[508] The Sickness, The Lie

I want you to know that I hope for this to get dark. I know I already don’t manage to ever speak to things in generally positive ways, but despite what you may think, I don’t feel I go out of my way to try and suck your desire to live. I want to pursue, as far as they’ll take me, the thoughts that evoke such feelings in me. I want this to put you to tears after you’ve already been having a bad day. I want to be ashamed I thought some idea needed to be shared.

Luckily for me, I recently wrote a very ridiculous, redundant, and shame-worthy “defense” of drunk driving. That seems as good a thing to start with as any. What on Earth would possess me to do such a thing? Boredom is a cheap and easy answer, but not correct. Devil’s advocacy pretends there’s really another side that isn’t bred from self-indulgent ignorance. No, the only reason to write something like that is because I believe it every time I, or someone I know, gets away with it. The longer we get away with it, the more compelling and correct it feels to defend, in spite of the bullshit nature of the argument. 

You also don’t make an argument like that for fun. You do it because you’re desperate. The guilt starts to build. The magnifying glass you apply to your life spends a little too much time under the sun. The hopeless and hard to define reality starts to shape words and windows of justification because, how else could it possibly be? This is your state of being. How long are you willing to torture yourself thinking you are perpetually wrong? No one’s arguing back, at least, not with any muster. More to the point, no one’s really paying attention, and if you can’t create this little island of soapbox proclamations, get busy drowning. 

With little to nothing to look forward to, you begin to worship pain. You want to hear the drama from your friends or your town about their health or relationship issues. You want to see people screaming at each other in reality television. You’re finally back to sharing something meaningful! It’s not just wait and stew and think and drink and wander and lose yourself to moments that pick away at your being. My mind just shot across thoughts running from religion to revenge porn that could speak to this, all of which I’m going to ignore. 

We have this presumption that we have a right to live. Like the goal is to survive until the end of the universe. Like our programming is made of anything more than the same instincts animals have to lick themselves and masturbate in public. Who gave us that idea? One of your gods? One of your fears? Your proud indignant ego? “The masses?” A small group of well-intentioned but ignorant people who would have reasonably killed themselves otherwise? 

Our species is terminally sick first. That’s the struggle for finding a purpose or reason. That’s the lip service to hope and love. That’s so-and-so’s foundation and your anonymous donation. That’s eloquent defenses of liberty and justice. That’s belligerent nonstop greed and fear-mongering. It’s this giant depressing, looming, terrifying dance with death we never learned how to deal with. Our methods reinforce lies. Our methods are fake smiles and secret prayers to the darkness. We talk about what we “can never do again!” and to “think of the children!” Death isn’t real. It’s like a cold. Over-medicate and sleep it off, and it’ll never come back. 

I want to die. The catch, I want it to be for something, more specifically, for me. I want to kill my time on creating what is stuck in my head. I want to lose weeks or months off my life staying up too late and partying too hard striving for the extra memory or spark of inspiration. The sad part won’t be when I’m gone. The sad part will be when it clicks that it’s in this moment I know I’ll be dying for nothing. 

“Reason,” “progress,” “common sense,” or any other qualifier you want to apply to the space we occupy in evolutionary history do not, and cannot, win. You think you’re helping? It’s helping yourself. It’s helping yourself to cope. It’s your persuasive rhetoric to keep you showing up to work and inventing new sex games with your spouse. You’re a “good” person or a “hard worker” or called your congressman and recycle. You’re an “inspiration” and a “leader” to those around you who “just needed a little encouragement.” Language is what keeps your disposition alive. Hatred and fear fuel the soul. 

I’ve been thinking that there are an infinite number of universes, and each one is dedicated to a specific lesson. This one’s is that we’re infinitely small and need to learn how to die graciously. That we won’t discover what’s making us sick or how to defeat the lies until death takes the forefront. Hearing about old cultures and the origins of human sacrifice certainly tells us this can go terribly wrong, but the Mayans could never cut out as many hearts as are stopped when we drop bombs. 

We can dial it back from genocide though. I have a wonderful story about sexual exploitation. I recently met a girl who described showing up to a friend of a friend’s house to buy cocaine. Within minutes one of the 2 guys who were there took her to the bathroom and whips his dick out. She describes being put off and angry. Then it occurs to her, as they leave the bathroom and drink/snort a little more, that while she’s had plenty of 3-ways, it’s really been her fantasy to be with 2 guys instead of her with another girl and guy. Dick-whipper now gets rewarded for showing initiative. 

Their scene gets interrupted when one of those gentlemen’s girlfriend shows up and knocks at the door. The guy who drove my new friend to the apartment is friends with her boyfriend. A fact he uses to try and blackmail her into sexual acts a few days later, claiming he has no incentive to keep the secret. 

There’s a “moral high ground” person in me that would begrudgingly support every half-assed 14-year old run Tumblr page about the immorality of men and how NOT APPROPRIATE WAAAHHHH it is to present your dick to someone within 3 minutes of meeting them. I could put on my pretend psychologist hat and explore the hidden self-loathing and lack of esteem this girl holds for herself, despite her clear enthusiasm in relating the tale. I could go belligerent soccer mom and disavow the use of drugs because they “clearly” lead to this or that. I spent most of our conversation debating whether I could stomach hooking up with a girl I wasn’t attracted to sober. 

For those wondering, these are the instances in my life I draw from in describing a contrast between “people I deal with in general” and “people I apply the word friend to.” My concern wasn’t for her and her decision making. I wasn’t even being funny running through “butterface” jokes or that scene from Scary Movie. I don’t know how to blame someone who’s taught themselves that showing their dick can get the desired result as wrong, when even the girl who capitalized on her “opportunity” at least said she thought it was wrong too, but picked differently. Words like “respect” for each other don’t really make sense in that conversation. 

From the sickness of my stagnant and ridiculous circumstances, I perpetuated the lie. Not that I’m concerned with what you do sexually or what drugs you take. But I pretended along with her that this situation was complicated or interesting. I played along like it’s “her relationship to honesty” that’s all that matters in whether or not she should tell her boyfriend. I didn’t go out of my way to be actively flirty, but I left a proper window of tension open as some perverse “option” for later. Not one I plan to pursue, but I no-less gave myself up, like she gave herself up. 

I do think I’m broken. I don’t take joy out of nice things or pleasant conversation. I want the game, the exploitation, and the cold sad feelings that drive you to be interesting. I want you to selfishly and pointlessly use me or my words to make yourself, and by extension other people, miserable. Then maybe you’ll do something dramatic. Maybe you’ll get the stage and tour the country giving impassioned speeches about things we all know but can’t feel. Maybe the tragedy of my head can reach you before damage of something more horrifying becomes personal. Can I co-opt the space for your actions after losing a child to gun violence? Can I poke your depression and anxiety until it bleeds into the waters of more influence? Can I make you afraid of genuinely feeling like me? 

Now we get empathy. That’s when you understand. None of this support group bullshit. No “it gets better” moment. Now there’s teetering and flirtation to sustain you. You’re forced to incorporate death onto your thoughts. You’re forced to balance pushing too hard with somber contrition. You jump off the roof when you’ve spent too much time under water. 

I’m a symptom of the larger sickness. I’m the fallout and the lie that we didn’t drop a bomb. I have to pretend every moment that this was worth it, and have little idea as to why, other than to spread the pain around. At least I own it. I don’t want it, and this might be me trying to give it back, but I know it’s mine.

[507] Stick It To Me

A significant portion of my thoughts are dedicated to the idea of “efficiency.” For me, to be efficient stands in contrast to how most of the world operates. They take ten years instead of one. They offer 50 excuses instead of 3 solutions. They sip various poisons instead of shooting for the vein.

A component of being efficient is the feeling of laziness. Why, what are you if you’ve nothing to do? Say you plan to clean up the house and get all your errands run throughout the day. 2 o’clock rolls around and you’re done left to stare into the void and start drinking wine. My modern sensibilities often direct me towards media. Many I’m sure play video games or build ships in bottles.

For me, efficiency is about awareness. I can peak into a million different futures depending on how I decide to spend my time. I can glimpse my half-assed effort engaging in things “for the sake of it,” or I can pick the ideal when my focus and intention are harnessed correctly.

This means, while I got fucked with my contract during the coffee kiosk times, my response should not be to become a better lawyer than the one I consulted. If I genuinely care to be even marginally healthy and informed on too many TV shows, it’s just dumb not to watch them while I’m on a treadmill or exercise bike. If I can read a comic in 12 minutes, I should own a tablet that doesn’t take 2 minutes of loading/freezing for each one in order to power through hundreds of back issues. Or maybe it’s alcohol! Why sip a shitty beer for $5 unable to get drunk, when I can buy a handle for $15 and car bar? It makes being the first ones to show up trying to avoid the cover charge a more fun drunkenly infused time.

Oddly enough, I’ve been criticized for trying to be efficient. I’m “holding us back” by car-baring as if the handle came with a set of handcuffs. As if anyone likes to spend more than they have to in failing to reach the desired effect. My impression, your attitude and lack of perspective is holding you back. I was making an offer; please feel free to reject it.

Less specifically, criticism comes in the form of “well, why don’t you learn it yourself?” I’m trying to have a website built by the world’s busiest web developer. I’ve made several statements about the work I’ll be able to do and expansions I’d like to roll out that have all proven fruitless. So, in the intervening weeks, the advice is to get my Master’s degree in open source mapping programs? I’m not exaggerating, this is how people approach advising about programming because places like Codecademy and Udemy made it seem like it’s just that easy.

I think it’s a rather destructive idea to always think there’s something to do. It’s a distracting one that helps remove your mind from what’s going wrong. Say you built a building and your boss said, “You should always be building. A. B. B!” The power is still running to the tools. You’re balanced precariously on a high ledge. You pack layer after layer of spackle and other shit that walls consist of on. It’s dangerous, dumb, and a waste.

My current trapping is figuring out how not to fall prey to dangerous and dumb wastes of time and resources. I’m failing pretty hardcore, but luckily I’m pretty good with money and patience. There’s probably another way to phrase that more accurately because I definitely can blow money and fucking hate waiting for anything, but my life doesn’t reflect that of someone you’d think struggled with those things. 

Gaining perspective is a good thing, but there’s purposeful and not ways to do it. I don’t read because there are words on a page that desperately need to be in my head. I’m usually reading so I can better argue. Just because there’s a book I thought was cool that’s calling my name as I write this doesn’t mean I’ll get the most out of it because I break down and finish it in the next few hours. I hate working out for a week or two just to get into a study where I need to keep my blood work even. No matter how much I think about getting in better shape, until I don’t rely on my muscles to not be in constant repair mode, it’s an unrealistic goal I can only inefficiently pick at. If I can’t practice the ten instruments I’ve bought over the last few months for roommate, neighbor, or sleeping through the day related reasons, I’m not going refer to myself as a “multi-instrumentalist” who’s “passionate” about music. If an old movie kind of sucks or has subtitles, or maybe a lecturer talks slow as shit, I’ll watch the video at 1.5 to 2x the speed. That’s right I even try to kill time efficiently.

I guess I just wanted to state once again that I’m stuck. I suppose I feel the stuck so loud again because I tend to feel unstuck after I complete a study. I buy things that have sat in my Amazon wish list for years. I schedule myself to do things or join groups that carry fees around town. I get the most painful kind of excitement in making $500 payments on things like my website or in service to some other entrepreneurial idea. And then I subject myself to the mercy and time management skills of the rest of the world. It rarely goes well, and they stick me back in my place.

[506] Suicidal Tendencies

I once referred to “progress” as working things out of your narrative. I think the culture, in the United States particularly, raises you to believe that accumulation is key. Get degrees, get stuff, and get promoted. If we start to cobble together what a “world culture” may look like, it’s accumulating “friends,” attention, and vast swaths of wealth. It’s best to go viral, find your appropriated personal style and voice, and touch or take a picture with everything.

I’ve been thinking a lot about suicide. I don’t mean in me committing suicide, but the general symbol, power, and almost mythical lore attributed to it. In my own life, the only times I’ve genuinely thought I needed to die were when I was so disastrously sick I felt like I was never going to get better. The idea of never escaping. The mercy life would be bestowing upon me. It’s in being totally honest with myself in those shitty moments that I started to empathize and respect “right to die” groups.

At that point, you only really serve the people around you’s insecurities. You’re essentially suffering for nothing. They won’t put on their adult hats that knows death is coming for us all, and a few more months or years of your pain isn’t going to make their life any better. To die then becomes a noble acceptance and respect for reality and your limitations. To regard that as some kind of perverse fetishizing of death or “playing god” are the immature and petty reactions you find any time a childlike mind approaches something they are uncomfortable with.

The broader theme is perhaps more to do with death in the abstract. The death of how you talk about yourself or behave. The death of your relationships or friendships. The death of your interests or certain things you used to worry about. When do you allow something about yourself to die as opposed wishing things around you would? Take an easy example in considering politics. How do you switch from “all the old crazy racist bastards need to die!” to “I’m willing to pop and bury my bubble of hatred?”

My instinct is it starts with exhaustion. You’ve just cared too much for so long that your body gives up even if your mind would like to keep lying. This could be another way of considering your familiarity with things as well. Does the person who vividly remembers hiding under their desks over the threat of nuclear annihilation really give a shit about a Trump presidency? Or how about people who’ve been shot at and maybe kinda sorta played a role in committing war crimes? They’re likely going to have different priorities, no?

When I go back and read old blogs I see so much that I’ve cut out of my concerns after becoming too exhausted. You can only bang your head into fundamentalism for so long. You can only employ battered-wife analogies so many times before you remove yourself from the conversation as you start to believe they deserve it. I see how many conclusions I’ve come to years ago that still influence how I write today. Much of the same language, if not better clarified and expanded, is employed. I get to watch just how convinced I was of some proposition or problem that I might now have to approach in a roundabout way.

Do you feel you change because you’re learning or because you’re giving up?

I suppose it’s important to qualify what you’re learning and how. One of my favorite things to do is look at relationship subreddits and watch these clumsy immature tales of woe put every “dramatic” thing that’s ever happened in my life into perspective. It humbles the mind regarding ideas related to progress. In this society, you can stumble into a corner of the internet apparently dedicated to sharing your story and maybe finding useful advice at 35 while you display the perspective and writing skills of a 14 year old. You can say, “hey, he’s trying and has access to a tool.” I say, “how much has he ignored in 35 years to end up here and why does he think this tool is adequate?”

To whittle things down seems the only route to “true progress.” You can think of it like this. We start as “everything.” We’re atoms. We’re a micro-biome. We’re water. Peel away the larger distinctions and you begin to feel like you have a personality or responsibility. You feel intentioned and perhaps we traverse into the language of “free will.” The more you regard yourself in the abstract and at the will of an endless confluence of forces, while some like to pretend it offers a kind of nihilistic and fatalistic relief, I would argue you move away from any dignified claims regarding a distilled person.

I think this is why you abstract out problems. How many of them really have to do with you? How much can you shed in your approach to “problem” as a concept before you allow it to become you? At what point can you be reliably responsible for taking ownership? I suppose this is another way of stating you should be concerned with your little corner of the world. I’m pressed to think your little corner has wildly larger meaningful consequences than people want to give it credit for.

Let’s think about what happens when we approach a problem. Say the situation resolves poorly. The wise thing to do seems to ask, “What did we learn?” This is an ever-fleeting ideal. Every time I get into some form of confrontation with friends I “learn” the same thing. I just shouldn’t bother. I seem to only ever piss them off when I’m genuinely hoping and trying. My next option would be to get really angry which would help no one. So how to maintain friends? Smile, accept, shut up. Ideas that make me feel terrible, but the lesson is very loud.

You could also say I should learn “how to approach” or “how to speak their language.” Here I see a problem though too. Their language is incomplete. Their language is angry and judgmental. Their language is pretending to understand. So should I drop my “pretension” rooted in boring procedural language? Is that really the lesson? When discussing things with students, do teachers just go “fuck it, you’re not understanding, so I’m going to contort this concept into the language of gossip related to the Kardashians and call it a day?”

I want to work out stress and anger from my disposition. I don’t want to just be exhausted. I want to work through every point of contention and believe I took something meaningful away from whittling down all that isn’t. I think that project applies to my hobbies and habits as much as it does to my relationships. How do I call someone friend who refuses to talk to me? Who am I to a person that I only make angry when I appeal to some “higher” form of discussion or connection we may have experienced in the past? To me, after having every outstretched branch cut off, the wise thing is to let the butchered and naked tree die.

I can’t stress enough the difference between murderous intent and mercy killing. I cut off friendships because I feel sacrificing my time and stressed out brain for the sake of it is unwise and unfair to myself. I don’t hate the people, but I recognize and respect that I don’t really mean to them what I did in the past and that doesn’t become an opportunity to throw around blame. Even with something less volatile than relationships, I consider old fashion sense. I don’t hate my old wallet chains or goatee. My relationship to them just changed.

I wanted to discuss more how we make the decision to kill things in ourselves. Why people talk about sacrificing dreams for kids or their spouse. Why they “grow up” and adopt conservative cliches related to embarrassment and high-class sensibilities. When I approach my dreams at 27 that were the same at 16 that I conceived of first at 10, am I accumulating skills and perspective that will help me achieve them? Or am I shedding ideas from 10 years old I was previously unable to appreciate how deeply they rooted into my mind; ideas about the rush from getting attention, the power of money, and the satisfaction of besting some academic problem. Will those make me happy about pissing people off I thought I could get along with as a “not human” who’s accused of every character flaw under the sun?

Or do I let the goal of relating die? Do I regard my ideas as a 10 year old’s and let them die as well? Have I made progress keeping my “sociopathic” relationships strong and steady while I take some ill-begotten “pride” in leaving a sad sea of “feelers” in my wake? That begins to bark at the annoying confidence assholes have from every rich white male archetype.

Who and what are we killing ourselves for? The idea of a “project husband” comes to mind. “Oh, you know, I had to train him.” What if we regarded every act as one in service to death? Every step a decent into death. Where are we walking and why? If you regard me doing drug studies as dangerous, what would possess me to risk my life like that? For the money? Kind of, but I’m saving way more of it than I’m spending. I’m doing it in service to my creativity and time. Would I still do them if they scared me as much as they do you? Let’s remember, we’ve all had to approach things for the first time, and I promise you have no idea how close I was to leaving.

I think it’s important to give yourself the permission and power to die. People don’t want you to. They want to believe that they’re worth you hanging on. You have to remember, they’re looking for a statement about them, not you. It’s why I’ve so endlessly stressed myself out about who I was going to have in my circle and why. I’m not defined by my ability to maintain or amass friends, and god help you if you desperately need me for some dose of “insight” or “real” or whatever paltry qualifier has been employed to dignify my shitting on the carpet. It becomes unbearable to watch people sacrifice themselves for a pittance elevated to “compromise.” I won’t watch the language of murder disguise itself as noble self-sacrifice. If I hate watching myself beat my head against a wall, at least I’ve learned how to persuade myself to stop.

[505] Earth's Mightiest Heroes

For my sake, in attempting to tie everything together, here's a few thoughts I ran with in the car I don't want lost. One, after watching Captain America: Civil War, it was a lie between Captain America and Iron Man that left them both broken. Two, I felt every minute of my shift washing dishes, and knew it would be in poor taste to make a joke calling to unionize. Three, I don't “simply hate” people as much as I hate how they react to a challenge; to protect what they hate as well. And four, value is cripplingly subjective.

I had the terrible thought that I would be helpful and wash dishes. I thought it would be something to do to kill time with. I've done a little irresponsible spending lately and could recoup. I wanted a peek into a friend's world who spends huge swaths of his life in a kitchen. I did not think spending 9 hours hunched over scalding hot pans and having filthy water splash over me would leave such an indelible impression.

That is, I'm not a stranger to hard work. In fact, one of the biggest reasons I thought offering myself to this gig would be to sort of remind myself that coming home a little sore or finding the rhythm of a menial task can actually prove to be somewhat rewarding. If I walked away with a quick $200 on top of that, great. I'm not concerned about my swollen fingers or, now that it has had adequate rest, my back giving out like I was last night. Nor was I “tired” in that I couldn't have kept working were it not for my reliance on being propped up on counters.

What made the shift insufferable were the endless stream of thoughts I've accumulated through years of work like that. I didn't find ten minutes of “flow.” I didn't stop hounding myself about what I'd rather be doing. I was genuinely saddened to learn I couldn't see Captain America: Civil War early because the shift was in conflict. Of all the damn movies in all the world to coincide with my stupid decision, why an awesome Marvel one?

I affirmed many things in going there. Even if I hate something, I still stick to it. I allowed myself to be drowned in my commitment. I didn't exactly ignore the pain, and I did inform the management I'd be perfectly fine with someone taking my Saturday spot, but I'll be back tomorrow if they don't find someone. I said my pain was worth it. I said they deserve my swollen fingers, aching back, and burns for $100. In the past, I wouldn't have thought twice about that dollar amount or the time. That's the wage, the offer, this is the task and duty. You volunteered. They were polite. Why do you still feel like this is so bad?

I think it's because I allowed more into my perspective about value and worth. It's important to keep commitments, but even better when you can respect and have a stake in them. There are perfect soldiers in every army, and that by itself shouldn't endear you to any one in particular. Every kitchen is the sum of its employees. I don't disavow leaders or think everything should be equally distributed, but I think it should be distributed. Not wages, a stake, ownership. As the owner, you worked so hard and so long that you feel entitled to take off early and get to regard yourself as a “job creator” or whatever. But you've been raised in a sick system that dignified dangling the carrot.

Consider The Avengers. Consider the damage they cause. Cities wiped out. Innocents dying. But do you ever truly question their moral compass? Do you ever worry they genuinely want to kill each other even during a civil war? A major theme of the movie is accountability, and as Captain America rightly points out, to whom? Governments with agendas? People incapable of determining the nature of an existential threat? The consequences of their battles are certainly not perfect, but it's hard to find a single disaster that wouldn't be worse without their intervention.

And aren't we fighting the same kind of war? Your boss is friendly. Your co-workers are funny. The mission statement of your office is to change the world and donate to charity. How do you negotiate what you're accountable to? If your moral compass isn't as fixed as a mythical superhero, what steps in to supersede bureaucratic grandstanding in order to save us? What do you bring to the fight that at least can show us that it's not about levying blame and sacrificing relationships, but bringing to a head difficult questions and conversations before they're forced on us.

I think you should own your work. Like heroes must accept the consequences. When it becomes about ego, revenge, or fear...you turn into the bad guy. I suppose I wanted an ego check. Maybe I couldn't tough out the grease and the attitudes. Of course I could, but it wasn't anymore worth it than when I put up with the particular problems of any other job that I didn't own. I have enough self-respect and sense of responsibility to not leave people hanging, but I don't believe in tacitly accepting the noose. At least not when you have a choice.

I feel like it's perfectly in line with a string of decisions I've made “just because.” Because of some vague notion of what I'd like to do in the future. Because I'm bored. Because I don't feel a part of a community. Where does that fit? I'm not angry, but I phrase things in ways that make me come off like everyone is the enemy. I'm not afraid of looking good or bad, which poses unique problems in and of itself. Where does boredom fit? Where does “I can't make people do anything” land me on the hero scale? I can put them off. I can ignore them. I can denigrate them. But I can't get them to offer honest time lines or often on the phone. I can't get them out of work. I can't persuade them I'm not just a whiny achy old douchebag who complains too hard about dishes.

It speaks to my obsession with stories. If you're paying attention, and the teller truly cares, they help you explain your life. They let you join the superhero team when you've only ever felt isolated or confused. Even telling the story is something of a resolve. It existing and validating. Perhaps I am the villain. Maybe I internalize a level of hatred I only dream others could experience. Maybe they'll get to suffer every minute of their sacrifice like I do. Maybe they'll drown in their thoughts. Maybe they can be coaxed over the cliff into a forced resolution.

I just...I want to believe in people like Captain America. I want to defend all the best we as a species have created and think individuals all have a vital role to play. But who is Captain America without the fight? A lost and jaded poster-boy. An ironic symbol of days gone by. He needs an enemy, even from his own ranks. So my fear is of what we're doing to ourselves. I want revenge for every wasted opportunity. I have a large enough ego to at least consider myself more than a dishwasher. I aspire to an ideal, but I won't get lost in the myth. I'll be the villain until you're willing to fight hard enough to defeat me.

[504] Milking It

What's your first inclination when you hear someone complain about something?

It seems there are the empaths who deeply hurt right along with you and always know what to say. There's the “take it like a man” types who wouldn't be caught dead wincing about their arms being ripped off let alone some personal or mental struggle. I find the people who, in a sense, find a way to offer their problems in an enduring sentiment related to hope or faith the most interesting. They forgive themselves, you, and manipulate the word “complaint” into a life affirming resilient statement.

It seems to vary depending on what's being complained about. The other night a girl who spent a solid 10-15 minutes flirting with me turned and disappeared after I innocently said the way the bartender had tried to hit on her had been working for him for hours. This was before she pulled him in to explain how she doesn't appreciate it. I didn't mean to condone his style, or in her view, lack thereof, but there's a chasm between me and her concerning what we'll regard is worthy of special or perpetual indignation.

I'm not even sure if there's a right or wrong about it. Worse than that, I'm provoked to think I have a diminishing conception of things as “inherently wrong.” The harder you play the empathy game, you give yourself opportunities to grow and understand. With that said, I think that's where my concern lies. We're not an understanding bunch. We don't really care to try. We react and then seek justification.

Consider complaints about identity. I just watched “Lemonade” and read a piece about it being about black and particularly black women's identity. That they have to play the support role. It quotes Malcolm X when he says, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” I then tried to read a piece complaining that there isn't powerful art like Beyonce's that represents fat black women femme something something other qualifiers, and couldn't she have invited American Horror Story's Queenie to the party.

I started to think of the delusions of grandeur rich white dudes hold about their business savvy or political acumen. I started to think about Native Americans.

Surely you have the right and obligation to use your soapbox when you feel compelled to do so. You can never stop giving attention to a societal ill without sacrificing yourself in the process. I suppose I'm worried about the kinds of divisions we create in the kinds of identities we claim. You can be as defined by what you assert as you are what you're leaving out. Responses like “why aren't there any fat black women in your videos?” articles seem to ironically compound the problem.

Hopefully I can unpack this. You can say Beyonce is about anything. A celebration of capitalism, black women and identity, celebrity, love, empowerment, on and on. You can recognize how and why identities have been marginalized and the importance of artwork like hers. You can deeply empathize with her messages about family or infidelity. And it should be obvious, that in order to create or say anything, you have to leave many things out. How you talk about what's been left out makes a difference.

So you're concerned about fat black women not making the final cut. Are you trying to say you're more worthy than the disabled black women that didn't make it either? Are you saying Beyonce deserves blame and your community's anger? Why don't you feel compelled to create art celebrating yourself?

Humanity is the game we're playing together, inroads to a conversation are made in either noisily reacting to someone's creation, or taking what it affirms and incorporating it into our lives. One splits the identity further, the other provokes understanding. Just as I can only write as a white guy, I'm not saying fuck everyone who isn't me and you don't belong in my experiences with pain. In the reactive fervor we seem to weaponize our identities. We focus on the potential for scandal in Beyonce's personal life and tip our hat to her marketing team. We'll make claims we're contributing to the “cultural conversation” when we're really stewing in our defensive jealousy.

Do I agree with Malcolm X about the state of the black women? No. Am I capable of pulling back and seeing behind the words to know what he's getting at, to try and feel the level of pain that compels him to say it, to adopt the identity for a moment that's genuinely angry and hurt and feels that way? Absolutely. Do I think his words are an indictment of other oppressed people? Kinda sorta. What we need to ask ourselves when we get the microphone is whether the conversation is helped or hurt by not speaking to “one love” so to speak. By respecting all the nuances and potential for connection in the word “identity” when it's coupled with “black” “native” “fat” “disabled” “gay” or whatever.

For all the happy white family shows that are supposed to represent me and celebrate whiteness, those people don't feel like me. I'm not a CEO. I don't have that much money. I don't seek to constantly reinforce or believe in the strict lines about what it means to be white. I see bigger lines between rich and poor than I do black and white. Are the poor people coming out to complain they wish they could afford a car nice enough for Beyonce to consider smashing it?

I think by looking for an unsubstantial qualifier, you end up accidentally caricaturing yourself. To be black is as fluid a game as who's got the microphone. But that's the case for every individual. What you pay attention to. What you choose to incorporate and respect. Does “Lemonade” speak to me? Not really. I don't care about infidelity and don't believe in marriage, so the first half is out. I got a quasi-emo vibe from some of the poetry that felt overwrought and had me smirking. Slow motion shots alone didn't do it for me. And who cares? None of my views or criticism really matters, even to me. She's good at what she does, so props.

I'll remain concerned about how we think of identity going forward. How we think about the racist reactions. How we think about celebrity. How we'll hijack and piggy-back and shoot ourselves in the foot as we innocently claim to be enjoying or offering “constructive criticism.” Yes, to everything but ourselves.

[503] Child's Play

I’m always confused.

It occurs to me that I never know what’s going on. When I seem to accomplish something that suggests otherwise, I feel it a trick being played on me. Of course I frequently offer reasons for what I do. I say I write to keep sane. I say I read to take pride in being pretentious. I say I revel in my likes and interests because the alternatives erase my soul. I claim to do dumb shit to keep things interesting.

All the reasons tend to pass. That is, no one has found the will to claim I’m downright incorrect in my assertions. Every once in a while perhaps I make a blanket presumptive statement about the course of the world that gets a bit of banter, but that tends to end fairly quickly. In that instant, you begin to wonder if the person responding to you is suffering the same problem. Did they really want to challenge me? Did they really care my opinion?

I’m considerably more confused about how and whether I get along with people than anything else. To this day, the best explanation I have for my best friends is they are as concerned with their own lives and feelings as I am mine. Another way to state that is I’m not their problem. They don’t blame me for talking or phrasing the way I do, joking the way I do, experimenting with or liking things they don’t care for. And it’s more than some simple societal notion of, clearly fake, respect we pretend to have for one another because the word “tolerate” comes across as rude.

If I were to pretend I wasn’t confused, then I would say the people who seem as up their own ass as I am mine make the most sense to me. I’ve referred to this as personal responsibility. You could describe it in terms of awareness. Immediately I feel I should interject that they aren’t all people who can be as forward or direct as me either. It’s not a kindred spirit convention where we desperately beg back and forth not to be judged. I would call each and every one of these interactions the ideal kind of friendship. You relate who and where you are. You pick up where you left off. You’re happy that this person even exists.

It’s perhaps not a secret to you that most relationships don’t seem to operate this way. Most relationships are about leverage. It’s not an accident that popular listicles and tabloids say the same things time and again about toxic behaviors and habits. We, by and large, have found no will, reason, or capacity to get over that game. We trap people. We emotionally manipulate under the guise of romance. We fetishize the story of togetherness to reinforce pop culture kiddie conceptions. We excitedly brush under the rug our fears and doubts because we believe in ill-defined “more.”

As I get older, the confusion grows. You get to spend time running your life experiment and testing what you’ve learned. Results don’t even retain the courtesy of being merely inconclusive; they play out in flatly contradictory ways. You can take a friendship between two guys who routinely get into fistfights only to discover they’d go to the grave for one another. Across town two gentlemen who claim friendship might experience a tussle 1/10th the degree and never speak again. This leaves you to only confidently claim that the word “friendship” is practically useless or so context specific as to be perfectly obscure.

This is of course how I arrived at my problem with the word “love.” It seems not a cold, nor mean, nor closed-minded position to say if a word means everything, it means nothing. But we retain feelings of that ill-defined “more.” Even if I hate the word, and genuinely don’t know what it means culturally, an irreverence or utterly compelling sensibility or awe or appreciation begets its usage. It speaks to the depth of our subjective sense. We are never more real or alive than the moments we want to claim love. In practice, that claim spans from your picturesc and cheesy facebook photos to your movie clichéd ideas about what you’re supposed to say under the moonlight. It runs across your food, pets, kids, hobbies, indulgences, and so forth. You fall in the deepest the moment you are able to hand yourself over to being defined by something that provoked the true depth of how you consider yourself.

But you don’t consider yourself confused. You don’t ask why you’re able to see the enduring and special majesty of your spouse, but someone else can’t. You don’t ask why you’re a dog person or love ice cream. You don’t watch each feeling move into a space to be accepted or rejected. You ride the stream hoping to avoid rapids.

For me, I often think of my confusion in terms of what other people have introduced into my life. I have friends with high anxiety. They’ve had that anxiety kick in after we hadn’t seen each other for a while and it seemed to be making their visit kind of a letdown. I recognize this as the emotional leverage game. Unintentionally and without malice, but unwisely, that friend wants me to find a way to assure them we’re still cool. Presumably, the choice is mine to determine us, but by extension, them. I almost certainly never play this game.

I had a friend who I defended from physical harm and gave money to who found more value in re-befriending the person who choked and tried to extort her than find even ground with me. I’ve had a friend who I’ve driven across several states to visit because they were lonely and we were “just that close,” who decided a year or so ago to just stop talking to me because I made a joke about a new boyfriend, or so the excuse that has never been expanded upon goes. I had a friend explicitly state how well they got along with me and my group and they weren’t just trying to “make their rounds” and disappear before they practically disappeared.

You begin to develop a sense that when you care, when you try, when you live up to some kind of valiant honor as depicted by timeless heroes, the quicker you will garner scorn. By enjoying yourself, having principles, or even remotely attempting to accurately account for your responsibility and perspective to the moment, the world will lash out at you and teach you to break. It becomes obvious why we seem desperate to see things play out in a morally expectant way in our stories. Why we love to bang the pots and pans of self-reliance and liberal progressivism; the “real” world makes us sick.

My confused speculation has posited that people hate themselves, and after several hours of listening to Sam Harris, aren’t even aware of it. Say what you will about consciousness or the depths of potential confusion regarding a personality, I know there’s a disproportionate level of vitriol I experience from the people I’ve chosen to try and give myself to. I didn’t perceive a line in the sand, I didn’t draw one, and as long as you remain concerned with taking responsibility for yourself, you’re never going to cross one in my mind. As long as it’s my feeling to examine and make a choice about, I have to extend the basic level of respect I hold for myself to you. Overwhelmingly, I understand, you don’t want it.

I don’t understand the capacity for prolonged disapproval or hatred for someone anymore. When I did understand it, I understood it as work. I knew it took reminding me of bad things to stoke the flames. I knew I was constantly looking for a reason to feel self-righteously invigorated. I knew that the future looked like it was going down in flames if things didn’t go my way and people didn’t agree with me. I can certainly still dislike people and want to remove myself from particularly bad ones, but I can’t maintain the machine that lets them define me. I go and look for something to be proactive about. I try to find a way to incorporate or discuss what puts me off if and when they’re open to it.

But again, in my confusion, I’m led to believe this is “mature,” “respectable,” “worthwhile,” “progress,” “accepting,” “friendly,” “loving,” etcetera. Instead, it makes you look like a rube. It makes you look weak. In fact, you are weak. You didn’t push the boulder over the top of the hill promising to squash who set you to the task. Moreover, you’re to blame. You made them something you should want to squash! If only you’d swallowed your hatred and let it play out like a normal person. If only you’d break something, or yell, or hit me instead of “act” like it’s all so very confusing. Like you didn’t do anything wrong!

It’ll probably be filed under things I’ve said a million times, but I’m always wrong. My state of being is wrong. I’m wrong when I try and especially when I don’t. I’m wrong when I’m too angry, but wrong when I’m feeling nothing. I’m wrong in my choice of language and when I eat like shit. I’m wrong in making any conditional statement that can only speak to a moment that has passed. If I post this in the wrong forum I’ll be told so rather quickly with prejudice.

If I’m so wrong, why aren’t they? Why aren’t you? Why am I open and willing to accept you when described by your worst features, but mine are unforgivable or not worth the effort; worthy of literally being shunned? I don’t mean as if I was the kind of person who routinely emotionally or physically abused our friendship. I don’t mean as someone who pathologically enjoys creating and seeing suffering. Like a desperate orphan crying out to the parents that abandoned it, why can’t you love me!? I don’t even believe in love; I’m making it all the easier for you!

The only way I can ask the question is in deeply appreciating the contrast. How do you know someone for years, have thousands of pages of conversations or countless hours of memories, and then one day you become an unrecognizable animal that they never understood how they gave it the time? If I’m confused with a whirlwind of thoughts, haphazardly collecting in blogs, what kind of Armageddon is going on in the other person’s mind? Have they just not known pain, or so much that it’s all they know how to operate in?

The ones who resembled my best friends are the most confusing. The ones who I’ve never been nor could see me in a fight with before they turn on me. The ones who’ve made heartfelt professions about who we’ll be to each other in the future before they storm out the door or talk to me like they’ve put their daycare center worker hat on. People grow up and priorities can certainly change, but as far as I go, I feel consistent. Consistent confusion, perhaps consistent mistakes, but who you met in college is likely who I’ll be when I show up to your funeral. If you’re not about that, please stop playing with me.

I get confused by my sadness. I claim often I don’t have hope. I don’t feel hopeful. I don’t speak in hopeful terms. But my body and mind break down and want to die as if I have more hope for everyone who’s ever beaten, ignored, or hurt me than I ever see them finding for themselves. I write in sheer defiance of the assumptions I operate under about how little I matter or frequently will be misunderstood. I don’t know why my mind won’t drop the ideas of anxiety or anger for what never was in the first place. I don’t know why it blames itself for being tricked or for trying.

I suppose it’s preferable to feeling nothing, but what do I know?