[To see the text that this is based on, click on the title]
I found your analysis of "the rant" quite insightful. Your ability to squeeze out those vibrant traces of context and meaning from each and every line was a real joy. I do, however, believe you may have overlooked the main point of analysis -- how the piece as a whole reflects the true depth of the writer's angst and loneliness. Yes, you managed to dissect the writing line by line. But in doing so, I think you prevented yourself from reacting to it in its entirety, from feeling the power of the words wash over you, from crying -- as I did -- for the very soul of the writer.
I interpret this rant not as a means to some end, but more as a vague cry for help, a whispered annunciation of existence. Imagine a small vole alone in its tunnel. Yes, it has lots of worms to eat. Yes, it has lots of room to dig its own path. But yet it cries, soft bleats and whimpers, as it goes about its business. Why does it cry? Not simply because it is alone, but because it has realized that "aloness" will always be part of "voleness."
In its desperate efforts to overcome this "aloness," the vole has started making unnecessary noises (the crying) in an unconscious effort to attract a predator. This is because for that one second between death and life, when the cat has scratched its way into the vole hole and seized the rodent in its jaws, the vole will cease to be alone. It will be paired in that scared joining of predator and prey, and then be crushed and swallowed into endless existence.
You can see this sentiment quite clearly in the writer's systematic attempt to infuriate all those he works with. Clearly, the rant is not some passing of knowledge from the informed to the ignorant. It is a message of war from a side that has no hope of winning, soft bleats from a vole that knows it will die in the jaws of the cat it has invited into its lair.
Indeed, it is as if the writer is shouting "I plan to infuriate all of you until someone comes to my cubicle and gives me the spanking I deserve. Only then will I be truly happy."
And that is why I wept for this writer's soul.
