Nobody loves a hero.

I could be a pop singer; I was always interested in it. But unfortunately I wasn't very good at it. I could also be a mathematician; I was always good at it. But unfortunately, I was never interested in it. So this writer thing feels alright. It's like being a pop singer, but it's more exotic, more rebellious, more intellectual, more perverse.

I'm starting to realize that it's absolutely impossible to go through this life without feeling absolutely ridiculous. If you let embarrassment and fear take control, they will, because everything is embarrassing. Your body makes its own humiliating decisions and there's not much that you can do about it. You fail and you fail and you fail and you fail and you FAIL. Living looks ridiculous. Eating looks ridiculous. The words coming out of your mouth are ridiculous. The truth is usually ridiculous. Even walking down the street is fucking ridiculous.

Ultimately, there's only one thing left to do. You can say fuck you.

Fuck you, fear! Fuck you, humiliation! Fuck you, embarrassment! Fuck you, shame! I'm gonna be so completely and systematically ridiculous that ridiculous suffers an inflation and turns into beauty and bravery.

This is me.

I was watching Spider-Man 2 where Peter Parker decides to give up being Spider-Man. I watched him walk down the streets after the decision. He looked so happy and relieved. I paused.

Maybe I could do that, I thought. Maybe I could give up. I've been trying to save the world, I've been trying to be a hero, but maybe I'm simply destroying myself. Maybe the world is never going to get better, maybe it will get better even without my help, maybe somebody else will change it. Maybe I could give up. Would it make me happier?

I could stop this madness. Stop writing these insane books. Stop fighting back. I could get an education, find a job, find a girlfriend and a fulfilling hobby. No more fear. No more fire burning my entrails. It would be easy.

But: I would not be happy. Not really. Living without a sense of purpose, however painful that purpose may be, would feel like throwing away my only chance. That only chance is everything. This life is everything, I won't get another one. I am Spider-Man, and I realized that a long time ago. I'll always be Spider-Man. And that's it.

Everybody loves a hero, Peter Parker's Aunt claims. No they don't. People don't love heroes. People love heroes only when they're not part of the problem themselves. People love heroes when they know that they're not contributing to the violence the hero's fighting. Save a child; they'll love you. Save a pig; you're making them uncomfortable.

But the greatest form of heroism is social independence. Something people like Anthony Bourdain haven't realized: Do the right thing, even when the right thing is the least cool thing you could ever do. Do the right thing, even if they'll ridicule you for it. Even if they'll try to destroy you. Do the right thing, even if there'll be nobody cheering for you. Some day there'll be someone who sees you for what you were, but for now, keep trying and failing and getting up in the morning.

In the past 12 months, one of the weirdest parts of my life has been the unofficial Morrissey fan forum, MorrisseySolo. I've been trying to get rid of it, leave it behind, because I hate it, but then I always find myself going back and learning something important.

The strange thing about MorrisseySolo is that it's populated by people who fiercely refuse to call themselves Morrissey fans. In fact, MorrisseySolo is full of people who spend significant amounts of their time thinking about a pop singer that they claim to hate.

There are creeps and actual nutjobs on MorrisseySolo, such as someone named 'Benny-the-Butcher', but they're not the point here. The people I'm talking about are something very different. These people are smart, good and wonderful. But they're possessed. They claim to be disappointed in Morrissey ("but I don't really care, he's just a pop singer"), but instead of moving on and finding something else to do, they stick around and live for this person they're disappointed in. Sometimes I have conversations with them. People like Johnny Barleycorn (hi!) and BrummieBoy (hi!) are such decent souls, yet their behaviour is absolutely insane.

And I understand them very well. Morrissey is not just a pop singer. There's something more to him. Once you let him in, you'll never be able to walk away (without your arse hurting). Because the more you try to ignore him, the closer he gets.

It's easy to hate Morrissey. He's intensely imperfect and difficult and his behaviour is often irrational and infuriating. And this is why we love him. Johnny Barleycorn and BrummieBoy may claim that they want Morrissey to change and become a more likeable character, but really, if he did, what would they do? What would we do? We'd simply step back and walk away.



Morrissey is a lot like Snape. They could explain themselves, but they're not even trying. They don't want to be liked, yet that is the only thing they've ever wanted. It's easy to hate him, and it's easy to love hating him, because when you look at him, what you see is hate. It takes some effort to realize that hate is just the surface. If you look closer, you'll understand that the only thing that drives him, the thing that has always driven him, is love. Hate is just the reaction to seeing what you love being destroyed.

To understand what Morrissey has always been about, you only have to listen to Yes I Am Blind. This could be the most beautiful and painful song Morrissey's ever written:

Little lamb

on a hill

run fast if you can.
Good Christians, they wanna kill you
And your life has not even begun
You're just like me, you're just like me

Oh, your life has not even begun
You're just like me, you're just like me
And your life has not even begun
You're just like me, just like me

And your life has not even begun
You're just like me, you're just like, just like me
And your life has not even begun.

I know. And it hurts so much. It doesn't matter whether you take 'little lamb' literally or not; this is what Morrissey's always been trying to say. We could listen, but maybe we don't want to.

__________________

And now, the next step is shutting up. I HAVE TO SHUT UP. I still have a book to write. And I really wanna finish writing it. I really have to abandon everything else for a while. So, goodbye, I'll try to stay away. Let's see how this works out.

I hate dill. Dill destroys everything.