[442] Just A Moment

I think it’s all that we’re really after.

I think it’s all that we really have.

I think it’s why we take pictures. I think it’s why we relish what makes us sad.

I just read an amazing article by David Graeber on play and having fun. Jon Stewart signed off from The Daily Show. I’ve been constantly trying to reconstitute “just what it is I do all day” in terms that don’t make me feel lazy, depressed, or genuinely proud of achieving critical levels of “boredom.”

No more do we want to be remembered for a violent outburst or social faux paus than we want to forget what it is that makes us great. You share wedding photos, outdoor excursions, nights out (up to a point), or graduations and new babies. I would argue you’re no more or less those things than the time you threw something through the window while arguing with your spouse, but footage of the latter you don’t voluntarily share to Youtube. I think we rarely discuss if not barely understand these “moments.” In the age of instant outrage and viral videos, we actively work to drown out subtlety. It’s very noisey. It partially speaks to how I became relatively comfortable with doing little else besides watching movies and reading. I’m living in one long and perpetual moment that suggests we should slow down, think a little longer, and find our inner boring.

It still constitutes a fairly bad way of describing my situation though. I don’t consider gaining perspective on topics I find interesting boring. I don’t consider having my time to do with as I please even remotely negatively. It just gets boring not having anyone around willing or capable of discussing or working with things. Literally everyone I know has a job. When they’re done with their job they rarely have the time or inclination to do anything else. A fairly tired and predictable pattern that my generation seems fated to adopt indefinitely.

Continuing to work backward, consider Jon Stewart or comedy in general. What is laughter in terms of timing or tearing up? A momentary reaction. It’s in a moment you find offense, wisdom, surprise, camaraderie, and empathy. People will remember Jon (like he’s dead or something) in his impressions of Bush or most shared videos where he can’t be funny because he’s feeling too angry. What deeper yearning (besides the one to actually fix something) can you have in years of ridiculous policies and people that lead to death and destruction than to try and laugh at it?

I think this is why he insisted on his title being “comedian.” His second to last show describing how things have gotten worse instead of better regardless of his mockery and pointing out of hypocrisy speaks to it best. When all you can really do is laugh, it seems stupid to ask that person to shoulder the responsibility for actually fixing something. That’s not his job. But then, how do we really make sense of his job? How do we make sense of our own?

I certainly don’t have an answer. When I stopped working to do drug studies I managed to get my rent paid almost 5 years in advance a few weeks at a time. Was my spinal headache worth it? Now that it’s on it’s way out, I can say I’ll relate to the stress of being taken advantage of for months at different jobs or years in general in a worse way than I’ll remember the headache. What did I feel was being asked of me before I started this method of obtaining the almighty dollar? To live up to my potential? To garner respect? To be an “adult?” To make enough money to take care of my old and feeble parents in the future?...chuckle chuckle...no...really…

I once praised my overbearing ability to disrespect. I prefer to think in terms of affirmation though. I don’t want to think “my friends do all sorts of stupid shit I don’t like or agree with, why bother trying to impress them?” My version would be closer to “I hope my friends realize the problems of having too much time on your hands pale in comparison to the kinds of stress they relate to me about their lives in general.” It’s not about pissing matches and arbitrary judgments. It’s a genuine desire to hear your voice honestly relating how and why you’re doing something. You can gauge who I am and what I do just scrolling through my facebook page, and definitely through blogs. I can barely see you.

More specifically, I can only see the small tailoring of your existence to facebook pictures or likes to statuses. If 95% of your online existence depicts .05% of how you spend your time, or what’s on your mind, I scream foul. It’s not that I think we should just wallow in some kind of hidden perpetual misery, specifically, but I think we refuse to engage with it in order to protect the status quo. We can’t find the fun anymore because “life.” Or the fun is handed out like doses of cough syrup attempting to deny a bigger cancer.

I would constitute that “cancer” as potentially suffocating because we’ve boiled all the plankton out of the ocean. I would call it the faux outrage we express about quasi-racists, assault, (sexual or otherwise) and dead lions. A “heavy” topic is what you make of it. I’d prefer a light-hearted Daily Show take and proactive sentiment as opposed to “this isn’t the right time,” “I’m just trying to unwind,” “It’s not that serious,” “I’m too busy,” “It’s really not my responsibility or fault,” “I don’t know! What do you expect from me?”

It’s about what you allow into your moments. It’s why I habitually look for the “bad” thing to say about some “perfect” picture. But we don’t think about our lives as simply playing with things. We need legacies and statements and purposes. Do we pursue them with deep appreciation for the words? Do we think anything is being sacrificed in how we pursue them? Is the picture really as simple as the language we’ve been given to describe our lives would suggest? Do our tools, which imply a purpose by design, build something better as opposed to merely more complex or time consuming?

I suppose I prefer to look lazy than be actively arbitrary. I beckon the robot revolution killing every unnecessary job. It was a doctor I reduced to a “fucking bastard” with my, presumably intimate, understanding of his culpability in creating my spinal headache. Reflexively throwing the peaks of human determination and knowledge under the bus for a fairly common outcome seems unfair. I’d rather blame a machine that didn’t sacrifice years of it’s life pursuing a doctorate, and will likely have a precision and technique no human could ever master anyway.

You’re lucky if you can consider it a game. Then the fun, knowledge, and experience of time is an end in and of itself. The more you examine our role-models and the language of “self-determination” and “goal-orientation” you can discover how we shackle our thinking about how it is we can achieve or pursue what we want. I don’t want money. I want to not have to live with my parents and to eat. I don’t even just want time. I want memories. I want a broader definition, but more specific goal, of our “work.” We’re predisposed to saviors, excuses, and rationalizations. We adapt instead of pursue. I don’t want to feel desperate for “someone” to “fix everything” while I ignore or deny why I’m the problem.

I figure, even if you refuse to believe we can play by the same rules, it’s still gonna end. As long as I keep death in my moment, it helps shape my attitude and approach to the game. Time always feels like it’s running out. Certain subjects feel worthy of more stress or worry than others. A deep seeded yearning for real connection and truth takes root. So be it if that truth is “reduced” to a set of probabilities, experimentation, and struggle-bus language, you can still make it fun. You can still try to work on it with people instead of next to them. It’s nothing personal, it’s just a game.