Just one thing I wanted to draw attention to. (HOF THREAD)

[ismnotwasm]

20. Toxic and angry and pointless

Don't you feel sorry for those left behind? The ones that don't understand social evolution much less social revolution? I kinda do, a little. Except, by the time they realize they're antiquated and foolish, they can't change or approach an idea from a different view.

Just read "The Geranium" by Flannery O'Conner. Reminds me of those types. In this case, the protagonist was an old man--country boy, who moved to New York with his daughter. He reminisces about the later part of his life, and dislikes all the changes he sees. When he sees that a well dressed black man can live in the same apartment building, he almost loses it. When the black man kindly helps him up after a fall and calls him "oldtimer", he is beyond insulted.

Yet, he is also powerless, and lives with the frustration of the powerless. The geranium in the story isn't his-- a man in apartments across the way sets it out in the sun every day. It reminds the old man of his roots. When the geranium falls from the window, the old man gets angry and tells the owner to pick it up. The tells him 'you pick it up'

But the old man can't. There are too many steps and too many changes. The story ends.