[398] Merciful Masters

I suppose I'm cheating a bit in that it's really easy to start thinking about a lot of things once you've been engaged by a conspiracy “it's all about mind control, maaaan” documentary. Nonetheless, I feel an itch and I think it'll tie to other things I hope to unravel.

First, it seems very obvious if not preferred that someone's in control. Whether it's in a war and you're finding the pride to charge the battle field and take the first bullets so your brothers behind you can live on, or if you're looking for something to aspire to from mass marketing of the ideal living and family situation. We're a top down society in that sense. Something seems better than nothing. Being controlled or even enjoying in giving up control don't seem that bad in and of itself. Think about how elated religious people must feel...

Think of the idea of “herding cats” which is often a description about a group of atheists. You don't have to spend years of your life debunking myths and arguing with people online, finally overwhelmed with your knowledge and unable to escape it's conclusions. You can just be a random asshole who says “I don't believe in god.” Depending on where either of those two examples grew up, they could still find solace at an atheist convention, as if, because of sheer disbelief, that's how they'll form a friendship.

But they're still their own kind of cat. They still need a Dawkins or a feeling of fear or oppression that guides them to a place of common footing. They want their minds to be controlled as well, but by thoughts that can be characterized as "objective." These are people that wouldn't mind being told to go to school or get a job, but they're not going to trust the promises of a world unseen and without evidence.

In documentaries, especially like this one, I can't help but marvel at how sure of themselves each interviewee is. It doesn't matter if they're talking about a particular period in history, some influential character, or just from the pulpit of whatever board they sat on or place of insider knowledge. They give a presentation as if they're the authority. This isn't to say they know nothing or that their information isn't valuable or, genuinely, a form of expertise.

But it goes wrong. Take a random doctor from Harvard and let him say something about neuroscience. Now juxtapose that with Alex Jones explaining how the Bilderberg Group has been engineering schools to control your mind. You may want to forgo the grain and just swallow the salt shaker. But if you're informed enough about how schools have been funded, neuroscience, Alex Jones in general, and the people in charge of creating these groups and foundations who have a say in what gets taught, you can still begin to say something flirting with reasonable.

You're still stuck with fairly general ideas though. Should people who have an economic stake in how much you know be in charge of what you're taught? Probably not. Should leaders, who, as it basically comes with the territory are self-absorbed, egotistical, and often prone to sociopathy and psychopathy, be trusted to keep “everyone's” best interests at heart? Surely it happens, I doubt it's the norm. Do I want Alex Jones' perspective on ancient Greece or Plato? He's not my first choice.

The big secret that no one seems to want to say is that nobody trusts nearly anything they do. The ones who do are bred to. The rich kids or the spoiled kids who think and talk like Ayn Rand yet leech and never touch the kind of accomplishments her characters were shooting for. (The irony of Republicans touting her book and example is...staggering.) Though they have basically stopped the motor of government so here's a great example of leaders and the consequences of their interpretations.

Anyway, these mind control cautioners never seem to theorize about a world in which everyone's a raving lunatic with a megaphone explaining how you're not being controlled by the right parts of the machine. They rarely argue on behalf of awareness or changing some policy that sells people short. They just sort of lament this mongoloid hive mind that crashes into every layer of society. Mark their words, if we don't save ourselves, well, man, we're just never gonna save ourselves and that will be bad, bad news.

Drop out. If you're willing to ride your notoriety or your degree and claim a kind of authority on a topic, you have to bow and respect what your merciful masters set you up to have. If not, drop out. If you rely on ad revenue or a handful of rich fanatics to keep your voice afloat, you damn well expect their minds to be controlled by your outrage. Your institution gives you tenure and a platform, but for all your words of wisdom, you're being stamped out? You need Alex Jones to help you mold young minds or report on abuses of money and influence? If not, then who's being controlled where and what can we do to save them? It's the media? Okay, well, we'll leave that can of worms for another day.

I drop out to the best of my ability. I still get pulled over when my registration's expired. My master that day let me off with a warning. He was doing a pretty terrible job of reinforcing the idea of a police state I'd say. I don't even think he pulled his gun on me! But to listen to the news or to watch things like this, you'd think that it's even possible to exert such an exacting level of control and influence from the top. That for all the social upheavals and wars and even weather, it just takes billions of dollars to finally work out the science of controlling this world system.

I'd rather plead ignorance before fear. Fear shows a kind of precise naivety and heightened self-assuredness that seems to get us nowhere in conversation. Just onto the next blip from the next conspirator to fuel our anxieties.

And it's stupid to watch these things and say something like “Well, what they say does raise a lot of good points! Just ruminate on the overall idea but forget everything they're saying in service to it.” Um, okay, so we should probably drop acid or get really high and produce our own version that keeps the heart but drops the lies? Ya man, I don't like mind control and money is evil. Righteous. This sounds like a caricature, but I honestly don't know what else it would reduce to.

I could use a little more mind control. I actively try to avoid having a job. I've watched too many movies and read too many books to be too smitten by even the coolest or most novel ideas. I'd surrender to the machine if I saw any evidence that I could trust it. It can get pretty demoralizing to be a stray cat.

[397] Follow You

When you're not creating, the default condition seems to be destruction.

I think I'm in a destruction period. A kind of deconstruction of the self that seeks out one of those elusive “ground floor” conceptions. I think I say mean things and kick trash cans instead of flood the air with loving epithets because I've lost something. The weird thing is that I don't know how it was ever mine to begin with.

I'm speaking of course of a kind of motivation and direction. My running guess is that being incentivized by money as a child to do well in school, combined with frequent affirmations of my good looks, leadership qualities, or intelligence has prompted me to internalize a set of expectations that have led to some accomplishments of note, but are plagued with periods where I don't feel like I am living up to, increasingly harder to define, “potential.”

The idea of a “wasted moment” is intriguing. I'm falling deeper in “love” with media and simply “information in general.” If I watch a movie every day this year, I'll have a perspective and range of references that I can bring to shared experiences with any number of friends or new people. If I spend ten minutes each day making a few phone calls or sending emails, in about a month I approximate I'll know how Monroe county politics works inside and out. An hour of reading will give me that many more pages of notes and ideas that I'll poorly relate over drinks trying to talk too fast.

What furthers my intrigue is how much I forgo ideas regarding the utility and purpose of “happiness.” I'm comfortable. I'm capable. I'm loosely content. This preempts too-compelling feelings of loss or missing something. It's why I insist I'm never “looking” for anything. I already know what I want or what I might do to get it. I'm very simply also aware of the myriad reasons in which those desires may not come true. It's not excuses. I'm certainly not afraid. I think I've echoed this before, but I'm more looking to persuade myself.

And I think this involves setting up different conditions than the ones I've experienced for, oh so long. This may be where the destructive nature comes in. Why I'd flirt with ending friendships or talking like a brazen and pride poisoned buffoon. That ol' zinger “the only truth is change” always rings in my head. I persistently have a hard time labeling that change good or bad.

It's about here that I think there's a danger zone. If I have things I'd like to do, or will perhaps get around to finding the right words and circumstances under which I finally manage to do them, having little to “prove to myself” so to speak, I think this is where people jump into living for other people. This might be where you seek to absolve yourself of whatever form of responsibility you hold and make it about them.

Paradoxically, I think that this is different, but inherently similar to “living for something larger than yourself.” You discover your “passions” by accident of engaging in them. You attribute all the grand language and ideals regarding your purpose and place. But it's different to consider yourself apart of something bigger or “deeper” than it is to substitute someone in for whatever you're supposed to be doing for “yourself” as it relates to your world.

I keep reading about, mostly people's descriptions of, depression. Things about an inability to really feel anything but carry on. That you're not just a mopey suicidal person to necessarily be depressed. If a comment like that gets 4000 up votes then it seems that whatever “depression” has come to mean in the modern era, it's working hard to become the norm. At least in the ranks of reddit demographics. To me, this then depersonalizes it greatly. It's a signifier to look at the environment.

I'll leave it there. I kind of want to make sure that just in case I die of a cheese fry induced coma in my sleep, the last thing I've posted isn't “drunk logic and language,” because come on, no one's gonna read everything to get the full context.

[396] Cut Edit Send

All the cool ways I was gonna start this are lost to the drive home....fuck.

I related in the last bullshit diatribe that I felt “infinitely conditional.” What I didn't accurately depict is that even at my worst, I still so god damn mother fuck believe and am better than the other people that I'm obligated to do better than the shit ass fuck all examples I see currently from them. (Literary scholars will struggle with this one in the future.)

Short story. Once, I tried to relate to Kristen and said something to the effect of “If I was basically total shit but still looked out for you, would you be cool?” And she responded, “You're incapable of being total shit.”

FUCK. Like, I hope you find people in your life to tell you the same obvious shit about yourself on the daily because if you're like me, you'll find ways to play and dance around that don't speak to the real shit. “It's no surprise to me I am my own worst enemy.”

Nietzsche has this idea of “exhaustion” that has stuck with me since the moment I read it. It's bottom floor how I conceive of you. You're exhausted thinking about this or that and therefore accept the metrics in place to codify your life. Sorry friends lol, you're normal too and your behavior is going to map out over years you don't care to think about.

So take that long term “circumstantial” idea.

Really think about it you mother fuckers. Fuck you writing me off because I'm drunk lol.

I'm with Kristen. I don't like the word love, I don't really believe in marriage, but I'm developing an ongoing set of rules and conduct that is “us” which will use terms independent of how I initially conceived of them.

Make no mistake. I'd totes marry Kristen. I challenge you to find someone of a similar disposition and looks that is going to give you “more” than whomever the hell you're with. All the shit I've ever said about love or marriage or relationships all remains true mind you. I just think it interesting and noteworthy the people who would make you stand on your words in a different wobbly fashion and why. Kristen is def one of those mother fuckers.

I think this partly comes from shit experiences at the bars. I think this also partly comes from always craving “real” in that pretentious “I know better than you” fashion. Like, I feel given the utter uncertainty of existence I don't believe in taking things for granted, but I'm no stranger to how I think and have to say “who the fuck else do you think I'd be with besides Kristen?” It feels like fate not because I believe in magic, but because god fucking forbid you think that in my actual life and circumstances I'm going to have anything less. You pithy peon fucks. My friends shouldn’t feel bad at this point, I'm just sayin.

And I like that. I like the “fuck you” factor. Because in reality, that's why I can't even own “sit on my ass status.” I'm stuck having to try and care and have this standard that you may not even care about that I still don't even think you can live up to haha. But that's what I love about me.

With any luck, I'll have many more years to misrepresent who the fuck I am at a fundamental level. I really do appreciate you tagging along. I never pretended that I'd have the encouraging words and motivating dialogue to keep us afloat. But surely, given that I carry on for my own clarification, that doesn't even need to mean dick.

My process is fucking stupid.

[395] All of You

Words falling on deafened ears.
I said it's too loud in here!
To say it once, then over again
I no longer hear you, I only pretend.

Dead in the eyes unable to move
Dart back and forth now begging to prove
Up and about yet nothing calls
Littlest life of something that crawls

Carry unto one form to the next
Leaving you empty now perplexed
Will nor whisper proving it true
I'd put it away, were I you.

[394] Very Bad Opinions

I've been lacking a certain honesty. I need to just shit all over a page.

I don't really care that I'm "wasting my potential" as the cliche goes. I think I'm often too informed by my previous accomplishments and they reassure and cripple me. I'm every bit a classic anti-hero trope. If cliches are bred from experience, then I could analogize myself to anything. Strip myself of responsibility. Trace every small aspect of my personality back to a character or cultural bias. I don't know if I'll be able to start caring again. I'm not looking for motivation. I'm not sad. I'm just no longer terribly concerned with much else beyond my own well-being. I'm also fairly certain that as long as this behavior persists, I can extrapolate if it's the majority opinion of most people about themselves, we will not last as a society in any kind of healthy or prolonged capacity.

I've always tended to get along best with people just a little bit older than me. I don't think I've been particularly "mature" by any means. For some reason, people who are a little older maybe feel a little wiser and like to be engaged with their "bestowed knowledge" in an intelligent or attentive way. Your peers write you off as no smarter than their dumb asses. People younger than you seem to resent you. But if they're older, you can put them at ease. They can claim a kind of "time spent" authority that doesn't make for your perspective to feel too threatening. That, and any brash or "Nick P. thing" I say can be written off as youthful indiscretion. Surely that window has to be rapidly closing.

I don't understand how I'm in such a good relationship. I still very much don't know how to get out of my own mind and really "be anything" for someone else. I can be nice, buy things, talk, watch movies and going dancing, sure. I don't think that I really deserve anything. I'm mean. I'm bitter. I'm comically self-destructive if only I could make more people laugh about it. And then here comes this other person who basically refuses to either see just how fucked I conceive of myself, or may think all sorts of terrible things about herself that means we can commiserate in our mutual esteem issues. This is a profoundly odd idea to me because I don't have esteem issues. Nor do I think hers extend any further than whatever the normal "all girls kind of hate themselves" range. Maybe it's Maybeline.

It's the part about not feeling anything unless I make myself. I design reasons and habits to provoke me into getting jealous or angry or whatever else. I really have not figured out how to "just be this emotion" unless I'm drunk. It's even wrong to say I'm bored. I always have something to watch, play, or do. I can kill time like it's my job. It might be closer to say "I'm not convinced." I'm not convinced about anything. I lack conviction until some profound wrong is flung square in my face. An opportunity to wield my truth. I feel infinitely conditional.

A good illustration is to again look at my relationship. I honestly think we've been so good at it for so long, the reason I empathize with the married couples in old movies is because you just sort of look for drama. To say "fight" wouldn't make sense because I'm on the side that's confused more than I feel I ever need to stick up for something. I've already won by having the relationship I want. I take no joy in back-and-forths picking apart accusations. I'm not "testing" to see if she really likes me. I'm not looking for a bad excuse to not be together.

But all the time in the world spent "just being cool" together is never as powerful as when someone likes to pretend we're not together. When the open relationship is used as a kind of excuse generator or the "it must be!" reason for anything that goes wrong. I'm fine if you have questions, but I don't like my integrity questioned. I don't consider myself "open" in any real sense anyway. I'm just perverted and this nice lady over hear decided "that's cool, sometimes I"ll be perverted over here too." This unbelievably old and insanely easy to understand concept, gaining momentum in culture, still beaten like a poorly behaved horse for any number of "insights" into the nature of my relationships. Oh well, not like it's hard to stop talking to people.

And why is that? Why is it so easy to not give a fuck about each other? It's always felt very feigned. Like, surely I like my friends, but I've had people I've spent as much or more time around that I'll maybe never talk to again. I can help with something if needed. But, it speaks to this not invested feeling. I can't gauge my impact until I get feedback. I don't know what I truly mean, so I don't get much to work with. I enjoy feedback on blogs and people assuring me some insight got them thinking. But that's kind of garnish on a meal I needed to prepare anyway.....keep commenting though.

And I always feel at risk for saying that "one thing that went too far" that ends it with someone. I'm pretty sure some comment I made about rape is why an old roommate deleted me from facebook. I know that making bobble-head jokes about beheaded journalists who, for some reason, the terrorists decide to kick in the head as they're bleeding out onto the pavement, are a particular kind of taste. I don't mind feedback and comments, but I'm still not concerned with the emotional responses. I think sometimes my friends think I hate them. Or they think I hate myself and it shows up drunk sounding like it hates them. These are both very wrong, but I'm stuck with the language available.

I hate "unnecessary" drama and stress. I hate complacency. I kind of hate expectations but not more than I hate acting like you don't have a care in the world. I don't care about your "spiritual awakening" that made you more comfortable with death after burning man. Should I? Can I? I hate the people I like moving away and it taken for granted that that's "just what adults do." I hate my family for how they've treated my dad. I hate that I've learned pity in how much I hate my mom for being insane lol. I hate feeling "on the cusp" of everything. Whether it's cussing out that family and burning their lives down, or disavowing some unhealthy friend I've reduced to being a caddy gossiper about, or starting some new organization or project that's no less prone to the problems "these kind of things inevitably face."

So I'm just filing my time. I'm just playing guitar. I'm just marathoning 80s movies (I guess to appeal to that slightly older crowd?) or reading the arbitrary recommendations of some enthusiastic blogger. I can "waste" more money hiring people to program things. I can run all forms of under-the-table and quasi-legal businesses. I can frame my accomplishments in any kind of positive or enthusiastic light, if only to not spread some "depression meme" across facebook. And who's it serving? Where's it go? Into your mind? Where you can ask yourself why if I have so much time or messy ideas I don't get up and do something more already?

It's that I don't care and I'm not trying to. I'm even at best. I'm "in a bad place" once I've gone well out of my way to spice up my week. I'm happy when I find something as glorious as Dr. Horrible and lucky to have caught the right amount of sleep. And it's weird. It's meh. It's blah. It's available for bar mitzvahs on weekends.

Hey, at least I don't hate myself, job, or life right? The part where people start to feel like they should die always seems a little overkill, no? I'm comfortable knowing that whatever purpose I'm supposed to give myself I've already conceived as being bred from innumerable forces independent of my insatiable will or unfaltering ego. Even if it was "moral" or "dignified" it would be subject to all the rigors that my mind puts ideas through, and reduce to that many more words and circumstances to stumble through. Wipe wipe wipe wipe

[393] Buffering

From where do we get our wisdom?

Whether it's the knowing glare at the kids who are learning their limits, or the gut feeling to remove yourself from a situation, there seems to be a place of, not even pure knowledge, but contentedness and knowing that we're convinced we're apart of as we get older.

Surely much of it is bred from experience. Incomplete experience, but first hand knowledge nonetheless. Maybe you started out in an abusive relationship, but not until you got out, spent a couple years playing the field, then sat down and compared that relationship to a flier, does it set in that you were in fact in an abusive place. At the time, you had nothing to compare it to. What he did or how you spoke to each other was “normal.” It set the groundwork for how you conceive of yourself, as well as how two people are supposed to conduct themselves in a relationship.

Being unlikely to be abused by my female counterparts in any romantic set up, my closest analogy is my home life growing up. I even had one reasonable and chilled out parent and one crazy one. But that didn't make the beatings, headaches, and drama anything less than “normal” when I fucked something up. Looking back I'd think that I'd never what to react that way to a child. But at the time, it was just understood that if something got broken or if a chore wasn't done, we risked being hit or having something of ours broken in return. There's a whole host of things I could claim to “really really know” about abuse.

And how often do we run into someone who has that kind of knowing confidence about something, but still remain actually ignorant or are stuck perpetuating a problem? It serves as a point of massive confusion. Take something like dating. How many know-it-all tips and tricks are there about how you should monitor your drink or if a guy does X it means he wants Y? I've read about girls who've been drugged on multiple occasions that it would be hard to blame for “taking it for granted” that guys in general are going to behave a certain way. Ultimately though, are they right?

There's a battle between your experience and statistics, and you rarely ever know or consider the statistics. I think often the most egregious examples of the cliches are what get talked about the most, and therefore become the norm. Tonight, for example, we had to dodge puke on the way to the bars. I pulled open a bathroom where a guy was sitting on a toilet puking on the floor between his legs. These things seem much more likely in the first few weeks of school than any other time I experience the bars. Is the conclusion then “All new 21 year old kids can't hold their liquor!” Not exactly.

Socrates was told by the Oracles at Delphi that he was wisest among all men because he understood that he didn't really know anything. The whole Socratic method boils down to feigning ignorance and asking an endless amount of questions of those who purport to be leaders or intellectuals. The first time you drink too much, in a way, could boil down to asking yourself what your limits are. You could be “wise” in pursuing that knowledge and learning your limits. You could also do it at your house and puke in a toilet, thus gaining more wise points if you will, but even when dealing with areas prone to irresponsibility and abuse there can be an ethic guiding your decision making.

This is why I have a problem with “moral blankets.” You can see in my old writing me expressing a kind of certitude about drinking or sexual pursuits that I find cringe worthy today. It may have been in a righteous vein, but it wasn't appreciating nuance. It didn't care about the details, and it certainly didn't concern itself with the environment from which its opinion came.

But I'm concerned with how we impart wisdom en mass. My ever worth noting hatred of cliches means that if I have kids, I don't want them to ever think “that's life.” That's not wisdom, it's a cop out. I don't want them to hear about warring states and have conflict become normalized. I think about places like Middle Way House that protect women to the best of their ability, but how do we get and perpetuate a message of what abuse looks like so that it's stopped or curbed before lives are threatened? How do we alter the playing field in general? No one wants to think “well men are always bigger and more violent, so this is about the appropriate number of women we can expect to be abused.”

I think it first starts with being like Socrates. First, you don't know anything. Now you're prepared to figure out what you might know. Now you can develop a habit of questions on questions without losing your mind. You can allow for difference and nuance without throwing out the underlying ethic.

I think it's important to state a kind of character that you need to adopt to proceed in a Socratic way. Socrates didn't fear death. In his mind, he didn't know what lied beyond so it was silly to get worked up. I think we often treat our conception of the world as a precious model that can never die. If it does, we'll never be able to reorient ourselves again. To force your perspective, to hold yourself accountable, and to internalize the consequences of change are fairly dramatic shifts in thinking if you're in a comfortable rut.

Do you have to live your parents mistakes? Do you have to live up to the, poorly defined, “societal expectations?” Is your horrible experience with a parent or spouse the guiding light in all your future relationships? Does your struggle inform and broaden your perspective or trap you? It all boils down to essentially the same thing. From where are you going to acquire wisdom?

[392] Not A Fan

I think maybe I'm just not that big a fan of life. This is certainly not the same thing as wanting to die. I think I use the term “hate” excessively, in part, because I don't think I've gotten to the bottom of what ties each use together. Sure, there's an  underlying disposition and perspective, but I'm not sure how much of it is mine to claim. I certainly enjoy being indulgent, but I don't consider my ability to gratify myself “life.”

My “natural” rhythm is to criticize. It's sometimes as if it's almost impossible for me to regard something positively, even the things I like. I can't just like a TV show. I need to comment on the vapid extravagance of the industry which sends terrible messages about how we should conceive of ourselves. I can't genuinely cheer for a sports team because I'm thinking about branding, money, exploitation, ignored hurt players, and how unlikely it is for “your area's team” to be from your area.

I can't even leave alone concepts like “communication.” It's not enough that news is simple non-reporting, but they're also not reporting in the dumbest kind of ways. I hate that I can ask, what I think are straight forward questions like, “do we really need ultra HD 4G curved TVs?” Only to be met with the question, “What? Do you think that technology should just stop progressing?” Oh, I see now, loud and clear. I simply should have never opened my mouth.

As I said, the things I like to do aren't safe. I reach a certain level of competence or mastery and then proceed to lose interest. I reduce my “talents” to an equation. They're an inevitable conclusion of good habits over time. It's easy for feelings of hopeless or futility to kick in when you see how industries are programmed, like music, and what they pump out very independent of ideas like “time,” “work,” or “innovation.” 8 hours a day to get fast fingers or perfect micro twitches doesn't stack up to a recycled beat and auto tune.

Take my struggle with the idea of friends. To start from a point of thinking of people as sheep first and in terms of utility, to switching into trying “respect” or dignifying their humanity is a hard transition. It sounds egotistical, naïve, and petty, but it worked and is a “stuck” point that is a constant hurdle to be aware of. It doesn't help to watch very obvious and foreseeable mistakes unravel over years because “live and let live” in the name of “friendship” trumped what I might have played otherwise. BUT THEY'RE MY MISTAKES TO MAKE NICK! Sure, but then I'm confused how we're friends and not just spectators to our various train wrecks lol.

And it's because I often think, how am I to respect “them” when it's clichés, unnecessary drama, and sometimes the worst displays of some level of denial or fear that I could imagine. I understand we're all conditional, but most of us seem to go out of our way to fit in to a lot of bullshit. I feel like the only person who could have less of a feeling of “you” than me at that point, is you. Let's give one more shout out to the things you'd never think to do or say unless you're drunk, which is incidentally corrupted as well given that mid-20s is now perceived as too old. To be broke, lonely, and stressed is adult and responsible, after all. Especially if you have a job, partner, and plan.

It's important to note, I don't feel labored or stressed. I don't have to go out of my way to see problems. I don't have to devote any real brain power or do work. I think of it like actually listening to your elders, philosophers, and scientists and attempting to change or live accordingly. I'm super keen on not making exceedingly predictable mistakes. Often that comes hand in hand with being mindful of how many sucky things can result in a different outcome than you're looking for.

It's around here that the dramatic irony kicks in. You don't have to engage with or agree with my assessment of life. You, I'm assuming, love what you do! And often, you'd advise me to run along and find my own thing as well. The, aha! moment. The secret is to ignore everything and everyone around you while maintaining the ability to appreciate and understand all the choices the world has to offer. Take life for granted the same way you take love.

I listened to an interesting Tim Ferris podcast about figuring out what it is only you can do. These guys with 20-40 years on me talking about transforming their lives and pursuing the next project. The money comes and goes. The ideas manifest almost at random. If we leave aside “being this kind of person to these people”-esc examples, my thing just seems to be writing. It's using my voice my way. Only I can talk like me, even if there's a lot of people saying exactly the same things I think about. Most of what else I think I do well, or can do well, are to me, common sense. And even in writing, it's just to help me move on to shitting on the next thing.

I think it's that my sense of self is inextricably tied to so many things I fix or avoid personally that we can't grasp at large socially. Maybe I just want more people to be like me. ;-)