[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.