[493] Me Be Me

What if I am but an instrument? What if every selfish pursuit is a necessary lesson in the continuum of existence? There’s a line that’s been haunting me. “Be the hero of your own story.” It’s that I don’t know what to think or feel about it.

At first pass, it sounds insanely naively selfish. Fuck your story. Who gives a shit about your story? It’s only been in the relatively recent history of humans that “you” was more than cannon fodder or something highly likely to die before the age of 2. It seems to bump into the very fact of existing at all. “Why” as a question always seems insufficient. “That” you are here and can decide it’s about you or whatever else is what’s massively intriguing. 

If you consider yourself an instrument, a product of incalculable forces, your life gets easier. You don’t feel guilty about your travels around the world peeking in on poverty and silently endorsing unfettered capitalism. You can spend as many hours as it takes behind your startup or hobby. You can freely exchange words and love like they’re of no consequence. Sure, you’re a cog, but a cog that flows. You’re a happy cog. I recently said we’re looking to be a part of almost anything. Finding your place in the machine can be immensely reassuring and life affirming. 

If you’re not an instrument, you don’t get your answers to “why.” You’re left making many assumptions. You’re left leaving things up to testing and chance. In other words, when you don’t know for sure that you fit, despite your inclinations and general sense about what should be done, you’re left in a fairly dangerous spot. You can devolve into nihilism. You can act arbitrarily absurd and seek out authoritarian regimes. You can pretend like nothing is ever wrong and be the intractable hippie type I hate. 

I think existence suggests orientation. That is, I think being is as much a conclusion as anything else. “Should” we exist becomes a non-starter bullshit question. Should I write this blog? Fuck you, an infinite number of forces came together consistently until I found the capacity to put words to the “page.” It’s a miracle you can read me. It’s a miracle I have the opportunity to try. 

I’ve stated before that entropy is the rule. It’s also only the rule as far as we know. It’s the rule to as best as our instruments can tell. We can’t figure out quantum mechanical structures or behavior. What is the word “entropy” subjected to the statistical underpinnings of every particle in existence? An absurd question we’ll never answer. 

In the meantime, we’re left doing what? Me? Writing. You? Working. Society? Denying and slowly (but not slow enough) dying. Questions require scale. They need conditions and parameters from which to understand things. I don’t reflexively call Trump a fascist. I waited till he literally parroted Hitler and Mussolini. But what else is there? What more are you to worry about than the body politick? Why shouldn’t you be overly concerned with interpersonal struggles? Why shouldn’t you campaign as ferociously for love as I try to denounce it? 

I’m scared of loving what I do. Stated differently, I’m scared that the farther I disappear into my own ass the more “good” we’ll see as far as changes in society goes. 

Hopefully, you’ll see immediately why. I’ve adopted a narrative about “it isn’t about me.” I’m enough for me. I believe in me. I don’t need your help or endorsement. But if I start doing well by “doing me” and in turn there’s some positive fall-out for the rest of the world, I’m provoked to endorse everyone being as selfish as I feel inclined. Is that not dangerous? 

There are immediately points of contention. I consider world-class musicians and athletes. These people can be heroes for spending years focusing on a single subject. They can “inspire” youth to transcend their circumstances or live in accordance with a regimented lifestyle. At the same time, no matter how beautifully you master a piece of music nor perfect your bounce and shot, we’ll happily die and cow-tow to political forces that transcend your ability to get good at something. Sure, this is fairly linear thinking, but is it ever referenced or used in any other fashion? 

I always wonder why I feel hopeless when I try to learn something like physics or a new instrument. Does the world need me to learn these things? What happens if I’m Yo-Yo Ma with all my ideas about how to help people get engaged and knowledgeable about their place on the planet? I feel like you have to hate me at that point. You have to be disgusted that I would turn on the thousands of words I’ve expressed about what seems to underlay my being. How can you give a fuck about my “passion” or “talent” when I scapegoated the larger issue to impress you with my muscle twitches? 

And then what do we do with the person who feels like me about something I think is a speck? What if you’re as passionate? What if you’re as “convinced?” And now you make Michael Jordan look like a bitch. Is the world better for it? Can we be compared? Is the exercise patently futile? 

It’s at the same time that I think we should all be able to find the time and inclination to learn something at the world-class level, but no-less engage in the forces that are larger. This is the problem. It’s not a comparison; it’s that we’re not comprehensive. We don’t add to a plate we pretend is too full already. We deny there’s a world beyond. 

The ego of “survival of the fittest” is small-minded. The moment we could say “I” and recognized it as a part of everything, we opened up an opportunity. We suggest transcendence. We provoke a level of understanding and behavior that doesn’t even recognize the modern myopic vernacular. This is my struggle. Am I learning a new instrument for me, or to fit into a group of people that understands what music means to us all? Am I creating a website and compiling information to stroke my ego? Or do I want to stop hating the stupid ass fucking responses I get from you for why you’re not as stoked about what I’m doing as I am? Is it bask and gloat or teach and engorge? 

I think when people have lofty dreams and forget it needs to be about us and not them is where you get stories of “my whole life was dedicated to this, and when it happened, I thought, fuck, that’s it?” Your life should be an example. You have to acknowledge, not concede, how integrated your being is to everything. Then you feel the rules for more than empty edicts handed down through an authority. Then you can act confidently in the face of nihilism and solipsism without fearing enduring ignorance. Take what you can be “sure enough” to be true to heart and to be true enough. 

If you understand every line or none, we’re still on the same page. I’m trying. You’re trying. We’re basking in opportunity. “Potential” is the mirage you allow yourself in service to inaction.

[492] Life on Mars?

By way of analogy, I feel addiction is powerful. You have to admit you're sick before you can get better.

This is perhaps the ground floor statement for attempting to help an addict. There's no hope and nothing changes without the admission of a problem. That problem is under layers. It's now a habit or incorporated into your personality or social group. It's got a book’s length worth of excuses. It makes you feel good, or at least, nothing at all. It seems to be people who also don't have a solid handle on their own lives calling you out and what you are as the problem. You still have to admit it.

An addiction or disorder can sneak up on you. You start innocently or you ignore little signs until you find yourself in a dramatic scene wondering how you got there. We tend to think of addiction as something on a different level. You can be addicted to drugs or alcohol maybe, but if someone said you were a “workaholic” or addicted to drama and heartache, while the latter still meant to be damming, they don't think of it as requiring a 12-step program.

I tend to think the mind is an addict by nature. The mad scramble for collecting resources, learning things, abusing pleasures, and seeking out novel experiences. It's an addict for validation. Whether you get it from your peers or the story you tell yourself about your place in the world. You want to feel like you belong somewhere, nearly anywhere.

Of course, it acts on a gradient. According to everything I've ever read about alcohol, nearly every time I've gone out with friends, we're alcoholics. Then there's “a few too many every night” crowd, and then there's waking up the gutter and destroying your life. Realistically, there's as many kinds of addicts as there are people, but there's no way to talk about everyone. Bottom is different for each person.

I suppose I want to think about what happens next. When you put a voice to something you might be addicted to. Say I said I was addicted to reading. The next step would involve planned time off. It might be scheduling better sleep or more outdoor activities. But for something like that, it's not tied terribly close to my emotional well-being let alone physical health. It matters towards my sense of self-respect, but in reality, that's probably evaporated years ago. You might think of the news as at least putting a voice to things we consider problems, from general misconduct to terrorism. But it’s never enough to just talk about it either.

What if we consider the family of an addict? How do you live with someone in recovery? A lot of tentative trust, patience, checks and balances, and communication. Inevitably some claims about love keeping you together. You're my family or like a brother to me and so forth. But it can get too much. People can get cut off. One of the highest predictors for recidivism of any kind is the environment you plug into in order to recover. The Biggest Loser people almost always put the weight back on. Do the producers feel guilty or take the blame for the profitable, and ridiculously false, narrative? Of course not.

What if we’re perhaps generally blind and ignorant of what a proper definition of addiction would look like? Maybe it’s more of a philosophical constant to incorporate into our storytelling and cultural lore. Maybe it’s naive to think there’s a strong science for “generally curing” what keeps people hooked.

I’m tired of professions of “adulting.” Look at me, I’m stressed out, have no time, am taking my few days off to veg out or buy a lawn mower. So adult. I think we’re addicted to a narrative. I think the narrative repeats and exaggerates the mistakes we’ve been bred from. It’s an idealistic upper-middle class conception of what’s valuable and worth spending your time on. Stuff. Perfectly framed pictures. Countless hours at the office. The most loveable pet you’ve ever seen.

When every day I think about how hollowed-out my relationships have become, because of how “busy” people are, and then see home appliances and backlogged emails forwarded as the tortured point of empathy we’re supposed to “like” or “cry” about, I feel the hole in my chest grow ever larger. I think of the career bulimic looking for a pat on the back for keeping down a whole banana. Are they really healthy? In that moment, are you going to make some stupid comment about how good fruit is for you?

In truth, the more I admit to myself, sometimes the more problems it imposes. I do feel like that old and/or obese person who’s borderline without shame at the thought of dying soon enough. Once that sinks in, you have to structure new rules for governing the kind of hyena-esc sensibility as it gets louder. It took a while to feel comfortable doing studies semi-consistently because the realities of middle-management, minimum wage, academia, and the military are even less what I’m about than being a guinea pig. I’ve written about the precarious nature of entrepreneurship and how inflated and rare that title applies in hoping to avoid faux-pride.

I’ve been overusing the term “cliche.” I feel it’s because while I’m constantly searching for new inspiration for “fixes” or ways to approach a cultural conversation, most people are addicted to the narrative. They have the same habits and excuses. They have the same hopelessness or debt. They’re simply rolling along “their” particular path because without the time or spirit to contemplate change, it doesn’t feel possible. It doesn’t feel real.

It seems like a “hate the sin, not the sinner” situation in my head. I don’t hate you for taking pride or deriving happiness from something I might personally think is kinda stupid. I hate that I don’t believe you have more than that. I think it’s a sin that social media defines us. I think it crept in and amplified an already toxic narrative of self-worth. I don’t want you kicking pebbles, pretending you moved mountains, when you hoped to conquer the moon. Suicide can take much longer than you think.

[491] Fear and Loathing

When do we get to stop being afraid?

I almost just want this to act like something of an exhaustive list. Why shouldn’t we be afraid? If you’re financially insecure, something as small as a flat tire can cripple you for months. Live in that place long enough and try not to think about getting hurt or sick. What if your life is at the apex of decisions you made long ago you didn’t realize were terrible? What if you never find the job? What if you never find the partner? What if the partner leaves? Isn’t it great that if things go well you’ll get to watch your family members die before you? 

What if you’re afraid of yourself? How are you going to get the depression and anxiety under control? You know how you are when you drink, what if you hurt someone? What if you think too long about why you drink? What if your friends or boss finds out you’re a fake? What if you can’t face how much your heart isn’t in it anymore? How can you deal with what people will think and say about you if you pursued what you wanted? How do you expect them to forgive you when you can’t forgive yourself? And what are you going to do about all this debt? 

Make the misstep of being a well-read person. Heard about our crumbling nuclear infrastructure? Read up lately on the long term fall-out of Fukushima or the Deep Horizon oil spill? Can you keep up with the number of going extinct species or what comparable state’s size describes the last chunk of ice that broke into the ocean? Think the government is spying on you? They are. Think we’re cultivating unrest and perpetuating terrorism? We are. Think your food and water is poison? It is. Are you afraid of Russia or ISIS and yet ignorant of how much more likely you are to die in a car crash? But at least the car isn’t actually trying to kill you, right? Unless you ask the quality control department at GM. 

Did you know that advocating for fascism from a national pulpit to an enraged and ignorant populace can literally have us replay instances from various Holocaust-adjacent scenarios? Did you know a Trump presidency is 6th on the highest rated threats to global economic security? How funny was his comment now? You were only laughing because you’re afraid though too, right? He can’t be serious...that’d be as insane as your support for him! And you’re not insane. Things aren’t your fault. You’re just scared and getting by. You could be randomly shot at like in Paris and Turkey! You could be on the next plane headed for a national icon! 

Let alone you just meditate on how quickly time seems to be going on and how you’re significantly more afraid of being alive and being full of shit than you are death. Gotta meet the celebrities, travel everywhere, compile the Instagram photos, put your heart and soul into a lost but meaningful cause. Why think about neglect, abuse, greed, and social security when you’re so fit and capable now? When your knee starts shaking another reason to be afraid. When your arm can’t raise as high you keep it securely wrapped around your stomach in an insecure hug. 

Infuse your being with your minority or sexual status. You have crazy people constantly targeting you as randomly as terrorists seem to. You have institutions who threaten to punish you more severely than one of the “normals.” You have an entire sex that can single-handedly kill you any time they get angry. You’re demonized daily for just being alive and then told things about how “great” the country once was when every “ism” was (still is) in state-sanctioned overdrive. You’re told a “just” god is inspiring language and legislation that will see your grandchildren eventually oppressed. 

And what do we do in response? 

As much as I reflexively feel like I don’t want to blame people, I feel forced to. We take pride in distracting ourselves. We chalk the real work and responsibility up to a few donations or volunteer hours here and there. Our job title more important than what it’s purported to do. We adopt every possible cliche about how life operates and how little our role in fixing it means. Or that role has to be “humble” and give you a quiet smile that let’s you carry on like you really care, don’t you, you do-gooder you. We point and blame and celebrate fringe details and ignore the all-encompassing smog suffocating reasonable paths forward. We pick and peck, looking for grains of food in a quicksand pit.

We distance ourselves. We smile too hard. We drink too much. We spend all day in front of our TVs or phones or desks as we project our lives “one day” against the office backdrop. We smugly shake our heads like “I could never” or we naively play with fire like all’s fair in this hopeless headless chicken race to the end. Could I possibly do or say anything as negative as the person who can’t figure out the difference between Trump and Sanders? I’m negative? How much do you have to hate your own sense of reasoning and how burdened by intrusive thoughts must you be to be suffering like that? How broken of a soul is willing to innocently inflict such impropriety upon their friends and family? How broken and negative do you have to be to entertain them in return? 

We campaign! We say “it gets better.” We say wait till you’re older and the bullies start to respect your affinity for science. Hell, they’re gonna be the one’s paying for your skills to be rolled into the next war machine. We proselytize for different gods and Eastern mysticism. Come into the moment and self-actualize. Find your direction and better digestion when your mind is at ease knowing it’s all about you and your ability to physically kiss your own ass. Know that god is love and this ephemeral ineffable thing is perfectly reasonable the more you stoke your sense of loss and helplessness. It’s not enough to have a scrapbook with personal photographs and cherished memories. You’re in marketing now. You have to be a cheerleader for your definitely happy life and pay deference to the struggle by lip service to how real it can feel but assure us it’s definitely still your bitch. 

Fear is a mental handicap to honesty, and honesty is the only way to learn how to not be afraid. Fear hijacks and makes excuses for your perspective. It literally lowers your capacity for intelligence. Fear beats your chest in the dark trying to chase away apparitions created by blood vessels racing across your eyes. Fear cripples humility and fairness. Fear taps into the life affirming response for why you’re here and another animal is not. In doing so, fear always feels justified. It always feels righteous. It’s maniacally invigorating because it seems to belay existence itself. 

Perhaps most disconcerting is the thought I have about someone reading this. An extremely loud and condescending “WE ALL KNOW THIS! WHY DO YOU EVEN BOTHER!?” 

I think we’re lying. I don’t think we know in the same way someone who experiences an epiphany and changes their behavior in an instant might. I think we pretend to know like we pretend to be friends and pretend to love our families. Because it’s a common narrative that brings order to the chaos. Because generations of people who were quicker to die with infinitely more accessible reasons to be afraid gave us stories and habits to pretend otherwise. As we currently exist on the precipice between human and whatever human plus Pentium chip will be called, we still refuse to do anything but play into the legacy of fearful thinking. We don’t demonize the universal roots of atrocity because they retain their utility in giving us every excuse to play our own selfish games with the mythical demons. 

Here though, I’m not going to tell you to stop being afraid. I’m not going to offer a fix. I’m just gonna say watch. It’s the thing we’re absolutely stuck doing no matter the amount of effort we put into fighting it. You can’t shut off your eyes. Watch Trump become president. Watch a bomb go off in a major U.S. city. Watch cities get swallowed. Watch your fellow ignorant monkeys adopt cartoonish faces as they bask in the glory of their demagogues. Watch every day as your reality and morality morph to excuse and accept the ethics of ignorance and fear. 

I’m negative? In trying to incorporate and work with the danger and fear, in mocking, in joking, in reminding, in building it into my proposed solutions and resources, in owning and tattooing the idea of it on my very being, I’m the negative one? We’ve been sold this mythology that evil is to be overcome like by becoming a champion of implicit quasi-religious morality. Like Jedi don’t turn to the dark side. Like angels don’t fall from heaven. 

Do you think my approach to fear is one of excuses, hand-holding, or avoidance? Because all I seem to ever see is people putting distance between me and their idolized version of what they consider constitutes life and their obligation to it. My biggest sins are what? Getting nit-picky in conversations? Getting a little too drunk and obscene sometimes? Trying to play the games offered to me despite a feeling of constant personal sacrifice to your own fears of starting a fight I wasn’t offering? 

The lack of perspective is our cultural sin. It’s our collective denial that turns non-issues into declarations about dramatic life-altering consequences, and genuine problems into cat toys we bat around the floor without irony. Kick up your feet and watch.

[490] The Secret

One of the loudest memories I have from growing up is how my mom expressed her anger about being lied to. It didn’t really matter if it was about who broke something or what our grades were like. I can’t think of a bigger switch that would set her off than her being lied to.

I can immediately speculate and say she was particularly sensitive to feelings of betrayal. I know her parents were kinda crazy and pathological in their own ways. I feel like I’ve taken her expression and morphed it into my own. I’m less concerned about people lying to me as I am them to themselves.

Each time I sit down to write I’m thinking about the various illusions I might be operating under. What pulled the wool over my eyes, and for how long? How long before I’m prompted to just stare into the mirror until I can’t recognize myself? Are my ideas about how to organize information better viable? A belief in them just a reassuring ounce of self-esteem and reason to get up. Am I getting too old or ugly or fat? My foray into eating better and treadmilling hopes to keep my ass far from having to dwell in that realm too sincerely.

Just take the idea of lying. I’ve gotten into semantic arguments about what does and doesn’t constitute a lie. Can you lie unknowingly? I think so. A colorblind person describing something as grey when it’s green is an innocent liar. The lie always has to remain relative to something. Back to my last blog, you’ll swear up and down you’re telling the truth of your perspective even if none of the facts are on your side.
I think we play a game with those facts. We remove them or hide them when they don’t fit our narrative. This speaks to one of the best reasons to write. When you haven’t gone far enough, someone can point it out. When you read it back later, you can feel where holes needed to be plugged.

I think about being smug. Try to fight it as I might, reading comment sections always leaves me feeling like I’m trapped in the world’s worst TV show bound by every cliche. Matter-of-fact language and style. “Deep” pronouncements of wisdom. In my day, as far as I know, anybody could see, if only they’d done this instead, mark my words…

They don’t even know they’re lying. They don’t think in terms of “this is the language I’m giving other people license to use.” When we adopt those sayings and habits, we’re stuck perpetually lying and living out the consequences.

And so how do you get better? To me, this. You keep the conversation going. You keep examining.You stop pretending. When I hated school, I have blogs that laid out explicitly why I hated school. Just because some academic or reporter cleans up their language and adds a few more citations didn’t mean I wasn’t speaking to important truths about pissing away time, energy, and money. When I thought I was in love, thank persistence I managed to write and read for as long as it took to stop looking like a tired teenage cliche.

If I had to think of some of the biggest lies I think people operate under, potentially, if they’re talked about at length, it would drain your will to live. This is how it’s related to me at least. I have friends who climb mountains. One slipped foot can mean any number of fairly disastrous situations. I have friends who work 80 hours a week. I know I’d want to kill myself if I spent that much of my 20s devoted to shit I cared nothing about. I know people who thought they were being smart staying in school, and the shadow of debt or the itchy reality of their program keeps them up at night.

I think I’ve managed to lie to myself about the power and impact of friends. I think I like distractions. I think I like conversations. I think when I don’t have people to lean on, I do an exceedingly good job of self-preserving and acting.

The thing is, I don’t need the extra flack. I don’t need your insecurities. I don’t need your judgments. I don’t need your words of encouragement. I don’t need your love, your couch, or your food. I like the positive things, but I don’t need them. I don’t need to feel anxious that I haven’t talked to you in a while. I don’t need to feel anxious that 9/10 times it’s me sending a message or text to usually be blown off. I don’t need to keep making excuses about how busy you are or how you get a pass because you’re “cool” and we have “history.” I don’t need entire diatribes trying to separate out different kinds of selfishness and pragmatism. I don’t need to resist the urge to play in the mud of baseless accusations and hurt feelings.

It occurs to me that I only ever really get along with the people who are willing to talk. And I don’t mean politely over drinks a few times a year. I mean all the time. I get along with people who are actively working through their thoughts and willing to take the time to consider or respond to all of yours. Everything else feels like cheap pleasantries. In reality, I could easily write a few pages a day, but even this feels quasi-lacking. I have a sense. I have a weak feeling and distaste I wanted to get across.

I think I should have been more realistic with myself about what the exercise of trying to maintain friends was going to entail. I should have considered blowback. As currently, I’m feeling cynically dead inside about the prospect of staying pleasant. I was told I was negative. I think what’s seeping into this blog is me wanting to express what I consider an actually true feeling and concept of negative. I’m pressed to prove you wrong by showing the reality of me negative. It’s in that moment of course you give your accuser the evidence they didn’t have and all the self-righteous indignation they can swallow.

Consider the following my perspective, and if you ever feel like playing my game of asking and searching until things line up, let me know.

I’ll live. Maybe like a wounded animal that narrowly escapes getting eaten, I’ll live, none the wiser to the brewing infection or coursing poison. If my facebook goes down to 0 friends and it’s just a swirl of terrible news and Onion titles, I’ll live. I’ll live if I lose all my money and all my shit. Hell, to a certain degree, that’ll feel like a fucking relief.

I think I’ve adopted a position of watching everyone constantly struggle. How often is it thrown out that life is a struggle? Doesn’t matter, I know why it’s a cliche, people do it to themselves. Yet, I watch people who don’t blame themselves for the right things. I watch them fake it, really hard. They fake enthusiasm, be it for a job or for their spouse, or for themselves and what they didn’t realize they don’t like anymore. And they fake it because they’re afraid of being “negative” like me.

But of course, they don’t know me. They don’t talk to me. They have memories of “Nick P!” at parties, or they caught a particular blog at a particular time. They’re polite when we hang out. They don’t trust me. Whether it’s to change or respond in some other way they’d consider acceptable. It’s like they’re trying to survive, while I know I will. Their struggle isn’t mine.

I think maybe this is why I get reactions I do about the capital T “Truth” pronouncements I make with regard to my life. My reality is something of a constant. Things happen around me. I mostly don’t have feelings about them or reactions to them. This makes people uncomfortable. How can I just delete people? What real world evidence besides a kind of secret unspoken pact was keeping us connected? They don’t struggle with defining friendship because it’s easier to both take it for granted and forget it when you can’t anymore.

It’s great offering your perspective right? Doesn’t matter if it’s correct, you can walk away from this thinking I care nothing about you. I’ll live. You can feel sympathy that I’m so lost, angry, and alone. I’ll roll my eyes and live. You can feel blank like “eh, hope the next one’s a little on the happier side.” But you’ll probably just continue to ignore what I talk about and why and we’ll keep “living the dream” because, you know, life, and shit.

[489] Untitled

I will love you for a lifetime
A promise made in haste
Barely knowing my own tongue
And how sweet a cigarette can taste

I will love you till we’re old
A promise yet unearned
Time will tell how very bold
A heart pounds as it yearns

I will love you till our 30’s
Make a break before the crisis
Getting hard to keep it flirty
Had a thing for your half sis

I will love you till you walk
Down the aisle stepping through
I will love you as you talk
In one deep breath, “I do.”

I will love you for a day
Always nice for something new
As we smile and laugh and play
The thought of leaving leaves me blue

I will love you for a night
Extra hard with every shot
Even as I lose each fight
That cries, “Please, forget me not”

I will love you for an hour
Cuddled up or hot and heavy
Either way I’ll need a shower
Easier to release that levy

I will love you for a minute
Smashing joke and pantomime
T’wer a contest I’d let you win it
To keep ahold of passed time

I will love you for a moment
Only time that’s tried and true
So afraid I’ve never shown it
When I found me in you

[83]-[258] & [360]-[375] Not Displaying

[360] With My Freeze Ray

[361] Nailed It

[362] Off World

[363] The Hardest Part

[364] Crusading For Crust

[365] Swing Swing Swing

[366] Trying Too Hard

[367] Fatty Fatty Mo Matty

[368] Talk The Walk

[369] No I Love You More

[370] Let's Shit On Me For A Minute

[371] We Don't Care

[372] Bang On The Drum All Day (Don't Wanna Work)

[373] Middle Ground Zero

[374] Jk Jk

[375] I Can't Hear Myself Think


[83] On My Past Blogs

[84] Sign Off

[85] Weezer Song Title Goes Here

[86] Little Bit Of Nothing

[87] You Think I'd Learn...

[88] Passing Thoughts

[89] The Funniest Thing I've Read In A While

[90] It's Just So, Damn, S.E.X..Y? Because I Gotta

[91] Arrogant Little Prick

[92] Is The Title The Only Thing That Would Make You Read It?

[93] When There's Just Never Nothing To Say

[94] Take 2 Pills And Get The Hell Out Of My Office

[95] Unnecessary Baggage

[96] Fixing Every Problem In The World

[97] Too Angry For A Title To Matter

[98] Expounding In Details, Such Anger, Alone

[99] Short Thing On Joyse Meyer

[100] Killer Times Dawg...Killer

[101] Howard Roark and Jesus

[102] Bow Chika Wah Waaah

[103] One Just Isn't Enough

[104] I Most Certainly Need Ya'lls Help

[105] Penn Jillette

[106] To Be Clear

[107] Blame It On The Rain

[108] The Myth Of Progress

[109] The Problem Of Dr. Eeeeeviiiiil

[110] The Dragon In My Garage

[111] Eureka Moments Like These Don't Come Often Enough

[112] It's All About Me (Happy Birthday To Me)

[113] Save Me Joel

[114] A Wee Bit Of A Problem

[115] A Speculative Guess

[116] And The Battle Rages On

[117.156] I'm Still Rather Scared

[118.155] Calling Out To The Ladies

[119.154] And Then There Was This One Time

[120] Take The Good With The Bad

[121] I'm A Danger To Society

[124.151] One More Thing That Eludes Me

[125] Deeply Disjointed

[126] Clearly Colloquial

[127] Some Sources

[128] Rambunctious Rascals

[129] Holy Fucked

[130] A Few Fleeting Thoughts

[131] Walking Contradiction

[132] Holy Hell House

[133] Yes, Quite Frankly, I Still Hate School

[134] Predictions

[135] Too Personal For You

[136] And From Confusion Came Clairvoyance

[137] Ugh

[139] Bang Bang Shoot Em Up

[140] So Many Favorite Songs

[141] Mostly Independent Not Quite Random Mini Musings

[142] Abusing My Last Recourse

[143] My Version

[144] Futile Response

[146] People Are Songs

[147] I Hate Being Confused

[148] I Hate College

[149] Prompted By Debates

[150] Benny Hin

[159] Martin Seligman

[160] Not Feeling Good About Free Will

[161] Plausible Deniability

[162] Meager Understanding

[163] Almost Posted

[164] Boys and Girls, The Perfect Debate

[165] What's The Real Problem?

[166] Those Gay Atheist Signs

[167] Never Add Up Anyway

[168] Life Is Very Short, And There's No Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime

[169] Be Nice

[170] Naughty Teacher

[171] Fuck Tests

[172] The People Around Me

[173] Some People Fill Out Surveys

[174] So Live Your Life

[175] Lies, Lies, Everywhere's A Lie

[176] 'Ole Time Revival

[177] Give Up Hope

[178] Life Is So Very Peculiar

[179] Why I'm Starting To Believe In Fate and Not Having Free Will

[180] Some Agenda

[181] Super Happy Fun Adventure

[182] Untitled

[184] Anxiety And/Or Fear

[185] No Means No Mr. President

[186] Find Out What It Means To Me

[187] I'm Sorry I Can't Be

[188] Wouldn't It Be Nice

[189] Therapeutic Narrative

[190] Me So Solly

[191] Post Show Thoughts

[192] Burn

[193] Poorly Thought Out

[194] Petty "Exercise"

[195] Stupid Can't Save You

[196] Straight Religion

[197] Maneuverability

[198] Right Wing Nazis

[199] Potential

[200] It's Kind Of Hard To Explain

[296.5] Stupid Vs. Smart

[xx] How to Read My Blogs: Here's the Front Door

[201] Single Most Hopeless Point

[203] Dealing With Problems

[204] Dig Dig Dig

[205] IN div idual it Y 2

[206] Harsh Your Mello

[208] What It Means To Be An Adult

[209] 12-Step Suicide

[210] Honest Liar

[211] Randomly Inspired?

[212] Baby Put Herself In The CornerFights

[213] Lay It On Me

[214] Loners

[214.1] Denial Amongst Other Things

[214.2] Grandpa Syndrome

[214.3] War On Happiness

[214.4] Nuance

[214.5] Something Or Another About Hate, Desperation, And Pathetic Hypocracy

[214.6] Not Good Enough

[214.7] How To Read My Blogs

[214.8] You Say You Want A Revolution

[214.9] Who's Really Deceiving

[214.10] Roll Over

[214.11] Titled

[214.12] Politically Correct

[215] Follow Me Down This Deadly Road

[216] Taking To The Streets

[217] Fail Government

[218] Campaign Speech

[219] Veiled

[220] What's Your Problem

[221] Recalibrating

[222] Fix It Bitch

[223] Midnight Madness

[224] Talk To Your Teachers

[225] Courage Of Your Convictions

[226] What Are You On About

[227] Might As Well Talk To Myself

[228] Where The Hell Was This Going?

[229] An Infinite Capacity For The Happy

[230] Inside Outside Box

[231] Death To America

[233] I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

[234] Spilled Over

[235] You Deserve It

[236] Flaws Paws Laws Flaws

[237] Little Victims (incomplete poem)

[238] Hey

[239] Random Rhyme Time 3

[240] Sick Sick Sick Sick Sick

[241] Engineer Sincerity, Depravity

[242] Just Freakin' A Bit

[243] Bcuz It's Ez

[244] It's All About The He Said She Said

[245] Plotting

[246] Winging It Like A Boss

[247] Domestic Abuse

[248] Empty

[249] Overflow

[250] I Wanna Sex You Up Baby

[251] Philosipheyes

[252] Peek-a-boo

[253] Where I'm Going, Where I've Been

[254] Majority Rules

[255] Talkin' Bout My Generation

[256] The Bottom Line

[257] I Want, I Think, I Wish, I Need

[258] Pick My Battles

[488] Character Assassination

I was recently told that I was not people.

That's the first interesting thing. The second was that no one wants to become a blog. This meaning they apparently don't want to be the subject of mine specifically. While I certainly don't plan to name names, this thing has practically written itself.

I'm currently embroiled in a controversy. The main ideas floated to me have spoken to my propensity to be negative, defensive, argumentative, guilt-trippy, prone to exaggeration, and almost incapable of listening to try and better understand where someone is coming from.

On top of those charges, my responses are assertive, dismissive, belittling, and attempt to dodge or transform the conversation.

First, I must admit, I am attempting to transform the conversation. You'll see it in this blog unfolding. I want the conversation boring. I want it line by line. I want it to feel like I'm trying.

What you have any time 2 people are trying to relate is an, unfortunately often referred to “battle” of their perceptions, and the claims they make in service to them. A white person says “those hoodlums” were “acting shady” next to the expensive car, the hoodlums, incidentally black, immediately protest that person is racist and there's nothing shady about standing around admiring nice cars.

Who's right?

Traditionally, people say it boils down to perception and there is no fix. You can't argue perceptions. You can't ever get them to agree. More than that, it's pointless to try, and only a frustrating spin down the toilet bowl when, against your better demons, you try to anyway.

Non-traditionally, you can separate out where and why there would be points of confusion between the parties. You can introduce context. You can run counterfactuals. You can ask questions that get increasingly specific until you get at the heart of the matter.

How does the white guy define hoodlums? If it's just black people, a “more right” coin can be dropped into the basket labeled “he's probably racist.” Did the white guy see something that could be construed as shady even if it wasn't? If so, place a coin in the basket that qualifies how we define what shady behavior looks like. You can do this all the way down until you describe the physics that hopefully leaves everyone rested and assured that we are all one and language does a terrible job of making us feel that way.

I've spoken about stories and characters before. How a story isn't complete until the last line. New contexts and decisions can do a lot of work in describing everything you think and assume about your subject. You can almost think of an author as arguing with you. Perhaps the same with a movie director. This person is a killer, this person is a rapist, this person is the epitome of evil, and yet why are you rooting for them? Why is the memory of what they did for another character still on your mind while you're watching them slaughter a room? It's easy, in my estimation, to empathize with the complex nature of being a human animal in thinking about our relationship to media.

Now, what happens when we bring it into the real world? Does Tony Montana feel as evil and despicable as your ex? Provided it wasn't amicable, of course not. And don't get lost in thinking it's because one is fiction and one ripped your beating heart from your chest and threw it on the ground. A documentary depicting similar acts will lean your feelings more Scarface than break up.

In the real world, we're very quick to assert the “truth.” Here I feel it important to reintroduce the idea that, somehow, I'm not people. Maybe too often, I'm accused of asserting the capital T “Truth” about a situation. I don't know why this is. One, I think I'm human, and humans are impressive failures at getting things right. Hence why I write. Two, I think people, innocently enough, overlap claims about me or what they've assumed about me with their perception of me. After this happens, it becomes absolutely impossible, in my estimation, to breach understanding. Three, I'm semi-constantly trying to concede what I can while either asking questions, or offering to clarify where I was coming from.

And wouldn't you know it, number three is precisely where I fuck up...because I'm not people.

One thing I will never try to argue is your perception. If you think I'm negative or mean, I'm negative or mean. What I will try to pick at is the underlying assumptions or behavior you're using to inform your perception. Unfortunately, people do not separate the two, and it gets me in trouble.

When I'm told that I'm any number of damming sentiments, as far as people are concerned, I’m told it's best for me to shut up and accept it. The more and the quicker I accept, the deeper friends we'll be. As a not person, I habitually take issue with having my being recited to me while I'm perfectly aware that I wasn't in fact thinking or doing what you think I was. I don't mean I perceived differently than you, say in observing the beauty of a sunset, I mean, when you call me an asshole for not appreciating the sunset, I trust you think I'm an asshole, I don't trust you knew what I was thinking about the light it was providing me to read my book.

It boils down to skepticism. When you root yourself in skepticism, you're not so fast to make judgments about what someone else is thinking or feeling. You're not quick to describe their behavior in terms that automatically puts them in a defensive place. I accept that I often express negative comments and it weighs on people. I do not accept that I'm the only person responsible for any situation involving more than myself.

Here, a conversation about comfort often comes up. I've been told it's hard to talk to me because people have failed in conveying something they had a problem with. There's further decisions or conversations to be had here. Please, program me. Like my friend who didn't like racist jokes, tell me I can't say them around you, when I do, we have a clear and present failure point and you know I truly don't respect where you're coming from (provided it's not just a lapse in memory). We can then depart without mud-slinging and I can take proper responsibility.

There's a deep, deep, irony in what happens when I'm told I don't try. Whether it's try to understand or try to listen or try to empathize. While I certainly have the, likely damaged brain, that can't easily or fluidly express emotion, I do not know who else is willing to ask dozens of questions or write hundreds of blogs in trying to get to the bottom.

It's unhelpful to get into pissing matches about whether someone sounds defensive, is assertive, or embodies some other personality quirk that makes them a tough nut to crack. I literally have no control over how you feel. I can't stop your assumptions. I'll stumble over your particular definitions. I don't know how much slack you'll give me until it's just long enough to hang myself. When I do control things, we're not friends, we're not equals, I'm playing with you. We're going to approach conversations and social situations with different experiences and expectations, but in the retelling and understanding of those things, we can remain clear and positive in our language. We can give the benefit of the doubt before dipping our recollections into judgmental qualifiers. I admit I’m not perfect at it either. 

That deep, deep, irony applies when I'm told I don't empathize. The problem, no one believes I've learned how to fix those terrible horrible feelings that are used to relate all of my flaws to me in ways I won't do back to you. I'll accept what I did or said. I'll accept you didn't like it. I won't easily accept we're agreed on how we should approach the word “negative” or “defensive.” It immediately disavows how I feel while claiming how important feelings are. If yours matter, so do mine, let's stop labeling them and unpack them. Let's stop blaming each other for lapses in self-control.

I want to stress. This is part of the experiment of being in relationships and having friends. When I want to do what Byron does, we won't be friends. If I need to be a happy puppy bot who only says positive and reassuring things, tell me. Then accept I'm now your conventional human robot and we'll be best of “friends.” You'll feel better. I'll stop feeling like I need to defend myself, or patience and clarity, and you'll never feel another fight or challenge from me again.

I think many of life's cliches come out of the hopeless thrown up arms related to conversation. One of my cliches is to say people kinda like me for a bit and then they get bored or angry and disappear. I'm not naïve, blind, or unwilling to change, I'm desperately looking for other people to take responsibility for themselves and lay out what they want of me coherently. I don't want an act. I don't want to be coddled. And I don't want to pretend. I mostly don’t want to be told that I’m liked or accepted or understood when each time that’s put to a test, it fails. It doesn't have to be a fight. It doesn't have to be stressful. I'm not gonna yell or throw things. But it has to be understood. It has to be a mutually beneficial agreement. I don't want to be the king of my friends, I want to be their equally flawed, but equally lovable asshole, until they tell me otherwise.

No one wants to be a blog? Well, I'm a blog. I'm almost 500 blogs of stress-induced pursuing of empathy, understanding, and connection that I didn't have to mold. No word will bust your ear drum, spit in your face, or raise its fist. Everything, every conversation, can be broken down and explored and be made boring so we're not evil manipulative missed connections, but responsible accountants for our feelings provoking a potentially more fulfilling and accepting reality. If we can't play that game, consider me not playing yours.

[487] Bottle of Whine

Well, because it's stuck in my head, let's indulge in a little self-loathing.

This trolling situation is sticking in my craw for several reasons. One being, I don't think I've ever said I'm terribly proud of the stupid shit I do, but I think sometimes I get reactions like I'm sharing so people will pat me on the back. I agree, it's dumb, it's pointless, but if we scrutinize my life, I'm more dumb and pointless than mostly anything else. I'm not saying this in a sad or depressive way, it's just a simple, and terribly accurate, description. 

Certain circles find it “cool” to “nerd out” on TV or video games all the time. I've always called it a veritable waste of time. I say I watch 60 shows. If I were a busy person, I'd be kinda disappointed if I didn't catch maybe 5 to 8 of those. I talk about building my map. When I've spent enough money and discover something a few months from now that does it better, it'll be another failure on the list of things I've gotten excited about that no one really knows how it was supposed to work and, oh well, maybe something else will be tried next year. 

I've never particularly cared about being in that good of shape, but isn't it a testament to the kind of “I'm getting old and feel like dying” feeling how comfortable I am with it? Comfortable is the wrong word, but more resigned. I'm hopping on the treadmill after this, but that's only because I like to contradict myself as I have nothing else to fight with but reddit monsters. If I read the last line over and over again too many times, I’ll end up in bed instead...because...fuck me, that’s why! And the extra 30 pounds? Who cares! I'm old and literally can only change when I keep a persistent shit-on-myself mental dialogue going for months. So the day you see a bathroom six pack selfie, I'm probably about to put a hole in the wall. 

Or let's think about interactions with friends. How many shitty damming things have I said about my mind on that subject? It's awesome as fuck to have people in my life who genuinely enjoy what they do. Is that ever the comment that comes out of my mouth? Fuck no! Better be bland or cold or quasi-shitty. Be on brand, be on brand. I can't even refrain from thinking shitty things when I see someone post how long it took them to do something they're excited about. I've just given my asshole mind an opportunity to say I spend more time on shit I find marginally interesting so that I can half remember a factoid about it months from now. Because I'm just that cool? 

I wish things could just be related to as descriptions. I don't even feel like I'm hating on myself or that I'm sad or that I really have anything but the elevated heart rate of exasperation trying to type fast enough to catch up with my brain. 

I'm not “happy” or “proud” or “impressed” or “attention-seeking” or “cool.” I'm bored. I get involved in whatever is going on around me. That means a general begrudging relationship to existence. The sick irony is that any genuine expression of this feeling is the basis for hurt feelings, significant judgments, and any number of barrels you want to throw in front of your perfectly acceptable stroll through your life. 

I don't like thinking that “my place” is something of an angry loner doing things way too intensely because no one matches my manic energy and bleak demeanor. That means too intensely stupid. Too intensely reading, watching, working, or sleeping. It's a little odd the amount of times I've had to discuss the goings on in my life with police officers, but at the same time, literally nothing bad has ever happened or come of it. I build little bits of absurdity into my life because I have shit else to do. 

What I don't think people understand is there is no fix. Without enough money to stay perpetually distracted, or if my friends drop all their jobs and intensely encourage my ass up the several hundred mountain peaks of Colorado, this is my sad sick little reality. I'm stuck between random drug study money and whatever idea I think I can throw a few thousand dollars at. I'm not invested until I'm all the way in, and then it exhausts. I'm not sure if it's because things “have to,” or if simply people aren't comfortable living “absurdly.” Because, my god, it's hard to take anything, particularly myself, that seriously. 

That's why I get to rant on a blog on a social media platform to express my “complicated” ego, and you get to read and judge and disappear into your worlds. Because it's a description. Because it's absurd. Because it matters way more to me to be able to shut the fuck up so I can move on, than a million comments about how you think it comes across as shit. It's a failure of language that “I don't care” became the jaded teenage way of describing certain feelings, or lack thereof, towards life.

“I don't care, it doesn't matter, I'm not terribly concerned, it's of no consequence, who cares what they think, what else is new, you're overreacting, no one's listening, it's fixable, why bother fixing it, why bother doing anything.” Whatever description I'm looking for isn't just any one of those sentiments, but they're all a piece. I try to talk or understand or ask questions or simply own. I try to give other people as much credit as I give myself. And mostly, it's none.

[486] On Stupid

In theory, this shouldn't be very long. My consideration to write it is because I can talk about the big and small. We have national examples and I have my personal life. I hope to explore the parallels and differences.

Why and when do we bother calling something stupid? At first pass, it's to create a kind of dismissing distance. If something is stupid, it can be written off, ignored, or ridiculed with impunity. The stupid object or person has to run against a kind of grain that the person judging takes as correct. It's stupid to dart out into traffic. Stupid then has to be qualified. Is it stupid for a child to run out into traffic? If they don't know any better, we're more comfortable calling the parents stupid instead of the child. Stupid suggests we know better.

Like all words, it can start to bleed into other kinds of judgments. Is it stupid to lock your keys in the car? You may feel stupid or call yourself stupid even if it only happens once every 5 years. If it was every other week it would prompt you think of yourself as “absent minded” or in the same way someone who falls over a lot is a “klutz.” Stated differently, stupid is a variation from the normal. The degree and frequency of exhibiting “stupid” pushes you to more specific or more forgiving language.

I want to quickly distinguish “stupid” from “good” and “bad.” This isn't meant to be an abstract about interpretation. I'm hoping to get at what using stupid means about the person employing it and how we should receive it.

So let's consider my personal life. I readily admit that I purposefully engage in stupid things. Whether it's a night out of drinking too much, getting bored and toying with something in my house until it breaks, or online trolling pissing matches. It's the last one that has prompted this.

It's safe to say I have an exceedingly easy and relatively stable life. Part of engaging in stupid activity is to even provoke something to talk about. This doesn't make it right, but it does make me a simple human cliché. Coincidentally, I just watched a Jordan Peterson philosophy lecture a few days ago where he talks about, I think Dostoevsky, claiming that had man all of their worries fixed and sound reason to rule them all, man would go insane to keep asserting their choice and dominance of the situation. Or, my problem is one that philosophers have mused about for a rather long time.

I tend to think pissing matches and being a little stupid are okay. The problem can be in identifying when a line has been crossed. I'll talk shit all day, but I'm not going to threaten your life. I'm not putting together a plan to find and destroy your real life. Unfortunately, you don't know who might be opting to do that towards you.

So my specific situation is shit talking getting out of hand, me deciding to talk to police and put it on their radar, and then block and hopefully move on from a crazy townie. He decided to invoke my family's names and set off a massive red flag, as he did the first time when he used mine. Cops, still trying to help, explain this as legally gray. Girlfriend, very pissed off, helps turn the line red.

Now say we move it away from small potato idiots with too much time on their hands. What are we supposed to think about Drumpf or the republican party in general? When they make a threat, what should we think? When they make a “joke,” are we supposed to find it funny? How many little points of stupid do we merrily skip past out of our fellow man that eventually add up to Hitler 2?

The line starts to blur in peoples' minds as to when things get “serious.” Is it always serious when I get into a pissing match? Potentially, but the evidence is lacking and nothing has ever come from it. Are there always going to be crazy people running for president or in politics? Absolutely, but their voice isn't just them, their combatant, and the local police. They're taste makers. They're standard bearers. For as many times as I've invoked “be the change you want to see in the world,” that doesn't mean there aren't people with significantly more influence actively being the change I'm completely terrified to see. You can't think of these people as “just” anything. They don't get the hazy middle ground of interpersonal antics we might enjoy to stave off boredom.

When someone wants to fuck with me online, in general, I find it kind of funny, kind of annoying, and kind of a point of pride about pissing faster and longer than the asshole on the other side. When it pisses off my girlfriend or invokes family, there's a kill switch. It's no longer serving the right kind of purpose and the wheels have come off. The kill switch for what we're going to accept in our adult lives needs to be made larger. The first racist and violent comment needs to disqualify you. The first threat should get the police involved. The first defense of their “political acumen” should be met with argument and anger. Otherwise, we're all as dumb as our worst personal lives in online forums, but with significantly greater consequences.

So, be stupid, but don't sacrifice what it means to be a healthy adult who recognizes what there is to lose by giving it the power to dictate the rules.