There’s a special kind of safety in
numbers.
I think there is a sort of duality in how we look at ourselves. Some of the freakiest moments and thoughts I have are on nights like these. Nights where I’ve stayed up, done nothing but think, catch myself staring in the mirror as if my reflection is going to get away with something I won’t notice. Everyone asleep, vulnerable. Certain truths about people’s behavior and our positions in life really set in deep. I’m sure watching a cop show where death and tragedy are routine and displayed almost as callously as people feel in real life doesn’t help. But not to lose focus.
The idea of people taking things for granted is weighing incredibly heavily on my thoughts. You don’t have to merely believe that I remind myself everyday of what I have and what I’m willing and capable of working towards. At the same time, I feel as if something is dying in me. My insatiable perception keeps my eyes working and my ears tuned. Moments tick by. I feel there are times when I’d have to fight to persuade people they ever existed.
People are a double edged sword. I’ve been reciting the line “no man is an island” endlessly in my head for the last few hours. When you’re alone, you face your endless potential. You have a looming and impending freedom caged only by your mind. What can you convince yourself of? The simple fact being, anything. Is that where you have to be to realize you can’t trust anyone? Is that where you have to be to stoke fires of sociopathy? Or perhaps it’s less dramatic. Maybe it’s just the place where you finally understand how entitled to life you are. It could be where you go secure the validity of your manic feelings. But then, why would you put in any work to sort through that mess? Just get a friend.
The power lies. The power lies in you getting to believe that you’ve mastered and understood yourself. Every mirror you employ qualifies you. Every outlet clearly labeled for how much it can take. Your thoughts, yourself: Terms that you no longer have to take responsibility for because they can be shared. They can be corroborated, changed, or forgotten. It doesn’t really matter, as long as they just don’t have to be yours. How terrifying it would be to face a reality where you’re responsible. Why try to survive in a world where you take the blunt of every broken relationship and every unanswered yell into the darkness.
I’ve been trying to understand why I carried on the way I did the first few months of living here. I’ve deemed it “grandpa syndrome.” I don’t need five couches to sit on. I don’t have to wash your dishes or clean up after stoners, take out your trash, dance around your feelings, or even pretend you’re worthy of making eye contact. I hardly think that someone of my strapping caliber to make rape and spousal abuse jokes about birthmarks and rape victims, while they’re sitting next to me, is trying to respect and preserve a sense of “common courtesy” or “social norm.” Yet nonetheless, I’ve spent money, time, maybe even credibility when it came towards sticking up for people who weren’t worth it, paradoxically, towards even more people who aren’t worth it.
I’ve had someone tell me, “give them time” and “not everyone can deal with it or think on those levels.” In my mind, time isn’t slowing down. To my knowledge, I wasn’t born a genius, nor were the people who I generally consult with, and somehow they manage. This leads me to conclude something from a point of desperation. Gifts, favors, time and effort, concessions, and silence are the yearning for there to be some example of how I wish everyone would behave when it’s appropriate. It’s a metaphorical hole. The more I dig towards a magic treasure chest of understanding and genuine appreciation, the easier it becomes to forget I’m in a huge fucking hole. I find it rather sad I would even characterize this treasure chest as magic, given that I know everything in it can and does exist.
“They didn’t ask for anything.” Another thing I heard. You have to wait until someone completely breaks down, bottoms out, and comes crawling to you before they’ll be able to conjure some long lasting personal reason to appreciate your help. Bullshit. These are the people who ask for everything, endlessly. They cry out for validation, they’ll bum a few hundred smokes, fries, or rides without even realizing they got something. Most importantly, they ask to be perceived in a very specific way without putting in any real work. And what way is that?
Not dysfunctional. Damn any hard fought, truly personal pursuit or cause that speaks to your very core. As long as you can check the box labeled assimilate, the test is over. Now deemed a “working” gear in some bastardized semblance of a machine, you’ve found your purpose, meaning, and understanding. I should stop and make something clear. You know it’s a lie. You absolutely and completely understand it’s a lie and how you make it work. But as long as you have your machine you get to do all sorts of new and exciting things to distract you from the lie. Plug her in and all of a sudden the food you eat is the most amazing thing you’ve ever tasted. The same ten dollar bill can be used to pay the bills and a shoe shine man. Your time, your ever fleeting time spent resenting and building walls, is always validated and reinforced by your other spinning gears. Just don’t try to turn too fast.
I’ve been drawn to the yin yang symbol since I first saw it. Not because of the philosophies or ideas behind it, I just really liked the symbol. The more I think on why, I keep returning to the word balance. I don’t regard balance as juggling school, work, and a girlfriend. Balance isn’t leveraging friends, nor is it exploiting others in the wake of how exploited you’ve felt. To me, balance is understanding you feel exploited, and that you can exploit, and then deciding to do neither. It’s knowing that if and when you lie, if done with poor judgment, you should expect to see, and own the feelings, of its ugly consequences.
In a way, I’ve acted with poor judgment. I took equality for granted. I believed that I could bring happiness (that hurt so much to type) to people who might not even be fit to spell the word let alone understand it. I thought work, risk, and honesty would create an environment that people would be begging for, not dying to escape from. When you put your values out there, the things that keep you centered, hopeful, and sane, and they are thrown in your face, you feel something want to die. It’s not even that you just want to give up, it’s that you want to not care. Your desire becomes the antithesis of your mangled reality and failed (at least in that moment) dreams.
At the end of the day though, I’m still able go: I’m mutha fuckin Nick P. I see where and when what I do matters. I respect and appreciate the people who understand and love the same values I do. I know who and what to trust. Nothing about your fucked up buddy system machine or depressed, lazy, and scared bullshit will be what does me in. I’m not going to ask when you’ll get it or why you don’t care. I’ve wasted enough time with that bullshit. I’m setting the mandate. You own yourself, or I do.
I think there is a sort of duality in how we look at ourselves. Some of the freakiest moments and thoughts I have are on nights like these. Nights where I’ve stayed up, done nothing but think, catch myself staring in the mirror as if my reflection is going to get away with something I won’t notice. Everyone asleep, vulnerable. Certain truths about people’s behavior and our positions in life really set in deep. I’m sure watching a cop show where death and tragedy are routine and displayed almost as callously as people feel in real life doesn’t help. But not to lose focus.
The idea of people taking things for granted is weighing incredibly heavily on my thoughts. You don’t have to merely believe that I remind myself everyday of what I have and what I’m willing and capable of working towards. At the same time, I feel as if something is dying in me. My insatiable perception keeps my eyes working and my ears tuned. Moments tick by. I feel there are times when I’d have to fight to persuade people they ever existed.
People are a double edged sword. I’ve been reciting the line “no man is an island” endlessly in my head for the last few hours. When you’re alone, you face your endless potential. You have a looming and impending freedom caged only by your mind. What can you convince yourself of? The simple fact being, anything. Is that where you have to be to realize you can’t trust anyone? Is that where you have to be to stoke fires of sociopathy? Or perhaps it’s less dramatic. Maybe it’s just the place where you finally understand how entitled to life you are. It could be where you go secure the validity of your manic feelings. But then, why would you put in any work to sort through that mess? Just get a friend.
The power lies. The power lies in you getting to believe that you’ve mastered and understood yourself. Every mirror you employ qualifies you. Every outlet clearly labeled for how much it can take. Your thoughts, yourself: Terms that you no longer have to take responsibility for because they can be shared. They can be corroborated, changed, or forgotten. It doesn’t really matter, as long as they just don’t have to be yours. How terrifying it would be to face a reality where you’re responsible. Why try to survive in a world where you take the blunt of every broken relationship and every unanswered yell into the darkness.
I’ve been trying to understand why I carried on the way I did the first few months of living here. I’ve deemed it “grandpa syndrome.” I don’t need five couches to sit on. I don’t have to wash your dishes or clean up after stoners, take out your trash, dance around your feelings, or even pretend you’re worthy of making eye contact. I hardly think that someone of my strapping caliber to make rape and spousal abuse jokes about birthmarks and rape victims, while they’re sitting next to me, is trying to respect and preserve a sense of “common courtesy” or “social norm.” Yet nonetheless, I’ve spent money, time, maybe even credibility when it came towards sticking up for people who weren’t worth it, paradoxically, towards even more people who aren’t worth it.
I’ve had someone tell me, “give them time” and “not everyone can deal with it or think on those levels.” In my mind, time isn’t slowing down. To my knowledge, I wasn’t born a genius, nor were the people who I generally consult with, and somehow they manage. This leads me to conclude something from a point of desperation. Gifts, favors, time and effort, concessions, and silence are the yearning for there to be some example of how I wish everyone would behave when it’s appropriate. It’s a metaphorical hole. The more I dig towards a magic treasure chest of understanding and genuine appreciation, the easier it becomes to forget I’m in a huge fucking hole. I find it rather sad I would even characterize this treasure chest as magic, given that I know everything in it can and does exist.
“They didn’t ask for anything.” Another thing I heard. You have to wait until someone completely breaks down, bottoms out, and comes crawling to you before they’ll be able to conjure some long lasting personal reason to appreciate your help. Bullshit. These are the people who ask for everything, endlessly. They cry out for validation, they’ll bum a few hundred smokes, fries, or rides without even realizing they got something. Most importantly, they ask to be perceived in a very specific way without putting in any real work. And what way is that?
Not dysfunctional. Damn any hard fought, truly personal pursuit or cause that speaks to your very core. As long as you can check the box labeled assimilate, the test is over. Now deemed a “working” gear in some bastardized semblance of a machine, you’ve found your purpose, meaning, and understanding. I should stop and make something clear. You know it’s a lie. You absolutely and completely understand it’s a lie and how you make it work. But as long as you have your machine you get to do all sorts of new and exciting things to distract you from the lie. Plug her in and all of a sudden the food you eat is the most amazing thing you’ve ever tasted. The same ten dollar bill can be used to pay the bills and a shoe shine man. Your time, your ever fleeting time spent resenting and building walls, is always validated and reinforced by your other spinning gears. Just don’t try to turn too fast.
I’ve been drawn to the yin yang symbol since I first saw it. Not because of the philosophies or ideas behind it, I just really liked the symbol. The more I think on why, I keep returning to the word balance. I don’t regard balance as juggling school, work, and a girlfriend. Balance isn’t leveraging friends, nor is it exploiting others in the wake of how exploited you’ve felt. To me, balance is understanding you feel exploited, and that you can exploit, and then deciding to do neither. It’s knowing that if and when you lie, if done with poor judgment, you should expect to see, and own the feelings, of its ugly consequences.
In a way, I’ve acted with poor judgment. I took equality for granted. I believed that I could bring happiness (that hurt so much to type) to people who might not even be fit to spell the word let alone understand it. I thought work, risk, and honesty would create an environment that people would be begging for, not dying to escape from. When you put your values out there, the things that keep you centered, hopeful, and sane, and they are thrown in your face, you feel something want to die. It’s not even that you just want to give up, it’s that you want to not care. Your desire becomes the antithesis of your mangled reality and failed (at least in that moment) dreams.
At the end of the day though, I’m still able go: I’m mutha fuckin Nick P. I see where and when what I do matters. I respect and appreciate the people who understand and love the same values I do. I know who and what to trust. Nothing about your fucked up buddy system machine or depressed, lazy, and scared bullshit will be what does me in. I’m not going to ask when you’ll get it or why you don’t care. I’ve wasted enough time with that bullshit. I’m setting the mandate. You own yourself, or I do.
