Let me explain the nature of my
loneliness. It’s very particular, potentially volatile, and stems
from making an effort.
It isn’t that I don’t have friends.
I have the best friends. They spend money at my shop so you know
they’re not just faking it. They loan me their cars. They let me
drink their alcohol and eat their food and crash on their couches and
be a whiney bitch in blogs and not really give me shit about it while
a few even put up with run-on sentences. It is nothing lacking
between me and how I view my friends that speaks to this kind of
loneliness.
It isn’t that I
don’t have a supportive family. I have a dad that would go to the
ends of the earth for me. I have, at least a few relatives, who I
know if shit got heavy I could count on. Even in some very odd plane
of existence I somehow get transported to, without my knowledge, my
psychotic mom and bro sibling would probably help me if need be.
It isn’t that I think I’m too
smart. I honestly feel like 90% of the shit I say is testing the
waters. I wait for people to offer a differing or more refined idea.
I want to be stumped and corrected early. I may respond vehemently or
have to dig my way up after starting with an initially unclear
premise, but the idea remains the same. I try to share my ideas so I
can make sure I’m focusing on the right things the right way.
My loneliness comes from a state of
always being “on.” I never really allow myself excuses. I’m
never comfortable with the status quo. I loathe clichés and
complacency. I want to be different. I need to be an example. I think
I sometimes, okay often, try to see this in other people who very
likely don’t give a shit. That doesn’t mean they give no shits,
but they either don’t care about the same things I do, or don’t
care to act in general against a perceivable wrong. Hell, if they
even regard it as wrong to begin with. And I don’t feel right just
saying “that’s okay.”
I don’t know how I would justify not
fighting. Everything I want is grounded in this world, in my
relationships, and in the examples I set. My life isn’t exactly a
direct and calculated path, but nothing I do makes sense outside of
the future I envision. I never feel more motivated than when I start
to work through the details of that future. It’s perhaps my biggest
current failing to be unable to empathize with being motivated by
business as usual.
When I roll with the “smart kids” I
hear echoes of disenfranchisement. “If only the world this, if only
people that, I’m just going to disappear into an area of intrigue I
find interesting and cross my fingers.” And then I lose touch. When
I roll with the “regular” people it's “Well, all I can really
think about is drugs or my boy/girlfriend and you wouldn’t believe
how much I hate my job.” Obviously, again I’m lost. I talk to the
old crowd, “This is how it’s done, how I remember it, what
‘worked’ for me, and I admire your spunk, but don’t get dragged
down by all that ideal stuff, you’ll just get old and waste your
life.” This, a prospect I find incredibly hard to believe. I read
articles from the rich, poor, the connected, motivated, scientific,
militant, and plain ignorant. All with their own personal resolve to
sit from their perch and offer their brand of white noise.
People are happy to get lost in their
own lives, and who can blame them? At what point do I turn myself
from “that friend with a coffee shop” to “this person I
genuinely believe wants to take over the world.”? I recognize my
life as a shared experience. I don’t drink alone. It’s extremely
important for me to get people on my page, and I’m terrible at it.
I’ll save the obvious reasons why for another day, because I see
enough in others to concern me well before they learn my disposition.
I’m genuinely worried about damaging
my relationships for holding too strenuous a standard. I don’t
really feel I have that much time to be perpetually misunderstood,
misrepresented, or dragged into fights. I have no idea the extent to
what I say matters or who reads what I put out there, but I put it
out there. I have 265 blogs, thousands of pages, about who I am or am
trying to be and why, and I don’t think I give people an excuse to
be wrong about me.
But they are, and likely always will
be.
If I didn’t care to try, it would be
much, much easier. I’d hack away at a greasy grill, hide away in my
basement and grow closer to TV characters than I ever could actual
people. I’d get really good at guitar, and no one would hear me.
I’d rearrange furniture and try not to think about the constant
stream of foreboding information I read every day. My conversations
would be safe, “friends” meek and indecisive.
It isn’t that I want to go so far as
to say I don’t see people trying or that they don’t care. I think
many if not most fall into that category, but nonetheless. I just
don’t think the ones that get it, feel it as deeply. Understand
just how far implications can carry. They can’t always tap into an
endless stream of motivation. They don’t want to be the loudest,
the greediest, most kind or be capable of doing the most evil. They
don’t want to expect everything. I do.
