Seriously, you guys: this version of MAGIC is so freaking addictive. I think there must be a subliminal message in here somewhere. I can’t stop listening to it, over and over and over.

There is a certain amount of playing to the audience when creating, whether it’s writing, painting, filmmaking, or any other medium. Rare is the artist that is capable of baring his soul with absolutely no awareness (even if it’s not conscious) of the fact that other people will have reactions to the work. On the one hand, you have the shock artists, those who are on some level hoping to get a rise out of the audience, to offend or provoke or cause some sort of — let’s say unpleasant reaction, for lack of a better encompassing term.

And on the other hand, you have people like me. I’m wide open about my life, here in print and in person, but there are things that I find myself unwilling to say. There are numerous reasons for this — I have some ideas that are not ready to be unveiled, other ideas that I want to protect until they are either useful to me or not. There are some things about my life that, while I don’t hide, per se, I don’t particularly care for the whole world to know about (context is important in a lot of things). And there are some things that just piss people off.

I’m not sure exactly how I feel about that. On the one hand, I’m no angel in this respect. I’ve read things on other people’s blogs (etc.) that have really angered me or hurt my feelings. Sometimes, the pain recedes fairly quickly when I realize that things that are put out for the public eye are done so with a mission, and that sort of pasive-aggressive behavior makes it a lot easier to wave away.

Other times, though, the emotion behind the hurtful words is honest, and not communicated directly to me for some valid reason or another. Those are the times that it’s hard to just ignore or move past.

Fortunately, I’ve gotten really good at shifting my perspective over the years. I no longer off-handedly dismiss criticisms levelled at me because the speaker is an asshole, or deluded, or a moron. Even those people — who I like to think of, collectively, as the Religious Right — have some reasoning behind their complaints. And I find that taking those things into account has done me a lot of good as a human being; considering those points of view helpes me understand other people a little better, and sometimes can help me understand myself on a deeper basis, as well. Why I do things that I do, or perhaps seeing things that I do or say for the first time, a new awareness.

That said, sadly, most of the rest of the world doesn’t choose to take criticism like this. There’s a tendency to blame everything on anyone but yourself — worst case scenario, you can turn things around on your attacker, making them sexist, or racist, homophobic, bipolar, jilted or jaded.

If I call you an assclown, it’s not because you’re of a different gender or sexual orientation or cultural or ethnic background than I am. It’s because you’re an assclown, and to blame it on any other reason (allowing that I might just be a mean-hearted prick) is really undercutting your chance for self-examination and self-improvement.

But shit happens, and the principle of accountability should force each and every one of us to question what part our actions and words played into every situation we might find ourselves in. If you get dumped, sure, the bitch might just be crazy; then again, you might have precipitated her insanity, or been the trigger for her episode. If your significant other cheats on you, she might be a whore — or maybe you’re a neglectful-bordering-on-emotionally-abusive boyfriend. If you lose your job, yeah, your boss might be a homophobe who was just looking for a reason — but then again, your tendency to prove yourself as the least productive employee of any company is going to keep giving you reason to call your bosses gay bashers if you never stop to think there might be a reason behind your track record.

We all want to be good guys, I think, and even those who would claim otherwise want to be respected, if not liked — good guy is fine, stand-up guy will do in a pinch. But we can’t be. We all have a win-loss record, and at the end, careful examination will probably show a fair balance for each and every one of us. The exceptions, of course, are those who choose to believe that nothing is their fault, and so never change or even attempt to do so — the loss column is going to be a little weightier — and those who choose to examine every situation, accept the fault which is theirs, learn and apply those lessons, and hopefully get a little better next time around.

And so, until the people in the world — even the people in my world — get a little better about accepting accountability, there will be no talk of ex-girlfriends, weekend coke binges that end in dramatic interrogation room scenes straight out of seventies television shows, the number of sexual partners I’ve had in my lifetime, homicidal rampages through suburban apartment complexes, ex-boyfriends, the progress of my training for a career as a Lucha Libre, exotic recipes involving Habanero peppers and human flesh, or where the body of that stripper I was allegedly last seen with might or might not be buried.

Nope. It’s nothing but rave reviews of cover versions of 80’s hits for you fuckers.