[426] Is As Does

I find that I think I consider myself an elitist, but hold no respect or value in the arguments and odd justifications for elitism. I truly will need to be dragged into the public sphere, temporarily, to enact my civic duty, as Plato ordains, and have no genuine interest in the petty conceptions of power or control offered by modern political and financial apologists. My platform is one of ideas. First and foremost that, in general, we're all incredibly ignorant and perfectly unreasonable.


Here we can go very different directions. Some use that sentiment as an excuse to pretend everything is so unreliable they can unironically only believe in their own personal experience and justifications. Others will throw their whole backs into expressions of science as a form of "absolute truth" deliberately and haphazardly undermining how and why you pursue something scientifically. I like to think, like with all ideas, it's simply something that stands as an opportunity to be proven wrong. It's admitted that it can be wrong. If anything, it's hoped, desperately, that someone will explain in detail the depths of its wrongness.


Because we operate in ignorance. We don't really have a choice. In order to make one assertive declaration, you default yourself to denying a thousand points of view that might see it tempered or incorrect. And it's not always for lack of effort or willingness to pursue knowledge. I rest many of my positions in life on people I consider authorities on different subjects. But, I don't just "opine" that they're authorities, they tend to bring more references to a single speech or essay than one would feel comfortable contending before much study. They counted something. They did the work.


My concern is when people scapegoat, when they make excuses. I don't care what the idea is, religious, greedy, solidly ignorant like a claim about race...when it's used in service to bury the obvious questions or dodge the obvious answers, it's probably a bad idea. Watch 15 investigative pieces from Frontline or 60 minutes back to back. It doesn't matter the topic, the asshole who's lying employs the same language and often facial expressions when they're contorting a deliberately incomplete and contrived answer to account for what went wrong, particularly why they aren't the one to blame. Seriously look, from financial scams to Indian baby mills, when normal people find themselves in unjustifiable exploitative positions, they revert to children in their body and actual language, but with bigger words.


People get emotionally and personally invested. Thus, they're prone to lying and fucking things up. I don't trust anyone who's so overtly invested that of course it's in their best interest to sell me. I don't want to hear a pitch, I want the details related and to see the results myself. Because often, that's a simple matter-of-fact story. It can be a rather boring story. It's the only story I really care about.


I wish I had the perspective or the teachers to better explain to me people from history. We've all been told the Allegory of the Cave, but that hasn't been tied to Hamilton and The Federalist papers or how people in the Bush Administration literally quote them and use bastardized interpretations to justify war crimes. That makes the ideas matter in a way that "hey kids, Plato was important, so memorize his birthday and read this short story" very much doesn't. The idea that ideas need to be maintained as much as they need to be fought for rarely comes up. Things like the Civil Rights movement and women's suffrage are presented to be taken for granted on the road of progress. They're not precariously placed in history and in need of further advocacy. At least, not at my schools.


I find nothing more consequential than ideas. A single idea can provoke you to endure any hardship or create seemingly endless fallout. Every idea needs to have a check, a doubt, a reason it could falter. It's uncomfortable (who would dare to argue against Frankle and his search for meaning in a concentration camp?), awkward, and often terrifying, but there is no substitute in fighting against proud headfirst dives into wading pools. If we don't figure this out, it's the bottom floor idea I have as to why we won't last, and don't deserve to.

[xx-15] Erroneous

I've only ever lived in Indiana.
I used to have a mini cooper (terrible cold weather car)
I've never been in a car accident except with a deer (poor deer, mini handled it like a boss)
I've owned 2 collies and 3 cats
I've traveled to Wisconsin, Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Colorado, Canada, and accidentally New York when I missed the exit for Montreal
I can play the saxophone and guitar well and the drums and piano less well
I write frequently
I was in student government, FCCLA, spell bowl, and chess club as last minute extra curriculars. Marching band as practically a job, and jazz band for fun.
I've graduated high school and college
I've had 12 jobs I didn't own, in order, usher, (later hourly manager), Target cart boy, high school woodwind teacher, IU Telefund operator, twice a website developer/promoter, cab driver, steak n shake grill guy, cell phone cover seller, real estate agent, liquor store cashier, landscaping/yard worker
I've never been fired
I've had 2 jobs I did/do own. Coffee shop owner, now coffee van delivery owner (currently in stasis)
I've done ~20 medical drug trials
I've seen at least 1,379 movies, not including documentaries, lectures, and debates
I've read or listened to ~200 books
I've seen every episode of over 300 television shows
I mostly stopped playing video games around 15, but play Little Big Planet and Smash 1 & 2 occasionally with friends
I've had both my tonsils and wisdom teeth removed
I've only ever broken my nose
I've played soccer, basketball, baseball, and dodge ball on a team, ultimate frisbee semi-competitively when it's warm
I've had sex with 30 women, and fooled around with 70 or so.
I've been a member of a gym, library, Kroger, and the Federal Body Inspectors club
I've got 2 best friends and a dad that I'm beholden to more than myself, might throw my brother in there if shit got too real
I've got about 15 people who are legit as fuck that I'd look out for more than the average Joe
I've had a restraining order filed against me by my mom that just expired this last Thanksgiving!
I've been pulled over ~35 times and only been given 1 speeding ticket (10 years ago) and one for not having my registration
I'm dramatically below the poverty line and you'd never guess it based on the sheer amount of nice shit I have
I used to be a thief (from big box stores), this is unrelated to the above point
I wear a yin-yang necklace everyday, not because I know really anything about Taoism, but because the idea of balance strikes me as right and proper
I've been to Ozzfest (when System headlined), Warped Tour a few times, a Beach Boys concert, Linkin Park and Incubus, Victor Wooten, Sara Watkins, Jimmy Eat World, Sum 41, Senses Fail, Shiny Toy Guns, Sleigh Bells, All Time Low in a dinky coffee shop in NW Indiana first before I knew of them, and then front and center for a Warped performance a few years later
I've been to So You Think You Can Dance's road show, seen the Madison Scouts, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the ballet something in Chicago, all the museums and the Shed Aquarium, the Taste of Chicago, the zoos, and Navy Pier
I've been to Cedar Point, Six Flags, and Universal Studios, Deep River and ridden every roller coaster and water slide
I've seen American Idiot's crappy road crew Broadway performance, and listened to Richard Dawkins give a talk at IU auditorium
I've seen Neal Brennan, Al Jackson, Marc Maron, Guy Branum, and Ron Funches live.
I've been to 9 Cubs games, and 1 White Sox game
I've tried cigarettes, shrooms, acid, cocaine, weed (likely allergic), molly, ecstasy, but currently just drink and not often enough :(
I used to have a stripper pole in my kitchen and a silky room with black lights and a ton of pillows dedicated to hookah
I survived drinking 31 shots in one night.
I have long curly hair, an eyebrow piercing, and a back tattoo.

I own 3 vehicles including a moving truck, coffee van, and neon, and 5 acres of land.
I've climbed to the top of a couple mountains, and been driven over the side of one.
My bills are $400 a month, including utilities, gas, and food
I'm 26, 6'2 and 205 pounds, healthy, but could stand to get healthcare
I view my aspirations towards greatness as intrinsically frivolous.

[425] ¡Viva la Revolución!

I wonder about the need for change.

As a state of existence, it might be supposed that there’s merely an expression of our circumstances. That is, there’s no choice. That which is completely stagnant is conceived of as dead, we’re alive, and therefore as long as we’d like to remain so, whatever constitutes us has to change.

The battle is between incidental and purposeful. It might be a form of naivety or weak imagination to think you can have a purpose, but nonetheless here I’ll go.

I started writing because of a need to change how I was thinking. I was deeply suffering the conclusions I was drawing about “love,” “god,” and “friendship.” The stress had nowhere to go. Even with people to talk to, if you’re a better writer than you are speaker, you can walk away even more frustrated after a discussion than if you had kept it to yourself.

I want to focus on the necessity of change. When something will either destroy you or be tamed. I often seem to adopt changes that I think need to be imposed at large that people don’t conceive of for themselves. In doing so, I’m feeling the compulsion to change into what I’ve generally characterized as “no longer giving a fuck.”

I consider this a problem. Much as if you feel like you’re drowning you should surface and take a breath of air. I consider losing my capacity to care as letting the first stream of water into my lungs. I want people to be angry that I wouldn’t care. I want to be blamed. I want to be held accountable for my perception and how I’ve spent my time. I remain unconvinced by selfish solipsism.

Let’s run with something easy, like climate change. People were ringing bells about waste, overconsumption, pollution, etc. at the start of industrial ages, but the money won. Now, we’re in the middle of the ever-growing dramatic consequences, and not only do people still deny those consequences, but you’ll find the biggest push for things changing has nothing to do with respect or knowledge about the planet, but because companies who caused the problems forecast smaller profits. As the money wins again, the “need” becomes a reflection of greed.

Most social goods seem to find themselves corrupted because genuinely life affirming needs are subverted. Occupy wants to change capitalism for crippling the world? Occupy isn’t paying the police. You can’t eat healthy, or go to the doctor, or learn without a middleman. You can’t argue on behalf of better philosophy or moral obligation. There is no memory of what those look like. There is no expectation or feeling that they are deserved. Ideals rest on a precarious ledge. When they fall to one side they’re abolished or forgotten, fall to the other, subverted.

Why fight? What is a “revolutionary” mindset? When you’ll talk yourself into a stupor? When you’ll alienate the powers that be until you’re so obscure not even rats will meet you in a basement? Why try? Are you not ultimately attempting to fix or change something so remarkably corrupt, as the human animal seems to be, that you’re advocating even beyond that which constitutes you? Are you not arguing for your own death?

And I suppose I am. I wish my worst fear was accidents. Acts of god not carried out by his terrifying and ignorant zealots. I wish I never needed another violent impulse. I wish for even a brief period of what “common sense” used to signify, but could apply to culture at large instead of squabbling at the level of whether women are capable of opening their own doors.

I almost want to say I’m scared. But I don’t really feel anything but angry or more often nothing. I don’t have to have kids who will suffer the same intellectual indignity. I don’t need to goad myself into caring more by having them either. I can’t even promise I’d like my kids given how little I can stand engaging with “anyone” in general barring anomalous or drunk situations. I wouldn’t feel like it was up to them to fix things. I’d keep blaming me and my idiot cohort as well as the “greatest generation” and their irresponsible offspring.

I’m no longer terribly sure of what my signals to change are asking of me. Should I double down on being a hermit? Should I pick up a loudspeaker and make a new home of the street? Should I take it easy and just go on vacation and try to enjoy life because, after all, it’s short, and such a precious thing to waste.

It’s just so popular to focus on yourself. Because I don’t hate who I am I can’t get on board? I’m not trying to run from anything. I’m not trying to get off some medication, don’t have 50 pounds to lose, don’t hate my job, don’t hate my girlfriend, aren’t in debt, what else? What keeps people so engaged in their lives? What makes life so selfishly special in a way that I can’t access? I’m reminded of watching my friend pray and thinking there was a magical world of experience or divine wisdom happening behind his eyelids and on his knees that was simply beyond me sitting there watching him. The answer then, as I’m sure it is again, ignorance.

And if I’d want people blaming me for acting ignorantly, it never bothers me to blame you. So if I stop caring? Should I set a suicidal example? Obviously not, you should know, I really like me. Am I merely telling myself that I haven’t learned enough?  You can learn something new every day and I can’t think of one that goes by where I don’t read at least an essay. Maybe I just need lessons in style, tolerance, or patience. History informs, but it doesn’t reassure and it certainly only proves what we already know.

A man just asked me to move to the side of the table so he can continue working on his puzzle. Fitting.

[424] I Think You're Craaazy

Right now, I'm very confused with myself.

In a very important way, I consider myself a very mean person. It might be more accurate to say I'm very comfortable doing or saying things that are mean. It might be even more accurate to say I'll react in disproportionally mean ways to get the point across that you fucked up sending me the incorrect energy.

A few examples to illustrate. I grew up with an, arguably, verbally and arbitrarily physically abusive mom. When you're a kid and your stuffed animals are practically your friends, she gutted one with a pair of scissors as I cried harder than I ever have before or since. 20 or so years later after several years of not talking to her, she invites me to Thanksgiving dinner, I respond with variations on “fuck yourself you fat cunt” for several weeks at random hours of the day and night. Disproportionate response? It was to the police that showed up at my door making sure I wasn't mentally unstable.

Next is something a little more light-hearted. I went to a friend's house to party. The house portion of the night is wrapping up and me and another friend are dwindling in the living room. I'm fairly drunk, he's not so bad, but while we're chatting and about to leave another gentleman and his friend descend the stairs. One goes, “fuck you!” and turns the corner to which I respond “fuck you, you fucking faggot!” In a way that would very much convince you had a problem with the gays, which he was. He charges, we fall to the floor, I push up and put him on his back and raise my fist. My friend hooks my arm and spins me off, averting what I promise would have been a deeply regrettable situation.

Walking away is the clear and wise choice. Shutting up and ignoring are strategies you will not find me arguing against. I've been capable of it before and after these instances. Some situations just feel so “justified” even in defiance of a kind of standing hypocrisy. I could do the weird thing and claim all my gay friendly street cred, but that wouldn't really serve what I'm hoping to speak about.

The confusing part is having that representation of my person in mind while I experience the kinds of moments from a few minutes ago. I'm prompted by a picture on reddit of a fat guy dancing. The story accompanying it was someone laughing that they made him stop once he realized he was being laughed at. The look on his face in the “after” picture made my stomach sink. All the comments in the thread were in that justified righteous vein of “I wish I was there to kick those guys' asses,” just as I had felt. Now, I can accidentally make fat jokes for hours if I get on a roll, but that feels exceedingly different from tearing someone's heart out for dancing.

Maybe I like to live in a kind of contradiction? A superficial contradiction at least, as in on the surface, but with very real lines. I don't believe it is “correct” or “helpful” to spread hateful mental discord, yet, I think me sending vulgar texts is a different kind of terrible than picking on children or cutting up their friends. Who you fuck is one of the least concerning things I could think to name, but you bet your ass I'm going to sling ignorant hateful language if I think you gain a certain kind of “power” or “pride” in acting like an asshole because you think no one is going to challenge you. (He was being a dick all night.)

I like to work in obscenity. I think way too often that we have destroyed the kind of emotional significance of words or what connotation can carry. And for a population that primarily seems to communicate through feeling instead of thinking, I like to send messages that prompt you to react.

I was taught cruelty. I think it is so powerful that I can still get a little short of breath and misty eyed thinking back to situations from my childhood. I like to turn it into something superficial, cliché, laughable, and starkly contrasted to what we should expect out of ourselves. It's not about being an overprotective mom trying to pretend dirty words don't exist, it's about leaning in so far than you fall over and break the power. Small example, my friends practically ignore or don't hear the obscene or ridiculous parts of what I say anymore. A new person to our group asks every single person friendly to me why they're my friend.

I also feel like I'm standing up for something in my capacity to be mean. I can handle it, so to speak. It's borderline do as I say not as I do. I'm at home as the “dick” or “obnoxious” one as long as you understand I'm not trying to caricature and excuse myself as a person, I'm hijacking the language. As I explained to my brother who conveyed the message “mom's really worried about you, thinks you need help,” you can only speak “Crazy” to crazy.

Just this last weekend I responded to a random number scolding me over a Craigslist ad they considered too harsh and rude. I called them a nigger, assumed they must be a woman to sound this naggy, said I'd like to see (Not set! That'd be a threat!) them on fire, then innocently asked the question if texting me their number might have made them easy to find. Immensely inappropriate and disproportionate 13 year old 4chan shit...but who goes out of their way to bitch at people unprovoked? Maybe I just saved them from their own snobbery and accosting someone who's actually dangerous.

I know I'm a person, but I don't think I act like people behave. I don't think I'm appropriate or fit in unless I put myself in “normal person mode.” But I'm certainly not arbitrary. I'm not full of surprises like your friend who got a little too familiar with hallucinogens. You can see my jokes or “generally horrible sentient” miles and miles away. And I talk about it to give context, because superficially, I'm in zero disagreement with the kind of historical practicality that comes with a mature or stoic response.

I suppose if there is a war going on for your mind and battles are fought within the realm of ideas, I'd rather horrible things get thought about me, or focused on me, or blamed on me in the aftermath of my response to your wanton, seemingly random, flinging of horribleness around you. Lashing out in insecurity is the norm, no? Blaming others for your problems and making them feel as bad as you? But that can only be glancing blows, especially when you picked on someone who can take it, redirect it, and focus it back into from where it came. You may be able to rip out a “nice person's” or fat guy's heart, but mines still in the hands of a mom who tore out her child's.

I think we need new words to describe whatever my mean is. Because I'd like to believe there's a message that is easily lost in all the shock and awe of the naughty and scary words that next to no one is going to find my blog to explain to them. Simply “having your feelings hurt” or “offending” you are infinitely removed from preying on someone. To me, you've just then turned yourself into meat. Justified? I'd argue dramatically more so than our proclivity for violence. And I mean, it's not like they ever contact me again.