I don't fit in. This is something I am repeatedly reminded of in any given social situation. This is not to say I can't get along well enough in tighter circles, but essentially, I'm different. For as long as I can remember I've been fully aware of this difference. Whatever brainwave a mass of people might be on, it always manages to pass right by me. I think this comes from me incessantly thinking about people instead of acting like them. At some level this “capacity,” or whatever you want to call it, is one of the best things I could hope to do to myself, but in another way it opens up so many paths and things to think about you start to wonder what's really motivating these thoughts. I'm so adamant about seeing people's actions and judging them by their work because I don't trust the origins of my own thoughts, let alone their own misunderstood and often misguided ways of looking at things. And here we find the break. Who am I to levy the charge of others being misunderstood and misguided? Did I not just admit to questioning my own thoughts? I would never require that someone take something I said on faith, but to instead perhaps trust the practical sense in me that would forgo the frivolity of making things up. It isn't exactly hard to recognize the habits of others which objectively and directly lead to some problem or another. I know everything that is, and that could ever be, wrong with me. Here, a chance for the learned reader to point out the ignorance of the word everything, but nonetheless. At the same time, I know that all the things right with me can be manipulated to reach any means I put an effort towards. Ready for the head spin? The “right” things I could abuse beyond all reason to further some chosen agenda would automatically fall into the area of things wrong with me, in that the pedestal I've put them on would turn me into a figure I'm all too familiar with. Although, referring to things as wrong or bad is entirely subjective. We're talking character traits. So how do I decided what to start with, let alone when it has gone too far? Is this where one is to fall back on instinct? This would have to be the sort of instinct that did not openly contradict objectivity, alas, hasn't philosophy taught us the nature of our scornful instincts? Who says there isn't a point where the two can live in harmony?
I'm obsessed with empiricism. The thought of just being the playing out of known and independent forces helps to relax my egocentric mind. It constantly feels like everything I do is simply because I can. The almighty words, because I can. Once this starts to sink in, I begin to drain of any passion that started me on a path to begin with. Especially when I succeed, the will to care any further is all but extinguished. I find that I throw myself into challenges, or sometimes “pissing matches” as Aaron so eloquently put it one day, even though I really do not care what the outcome will be, the prospect of doing something because I can just takes over. It is my unrestrained, dramatic, and sometimes scary mode of thought that prompts me to want to act as if my body has the same freedom. These actions, stemming from some long overly calculated position, paint the target the reads “what the fucks up with that guy?” I'm never sure of what I'll do at any given moment, yet I feel totally in control once I engage in whatever it is. Almost as if I was setting myself to do it, but never letting myself know until the last second that it was really going down. If you find this hard to understand, imagine what I'm going through trying to explain it. If you do understand, any pointers? I just got done reading Beyond Good and Evil and although Nietzsche has paragraph long sentences and it's all been translated from German, I can't help but feel like I connect with some of the hardest, and frequently re-read, passages. I can literally feel different parts of my brain activating, kind of like little waves and pulses, after some line about philosophers or deep thinkers, and their beleaguered thoughts, is noted. As hard as some of his stuff is to read, the imprints that lines like those leave on my mind and mannerisms tend to subtly steer me in directions I don't fully appreciate until I reflect back on them.
It really bothers me that no matter how much I talk and act like there is only the current moment, the past gone and future not here, I constantly find myself trying to, in a sense, “stomach” the past. In truth, I don't feel like I let the misgivings or awkwardness of the past dominate or really influence what I do now, but those ever present thoughts come back as if there is something I could possibly to to change them. Every weird phone conversation, some past encounter with a fling, that answer I gave to an innocuous question, the things I'm not lying about, but will never choose to tell. I am too adept at remembering all the bad, weird, or particularly “awkward” interactions I've had with people. Then I think to myself in one sense here's the sum of all that comprises what I am today, yet I'm still fully capable of being anything, even the direct antithesis, to my past. And in all honesty, it is every bit my past, I own it. The stupid little things I'd like to put there like my tendency to mumble and inability to find a “normal” volume I can always trust people will hear always come back in some memory involving a secretary or check out lane. Something about those times, I'm figuring, is still confusing me and by me endlessly reminding myself of them I'm seeking to learn and apply some lesson now? Buggah, what have I gone and asked now....?
I find myself intrigued by the first four principals of Buddhism, in particular the one about the cause and nature of suffering. What I can't get around is that I barely find the will to want or pine over things, let alone enough to find myself suffering. All I find myself suffering from is boredom. The monks don't get bored in their awesome meditation sessions? The only reason I'd rather be a millionaire than humble musician is because I could set myself up on Kierkegaard's rotation method of entertainment going from one indulgence to the next. Here's the paradox. I'm almost certain that while I know I'll be able to have fun learning how to snowboard and ride motocross, I am fully aware that the people who are truly and most abundantly happy are the ones who've found meaning and purpose to their lives. This of course does not mean I don't have, nor plan to improve upon, my current purpose, but in light of my last blog I'm just reintroducing the theme. One thing that does in fact take me from naught to a hundred is the opportunity to inform and make you think. I didn't exactly memorize all the books and videos I've watched on evolution or Christianity, and even need to go back and refresh on perhaps a fact I've heard several times, yet the prospect of giving other people “I've never thought of things that way” moments is like a drug for me. Unfortunately this tends to conflict with another idea I am pretty well sold on. I really truly believe that people are responsible for themselves, need to save themselves, and no amount of (my) wondrous knowledge can make them choose to understand or pursue things for themselves. The one thing to get me off, they need to shoot in their own face, so to speak. This I find depressing because I don't see enough people who even hint at giving a damn.
I can sit and work out my whirlwind of a mind, while others sit eager to nod at and swallow the preaching of people like Kent Hovind. I can literally scare myself with “How the fuck can you think that” ideas that are somehow, yet eventually, filed away in a manner I can barely make sense of, while the masses carry on as if the entity Individual is a mere concept to be played with like a chess piece. Before I have officially reached the age of twenty, I've learned how to empathize with any idea. I can be bored and demoralized as shit, but still be fascinated with and revere our world and our ability to think at these levels. I don't feel like I'm chasing the same kind of peace and security that most people are looking for in their lives. I'm not even convinced there's a manifest “thing” to chase. I'm already the most chill and still angriest person you'll ever meet. I realize I'm a contradiction of terms, and I'm not sure if being comfortable with that means I'm “doing it right” as it were, currently, or am unequivocally mentally fucked. Assuredly, the later would seek to undermine any sort of understanding I sought by writing this in the first place, so I'm just gonna chalk this up to an ill-conceived analogy.
I'm probably going to be asleep most of the day after this gets posted. Is that a “proper” way to spend a birthday? I remember birthday's being the be-all end-all of my life. I could still get my dad to spend all sorts of money celebrating, but for what? Manipulate my dad because I can? This is obviously not what I want to do, but isn't that a horrible thought? To think that I could play on my dad's love and formal ideas about birthdays to get what I want. What bothers me, isn't so much discussing the (innocent) thought as much as the knowledge that people like my brother do that almost on a day to day basis. I'm fully aware that all kinds of people abuse the feelings of others and even I have pulled dick moves, to a lesser extent and not with people I consider family, in that area. It always reduces to the “why?” My brother is just a stuck up prick who probably acts from a learned subconscious, but for me it is just the curiosity of seeing what happens, because I can. It is for this reason alone that I don't think of myself as an evil person who's reached the proverbial point of no return when it comes to thoughts or potential actions. I also feel like this is a wobbly foundation from which to base anything. I don't have some sort of pent up malice or motive. I'm just confused, confusing, and curious.
8 comments
Michele Elizabeth Zerbe wroteat 10:29am on July 27th, 2008
interesting. :)
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Cara Zimmerman (Chicago, IL) wroteat 6:21pm on July 27th, 2008
ya know, nicko, the fact that you see things differently is good.
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Michele Elizabeth Zerbe wroteat 6:23pm on July 27th, 2008
yea it makes u capable of showing some closed-minded people out there other windows of thought. the world needs people like you.
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Cara Zimmerman (Chicago, IL) wroteat 6:24pm on July 27th, 2008
well michele, i wouldn't go that far...jk :)
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Michele Elizabeth Zerbe wroteat 6:26pm on July 27th, 2008
jeez cara. lol. cmon imagine never running into anybody like nick. nobody to challenge anything or be unique.
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Cara Zimmerman (Chicago, IL) wroteat 6:28pm on July 27th, 2008
well i guess you have a point there...but it's not like he's some weird species or the only one of his kind or something.
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Michele Elizabeth Zerbe wroteat 6:32pm on July 27th, 2008
oh for sure hes just the one i know lol
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Nick P. wroteat 9:31pm on July 27th, 2008
trust me ladies, I am the only one of my kind.
