one's greatest weight is an event that recurs in our lives. I wrote that rejection was the recurring event in my life and that it is best to embrace one's weight with joy. One's recurring event is the measure by which one has overcome; a mark of strength and character.  One's recurring event is not always easily recognized. Sisyphus' recurring event, most think, is the pushing the boulder up the side mountain only to have the huge stone fall back and thus the eternal repetition of pushing it back up is his life's weight. That's not the case. Sisyphus' recurring event is that he never finds a mountain high enough for his boulder not the boulder itself. Sisyphus loves the weight of the boulder just as the horse loves to run. 

Here are selected excerpts from the Introduction to Leftovers:

Rejection

For those of us with character (êthos), there is an event that recurs in our lives. It is what Nietzsche calls one's greatest weight (The Gay Science, Aphorism 341). For me, it is rejection. I share this weight with many famous people who have been rejected. I am in good company. I don't need to name them but they end up heroes and geniuses and hated in their time. 

I was baptized with rejection when my mother cried that she wanted a girl when I was born. She told me she shouted to the doctor, “Put him back. Put him Back.” The doctor slapped her across the face and me across my ass and said, “Emma, you have a beautiful boy.”

Those of us with character can’t escape our recurring event. It emerges from our subconscious and plays with us in dreams...No matter what we do, we cannot prevent the eternal recurrence of this event. My event is rejection and I embrace it. I have learned to love it like a horse learns to love the whip. Horses feel euphoric when they run; and when they are near exhaustion and feel their rider's whip they climax.

God's mistake. Born outside of nature after God's pit stop visit and his great escape. An anomaly. Quirky. The world would have preferred a muffled heartbeat at birth or a cut cord to bleed me out. A boy I was not meant to be. What an inconvenient shouldn't be. And if I would have been born of a different uncle, I would have been much more manly, much more army and navy, a three chord country ballad rather than Bernstein Gershwin symphony combined orchestral. Too complicated but just as White but still a second to the first born child; an after thought for my father's side.

I always thought there was something wrong with me. Something I said. Something I did. A slip of the tongue. Speaking out of turn…

I have been plagued by rejection since birth. I wait for it. I know it’s on its way. It hides in the hedgerow with white eyes. It always surprises me when it finds me and I limp away like a wounded animal howling, cursing the earth and myself. Perhaps, it comes in a letter, a phone call, an email, or in the first meeting with your new boss. It comes every time I write something. It's the self-inflicted wound when I ask someone to read something I've written. Oh, how I love it!  

Maybe, rejection comes with a knock on the door in a special delivery or in a policeman’s question. Maybe it comes when a neighbor shouts, “Nobody likes you! Why don't you move!” I wouldn’t want to prevent it. It is the event that defines who I am. A rejection. One of the love-less rejected. As long as I am rejected, I am winning my battle against the world. I am a better Christian. If rejection is the world's only weapon, I could be a greater conqueror of men than Alexander and a greater builder of temples than Solomon…

This brings me to the topic at hand...I was rejected by my own. I was rejected again. I came face to face with my weight, my recurring event. It confirmed and validated what I had written.

Why I am Quitting Facebook

I rejoined Facebook about a month ago after about six years. After six years I had forgotten why I left Facebook but after one month of being back on it, I remember why I left it. I left because the people I wanted to get in touch with, folks from my high school, the people I liked, hadn't changed very much. High school might be the only place where a person can like somebody, but the other person not like them and it be OK. That kind of up-down relationship is understood at the high school level. As you get older, relationships become more valuable so if a person likes you, be they your superior or subordinate, that's a relationship you want to cultivate and nurture not lose. What I found was that my classmates still had the same attitudes, still had the same up-down perspective, and seemed to be in the very same cliques they were in in high school. Everyone wanted to be what they were, not what they had become. Instead of revealing how they had grown, they wanted to show how they were the same as they used to be. That's OK if you're trying to be nostalgic but not OK, not even palatable, if you are trying to be condescending.

In between the time I left Facebook and my return to Facebook, my class had our 40th reunion. I wasn't contacted but was told about it. We couldn't make it to the 40th reunion at the Moose but I was able to make the after party at the Thorndale Inn. I received a mixed reception when we arrived at about 11:00 PM. As I walked into the Thorndale Inn a classmate spotted me and began to loudly hurl insults. "Look. Here's Richard Beck. He can come here but he couldn't come to the reunion." Then, later on, when my wife and I went out on the dance floor to dance, we found ourselves all alone as every one stopped dancing and returned to their seats when we went out on the floor. We continued to dance as if nothing was happening. I knew I was the same class pariah that I had always been and in a way it gave me a sense of security. I belonged because I didn't belong. If I wasn't the one who didn't belong then they would have to find somebody else who didn't belong. I wasn't sure whether anyone could play the part as well as I could so I was happy to play it. I had a place, role, just like everyone else.

Since rejoining Facebook, I have been attempting to join my High School Class Group. Yes, that same group who received me so well at the Thorndale Inn. In fact it was the first thing I did when I rejoined Facebook. I went looking for my high school class group. My classmates and I are all around 65 years old; that endangered species in the middle of a plague. I thought, if there ever was a time to bury the hatchet, to be adults, genuine and authentic, to reflect upon all we have gained, all we have lost, what might have been etc. etc....this might be the last opportunity.

My class group is a private group so I had to request to join. Over of a period of about a month, I tried to join the group three times. As I said I was very sincere about bonding with these folks. The first time I tried to join I received no response but I waited. You know, like checking your checking account for your Covid-19 money to come. I withdrew my request. I waited then I tried a second time. No response. It was at this point I felt like little Chava, Tevye's youngest daughter, in Fiddler on the Roof --- I was being shunned. Would they ever bend for me a little bit? I withdrew the request and waited then tried a third time. No response. 

Then today, I received a message. My soul jumped with joy. The door is open. Was I being anointed? Then, I read it:

Hi, Rich- there seems to be some confusion, maybe only in my mind, about you. You have another profile which I used to mes sage you a couple of years ago, but never heard back from you. Did you graduate with us? If so, I’ll be happy to add you to our group! This virus stuff has put us behind the eight ball as far as birthday party planning and we haven’t begun to plan for the re union next year, but hopefully soon!

Before I posted this essay, I phoned my sister to get her response to the situation. She said that social media can be very cruel. She said that the person who sent you the FB message probably has her yearbook right next to her. There is no excuse for her not looking up your name in the yearbook before asking if you graduated “with us.” She advised me not to respond; but that if it made me feel better, I should post this response to my blog as a sort of essay. She said the essay is very good. So that is what I did.

I would like to ask this person who by the way, I know, a couple of questions. I won't mention her name because I'm not into embarrassing people like she is: “There seems to be some confusion about you.” and “Did you graduate with us?”

1. How many Richard Becks are there in our class?

2. Do you remember I spoke with you personally at the after party at the Thorndale Inn about why we couldn't attend the Moose?

3. What the hell are you talking about? Birthday parties?

Last, I know Richard Beck wasn't a popular guy in high school but he was very well known, in fact, unforgettable if you met him; he was outspoken; he had a kind of bravado that's called Short Person's Syndrome. 

You have met him before but most importantly...here he is now. He has given you 1805 words. You are documented in history. You are forever part of this writer's portfolio. I don't think anybody in our senior class has ever given you so much. You have made your contribution to the social narrative of postmodern, plague infested America. You've just met Richard Beck again. Still confused?