Tuesday,
May 13, 2008 at 11:45pm
I’m
going to try and figure out why I don’t respond well with people
who are being nice to me. This may not come across when the moment or
occasion is going on, but I definitely feel weird as hell for a long
time afterward. I think it mainly catches me off guard. It is so much
easier to think of everyone as a self-centered asshole and then just
go from there. I think a lot of the weird feeling comes from how I
view myself. I frequently don’t think I deserve anyone’s
kindness, help, or dare I say it forgiveness. I just assume that if
I’m able to think and do things in my way, then it’s likely there
are others like me who are capable of being the same or maybe worse.
I also try not to excuse the stupid things I do, at least not with
any type of excuse I’d truly buy into, and get really angry when
someone is quick to blame a shitty situation on anything but
themselves.
I think there is something queer(not gay) about our condition. While you probably know my views on god, that doesn’t keep me from believing there is something significant and powerful that undermines any sense of reality we claim. We are ultimately responsible to this reality. What puzzles me though, is when I try to behave in accordance with how I think this sense is “guiding” me if you will, things don’t appear to pan out as predictably as when I’m just doing my own thing. I really don’t know how others view me in the “deeper” sense, and from that lack of understanding I feel desperately random in how I should behave at any given time. Even when I’m fully aware there is no good reason to do something, I’ll do it just for that stupid little rush of “who knows what will happen.” This is dangerous thinking and I’d like to think I feel accountable enough to some ideal or person to steer me away from crap like that. Then in the next vein I’ll try to remind myself that everything stems from me and it’s ultimately how I’m going to train my brain chemistry to be “right.” I’m having a harder and harder time living up to that idea.
It is as if I’m trying to find some sort of balance, but I’m not sure what there is to be balanced. I get nothing but constant negative ideas about our future when I think about who’s in power, listen to people explain why they are or aren’t doing things, and think about what our society holds as the ideals to human happiness or achievement. It’s just a never ending wave of thoughts resonating “we’re fucked” and when that feeling gets to the brim, its spills over into my meager existence. Is it really about everyone just trying to be happy and free? Those seem too simple as happiness can come from a variety of negative indulgences, and freedom leaves people afraid and bored. I feel that there has to be some structure that has to provide leeway for people to fight it, but ultimately retains its integrity. Our flimsy economy shows just how ragged a system can be, yet still remain technically intact. I want to jump into a musical framework. Innocent enough right? Meet a lot of people, play music, and just try to have fun as often as I can before I disappear into the abyss. Now explain to me why I would do something so stupid as to seemingly disrupt or end any chance I had at making that come true? Granted, things worked out as well as I could have hoped for, but that doesn’t mean that anything I did makes sense in light of that prospect. Nothing seems to speak as loud to me than actively conjuring uncertainty. Then at least I’m “in control” in some outlandish sense at least. When I want to see “signs” that there is a direction I should go, I always think how susceptible I am to the same kind of thinking a religious person would jump into claiming enlightenment from a deity. Even when those signs seem to come so coincidentally and with such an eerie awareness and understanding of the moment, I can’t take them past face value. What may or may not happen in the future does not change what currently swirls around in our brains. The future doesn’t exist with a capability to be reflected upon or changed by it. Again, the no surprise of the almost immediate effect drugs have will testify how aware people are of themselves, and how badly they want that awareness to change. Whether it is at the height of a trip, an orgasm, or in the midst of breaking the law nothing, seems to matter more than the “right now moment.”
What is really going on in my friend’s head who sincerely had to debate whether he should stop taking a drug or appease his worried girlfriend who he’s in love with? If at any given moment he chose to reflect on the times he had with his drug or his girl, he’d feel all the fond memories who hold nothing more than positive memory status against any other. When someone is in love, does it not actually mean that they are currently capable of constantly reflecting on the person they love, and deriving enough reason to continue saying as such? You are not in love because she’s giving a back rub next month or because he’s going to take you on some romantic picnic. Emotions then don’t explain how things are, just how they are now. Those unencumbered thoughts can sway you in any direction. The problem then is we are bound to live at the idea of a prospect. We have to remain thinking in terms of what may or may not be. With nothing to go on but a very meager understanding of how some people behave most of the time in one situation or the other, we try to carry on like enough has been figured out and we’re just chugging along down some path of self fulfillment.
Combining our entrapment to idealized futures, subjective enslavement to the current moment, and ignorance about what is “actually” going on, I think I’m fairly understood as too why stupidity can reign supreme and perhaps be better guided in how to avoid it. When positive attitudes are adopted in spite of, or perhaps embracing all of this, there’s perhaps the best point of self understanding we can hope for. As far as the niceness translating towards me, I still don’t know if I’ll be able to understand how to reflect that back in the only way that makes sense to me, by understanding it. I think there’s just something more in grasping the why of the situation than in manufacturing it, and I simply don’t know the answer. I’m hoping I can find out enough to stop exercising my ridiculous freedom before a good excuse is given to me the hard way.
I think there is something queer(not gay) about our condition. While you probably know my views on god, that doesn’t keep me from believing there is something significant and powerful that undermines any sense of reality we claim. We are ultimately responsible to this reality. What puzzles me though, is when I try to behave in accordance with how I think this sense is “guiding” me if you will, things don’t appear to pan out as predictably as when I’m just doing my own thing. I really don’t know how others view me in the “deeper” sense, and from that lack of understanding I feel desperately random in how I should behave at any given time. Even when I’m fully aware there is no good reason to do something, I’ll do it just for that stupid little rush of “who knows what will happen.” This is dangerous thinking and I’d like to think I feel accountable enough to some ideal or person to steer me away from crap like that. Then in the next vein I’ll try to remind myself that everything stems from me and it’s ultimately how I’m going to train my brain chemistry to be “right.” I’m having a harder and harder time living up to that idea.
It is as if I’m trying to find some sort of balance, but I’m not sure what there is to be balanced. I get nothing but constant negative ideas about our future when I think about who’s in power, listen to people explain why they are or aren’t doing things, and think about what our society holds as the ideals to human happiness or achievement. It’s just a never ending wave of thoughts resonating “we’re fucked” and when that feeling gets to the brim, its spills over into my meager existence. Is it really about everyone just trying to be happy and free? Those seem too simple as happiness can come from a variety of negative indulgences, and freedom leaves people afraid and bored. I feel that there has to be some structure that has to provide leeway for people to fight it, but ultimately retains its integrity. Our flimsy economy shows just how ragged a system can be, yet still remain technically intact. I want to jump into a musical framework. Innocent enough right? Meet a lot of people, play music, and just try to have fun as often as I can before I disappear into the abyss. Now explain to me why I would do something so stupid as to seemingly disrupt or end any chance I had at making that come true? Granted, things worked out as well as I could have hoped for, but that doesn’t mean that anything I did makes sense in light of that prospect. Nothing seems to speak as loud to me than actively conjuring uncertainty. Then at least I’m “in control” in some outlandish sense at least. When I want to see “signs” that there is a direction I should go, I always think how susceptible I am to the same kind of thinking a religious person would jump into claiming enlightenment from a deity. Even when those signs seem to come so coincidentally and with such an eerie awareness and understanding of the moment, I can’t take them past face value. What may or may not happen in the future does not change what currently swirls around in our brains. The future doesn’t exist with a capability to be reflected upon or changed by it. Again, the no surprise of the almost immediate effect drugs have will testify how aware people are of themselves, and how badly they want that awareness to change. Whether it is at the height of a trip, an orgasm, or in the midst of breaking the law nothing, seems to matter more than the “right now moment.”
What is really going on in my friend’s head who sincerely had to debate whether he should stop taking a drug or appease his worried girlfriend who he’s in love with? If at any given moment he chose to reflect on the times he had with his drug or his girl, he’d feel all the fond memories who hold nothing more than positive memory status against any other. When someone is in love, does it not actually mean that they are currently capable of constantly reflecting on the person they love, and deriving enough reason to continue saying as such? You are not in love because she’s giving a back rub next month or because he’s going to take you on some romantic picnic. Emotions then don’t explain how things are, just how they are now. Those unencumbered thoughts can sway you in any direction. The problem then is we are bound to live at the idea of a prospect. We have to remain thinking in terms of what may or may not be. With nothing to go on but a very meager understanding of how some people behave most of the time in one situation or the other, we try to carry on like enough has been figured out and we’re just chugging along down some path of self fulfillment.
Combining our entrapment to idealized futures, subjective enslavement to the current moment, and ignorance about what is “actually” going on, I think I’m fairly understood as too why stupidity can reign supreme and perhaps be better guided in how to avoid it. When positive attitudes are adopted in spite of, or perhaps embracing all of this, there’s perhaps the best point of self understanding we can hope for. As far as the niceness translating towards me, I still don’t know if I’ll be able to understand how to reflect that back in the only way that makes sense to me, by understanding it. I think there’s just something more in grasping the why of the situation than in manufacturing it, and I simply don’t know the answer. I’m hoping I can find out enough to stop exercising my ridiculous freedom before a good excuse is given to me the hard way.
