[304] Toy Story

When you read a story, it isn’t one line continued page after page until the ink runs out or there’s no more paper. It’s punctuated. You seamlessly travel from one moment to the next with little interruptions, little characters, that take every thought and organizes it against another. You can be thrust into any number of storylines that can complement each other or give you an added perspective the other parts don’t know. You can find your conception of things suddenly challenged after thinking a certain way for so long. A good story has you hesitating, worrying, or rooting on behalf of the characters regardless of whether you’d consider them to be good or bad. There’s a tension, an excitement for the unknown. You anticipate the resolution.

I’m a sucker for a storyline. I’m such a sucker I’ll follow a bad storyline for the resolution. For as much as I struggle with harboring feelings for real people, I’m still drawn to characters. As a conscious agent, to some extent, there is no mystery. I know my options for how I can behave or react to anything. But no matter how many times you see a “cop drama” or read a “sci-fi” novel, you’ll never be able to anticipate when a character draws you in. You don’t realize when you’ve started caring.

The non-verbal limbic part of our brain carries all the feels. It gives you gut impulses. When you see something you truly empathize with, it puts the butterflies in your stomach. The reasons I find myself caring about so many characters is that they are the extreme examples of the endless nuances of human behavior. Basking in the fantasy of the conclusions for different behaviors truly helps give perspective as to why or why not to do something. It assures me I’m capable; I can feel it in my bones.

Understandably, it’s this sort of process that has me drawn to personalities. Not all of them like-minded or necessarily as interesting as they could be, but managing to be personalities nonetheless. It keeps me hyper-obsessed with my personality as well. What message am I sending? What am I setting myself up for in the future? What am I finding myself more or less capable of dealing with or doing? You never really feel like you get to conclude on a good character until the story is over. Every decision exists in a continuum punctuated by the moments of their journey. The last line could put the entire thing in a new light.

Good characters, good stories, are always in danger. Whether it’s by their lives being unceremoniously cut short or an internal struggle, or maybe the world can’t help but to keep blowing up around them, nobody reads to imagine someone who’s content going about their daily life. Most of the characters I find myself drawn to, I would never in a million years want to be in their situation, but I can conjure the same uncertainty they must be feeling. The leader of a band of heroes, the mob boss, the one with a secret no one could know the depth of, or just the chaotic sarcastic one with an agenda, all flip that switch.

Giving yourself over to the uncertainty is when you gain perspective. You don’t call the author and complain that a chapter didn’t go over how you thought it should. You may want to, and I’m sure some crazy people do, but they’d be missing the point. Everything about the characters is why you love or love to hate them. It’s a perspective I try to practice when it comes to calling people friends. When you’re brave enough to try and shape your own story amidst the vast uncertainty of everything, it’s something I’m compelled to respect. The constant effort it takes to resist the metrics in place that would try to read your story for you or describe your character in a few lines is what heroes are made of, anti-ones included.

I understand the importance of asking why, but feel I need to maybe step back and simply do. I wonder the implications of the stress of micro-analyzing decisions. I don’t ask why one of my favorite characters got shot, I not-always-simply, yet am always pressed, to reform how I think about them and what they mean to me. We’re expressions of reality. Something about existence puts me here writing about myself as an ongoing conclusion of “everything.” My thoughts will change, my feelings will change, but “me” is what will always be the fight to vocalize how and why they are doing so. Whether I do something good or bad, it’s foolish to pretend I have the knowledge about what bearing it has on your perception or what it means I can claim about myself. I’m just changing, or I’m not, and the measure of that is in how the world does around me.

I’m a decision engine. When I put myself in a dangerous situation, I want to tell that kind of story. When I decide to surround myself with a certain kind of people, I’m shrouded with a backdrop that interesting bits can spring from. I concern myself with telling a story people need to hear in order for something to change. I’m only able to understand my character within a context. When the conditions are set, now you’re allowed a purpose and the decisions matter. Given that we can’t know everything about our context though, it makes the existence, implication, and message of that character invaluable. My “morality” at that point is the bed time story I tell myself, about myself, paying close attention to whether it brings me nightmares or helps me dream bigger.

I’m only borrowing ideas. I rent a body to inhabit a small amount of space and spend a small amount of time. Neither fortune nor sorrow is mine to own or hoard. I inevitably pass them along after they've been caught, hopefully in better shape than when I got them. It’s only in imagining myself as something larger than life, a potentially eternal storyline, do I feel so compelled to act a certain way. It’s exciting to believe, to have a cause, to work towards a goal that feels bigger than any one moment or character could express. I think I’m just lamenting a lot of unresolved chapters that speak to so much potential.

[300] Let's Throw A Party

I was recently asked why I’m so into the “partying thing” and I found myself scraping the surface of what throwing a party means to me. I can’t recall how much I’ve written on the topic of parties specifically, so given that it was the focus of my house, is intimately tied to my conception of reality, and is likely to mean a million different things to a million different people, I think it’s perfect for my 300^th blog.

Partying to me is a perfect opportunity for planned spontaneity. Left to its own devices, spontaneity could arise as a car crash, or worse, something like stubbing your toe on an AIDS needle under the corner of your hardwood armoire. In a party setting, you set the conditions, but it’s up to the imagination and will of the players to sort themselves out. Someone’s comment sparks a waterfall of sarcasm and laughter. A beer pong champions reign can be the height of anticipation and woe as the struggle to dominate battles the odds and will. The smallest of victories; a perfectly poured shot, a fire that didn’t catch something important, the stripper move not landing you on your head, all can be celebrated as if they in some small way are helping to cure cancer.

It’s a giant perspective shift, if you let it. When you watch children, or retarded people, or animals (don’t worry, none of them can read) playing the same movie over and over or seeing yourself in the mirror or even wallowing in your own filth is amazing. Until someone tells you about germs, and being self-conscious, and other options do you get the sense that what you once loved is no longer fulfilling or okay. Of course you need more intellectual stimulation, and not to be covered in shit as you grow up, and it’s not just grown-ups being mean and robbing you of your childhood. That’s poverty’s job. But any time your perspective shifts, something’s lost and something’s gained.

Well, as I’ve harped about before, as you get older, and yes I’m talking about you because I’m forever an overgrown man-child, your perspective shifts. Maybe your body can’t eat or drink like it did when you were a teenager. Maybe the idea of puking on your couch at 4 in the morning while your friends play Mario Kart on what’s practically your dead body just doesn’t sound appealing. Here I would argue that it’s not an either or. I’m still trying to get all of my old friends to get freshmen around and let all the bad stuff happen to them. My conception of party can comfortably fit younger people’s embarrassing stories and awkward trying-to-hard behaviors as part of my memories.

I like the idea of social lubricants. I like the idea of a drunken mind speaking a sober heart. While I think it’s less prevalent in my social circle to be behind a ton of walls, I think the exact opposite about the world at large. I don’t want to hear about how much you love your boyfriend, I want to hear, “I loooove my boyfriend, but” and actually get somewhere. Tequila will get you there; and your shirt on the floor, and your pants on the stove. I think alcohol can be celebrated as a root of psychological inquiry. Not to mention what it’s done for rape; because who wants to remember that.

Every time I think of a party, I view it as a celebration of the time I’m spending with friends. We get to color in what it means to have reached the peak. You’ve got people who care, understand you, are willing to talk and share in your bad decisions that night. Surely, we’ve all been angry drunk or sad drunk, but no one is really looking for those consistently unless they have a problem. Those are the types that can’t appreciate what it means to party and instead, in a stark parallel to sobriety, exhibit the psychological hell of not being in control. As a doctor, I want an early warning system or an excuse to ask “are you okay?”

Perhaps most importantly for me is the chance to exhibit the balancing act in my head. I am drawn to the Yin Yang symbol after all. I love the idea of being someone who can down a fifth and still handle business. I love the idea of knowing the perfect cocktail of rum, Steak N Shake, and Pepto Bismal it takes to get up at 9 and make sure I catch that phone call from the planning department. I want to tear down the wall between responsible and irresponsible, at least as far as popular opinion is concerned; be a responsible rascal.

The style of the party might change, but the amount of fun doesn’t have to. The child-like enthusiasm is sacred if only because so many people believe that once it’s lost you can never get it back. I’ve never had more fun than when I was creating movie moments with my friends. It’s why I set the stage. Right now, I think a lot of stages are filled with uncertainty and bills and instead of trying to think of something new or create a world that marginalizes “problems,” a lot of people are going to get swallowed up whole. Maybe you’ll get all sorts of fun and games out of your families down the line, you saps, but god forbid you waste your 20-something liver. The world is your Banzai room.

[303] E=MC Escher

E=MC Escher

I want to live in a fantasy where rules when spun go topsy-turvy.

I want to get my mind right and find the guide light to what I seek.

I want to get my work done and fun run like they aren’t supposed to hurt none.

I want to shout loud and burst clouds with my brain powers.

I want to express my frustration with a heavy situation without any stipulations.

I want to Mario cart and master the art of a smart racer.

I want to connect the dots and call the shots like I’m drunk wise to your games.

I want to be infamous.

I want to hijack my personality from those the blind could see what it means to me.

I want to say “more please” as you pile it on, talk with my mouth full then sing a song.

I want to be right, bitch, taste it all the way down.

You won’t like this, but my tight fist is dialing in a pound.

I want to go cross-eyed and see all sides, miss something and choke it up to a lost tie.

I want to sit there smug as you go pug.

I want to be complicated.

I want to stack my words like pancakes that are too hot to handle.

I want to dance like you’re watching and jealous.

I want to dive so deep Marianas hits the trenches.

I want to creep when you sleep so the cuts scar your dreams.

I want to mark my territory, no dogs allowed.

I want to cross my arms when they can’t reach all the way around.

I want to breathe.

[302] This Is Your Warning

I love when serious problems arise so I can use my genuine pissed the fuck off tone addressing something important. First and foremost, who in their right mind ever thinks that the most belligerent, random, hurtful, or wtf comments I make are true!? How fucking ridiculous of a person do you have to be to believe that is the genuine level of discourse or thought I have about a particular person or topic?

For example, my friends could have died tonight. You know what I’d be doing if they had? JOKING. I’d be making horrendous jokes about death and who they were fucking with in heaven and what it’s going to mean for my rent. I don’t really know if it says more about me that this is my way, or you if you think I simply give that little of a fuck. If I’m ever in a situation like that, I EXPECT you to do the same thing. If I come out of something looking like I won first place in a burn victim contest, you better notice! This life is a terrifying, violent, random, fucked up place where reality T-bones you with a pleasant reminder it can be over now. I’ve accepted this and make light of it. Your inability to do so doesn’t give you license to judge where the fuck I’m coming from.

So let’s get even more personal. Maybe if I can be so callous and non-caring about the very life of my friends, I can’t possibly give a shit about the girl I’ve basically been with for 2 ½ years right? Obviously when I’m poking fun or making a comment, I really just like to make her feel bad or am such a loner and insecure, there’s some weird little pathological game we play back and forth that feeds into things. I don’t know who feels themselves so informed as to put someone in a position that they feel they have to “justify” why they’re with someone. This is such an immediately “what the fuck let’s stop and reassess” situation.

I know I’m a “bully” or pick on people or have an endless array of comments. I know how completely fucking annoying I can be. But fuck you in your fucking ass if you would think for a second that I’m going to allow you to harbor thoughts or commentary bordering on what you’d pull from a battered woman’s pamphlet. You know the first thing I tell anyone that remotely thinks they want to get close to me? It’s be prepared for me to do or say something that’s “the worst.” The worst you can feel, the worst you can imagine, the worst you might have to “roll with” and not “justify.” Do you know why I’m comfortable issuing such a warning? I don’t really have the capacity to understand how “WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK” something I say is ringing red flags in your head. I get I can set people off, I have no metric for what’s bad, the worst, “unsayable,” “too much,” or sometimes even “mean.” I simply know that people react, and say “I’ve adopted an ‘oh well’ mentality, you might like to as well.”

I am King Jaded. I’m stuck on sarcastic. I’m always going to default to what’s “the worst.” Being able to see through that is the very oddball connection I’ve managed with a handful of people. Kristen is one of them. If I ever was truly that fucking bad to the point where her/our friends or family were speaking up, I’d be the first to say she needed to get the fuck away from me. But this isn’t the story I hear. I hear that it’s both me being insensitive to how I’m perceived by other people, but also their concerns or worries that back her into a corner. I can tone down comments or address a genuine concern. I can’t sit and watch her be sad because people are giving her shit about me. You fucking come to me, or us, or you shut your fucking mouth. You don’t give her shit because you know she won’t bite.

Every day I remind myself that I don’t really believe or understand how I managed to have someone like her in my life. Someone who says they don’t want rules. Is willing to accept me for all the weird shit that I may say or the lack of feelings I may have towards things. That’s the relationship I’m concerned with keeping. Fuck all of you if you don’t “get it.” You can fucking rot. I’ll make sure things are right between me and her. You want the epitome of someone who cares and takes on the feelings or responsibility of things completely beyond what should be her problems, it’s her. The most fucked up part about people giving her shit, is that she would feel embarrassed looking like a “charity case” because her friends would get her something like a bed. Who the fuck would give someone the impression that your friends care about you and buying you something is anything less than your friends caring about you and buying you something? What kind of sick fuck?

I’m happy to take responsibility for the shit that I say. I’ll defend or change, it’s simple. I have no control over whatever extra noise comes in making the people I care about uncomfortable or sad. So this is my attempt to step in front of it all. If you feel like you have to “justify” anything about me, get the fuck out of my life. If you find fault with how I treat my relationships and it just bugs you to your core, find the balls to even whisper it in my direction. And if you think for a second I’m going allow simple misunderstandings, overblown feelings and reactions, utter speculation and judgment, or personal insecurities start to fuck with the relationships I care about the most…really think about ways you don’t want me to react.

[299] Blaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrg

I hope this is looooooooooong and that you’re disinterested now. Cus nigga, I’m just writing. [super drunk]

Where does my confidence come from? Is it an implicit understanding? Is it a sociopathic disregard? Why doesn’t it matter the “party situation” I walk into, I don’t feel anything but the compulsion to show you how you’re going to feel? I can’t say I’m a sociopath. I can say I’ve learned how to behave as a sociopath would to handle bidness. What all does that entail? Does it make my relationships any less honest? I don’t think so. As far as a self-assessment reaches in that regard.

I want “more.” I no longer genuinely understand insecurity, dishonesty, fear, or complacency. They just aren’t in my playbook. I love the ego ridden jock at the party; that’s the first mother fucker imma put in his place. Why? Why the fuck do I have the ability and compulsion? What about my personality is so hell bent on humbling people? Like, I’m only good at beer pong when I hate you. You are losing when I hate you. Something so trivial, but fuck me if I don’t show you how good I am at getting that fucker into a cup.

I don’t know where to go other than where I’ve been. I don’t perceive a secret or “specialness” to how or why we’re here. I have “nothing to look forward to” other than what I already see coming. Not to say I’m closed off to surprises, but god damn, they gotta be a surprise indeed. At some point, just putting so much time into being a certain kind of person is going to make you feel illegitimate. Like, the fact you haven’t “changed” or “grown” into something else, it’s an in laden doubt and vulnerability people wish to latch onto. They don’t know or care that ain’t nothing in question in your head.

In my efforts t be genuine I think it’s ripe with opportunity to be perceived as fake. People are not like me. I wish I could regard this as “special” but it’s really just kind of a pain in the ass. Niggas don’t talk in my tone, don’t mean what I say, don’t act on what they actually believe and feel. So something that doesn’t resemble what people are used to is default fake as shit. So I continue business as usual? I lament that vapid empty nature of the dishonest and afraid? Nah, Imma just keep playing like I play. Get on board or fuck off, not really giving a shit.

Like this party. FUCKING REEKED of what I hate about people thinking they getting “old.” Think they figured shit out. They know what’s up, they know how to drink, what they are or aren’t looking for in an interaction at a party. You little closed off secluded bitches! Your little band club is a suffocating pocket of existence that you fell into because you couldn’t let go of high school? I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking bout? Then why the fuck you so utterly closed to even converse or be marginally cordial to a nigga that ain’t on the field with you? That structure must feel nice. Don’t matter that they yelling orders at you, just the fact they telling you what to do is what’s up. Good for you ,you neurotic fuck.

The “I could count on one hand” mother fuckers that ain’t like that are the best. I wish they people could learn from their example. But no, as always, it don’t matter who you got, or what you know, or what you want to be, or anything of fucking substance and consequence, your bitch ass insecurities and know-it-all-ness is going to win. I fucking hate you. I legit would cut your fucking throats and save you the time living the rest of your sacrificial lives. Sheep ass niggas.

God, that makes me sound so bad. Am I just a fan of dramatic language? Have you managed to befriend a mother fucker that’s legit that fucked up and capable of pulling some nasty ass shit? (Hint: it’s option 2) I don’t know where else to go. Am I to ignore history? Am I to pretend I’ve learned nothing about the circumstances under which people behave certain ways? Should I forgo reason for “moral stomach feeling-ness…” fuck no. What, I’m a fucking retarded asshole now? I should start talking nonsense to “feel better” about myself which is just essentially trying to placate your feelings with language I can believe is going to make you feel better about me. What a game! What a pathetic empty game.

I feel like even people I’m not into, be it attractiveness or otherwise, I still try to give the benefit of the doubt. Imma judge, sure, but I’m going to stay how I treat you openly until I get a history and enough data to make sure that I ain’t sold you up the river cus I was feeling particularly dooshy that morning. It’s a form of humility. It’s a form of intellectual checks and balances. It’s so impossibly easy to judge, intrinsic doubt is the only acceptable ground floor position. Lazy bitch as disrespectful niggas just wallow in they feelings about shit. Naw, I gotta keep shit in check or why the fuck would you bother listening to what I’m saying?

Key fucking question! How the fuck is it that I ever have something to say? Why am I not fully me less I’m saying some shit I think is fucking relevant or spot on to “the conversation?” The massive overall reaching struggling grasp we have on what it means to be us and what the ever loving fuck we are doing with each other. Like, my charge in life is to literally NEVER SHUT THE FUCK UP! Is there not something peculiar about that? I will take a moment’s clarity and use that to justify a 5 page blog. I will take a refined sentence and extrapolate how that plays into the whole of existence. What the ever loving fuck?

At a weird and creepy and hard to define level, you all sort yourselves. It’s not me making top down judgments, no, you place yourselves into little categories that I may or may not be able to work with under varying conditions. I find myself unable to behave otherwise given your inputs. I find no position worth respecting but the one that responds to your behavior “as I do.” Somehow, I get to a deeper or more honest conception of myself when people have me expressing what feels intrinsically “true” about that nature. I’m the best me when you’re the best you. Blame it on the interconnectedness of all things, fuck if I know.

I hope we have a choice. Not just because I really want to blame you fuckers, but because I want something to believe in. If nothing else, just the option to behave otherwise. Then I’m right in a very important way. Then I actually get to claim dignity in my behavior. I’m standing for something. God forbid I’m just wallowing in a world complacently floating in an ambiguous fog of confusion. Fuck existence of you’re a circumstantial moron bound to the insecurity you picked up at 13 years old. It’s not that I hate everything, it’s that I hate everything fucking assholes endlessly choose to show me. I hate what they believe in. I hate what they reinforce. And as far as perception being reality is concerned, for all intents and purposes, that may as well be “everything. “

You won’t get me.

[301] Wondering, Blundering, and Thundering

Thank goodness! I thought I’d never find something to write about again. I feel like I’ve been doing something of a bad job living like I want the future to be. On one level it is laziness; on another, an intellectual indecisiveness. I think this stems from not finding enough stimulating or compelling ideas than the ones I already hold. I’m starting to move a little more into the philosophical underpinnings of economics and politics though, and how these play into how I may start conducting my life is worth exploring.

The illusion of my “peaking” comes from my being relatively healthy, fed, socially integrated, and basically educated with access to a litany of wants my forefathers could not have imagined. I see pushing the limits of peaking by taking an aspect of our shared and giant basin of knowledge and doing something so resoundingly useful or gratifying, and at the same time obvious, that presumably nobody could have done it like me. When you set yourself such a lofty goal, learning things for the sake of dinner conversation or making money for a new toy seems futile. As a result I lay dormant, get impatient with the little inefficiencies or inconsistencies. I get distant because the world around me starts to look more impeding, or complacent, than helpful.

Manipulating information can serve an infinite purpose. Whether you’re trying to feed the world or simply keep it hobbling along, you need to know the numbers. Increasingly, you need to know the feelings and opinions because a significant portion of your playing field denies things like heat melting ice. But how do we quantify them and turn them into a mere variable we can work with? How do I take this demoralizing and cynical view of our future and genuinely start to believe there is a place, which can have the humblest beginnings, and move forward? Hint: make it personal.

I seem to only ever feel motivated by data. When I learn the actual numbers of plankton we’d need to cultivate to maintain safe levels of oxygen. When I can say it will take X amount of hours to build so many green houses with the capacity to move X amount of food to the X amount of places that are still in need. But even there, things can be deceiving. It’s just as important to get the numbers behind how fucked everything is. The money, the amount and financial impact of legislation, the momentum of public opinion, the actual count and access to resources, and the unregulated and unaccountable interests in keeping the status quo.

This daunting task of counting, reporting, displaying, and formulating a way of teaching is entirely doable, but also potentially dangerous and likely easily corruptible. Therefore, any system that attempted to create something of such gravitas would have to not only need to use ongoing real time information to predict future fallout, but need to be prepared for a number of potentially distasteful courses of action if met with certain kinds of resistance. In fact I suspect this is the main form of deterrent for any overhaul of a so-named “system.” It would have to be fundamentally illusive and accessible.

“Common sense” only applies when it is in fact, common. If everyone were to take place in drawing a picture of the world on a single white board, they would all have a specific and common centerpiece in their description of it. You only have to go so far as to create a Christian and a Muslim board to cripple something mutually progressive. Here you can try to give people a common enemy or struggle to squeeze ideas together that appease enough of the people some of the time, but this only shuffles the burden around and is terribly inefficient.

My current semi-solution is to put them to work in smaller intermingling factions. There are very few things people understand like bringing home the bacon or taking care of their families. People understand it sucks to get sick and it sucks to be hungry. Also, people are getting used to be connected to everything, at all times, which has any number of consequences. If you can plug them into an economy that gets them everything they need and informs if not humbles them to their wants, you can focus on how to keep it sustainable and enduring. Let them grow their own food. Let them share infrequently used resources, Enable them to pursue the various end games of their ideas.

Here’s where “overthrowing the system” becomes ludicrous. Surely communes, co-opts, exchanges, etc. have proven to be helpful steps in the right direction. Show me how a small group of do-gooders recreates an Indiana University. How many of them are members of the volunteer fire department, police force, and teacher’s union? To ignore the federal and statutory role is a fool’s game. Start your movements or be an example of a different way to live, but if you genuinely concern yourself with the big picture, you need to tackle each layer in a way that makes sense of the ones above and below it.

The data will win if I can make it digestible to people. I’ll be able to live with people holding simply horrifying, ridiculous, and destructive ideas as long as I can make them data points. The forms of human manipulation take on an entirely different form at this point. Much as relatively current trends of thought permeate our economic and social structure already, I want to hijack that structure and shift it onto things that actually work. Not my opinion of how they work, just what counting and measurement say.

I want the coldest and most deliberate look at what people are actually good for. It would help in judging my action or lack thereof, and it may reformulate what we think of as moral or necessary. One thing I’m certainly tired of hearing though, is excuses. Whether it’s from myself or, more likely, from others over the pettiest of shit, it’s a wonder I find time to escape and think about the future at all.

I want to be an electric car driving, home grown food eating, social primate who works in a manner reflective of my effort and understanding who doesn’t need to take undue advantage and make excuses for my well-being over someone else who’s just as capable and likely wants the freedom to express themselves, be healthy, and pursue their interests as well. I currently can’t afford it, waste my time, engage with illogic and antithetical dribble, am constrained by monetary obligations in an overall society that plays by anything goes rules. I don’t know how to avoid dipping my foot into the corruption where that heinous word “compromise” comes out to play. Didn’t my government teach me not to negotiate with terrorists?

[298] No Point 'Cept One

It’s an odd duality being an utterly motivated drifter. Am I lazy, waiting, or both? Does it make sense to try and scrape together labels and descriptions when your ever waning conception of reality settles upon the word “is?” Maybe it’s not about what you do, but the level of fulfillment you get from engaging in it. And if that’s the case, I’m again dually blessed and screwed. I find that when you talk long enough, you’re able to justify anything. I hope I manage to describe instead of just talk.

What does it mean to force yourself to do something? Is it pushing against a previous moral concept? Is it submitting your will to power? Is it convincing yourself that what you’re doing is actually what you should or wanted to do all along? In any event, you’re fundamentally changing what it means to be yourself in that moment. Is it “buckling down” or breaking your own knees? Is it finally realizing or mental exhaustion? No will to keep up the fight, the line in the sand, the previously hard fought and won conception of reality that’s sustained until this point.

It’s one of the things that infuriate me about some old people and every dumb ass. The same mind that locks in how it works is the one that traps it there. How are you supposed to know the difference between trapping yourself and actually getting a grip on things? Obviously, so far my answer has been to simply decide. The reality that extends so far is in your mind, but that doesn’t seem like all the justification it needs.

So maybe that reality should be punctuated with ideas like “don’t harm others” or “plant a tree.” Common sense under a catch-all umbrella of good to thus in turn make us feel good; or some of us anyway. Then you leap into questions about what is harm, do they “deserve” it, how selfish are you being in your caring nature, public perception verses reality…it never seems to end. And surely you’ll find someone along the road to justify and chime in precisely when you needed them the most. Surely that’s “helpful.”

Maybe, and this would go along with no free will, we’re supposed to listen and wait for our cues. Also in line with the “is” conception of reality, that all you need and want to know is right here and always will be, you just need to find a way to access it. Which, on our way back to free will, presumably you could choose to do so. Or at least have the fog of potentials make you feel as if you had.

I’m really only excited when I get to show off. It was pure joy being the “smart kid” K-5. All that mattered was that I was recognized for doing better and being faster than everyone around. The closest opportunity I’ve had to that again was with the coffee shop. School homogenizes and commoditizes education and personality. I didn’t need 15 years in school to know my grades didn’t matter. I didn’t need insecure power tripping authority figures to set me straight, but that’s all that was offered. Stick the one “well-meaning super caring” teacher crap back up your ass.

Back then wasn’t knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It was recognition and praise for exercising my brain. It paid. Maybe I just got addicted to that at a young age. Maybe now I don’t regularly practice an instrument, or read as often, or really do anything to the kind of hyper obsessiveness I used to, because no one is noticing. Or if they do, they notice it like a YouTube video. But, as the hero with a fix, I can’t just drop the craving; I need to do something bigger, faster, and louder. I need to make a scene that takes me outside of myself. I need to be something that can hardly be explained if not for the collective neurosis of all these blogs.

There just doesn’t feel like a fucking point otherwise.