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| Over my years of running a local Objectivist discussion group, I have had the pleasure of encountering a wide range of people. Because I list my mobile telephone number in various Objectivist and freethought directories, I occasionally get calls from people who prefer voice rather than e-mail either due to personal preferences or technological limitations. While some callers have duly impressed me, others have had the opposite effect. I call the latter "fuzz balls" in honor of Teresa Summerlee Isanhart, who brought the term to my attention in this post. I already described one such caller in my article "Hazards of Benevolence" and the negative outcome of that encounter. More recently, another caller who found me via the American Atheists Florida Affiliate directory called me in February 2008 from the state of New York asking for information about various atheist groups and materials. I should have known as soon as she called a Florida atheist from New York that something was not quite right with this person given the large number of liberal freethinkers in that state. This woman had a propensity for rambling and incoherence. She struck me as unusually talkative and tended to talk more than I liked, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and tried to answer her questions as well as I could when she called on occasion every few weeks. She definitely has a "victim" mindset about herself to a degree that I can now see that I cannot help her in the way she needs help. I finally had to put an end to it on Sunday, May 18 when she called and left me eleven consecutive messages on my voice mail ranting about the evils and oppressions of religion, her past traumatic abuses, yada yada yada. I answered her twelfth call by saying simply, "Please stop calling me!" and hanging up. I had class all day for weekend graduate school and had no time to deal with her. Because one of her many messages mentioned a notable freethought leader in Pennsylvania, I contacted that woman asking if she, too, had been similarly pestered by this caller. I received this confirmation: Yes, [she] has been pestering me as well. I hung up on her today (after saying, "Goodbye" as politely as possible). She rants and carries on like a mad person. She seems to think that not one person in the world does anything right and that she has all the right answers. She goes into a subject and goes on and on for ten minutes. I think she is certifiably nuts and obsessed with herself. [She] is just one more nut that calls me all the time. I'm glad to hear that you cut her off, too. If more people do that, she will give up. Of course, e-mail can serve as a venue for fuzz balls as well. One acquaintance I made years ago recently added me to his e-mail contact list seeking help to deal with an alleged government conspiracy against him. I did what little I could -- which was very little -- to guide him and even made this post just in case his situation had merit. After he started sending us e-mails with these speculations: Is the Act Up jack-o-lantern - looking logo because of me? (at least it looks like one) is the HRC Yellow Equal Sign because of YES, and Rick Wakeman, perhaps another reference to me? Is the handicapped woman on the homepage of PFLAG (parents and friends of Lesbians and Gays) because of [my band] Psychic Hearts, and the S&M pride flag? (Not really into that). Or am I just reading too much into all of this? I finally lost patience and sent this "Reply All": You are reading waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much into all of this. While it is true that "just because you're not paranoid does not mean 'they' are not out to get you," the harsh reality is that the rest of the world is in fact NOT -- repeat NOT as in N-O-T -- obsessed with you, your existence, or your ideas. Worker of the world, RELAX! Take it easy and rest assured that whoever "they" are have much, much bigger fish than you to fry. You should do the same and get a life outside your obsession with the imaginary obsessions of others. His response? I appreciate the sentiment, but wish you could be more supportive in my situation. I KNOW I am a target to some degree, and the question is, how far reaching is it? It endangers me for people to not accept and encourage... This person finally sent his last blast on May 5, 2008 when he said: I can't take this targeting and stress any longer. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. Jack-o-Lantern, Tweak, etc. It's time to go. I'm getting out, or at least trying. I'm in contact with some organizations in Switzerland, with plans for Sweden, the Netherlands, and Canada. Maybe more. The documented schizophrenia of brilliant mathematician John Nash, who also "escaped" to Europe and wore aluminum foil hats to protect his mind from ... "them" ... comes to mind as I read this. So far I have outlined three distinct examples of the abstract concept "fuzz ball." What concretes do they share? I have distilled them to two: 1. A documented history of treatment for mental illness. In all three instances, these people volunteered to me that they spent time in mental wards for treatment of various ailments of the brain. 2. Irrational egoism. In all three instances, each person in question had an intractable conviction that none of the bad things that happened were his or her own fault but that someone else was always to blame. Moreover, each believed himself or herself important enough to warrant such harsh attention from others, especially government authorities. Each showed disrespect for the precious time of others and despite their distrust of others, each apparently sought salvation through others and considered himself or herself valuable enough to others to warrant such salvation. What lessons can I learn from these experiences to calibrate my skill at characterizing quickly the new people I meet? While I dislike making harsh snap judgments, I dislike squandering my precious time even more. So in the interest of getting back to basics, let me point to SuperSelf by Charles Givens. Givens wrote an entire chapter called "Handling Talkers and Dumpers" in which he advised readers to screen callers with voice mail and then set firm time limits on those calls you actually answer. Today, of course, we can do that with Caller ID and other new technologies, but the principles remain the same. Further, Givens advises against letting oneself get caught in the problems of others lest they become your own. While I have largely succeeded in living these strategies, clearly there remains room for improvement. I recently had the opportunity to test these improvements when I got a call from an unknown number. My general principle regarding incoming calls remains, in essence, that a call important enough to make will be important enough to leave a message. If the caller did not leave a message, the call must not have been that important in the first place. (Many years ago, I wanted our land line voice mail greeting for our home telephone number to say something to that effect to discourage worthless calls, but my wife forbade it as too rude!) So when I saw this number on my Caller ID, I simply chose not to answer it. When I did not hear a message later, I got curious enough to check online to see who owned the number. I learned that it belonged to a new member of a science list I run who evidently joined this site for the express purpose of accessing my profile and getting my telephone number. (This was not necessary as my basic profile is viewable without logging into the site.) So I e-mailed this person telling him I prefer to deal with those list members via e-mail. Seemingly that message did not take because he tried to call me several more times over a period of weeks. Finally, I e-mailed him to let him know that if he continued to call me, I would interpret that action as chronic loneliness on his part and inform the list of over 700 members that he needed to hear from them and please to call him at the number I would list in that message. So I shall soon see whether he calls me yet again. | ||||
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