I’ve gotten impersonally and perfunctorily fucked by life in many ways.

As have we all, really.

But every now and then, it behooves us to count our blessings and at the same time acknowledge our privileges and all the problems we are fortunate enough to NOT have.

Because that’s what privilege is, when you boil it down. Not a source of universal bliss or a badge of superiority.

Just a set of problems you don’t have.

And so today I am going to state, claim, and own my various levels of privilege in order to make a true moral/social accounting of myself and acknowledge that despite my frequent bouts of self-pity and self-criticism, I have a lot to be grateful for too.

Let’s start with the obvious things.

I’m white. That comes with enormous advantages, especially when compared with the alternative, which in my case is not being black but being Micmac.

I won’t got into it because it breaks my heart to think about it, but let’s say I never saw racism as an exclusively American problem after I learned how some of my friends and neighbors – the people I think of as “my” people – treated PEI’s native peoples.

As far as I know, I have never faced any racial discrimination whatsoever.

I’m also male and have benefitted from that in thousands of ways both overt and subtle. I’ve gotten listened to, had my opinion respected and given worth, been allowed into the room, and so many other things where a woman would not have.

I wouldn’t say that I have never been discriminated against for being male. I definitely have and it has been, at times, extremely hurtful and unfair.

But there’s a galaxy of difference between assumed to be a dangerous Neanderthal and having your right to have an opinion questioned.

I’m also big. Huge. I’m an ox, basically.

And that has its disadvantages but they are nothing compared to the massive benefit of having almost never felt physically threatened by anyone.

It’s what turns people like me into gentle giants. Even when I was being bullied in elementary school I wasn’t physically afraid of my tormentors.

How could I be? They were all tiny.

So I have felt perfectly safe in situations where smaller men and (especially) women would have feared for their lives.

I have been able to make myself heard with little effort just from the sheer size of me.

And all my life, people have been getting out of my way without my even knowing.

We all know where this is going, and here we are : I’m also hella smart.

Like, crazy smart. Implausibly (and inconveniently) intelligent. So smart that most people can’t even conceive of how much smarter I am than them.

Which is for the best, to be honest. Cuts down on the torch wielding mobs.

And while that has caused me myriad problems most people will never face, it’s also made life way, way easier for me on the entire academic level.

Patient readers are familiar with the litany of truths I’m still struggling to wrap my head around, which is why I keep bringing them up.

School was always super easy. Laughably so. Never sweated a single test. Passed everything with high marks without even having to study. Scholastic things always came to me without effort.

All my life I have passed in first drafts and got top marks. Getting the approval of the system in terms of academic achievement has always come so easily to me that I never saw it as valuable.

And that means I utterly bypassed one of the major sources of worry and stress in the average childhood : school. When my fellow students sweated and strained and crammed and worried and all the rest, I sympathized but could not relate.

Even my sister Catherine, who is smarter than me in many ways, worried about tests and studied super hard and all the rest.

But not me. I show up not even remembering that there was a test that day and get 90 percent on the test anyway.

And that’s some serious privilege there.

More after the break.

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So what’s wrong with this life?

No really. What is it?

Because something is definitely wrong. I am not happy with my life as it is. There is no chance I will come out of this concluding everything is A-OK and all my issues with my life were “all in my head”.

No duh. That’s why they call it MENTAL illness.

So why? What makes it suck so bad?

For starters, it’s so incredibly limited and/or limiting. I’m like a big fat rat in far too small a cage. My Avoidance is so extreme that it’s almost like being held prisoner.

Like being in minimum security prison but without the exciting social opportunities.

And I need room to stretch my wings and explore the world. But my fears have always kept me trapped at home.

And there’s so little for me to invest my enormous energies into. Strange as it may sound, there is only so much satisfaction one can get from video games.

Scandalous, I know.

I could have the ultimate gaming computer and an unlimited Steam budget and my life would still fucking suck.

Of course, we can’t totally dismiss the fact that I am physically sick and have a lot of pain, luckily none of it too inescapably acute. Yet.

And I feel so fucking helpless to do anything to help myself. Here I am, brain the size of a planet, with godlike mental powers, and none of them can help me at all.

Because it doesn’t matter how powerful the engine is if the transmission’s broke.

And finally, it’s an extremely lonely existence too. Even with all these people in it. Lots of people love me and care for me but so little of that love makes it through that thick wall of clear ice I am crouching behind.

And that’s how it’s going to be till I feel safe enough to let my guard down.

In short, there’s a very good reason I hate my life : it sucks.

And now, back to the studio, with Wally the Weather Weasel with our forecast.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.