[420] Suffer the Fool

How do you make someone suffer?

Regard the quiet hell of resenting everyone in a room as they play out tired stories and pretend to be a family. Think of the infinitely remote place you must inhabit to criticize your own silence with more self-deprecating passion than you could ever spew in hate-fueled epithets. Sitting and simmering, how you manage to keep your hands or voice from shaking is beyond comprehension. You want them to feel it.

This is a fairly dramatic depiction of what I’ll call “the fire in my belly.” While I’m arguably always primed to recognize or comment on what I consider shitty and stupid about the world, I’m so used to it that I’m not a 1 to 1 mock up against a ticking time bomb, but under the right circumstances, I’d deeply enjoy the explosion.

You can suffer your existence. I think in no small way a significant, if not the majority, of people are in fact doing so. Any “intellectual” failing I could point out about society is many degrees removed from some failure in health I could be experiencing. I wouldn’t try to equate the two. And for my purposes, I want other people to “feel my pain” in the realm of suffering fools.

This is going to be a struggle to speak deliberately about.

I’ve said a number of times how I’d be happy to never hear another opinion. Maybe it’s something easy like TV. I’ve seen somewhere around 350 shows to completion and 1400 movies. At a certain point, it becomes really dumb to ask things like “what’s your favorite” or “which one is the best.” Same goes with food. It can literally be trying to compare apples and oranges and open a window into arguing about what’s happening on your tongue. I suffer the person who tries to “logically” explain why “Arrow” is cooler than “Agents of SHIELD.”

But I consider the problem more serious and don’t feel the TV and food analogy selling it. Take your family. The majority of my friends have divorced parents, and the few that I can think of as still being together are arguably lying to themselves. If I were to make a claim about marriage, how much would we be comfortable allocating points towards opinion verses data? Can we claim a mutually identifiable and representative number related to the problem that informs the opinion? I think so.

The consequences of disagreeing about how apples taste or whether or not “Arrow” has some of the shittiest dialogue you’ve ever heard are significantly less than if you disagree about what constitutes a healthy relationship. But, in my experience, people seem to want to treat the playing field equally. Moreover, they seem to have an impossibly hard time differentiating the emotional component that would hold a grudge or break a friendship as they scream, “of course Stephen Arnell’s face moves!”

The problem is when it gets personal. “But she’s my MOM!” You have years of experiences with a person who stands for a hardly defined amount of good or bad things towards your life. Here I suppose is where I would try to visualize a layering of suffering. At the top, say superficial layer, you put up with rules you don’t like or maybe quantify every “I hate you” from your teenage years. Maybe around the middle, you hold your tongue about some of her views regarding “the fags” or “how she wishes you’d come back to god.” The third is the most encompassing layer. It’s the one I wish I could teach people how to suffer deeper.

Call it the “existential level.” It’s where things get overtly impersonal, paradoxically by virtue of doing so, all the more personal as decision making takes on a defining significance. It’s where you do your best to stand back and appreciate the feelings for what they are and attempt to “count” how this person would rate on your ideal conception of someone you got along with. It gives you rules, sets goals, and allows you to approach your interactions with them in a context that shows regard for more than your gut impulse feelings. You try to adopt the persona of their most “real” friend who’s not clouded by ever having had her read bed time stories to them.

I consider this suffering a kind of, if not a better conception, of empathy. In a family structure, a lot of bad behavior is protected because of, what I consider very tired and very bad lumped together ideas of what constitutes a “family.” I’ve had an aunt who was regularly beaten by her husband. They’re still together not least of which because they’re on the overtly religious side of the family. My mom is bat shit,  and my uncles have stolen money, time, and been completely unappreciative of anything my dad has done for them. My dad is a man after my grandma’s heart in wanting to be there for his family in continued dinners and interactions.

My question is what happens next if we don’t suffer these “fools?” What if instead of getting bogged down, abused, and hurt by people who are either too lazy, unwilling, or incapable of recognizing and respecting, we focused on smaller worlds we put together? My mom is a mind fuck. I goaded her into filing a restraining order. I got to sit back comfortably for 2 years knowing she couldn’t contact me. All I see is a win.

The bigger point seems to be that when we allow it in our “shells,” be it personal lives or families, we’re saying “that’s okay” to the behavior at large. We give license. We establish it as “normal” and “acceptable.” How many huge issues like war or poverty aren’t really small “it’s cool if he dies” or “I’m still good if they don’t eat?” The shitty behavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  What that person is or isn’t made to think about will bleed into the rest of the world.

I think at this juncture someone would say “well, treating them well is a good behavior that would bleed into the world as well.” And I’d have to disagree that it’s treating them well. Think of a spoiled child. If they don’t see privileges reduced or are set up to be encouraged when they’re doing the right things, they’re going to carry on being a little asshole. Being a “base animal” is easy. We’re always struggling with our roots. Ignoring our role in sustaining an environment that would raise everyone up is at our own peril.

And this is why I want people to feel that “existential suffering.” I want the world tomorrow to be a little better than the one today. The only way that’s possible or quantifiable is to be aware of when, why, and that you in fact speak up or change your behavior to expect something more out of our animal instincts. While I still don’t think there’s some sort of “peak man” and that we may be racing to nowhere in the nothingness, I still prefer motivated goal-oriented discussions to shit slinging.

The worst part is that it’s lonely, for a while. The thing for me though is that I prefer to be a loner shitting on things than jumping between groups of things I hate. I don’t need crazy ideas from my “mom” anymore than I need the hundred bucks at Christmas from my uncles who’ve stolen thousands from my dad. It’s the same habit that cuts out friends who arbitrarily start hating me after becoming afraid I’m going to disrupt their “cozy” life invariably built on some lie I’ll find it impossible not to put a voice to.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is going to happen. I’m as much choosing my little island as you may choose to suffer the people in your life. The important difference, to me, is I’m doing me very deliberately. I slut-shame myself when I’m reduced to shitty company or poor decision making. My default isn’t “but it’s family!”-esc cop-outs, as if I had a choice to be born to a crazy person.

I do not get the impression, at all, that people feel even remotely in control of what they’re doing or what their world looks like. They’ll claim they are, but ask them five pointed questions and you’ll learn how quickly you’re a terrible asshole who shouldn’t dare question the integrity of their decision making!

So maybe try a little harder. Confront your least confrontational friend with what you actually think. Refrain from “going along” with something that makes you sick. Find an island from which you can advocate for something more, not just to retreat to because you’re too stressed out or afraid. And then, maybe tell me when you get there. Because as I get older, I seem to only find people getting worse.  It’s like they’re trying to duct-tape together frames from a Disney dream world of ideas ever-justified by their waning enthusiasm for being alive. Seemingly stuck as they forget what it feels like to live for something more.

[xx-9] Sins of a Family

For those of you that don't know, my grandma died about 3 months ago after suffering a stroke and falling down the stairs. She never regained her faculties and needed to be watched 24/7 because initially could still fall out of bed and wander in a daze. She couldn't eat and had to be fed through a feeding tube in her stomach. She had to be carried to the bathroom and have a nurse come in to bathe her. She "lived" out the last 6 years like this in my dad's living room while both he and my step-mom were her primary care takers.

My dad is one of 4. He's got one older brother and older sister, and one younger brother. Both of the brothers have had managing or well-paying jobs most of their lives and graduated in years where degree meant high-paying job. One has lived with my grandma for 35ish years, moved out once for a few months, then came right back. The other has lived as modestly as a college kid must his entire life. These are not people who've struggled for money or need anything. There was some form of schedule where they would come in and sit and take care of my grandma and provide breaks for my dad and step-mom. This was to save face with my grandma's sisters and have a pleasant story to tell all the old Serbs if anyone asked.

They didn't just come in an relieve for a few hours, they had to have the expensive cable. They did their laundry, they ate much of the food, and did everything you'd suppose of a person who lived somewhere. This, in case you hadn't guessed already, makes your utility bills skyrocket. You see, one didn't pay those bills because he lived with mommy. The other had his modest apartment his whole life; the difference in price can be dramatic. They didn't just bring their habits. They also brought drama between them and my aunt who couldn't dare see my grandma for the half hour every few weeks if either of them were there. So imagine 50 year olds throwing tantrums about "I don't wanna see your stupid face while I visit my dying mother!"

There comes a time when the mortgage is in question. My dad doesn't know if he's going to lose the house. He's an iron worker and work is spotty and it wouldn't be so bad were it not for all the expenses of taking care of a dying mother and wasteful brothers weren't involved. They assure him "it's okay, there's a provision in ma's living will that allows for the payment of a mortgage or utilities in the event she has to be taken care of." My dad says okay and carries on.

This is for 6 years people. 6 years of having people in and out of your house. 6 years of care giving. 6 years of wondering how and if the bills will get paid.

Time comes and my grandma dies. She didn't play favorites and the will is clear: divide up the assets, split it 4 ways. This includes CDs, the sale of the house, and whatever she had in savings. The reason I'm getting to restart the coffee stuff is savings bonds she had for all of her kids and the grand kids. Well, you can't scrape a name off a savings bond, so everyone got those distributed. The rest was to be divided between her 4 kids.In order to make sure this got done, my grandma signed my uncle up as the executor of her estate. In his capacity he and my other uncle are trying to squarely fuck my dad out of his portion of the inheritance.

Now I don't believe in sin, but I'm positive that the word comes from actions like these.They invite my dad over, explain to him that they aren't selling my grandma's place and the money it took to keep the house running is coming out of his portion alone. You know, the house they practically lived in and didn't pay for....for 6 years....where their mother was taken care of. They want to keep her house "because ma signed it over to us." Which if one listens to my grandma, who made sure to tell EVERYONE what her intentions were for the house, she didn't. They didn't pay for that house, and signing over "take over the selling of my house responsibilities" is not "here's a free house after you've fucked your sibling and his wife for taking care of me." The CD's that would be split up don't mature for another couple of years.

This is why I don't have a conception of family. My grandma and my dad are the sole reasons I haven't ended up in prison for reacting the way I believe is genuinely and morally required in situations like these. It's not just that they're greedy, they're shitting all over the legacy I promise you my grandma would be in tears about leaving when it came to what she believed about family. Both my grandparents put all of their kids in college, helped out their neighbors, worked extremely hard and never left anyone out to hang no matter how dramatically they'd been fucked in the past. And these are their kids. Shameful and pathetic don't cover it. It's a fucking sin

[419] Not So Fond Farewell

I'm struck by how often I'm reminded that you can't rely on anything. Moreover, the harder you try, the more instances it will sink in that you can, in fact, rely on things going to shit. This alone isn't what distresses me. After all, the rule is entropy. Though I will continue to be perplexed as to the hows and whys of the failure.

The specific situation is a friend no longer liking me. This happens. I certainly know how to say and do things incorrectly that prompts some people to not like me. The confusing and frustrating part is when I haven't really said or done anything to provoke such insistence that I'm no longer worthy or capable of their friendship.

Let's draw up a contrast to illustrate.Yelling, hitting, demeaning, stealing, lying...these lie on the extreme, easily justified reasons not to engage with someone. Farther down, you may have "quirks" or personality "failures" that cause people to only want to be with you sparingly or in specific situations. This is generally the realm where I identify most of the reasons I could understand someone no longer liking me.

I'm exhausting in my ability to tear things down. I'm really bad at not saying things, I'm told, "society" has a problem with. I get very pointed or seemingly argumentative when I want to know more about something you think or claim to feel. If I had my way, everything ever said would in some way reduce to being about sex. I mean puns and innuendos of course. So, I very much get it.

But, mostly the people who stick around, at least pretend, to get it as well. It's not that I have to behave like the above, but it speaks to the default easy way I relate to the world. I'd like to believe that if it was too grating or inappropriate, someone would let me know. After all, we became friends in spite or because of it,no?

It gets weirder though. I tend to lose friendships for things that come COMPLETELY out of left field, at least to me. I consider myself a fairly introspective person. I get plenty of gut instinctual reactions if our dynamic has changed. For the life of me, unless I say something blatantly terrible or am going out of my way to treat you like shit, I never seem able to catch when a particular conversation, in our years of conversions, was the one that sent you over the edge.

Say we hooked up. Of course I'm going to make jokes about being jealous if you get a boyfriend. It also doesn't mean that he isn't kind of an asshole if I felt the need to tell you, but that's something else. I've made jokes like this before, and it certainly wasn't because I consider you "meat."I would think if it was that disrespectful or icky to you'd say,"hey, not cool man, dial it back" or "was that meant to be as shitty as it felt?" Because, overwhelmingly, the answer is no. It's what I would consider an "obvious" no, given that we've known each other or gotten along for say, minimum 3-5 years, and that isn't randomly "beyond" how or what I joke about.

You get this sense that you're not given the benefit of the doubt so you can then be summarily dismissed.

Now, I have a theory. I don't think there really is a line, at least not one marked by the superficial things like misinterpreted conversations. My instinct is to try and discuss and identify what's gone wrong in order to maintain the friendship. But, sometime's I'm met with someone who persistently wants to frame me and my intentions in nothing but a damming light. So, I think something else underwrites that insistence.

As to what that is, it's really anyone's guess. Maybe they resent you. Maybe they've stock piled things thy don't like about you for years and now the flurry of accusations and character portrayals are their artistic interpretation of the monster they've concocted. Maybe you remind them of something or make them think in a way that doesn't jive with the life they've set up. Maybe they just got bored with you.

For me, time spent or good conversations aren't accidents. So, then neither is distance or shitty conversations. I feel like I make such a priority of trying to own when and why I could be considered an asshole, that I don't think it's fair or that I deserve to be surprised by your dishonesty. Don't be afraid to go away or tell me what I did wrong. I don't kick and scream and I've never approached a conversation with a friend where I was deliberately trying to sever all ties over some small misunderstanding.

It occurs to me as well that I'm sick of feeling like I need to lay down on some sword. 95% of you I haven't seen in years or barely talked to even in chat. I've set myself up as a kind of personality apologist as if I just go around kicking babies and yelling the N word while expecting you to "deal with it." Here's a less nice way to say it. If you're over me, get the fuck out of my life, as I really don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong.

I don't think there are enough people who care to appreciate the significance of an apology and conversation. The fact that they can lead you on for years as if to speak towards that dynamic that you could share, is quite the let down.

[418] Wherefore Art Thou Romantic

I’m not a romantic. ::pauses for gasps::

My instinct is to say is that it’s because I don’t like lying. More specifically, I don’t like lying about stupid things. Of course I can white lie my way through day to day pleasantries or to save my ass or something. But I don’t like lying about how I actually feel or what I think is actually happening. It seems stupid to try and delude myself.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have my whiny angst ridden rants about being in love as a teenager. These things are powerful, and not just in their powerfully poor wording or strong admonishment of paragraphs. “Love stuff” and “hopey dreamy changey” shit is the most powerful force after all of the 7 deadly sins. It’s really the only option people consider when they’re not trying to excuse away their deliberate bad behavior.

It feels like bad behavior. It feels like trying too hard. It feels like a show. The movie moment is no more sincere than the actors portraying it. Every story about undying love carrying you into the future is bullshit. But, we’re an older crowd now. We know this already, right?

Because I don’t think we do. Maybe it’s not in your relationship. Maybe it’s in your friendships. To be sure, romanticism, can blanket its fair share without ever getting all the way to the L word. Who’s your “best friend” and why? When you stop texting them or letting them know you’re in town, do you just call that “growing up?” Because in response to one guy’s short story, 1500 people on reddit certainly agree that’s what it is. We’ve certainly seen the portrayals of best buds on the playground growing up and toughing it out in the movies. How soul crushing to have to move on and be an adult! 

It’s this single dialogue I’m tired of. My “best friend” is a relatively emotionless sociopath not unlike me. We relate because of our mutual “shit on the world as it actually deserves” and “achieve things in ways no one else tries” perspective. You could be my best friend tomorrow if you operated like that. Connection is about shared perspective. You lose the “romance” of your togetherness when you don’t respect it for what it is. It’s when you become disillusioned about it not living up to a, very likely to be unrealistic, standard.

You’re my friends, presumably. It’s because I either enjoy, or at one time enjoyed and keep crossing my finger’s you’ll return to, your perspective. It’s not really a rating system. I’m not trying cry myself to sleep at night because you have different things you want to do that have nothing to do with me. I know that I can expect out of me a kind of allegiance to you. It’s all I have control over. If you need to “grow up” and it involves never talking to me again, that’s on you. I consider myself your friend because I like You, not what you’re supposed to mean as apart my emotional crutches for the future. 

I try to choose to “have it all” in the company I keep. Nothing more, nothing less. I think this only becomes hard to understand when you look past how much is there already. I don’t really “wait it out until things are better.” I’m not dreaming about one day conducting my life on blissful autopilot. I fell under what feels like a very isolating spell, but it’s better than feigned enthusiasm and wishful thinking. I used to consider it “adult,” but that’s proving to be as nonsensical and arbitrary a term as you could hope for. Oh well, guess it’s back to letting things happen around me.

[417] Talk Down To Me

I'm plagued by a thought that the whole of existence rests on contradiction. Alone, this sentence sounds ridiculous and I'm hopefully going to make it less so as I carry on.

The image that comes to mind is Oprah.If her face doesn't exist somewhere on a brand of tampons, I'd be surprised. She's a wave of influence about really almost anything.But she's a kind of bat shit. Because she's doing what she's doing in the name of charity or happiness though, the people who ended up screwed on their taxes by claiming their “free” car stories are generally ignored.

It's' a a language of wide-eyed wonder and motivation that tends to placate what's actually happening. I never see the kind of enthusiasm and push genuinely without this shiny veneer. A beautiful new city gets built on the backs of slaves. A fervent political movement seeks to “protect our values” and “promises it's not racist.” A handicapped baby is god's plan to teach me patience and understanding.

I just read an old piece of mine echoing George Carlin sentiments. Carlin will never be Oprah. He can be insanely more reliable and correct than Oprah could dream of, but he won't take on godlike status outside of the cynical comic culture. Hell, it was Robin Williams who took on the larger than life position, and maybe take a moment to think about what we did to that conversation.

It makes me immediately turned off to things that are “flowery,”“metaphysical,” “cheesy analogy about awareness, being awake,or how goddamn beautiful and exciting everything is.” It seems like such a deliberate act. And yet never will you find more energy and praise than when it's done at full throttle. It's a religious energy.“Righteousness” justified, even if it's only done so by tricking your perception.

You can state the facts of our complicated existence and it can still never be magic. I'm more water than meat, more space than water, more bacteria than human cells, and have had experiences I may never find the right words to (on or off acid). But because you're not speaking about what people want to believe you're never going garner the same kind of support. We “hoped”for “change” with Obama, but we weren't specific about what things were supposed to change into. Don't read too far into some political ideology. The point is the language and preying on perception verses reality.

Maybe it's “forbidden love.” Boundless, all-forgiving, let alone so consequentially obvious! Yet speaking to every level of drama and strife that often stand as some of the worst experiences in your life. Calling it a naive endorphin rush is no fun.

I'm fairly tired of hippie guru bullshitters trying to intellectualize via not-that-modern metaphysics or beautify steaming piles of shit. I don't consider the exercise worthwhile, honest, or helpful. And the idea that it's only after people “meditate” and “reflect” on those “lessons” and “truth” from hence springing motivation and enlightenment is sickening.

[416] Unhappy with Your Riches

I think I’m going to change my tune a little bit and say that I am indeed searching for something. Often people tell me they hope I can find whatever it is. The idea of looking for something hasn’t really sat right with me. The things people tended to associate happiness with once they were “found” always seemed like something of a lie or short-sided. When I think about what I’m looking for, it basically sucks to think about because I can’t really give it to myself.

It’s one thing to desire a kind of job, for example. It’s very tangible and there are often guidelines you can follow that assure you you’ll get there. My “inevitability” idea that practice plus time tends to equal a polished version of what you were practicing makes a goal in that vein feel incomplete. There are certainly a lot of really cool jobs that take a lot of study and expertise. People make plenty of claims about the happiness and fulfillment they get from working on what they’re passionate about. That’s fine, but it doesn’t really sit right with me in our current climate.

Let’s quickly move through a few ideas I’ve already talked in detail about. I’m interested in too many things. More to the point, I’m interested in what ties them all together. I describe this as being concerned with culture. On top of leaning towards a “big picture,” I feel little to no, or very particular, motivation to “prove something” as it were. I don’t have significant financial obligations, very many people I respect who expect anything out of me, and have worked myself to literal exhaustion and nearly passing out in previous projects.

But how does one go about expressing their interest in “everything?” How do you look for it and is it even possible to define or find?

I think it easiest to describe how I envision the process by starting with something small. Let’s take gun violence. It’s important to note, I even relate to it as “small” deliberately. It kills about as many people as influenza and pneumonia a year, but you’ll never see as many images of people coughing as you will memorials and photos of dead black kids. If you’re awake, you’ll have noticed presumably every possible angle you could engage with the topic.

Whether you start discussing police training, America’s general “gun culture,” not-so-passive racism about poor people’s accountability and sensibilities, the ease of access, the various kinds of weapons, the state of mental health care, militarization of police…the list goes on.

What bugs me is that I think I see something that supersedes the mess of “national conversation” that manifests as pointed ignorance in comment sections and “news” sounding chambers. Rarely, if ever, does the mass preponderance of conversation center around economies. Rarely, if ever, does a conversation revolve around the environment or reasons that stem beyond a very, what I consider small-minded, idea of culpability.

So I want to be an economist, psychologist, or sociologist? No.

I see a general “bad philosophy” from certainly a ton of people, but from my window of the U.S. I’d want to be someone who could address that. I want numbers to drive an ethos and not in the way we worship money. This can go wrong like Bill Gates responding to education numbers or right like Bill Gates responding to the number of people who die from malaria. I think his driving ethic remains “more noble” than your average rich person who doesn’t need to know anything more about charter schools or vaccines than the numbers they’ll return on a quarterly earnings report.

Take Elon Musk in how he talks, and why he’s in business. I think “he” needs to be national policy. Where’s the department for making sure more people like him exist? Or, how do you get people to recognize and appreciate what he’s doing? Creating and investing for the future because it’s right and just and profits come second. He’s acting in good faith towards the whole of humanity.

So I want to be in promotions or marketing? Perhaps ambassador to the world of lefty moral elites? No.

My first, and kind of last, idea I’ve managed to have to be like Musk is to go into business for myself. It feels like I need to create an engine. Here we can use an appropriate car analogy. If you think of big car manufactures, your grandparents might be prompted to say they built “just fine” engines that got you around, are immortalized in certain models, and spoke to the industrial backbone that made America dominate. The actual history and consequences of that engine are less than ideal.

We built an economy around combustion and fossil fuels. I could build my engine in all sorts of ways. I could exploit pyramid structure themes. I could work 22 hours a day in any number of jobs. I could leverage myself monetarily and through enthusiasm and smooth talk bolster my numbers and research. I could dye myself in the wool of endless sacrifice and scrape together some machine that you’ll presume, as it took so long and much effort to get, is fundamentally worth taking pride in and bound to work.

I say this because of firsthand knowledge and accounts of what people say as you’re accomplishing things. They say them regardless of how you feel about what you’re doing or how you get there. It’s not always mere politeness. They’re reflecting the simple themes their culture has imbued. Whether it’s the almost spiritual righteousness of achieving in business or their uplifting faith in your temerity, it’s not a conversation of tempered expectations.

So this leaves me with an overt concern with all the pieces and circumstances that create my engine. To think how often you hear “war is good because it fueled our mission to the moon!” I find this horrifying, and not because it’s speaking truthfully about the circumstances of the era.

What I want to create takes a lot of moving parts. And learning directly the amount of things you need to create and run a coffee shop and delivery van, let alone build a framework to struggle with “culture,” is humbling and sobering to say the least. In a way, culture is the run-off of dominating power. And if most business power comes from operating in the shadows or manipulating politics, now the problem seems even more complicated.

But, what if you manage to find a way to wage one angle of your battle in the realm of ideas? My diminished hopes for the reach and capacity of language notwithstanding. What if you catalyze people to think like you or approach problems in a way that depersonalizes it? Make them realize they’re after the same sorts of things you are and that maybe their depression, anger, or hopelessness is conditioned. What needs to be created in the mind before you start playing in the real world?

Because that’s going to be the driving force. That sense, you can build to last. Whether it’s a charismatic leader who bleeds into every level of a company or a group of individuals who feed each other’s motivation and creativity, there are places you can “take the temperature” of culture. The scatter-brained nature of social media will always be “the struggle” more than the pulse.

So, I’m looking for more people “like me.” When I need money, or, significantly more than someone in my economic circumstances can expect, I do everything from drug studies to yard work to save up and experiment in business. The long-term planner and humility in me recognizes this as inefficient and something of a mockery of how I desire to operate. I do things “now.” I pick up the phone, or resolve the problem or read as much as my eyes can take about something in order to move to the next step. Employing that habit “alone” is not getting me where I want to be. I’m not culture, and dislike the thought of being on some kind of self-satisfied island complaining about or ignoring the parts I see as problems.

It pains me to think that in order to find the kind of enthusiasm and free time required is the purview of college. Unfortunately, much of the enthusiasm came from naivety and hedged betting. And my forays into employing from that pool are proving fruitless and stressful as well. If I picked, literally anything, I could find people with open arms and endless thoughts they’d love to share. Because I want something big and abstract and hard, it’s fundamentally alienating; even discussing it prone to ridicule, let alone confusion. I can’t expect to change knee-jerk reactionaries when I have no counter-culture to introduce them to. And I can only take so much solace in knowing I’m not actually alone as long as we’re failing to even discuss ways beyond our circumstances.

[415] Philosophy of Self

In response to the idea that something I wrote would be regarded as "pointless."

I think it best to focus on the very idea of "philosophizing about oneself." One might ask, where does the self begin? Whether you pick the moment of your birth, the first time you stared a little too long into the mirror, or codified your mind's eye by writing or creating something that needed to be expressed, the self is nuanced to say the least.

I often think about cliches. Incidentally, this was a running theme in the post that was considered "pointless." How much of "yourself" exists if and when you're able to reduce yourself to a set of cliches? Your age group liking the same things and commenting with the same references. Your "quirks" being regional or genetic. Your deeply held convictions the runoff of various power structures that all but physically conditioned you to hold them. Picking that apart takes a lot of time and a lot of words.

An obsession with self can run dramatically different directions. It seems to take a degree of honesty to not only recognize, but concede, the severity of the difference between those directions. If you're talking about your woes of being in love, it's going to be hard to sound less than indulgent, selfish, immature, petty etc. If you genuinely get off on the idea of putting people down for not knowing something, you probably won't get past your 2nd paragraph before the asshole tone starts to creep through.

I like to believe I write, generally, because I'm merely thoughtful or engaging with new terms and material. For my audience who's familiar, I never hear "you're pretentious!" or "ooooo so many big words!" The latter of particular intrigue given that I rarely have a fucking clue about which words someone is referring to. It was told to me that if I were a "clear and concise" writer, my blog "would appeal to everyone."

It's here that I feel two forces bumping up. The ever-changing, hardly defined, perhaps impossible to fully quantify "self" and the idea that it's not only just and proper, but preferred that it be reduced to, I don't know, the text that can fit on a meme picture? Surely no one believes a piece of anything is going to appeal to everyone.

But the idea of shortening things up does not come alone. You also were attempting spam, need to take writing classes, are trapped between 13-19, and certainly don't understand the underlying logic and preference of the hallowed forum that is reddit. Nay, without a single quote, attempt to answer a question, offered perspective, nor even soft lead in paying deference that the piece was even read, you've now been set up to be "criticized" by those, apparently significantly older and wiser than you. It is a very weird dance.

Now, I've personally beaten the word irony to death. In the complicated and contradictory self, it's not hard to find instances that frequently undermine things you'd like to firmly believe about yourself. And the underlying chronic ironic state of reddit is just something to accept and deal with.

In any event, if I'm discussing "people" or "reddit crowd/tone" or "myself as it pertains to (fill in new topic)" inevitably, it'll strike someone to respond. There is a range of responses. Here's where the irony kicks in, where what I would call "pathetic opinions" rush to defend their "criticism." They pile on the irony by appealing to reddit's habit of pretending to be a doctor, pretending to be a teacher, and generally pretending to have anything personally invested in their "defensible position." The thoughtful engaging discussions that run with the theme, they happen, but not as often as I'd like. It's the epitome of a mixed bag.

At this point you get to choose. You get to choose how you understand responses. You get to choose why you've written or bothered sharing. You get to choose your own responses, whether it's to quietly move on or switch to troll mode and provoke inanity. And as far as my self is concerned, I go with a mixed bag.

Writing to me is a kind of stark honesty. Not in that you're "striving to be honest." But words stare at you in a way that thoughts never will. It's a way to build something while deconstructing. That, often, seems to be a worthwhile point in and of itself. Thinking for the sake of thinking. I've never been compelled to write pages about my breakfast or how much I hate Halo.

I find it terrifying that this process would even accidentally, let alone persistently, be regarded as "pointless." One more point to irony when your loudest "critic" will tell you they feel sorry for you and your propensity for mental masturbation. As if it's bad to think, or to masturbate.

[414] You First

I spend a lot of time watching. It's to the point of being aware of being several kinds of cliché. If you look at enough personality surveys about introverts and extroverts, inevitably you'll find, not unlike with horoscopes, some condition, title, or description to identify with. Some researcher who's nailed down how “out of place” you may feel in different social situations, or your ability to be a solemn genius leering from the corner. It is at once interesting and a chance to gain insight about yourself, but also a chance to conceive of yourself very impersonally.

I'm hoping to describe the apex of being that infinitely-reducible cliché with individual choice and personality. It seems like with vigorous academic study of systems, it becomes really hard to blame any one person, even if upon being in a room with them, you might be roused to punch them for their culpability. Hating the sinner rather than sin if you will.

I'm going to deliberately refrain from paraphrasing Democracy Incorporated by Sheldon Wolin as I'll sound stupid, but reading it and combining the amount of time I've devoted to movies and TV shows is sitting oddly in my head.

It seems like a common idea to blame “the media” for something. The polarizing or surface scraping stories. The lack of accountability. Sourcing things like Buzzfeed or Twitter to bolster an argument or flame war. Even before the 24 hour sounding chambers of bad ideas, it seems to me people were still comfortable pulling things out of their ass. Right and wrong were no more garnered by the evidence and history “back then” as they are today. If you were a real news person, you had a reputation to protect, there were less sources of information, but it's significantly easier and in greater number the amount of sources studying or reporting on all walks of life. Today it's different means of taking in information, same (but more) metrics to evaluate.

With that in mind, how is it not your fault for being misinformed? Yes, there is a ton of information. But, if you can afford nothing else in modern society, is the internet not it? And, I mean, libraries.

When you read political theorists and teachers one disappears from the land of individual choices. It's really hard to reconcile ideas about how power moves or consolidates when you can't point to the roles of the staggering number of active and passive players. Paradoxically, we don't conceive of ourselves as nodes in an “inverted totalitarian regime” even if our behavior would suggest that's what we are. More to the point, we don't know what an “inverted totalitarian regime” really is, including me, and I'm in the middle of a book about it.

We try. The Daily Show and Colbert consistently attempt to mock and undermine the ridiculous dialogue of fear and self-justification. You can collect your corner of “real media” with “actual truth” and “on the ground” reporting. They're still trapped within a culture that's all but obliterated what words are supposed to mean. The idea of connotation going the way of Michael Bay. All the sordid details of environmental tragedy or criminal acts are broadcast daily, to what end?

Because what does your responsibility look like? I think one of the reasons I watch so much is because I don't know what else I can really do. I've given myself the burden of at least talking and reading about it, but I don't really believe freezing my ass off in the street with a witty sign is going to achieve something better. I've written to enough Congressmen and gotten their bullshit responses. Do I own my current society by being “passive-ish” in the same way that the money and policy makers do? My gut says, not really.

Ideology becomes the air we breathe. If you have the privilege of free time and the capacity to learn, then you get to fulfill that cliché of “angry academic type” who dreams of a world where we drop books instead of bombs. I can be as self-righteous in my knowledge to think “above it all” as a piddling religious type can condescend, and what do we each get for our effort? A chance to die with different fingers pointed?

While words attempt to nail down flowing ideas, before you've found new ones you'll reside under familiar umbrellas. Outside of your deliberate consciousness to act in any one moment, you'll float seamlessly into a category. “Poor 20-something male who loves Dave Ramsey and Tim Ferris.” “Inappropriate comment maker who's too smart for his own good who called school 'easy.'” “Tall 'alpha male' who's fought significantly more battles in his mind and with his fingers than he ever has in the street.” Sometimes it's a wonder what can be said about you that spans beyond The Simpsons, South Park, and The Onion.

For my part, it almost seems “more appropriate” or “more responsible” to just watch. The longer I go without a job, the more I start to think about the staggering amount of pointless and useless jobs. I would genuinely rather watch hours of TV and movies than doing anything “labor wage-esc” simply for a paycheck. I've never been part owner of any company I worked for. I was never paid more for extra time or extra effort. I want to own my effort, even if it's directed towards categorically easy things. I don't blame me.

That's another symptom of making things impersonal though. Your effort doesn't quite register as yours, or as strongly as it might have in the past. Am I being molded by my system? The complaints I had about school, the problems I encountered in opening my business, the dwindling or unstable opportunities for my working friends, all foretold as consequences of political forces. One more echoed refrain to the sobering reminder of how much your life has been dictated by that which came before.

And it's a fine line between understanding that and excuse making. I'd rather own up to saying “my heart's not in it” than to describe in too many details the world that compels me to my basement. At the same time, I still recognize what my effort is likely to amount to. I know that it's not just an uphill battle, but someone's also greasing the hill. To get back into the game or attempt to persuade other people to do so involves a lot of canvassing the shifting field, at least for me. Running on sheer enthusiasm and will is not sustainable.

I don't know if I'm any closer to connecting my effort on the page to a kind of justified political will and organization that creates nice changes, but I do know I'm the only one at the plebeian level among my friends and cohorts who frequently bothers to publicly share his impersonal complicity. That's something right?