I'd like to talk about the idea of
ownership. It's embedded in our language and culture. Certainly one
of the first things children learn how to say is “mine!” You have
your family and I have mine.
You have your things and your clothes and any number of ideas that
are yours. You own them outright. Right?
A recurring theme in my childhood was hearing my crazy cunt of a mother say things like “you're my boys, I brought you in, I can take you out.” Now we also got read to us that book with the kid playing in front of a toilet that said “I'll love you forever, my baby you'll be,” so it was a mixed bag. But the ownership theme still carries. All this really did was confuse me growing up. I didn't really focus on what my identity was, I was just whatever emotional state I was put into. I'd argue I was, not with her intention as she's not that smart, conditioned to continually focus on me in relation to her. This opposed to what it meant to be the obnoxious little kid I was.
I think her sense of ownership over us made her feel a sense of power, as little else in her life she could control. My mom's fat. The handful of times she tried dieting, all I remember was the week it was a bad idea to steal a chip because she was actively counting them. When she gave up trying to control that, it was back to stealing chips without a slap or pissy mood the rest of the day. She worked for one of Chicago's top attorneys as a legal secretary for like 10 years and was dumped the second that attorney got appointed as a judge. She also grew up with a shitty abusive background if you're looking to sympathize because god is it easy for me to continue a shit stream and start losing the point.
She loved stuff. She had a closet the length of a wall too packed for the clothes to move and shoes along the bottom to match. If you didn't get her a diamond or Swarofsky crystal for Christmas or her birthday, she would find a way to be angry for weeks. To me, she built a little empire of things that she could reflect on and try to find value in. She had no control. She didn't even know how to begin defining or practicing control. So she added to her external environment and developed overbearing and borderline (ha) abusive relationships at home and with her friends.
Did not expect to run with that for so long, but it's so explicitly easy and spot on.
So think about what you think you own and why. All of your things, all of your friendships. Are they yours to even have? There's the idea that we allow ourselves things to the level at which we think we deserve. I think this can be illuminating when you reflect on your life. The types of personalities you contend with. The amount of stuff you've accumulated and why. What does it mean to you? What does it feel like to take on all that you've projected into something, or someone?
For an ego maniac, I've a hard time considering myself special. My cold analytic mind breaks myself down into the sum of it's part just as I do other people. My thoughts are an amalgam of the books and shows and music and interactions that I've had. All as particular as they are to any person, but cultivated within a set of boundaries. Often, my “novel take” is your ignorance of a previous influence. The only thing I have is my deliberate intention. Even if something accidental happens because of me or to me, I can't call it mine because I didn't even know it existed until it screwed something up.
So how much of what we own did we deliberately set out to? When did we want to feel that sense of power or pride and not just happen upon how good it can be when it falls in your lap? How hollow our achievements that fall like dominoes.
A recurring theme in my childhood was hearing my crazy cunt of a mother say things like “you're my boys, I brought you in, I can take you out.” Now we also got read to us that book with the kid playing in front of a toilet that said “I'll love you forever, my baby you'll be,” so it was a mixed bag. But the ownership theme still carries. All this really did was confuse me growing up. I didn't really focus on what my identity was, I was just whatever emotional state I was put into. I'd argue I was, not with her intention as she's not that smart, conditioned to continually focus on me in relation to her. This opposed to what it meant to be the obnoxious little kid I was.
I think her sense of ownership over us made her feel a sense of power, as little else in her life she could control. My mom's fat. The handful of times she tried dieting, all I remember was the week it was a bad idea to steal a chip because she was actively counting them. When she gave up trying to control that, it was back to stealing chips without a slap or pissy mood the rest of the day. She worked for one of Chicago's top attorneys as a legal secretary for like 10 years and was dumped the second that attorney got appointed as a judge. She also grew up with a shitty abusive background if you're looking to sympathize because god is it easy for me to continue a shit stream and start losing the point.
She loved stuff. She had a closet the length of a wall too packed for the clothes to move and shoes along the bottom to match. If you didn't get her a diamond or Swarofsky crystal for Christmas or her birthday, she would find a way to be angry for weeks. To me, she built a little empire of things that she could reflect on and try to find value in. She had no control. She didn't even know how to begin defining or practicing control. So she added to her external environment and developed overbearing and borderline (ha) abusive relationships at home and with her friends.
Did not expect to run with that for so long, but it's so explicitly easy and spot on.
So think about what you think you own and why. All of your things, all of your friendships. Are they yours to even have? There's the idea that we allow ourselves things to the level at which we think we deserve. I think this can be illuminating when you reflect on your life. The types of personalities you contend with. The amount of stuff you've accumulated and why. What does it mean to you? What does it feel like to take on all that you've projected into something, or someone?
For an ego maniac, I've a hard time considering myself special. My cold analytic mind breaks myself down into the sum of it's part just as I do other people. My thoughts are an amalgam of the books and shows and music and interactions that I've had. All as particular as they are to any person, but cultivated within a set of boundaries. Often, my “novel take” is your ignorance of a previous influence. The only thing I have is my deliberate intention. Even if something accidental happens because of me or to me, I can't call it mine because I didn't even know it existed until it screwed something up.
So how much of what we own did we deliberately set out to? When did we want to feel that sense of power or pride and not just happen upon how good it can be when it falls in your lap? How hollow our achievements that fall like dominoes.
I love
my stuff. I take as much joy out of using it and flaunting it as the
next person. But it's stuff. It's stuff I can't make, barely
understand, and if not for the utility, it'd be relegated to wherever
pogs went. My ownership of said stuff is weak.
It doesn't matter. It's a terrible measure by which to judge someone
or metric by which to judge yourself. It's not that you own a guitar,
it's how you play it.
But
what about people? If someone tells you “I'm yours” what do you
do? ” Is it the same thing as pursuing the person of your
dreams and capturing
their love? Is it a sense of pride, power or listless exhaustion that
makes you throw yourself into someone else's arms and claim game
over, you're theirs?
I
wonder if the other person is even capable of taking “it.” Your
love, your devotion and promises. I don't think it's their
opportunity; it's not theirs to take. In a real sense, it doesn't
exist for them. They feel what they believe
about your love, not “your love.” It's not a thing. You have to
be doing it for you, even if, if not especially because, they're the
one in mind.
It's
not that fateful moment you decided to declare your intention that
sums up and rounds out the rest of your life. It's the moments every
time you keep a promise. It's the ones you make every time you say
that stupid word love.
I don't know how to give myself or own someone else. All I know how
to do is decide and spend my time. If I said marriage, if I said “I'm
yours,” (as I've described it), or made a promise forever,
it'd feel not just like I'm lying, but lying without purpose, for the
sake of it.
You're
not my friends. We
share perspectives and ideas and I'm lucky to have found you. Kristen
isn't my girl, she's
simply who I'm going to pick over you. It isn't my
family (not everyone, obviously) that I'm ashamed to look at, it's a
crowd of people I spend next to no time around, circumstantially
sharing some genes.
Of course it could be argued I'm flatly ignorant of the emotional heights and interpersonal achievements of you “normals” and it's all a very simple equation involving birds and bees.
This is part one of a series: Part 2 & Part 3
Of course it could be argued I'm flatly ignorant of the emotional heights and interpersonal achievements of you “normals” and it's all a very simple equation involving birds and bees.
This is part one of a series: Part 2 & Part 3
