[423] In The Mean Time

“Hella sweet!... But what’s the catch?”

If society had a handful of statements that underwrote how we conduct ourselves, the kind of faux-enthusiasm chased by an impending sense of dread seems one of them. There are no “simple” pleasures. I can’t eat a cheeseburger without knowing that I’ve done more damage to the planet in doing so than driving to the burger place. You can’t pick up a nice outfit or a new phone without knowing it was made by a Chinese student slave. Try taking a shit without wondering if all the antibiotics and growth hormones that have been pumped into food are actually passing through or nestling in somewhere ready to preempt a coronary episode.

What about getting a hobby? I have a treadmill and weights. You can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet. More than your ability to make better food choices is why you have 99 opportunities to pick differently before you make it to the “organic” section of Kroger. Oh, you didn’t hear that there’s no regulation on the language or definition regarding what can be considered “organic?” What it could mean to be “healthy” pushes a little farther out of reach.

Okay, just acquire skills! I bought a book on learning to draw. So while I’m solidly under the poverty line, reading about the pseudo-jobs once professionals are being forced to take and what “recovery” means for this failing nation, I’ll get really good at pretty pictures. Or maybe play some music! Think back to simpler times when you marched or had winning jazz pieces almost memorized. Alone in your cold basement where one day you may get so good your cover of the latest Gaga track will get you over a million views and an invitation to join Ad Sense!

The modern era makes it hard to dream.

The brunt of my dissatisfaction has little to do with “having a more positive outlook” about my talents or free time. It’s that the selfish pursuits described above don’t hold the kind of dignity in and of themselves that I’m after. If the majority of music kids you know are either awkward, dicks, or otherwise unable to fit, it’s the isolating yourself and “circle-jerking,” as I refer to it, that made them miss the required playground altercations to help them get over themselves.  If you’re a music kid that doesn’t know what I’m talking about…I’m sorry, you might be one of them.

But this is kind of the, to pull it into something political, the neoliberal ideal psychologically. Everyone should be out for themselves. Magic forces regarding the free market and perfect information are going to make it so the people who really try and learn about things are going to get ahead, while the lazy and entitled can suffer their bad decision making. It’s an abject fantasy, but it’s winning.

I’m always in alternative mode. I’m not allowed to be “as sad” or “the same kind of sad” as the people around me. My worst case scenario is still being debt free. If I “hate my job” it’s after I took it to help pay for my entrepreneurial goals. If I’m starting to hate practicing music or working out, I better run while watching an engaging show or lecture or hit the practice pad to some hilarious pop/metal numbers.

The problem is I don’t know what the “next” alternative is. I’m certainly comfortable, but I’m not happy in the kind of secure way that means I can fix my car or hit the doctor if something went horribly wrong. I sense no “political” will to change things among my peers or fellow townies. People seem very comfortable adopting their own personal hells, and if you come in with too many bells and whistles singing different tunes, you’re met with that overt fake enthusiasm and doubtful stigma.

The problem goes deeper though. It’s a very “personal” issue, in a sense, to shape my own circumstances and perspective with something I can speak positively about. I’m concerned about the information I glean from the people studying the different areas I poorly reproduce in blogs. When I read a Stanford political science teacher who writes entire chapters detailing the history behind this “itch” I might have about how people are or aren’t behaving politically, you immediately close the doors to a lot of “little fixes” you might have employed to brighten your perspective. When I can set up RSS feeds about some topic or term I want to know about and make spreadsheets detailing the "state of that particular world" only to just be able to sit back and marvel at the lengths I'll go to alienate myself in conversations, you wonder why you bother learning, which is a new level of terrible.

But why take their words for it? I do, but credentials are going the way of the dodo too aren’t they? We don’t have a society that seems to know how to sort through and dissect information. Or, if they do, they need the insane amount of time I have to even begin feeling like they aren’t talking out of their ass. And this is a huge problem. Trust is one of those fundamental conceptions. You build neural networks based on what has been repeated. You get fucked all the time, your brain molds to feeling like getting fucked is “normal.”

So when I describe my friends as battered-wives, they’ve probably been mentally beaten for a really long time. When I get derisive and judgmental comments about how “easy” I have it in comparison to the 50+ hour a week worker who will remain in debt for 10 years if they're “lucky” to have a job that long, they clearly aren’t seeing any alternative than to pass the pain around. I certainly have nothing positive to spin about their system, that’s why I do whatever I can to pull out of it.

I see nothing genuine. I see no hope, no plain just past the horizon. I see a huge deliberate structure that is clear in its goals and capacity to achieve them that has everything to do with keeping people as financially and mentally insecure as they are now. And I’m always looking. I’m not trying to be unnecessarily depressing, but I couldn’t imagine a more depressed and sad circumstance. Maybe more weather disasters and a deeper food and water scare? Rooting for catastrophic disaster to wake people up feels like the “best” thing that can be done. If that’s my informed conclusion…

Some things have to be genuine. Some people actually can change things. But unless you’re asking me for the names of a handful of billionaires and politicians (who I’m sure got where they are completely transparently) barring intrusion of fate, I don’t know what anyone is supposed to expect but more of the same, if not worse, as they shuffle around trying to pretend little daily accomplishments make the blight of their larger reality better or justified. 

And I could go through, hyperlink every line that feels like my "shitty opinion," pass you around the internet on the same dizzying trip, recommend the 12 books I read during my last clinical trail stay, tell you about a bill you could oppose locally and give you every number and email of everyone even remotely responsible for overseeing, voting, and proposing the shit that fucks you, and the larger I make the basin of resources, the quicker it will be ignored. Because I'm naive in my tactics and position?