I don’t even want to write this. I feel left
without a choice. It only takes a fleeting glance to provoke a rush of bullshit
you’ve been trying to ignore. So here I’ll go trying to get rid of it.
I actually managed to trick myself. I believed. I thought one way or another I’d
have a future with someone I could be perfectly honest with. I believed after I
disavowed the word love. I believed despite a handful of dramatic fights. I
believed because it seemed to be the thing happening in my life that I had little
control over how it was stuck together despite so many things I’ve employed to
keep it apart.
I can’t decide whether I feel worse having had that someone or when I only
dreamed of being with someone. Over time it’s easier to distort the fantasy of
a life not lived. What are you supposed to do with the actual good times? Where
do you replace the trust you exhibited? What do you make of your new plans when
they were all B, C, or D to your guiding ethic?
And then what to make of it when things were bad? The idea of saying something
you can’t take back. What truth was being spoken to when lashing out didn’t
just feel good, but necessary and appropriate. When the other person doesn’t
even pretend to feel or care about what you’re experiencing. As if the reality
of separating is as neat and professional as a “conscious uncoupling.”
I just want to be able to forget. I don’t want to feel anything from looking at
her. I belittle people frequently who profess their heartfelt tales of woe as
having little perspective and naïve hearts. I’m not going to endlessly profess
how amazing, beautiful, or “special” she was to me. This needs to remain clear.
I don’t let myself be dictated by the stomach I can’t control or the irrational
whims of people I choose to be close to. My response is measured reflection for
as long as it takes to die.
The tragedy is in the act of believing. The tragedy is in trust. The tragedy is
going to be what turns every positive emotion, memory, or interaction we’ve had
into something I actively work to forget or degrade so I can take back my
nervous system. If trying to be human has taught me anything, it’s that I’m not
a bitch. I may have to endlessly write. I may have to cut mutual friends. I may
have to embody the worst myths from your perception of me, needlessly playing
up their importance under the guise you’re even bothering to think that hard
about me.
Nothing in my life has suggested you can rely on anyone that isn’t practically
suicidal in their self-effacement or psychopathically transparent in their
motivations. Everything in between is a liar’s game of rationalization and
excuses. That’s the evidence. That’s why I know what you can rely on about me.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Saturday, July 30, 2016
[523] The Body Politic
I need to readdress the idea of good,
gooder, and best. When I first spoke about it, as time provides irony
with a field day, it was with regard to relationships. I see, or at
least pretend to see and sometimes argue for, a difference in
relationships of convenience, abuse, or mutual encouragement as
existing on a kind of sliding scale. You can be in a good
relationship that “keeps the lid on” something about you or
perhaps opens you up to new experiences, but remains couched in
crippling insecurities about being alone. Depending on what level you
want to look at or what you want to be steered by in life, the
description can change fairly quickly.
This time around, it's about politics, as the conversation keeps swirling around Hilary or Hitler 2. As a habit, I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with often false dichotomies. Literally nothing exists that's “only” one or the other. Besides me begrudging people for introducing bad philosophy into their “pragmatic” conversations, I see a sort of “fundamental” concern that keeps getting ignored. I don't believe any reasonable person thinks it's hard to distinguish the nuclear fallout of a Hitler 2 presidency verses the, albeit very bad, neoliberal warmongering wall street jerking of Hilary. I get it, sorry poor children of the world, America doesn't really give a shit about you, Hitler 2 is right around the corner.
My concern is about where does the hard and fast line exist between “practical” and “idealist” show up? I contend that things change, almost randomly, for any number of unforeseen reasons. To maintain that the “only” way forward is to remain complicit in systems that are broken seems so ridiculously callous, lazy, and unwise but I hear it over and over again from politicians I admire or celebrities I enjoy, and I'm trying not to adopt a kind of doublethink about where they're coming from, and why I'm not voting for Hilary.
Say you never have to make a decision. Say your whole life is carried out for you by servants or a level of extravagance reserved for royalty. How would you make your decisions? What's most distracting? What's most pragmatic? Do these words even mean something to you at that point? Your attention is already whatever you want it to be. Your desires are met and there's nothing to “sit and deal with.”
Now you have to introduce some outside force. You get in a car accident. You decide to not just buy, but build the most amazingly safe car ever built and mandate the roads be cleared for your travels. You get sick. You build the most amazing hospital and import the world's doctors. You're reacting to your fears. You're making decisions in service to combat the dangerous reality that surrounds your extravagance. Consider what Hitler 2 promises and how his solutions, solutions for fear mind you, are as fanciful and hard to imagine as the person given all the resources in the world insulating themselves from danger or death.
To state the above explicitly, when nothing exists that concerns you beyond fundamental truths of existence, you can choose to live in fear.
Here, the hard work of discussion and philosophy needs to remind us that advocacy and sticking by what's best can remain worthwhile and viable in a world absolutely consumed by hatred and fear. Because make no mistake, the business as usual is complicated legalese that spells out someone in power's hatred for your being. Hatred for your rights, bodies, opinions, or even presumption that you have something they don't. And they have so much, and it's never enough, and it's because it's rooted in fear.
You're royalty. No bills to be paid. No wars to be fought (that you're not creating for amusement.) You're not hungry, you're not even bored. You can choose to live for other people or ideals that exist outside of your safe space.
In order to do that, you need to not just be aware of how good your life is going, you have to be able to explain, in due detail, all the forces that have to come together to make sure it remains a safe space. The millions of minds that lend credence to your royalty. The advances in science that will help keep you alive. The guards and caretakers and entertainers that you devour. You have to introduce guilt. You have to hold yourself accountable to something that nobody else can. What you've learned, what you've argued for, what you'd like to see in the future. It's when you've actually done the work to become something more than what you've been born into.
It's a tall order when all you have to do is react to remain complicit with the other side. How easy is it to fear Hitler 2? It's a cliché. You don't even have to think about it. In fact, I would argue, the ethos and purpose of modern society is to be able to label Hitler 2 as such without irony. Of course, I'm afraid of him. Of course I want to laugh more than cry when I see footage of his followers. But I'm not going to live my life in anymore fear than is necessary. I'm not going to pretend Hilary speaks for the same things Bernie does. What are synonymous vote percentages in lieu of a conscious or basic awareness of the problem?
That's what bugs me. I understand there's a political game always afoot. I get that there's sometimes inconvenient truths about the balance of power and influence. I do not understand approaching a system so dominated, by what used to be incidental quirks, as it now completely renders the desires of the population mute with your “vote” for what's going to keep it that way. Even if you're vote is symbolic. Even if it only has the fleeting impact of a set example. Are we going to get where this irrational, angry, and afraid animal needs to be by exercising it like the hateful planners at the top figured we would?
And honestly, I feel I'm not even explaining it as compellingly as it feels. If you want a child to do something, you can threaten them or you can encourage their best behaviors. I view humans as perpetual children. Hilary is threatening us with Hitler 2. Hitler 2 threatens everyone and encourages people to as well. If it's “my” vote, I choose die in the self-righteous flame of actual progress. I've been saying I don't believe in progress, which seems as of late to speak to the deficiency of language. There's things I want over other things. I want Bernie over Hilary, practically anything over Hitler 2, an informed and rational population over oligarchy and capitalism. And what I want is still out there, and it needs advocates. It's realities want a shot at being the new “practical reality” (you know, unless you're already there as a different civilized country.)
If Hitler 2 wins, it will be your fault. You don't know what you stand for and you deny your fear. You took it easy on your racist uncle. You adopted a catch-phrase about undocumented workers. You refused to read links I often provide offering context or numbers that soundly destroy some mythology shat out over pundit bickering or Hitler 2 himself. You allowed yourself to be swallowed, as we're all swallowed, by the system and then resolved yourself. You got tired and didn't ask why. You gave away all your time and then clung to the weekend that much harder. You threw personal pity parties and trumpeted your shallow conception of self-worth and righteousness as waves of ignorance and guilt washed out the notes.
My vote for Obama was because I hadn't figured out what I stood for. I was raised in a Democrat household. I believed minority opinions needed to be elevated and by that metric alone might help things. I thought the system was “basically good.” By all comparisons, my life is a breeze, the breeziest of breezes, and it's because of this country. But the foundation of my life is not because of the politics of today. It's because the people before me stood for something that we've lost all institutional memory of. How does it come back for my grandkids? Not with my vote for Hilary Clinton. How will I know I don't want grandkids? When you show we've accomplished so much only to elect Hitler 2.
This time around, it's about politics, as the conversation keeps swirling around Hilary or Hitler 2. As a habit, I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with often false dichotomies. Literally nothing exists that's “only” one or the other. Besides me begrudging people for introducing bad philosophy into their “pragmatic” conversations, I see a sort of “fundamental” concern that keeps getting ignored. I don't believe any reasonable person thinks it's hard to distinguish the nuclear fallout of a Hitler 2 presidency verses the, albeit very bad, neoliberal warmongering wall street jerking of Hilary. I get it, sorry poor children of the world, America doesn't really give a shit about you, Hitler 2 is right around the corner.
My concern is about where does the hard and fast line exist between “practical” and “idealist” show up? I contend that things change, almost randomly, for any number of unforeseen reasons. To maintain that the “only” way forward is to remain complicit in systems that are broken seems so ridiculously callous, lazy, and unwise but I hear it over and over again from politicians I admire or celebrities I enjoy, and I'm trying not to adopt a kind of doublethink about where they're coming from, and why I'm not voting for Hilary.
Say you never have to make a decision. Say your whole life is carried out for you by servants or a level of extravagance reserved for royalty. How would you make your decisions? What's most distracting? What's most pragmatic? Do these words even mean something to you at that point? Your attention is already whatever you want it to be. Your desires are met and there's nothing to “sit and deal with.”
Now you have to introduce some outside force. You get in a car accident. You decide to not just buy, but build the most amazingly safe car ever built and mandate the roads be cleared for your travels. You get sick. You build the most amazing hospital and import the world's doctors. You're reacting to your fears. You're making decisions in service to combat the dangerous reality that surrounds your extravagance. Consider what Hitler 2 promises and how his solutions, solutions for fear mind you, are as fanciful and hard to imagine as the person given all the resources in the world insulating themselves from danger or death.
To state the above explicitly, when nothing exists that concerns you beyond fundamental truths of existence, you can choose to live in fear.
Here, the hard work of discussion and philosophy needs to remind us that advocacy and sticking by what's best can remain worthwhile and viable in a world absolutely consumed by hatred and fear. Because make no mistake, the business as usual is complicated legalese that spells out someone in power's hatred for your being. Hatred for your rights, bodies, opinions, or even presumption that you have something they don't. And they have so much, and it's never enough, and it's because it's rooted in fear.
You're royalty. No bills to be paid. No wars to be fought (that you're not creating for amusement.) You're not hungry, you're not even bored. You can choose to live for other people or ideals that exist outside of your safe space.
In order to do that, you need to not just be aware of how good your life is going, you have to be able to explain, in due detail, all the forces that have to come together to make sure it remains a safe space. The millions of minds that lend credence to your royalty. The advances in science that will help keep you alive. The guards and caretakers and entertainers that you devour. You have to introduce guilt. You have to hold yourself accountable to something that nobody else can. What you've learned, what you've argued for, what you'd like to see in the future. It's when you've actually done the work to become something more than what you've been born into.
It's a tall order when all you have to do is react to remain complicit with the other side. How easy is it to fear Hitler 2? It's a cliché. You don't even have to think about it. In fact, I would argue, the ethos and purpose of modern society is to be able to label Hitler 2 as such without irony. Of course, I'm afraid of him. Of course I want to laugh more than cry when I see footage of his followers. But I'm not going to live my life in anymore fear than is necessary. I'm not going to pretend Hilary speaks for the same things Bernie does. What are synonymous vote percentages in lieu of a conscious or basic awareness of the problem?
That's what bugs me. I understand there's a political game always afoot. I get that there's sometimes inconvenient truths about the balance of power and influence. I do not understand approaching a system so dominated, by what used to be incidental quirks, as it now completely renders the desires of the population mute with your “vote” for what's going to keep it that way. Even if you're vote is symbolic. Even if it only has the fleeting impact of a set example. Are we going to get where this irrational, angry, and afraid animal needs to be by exercising it like the hateful planners at the top figured we would?
And honestly, I feel I'm not even explaining it as compellingly as it feels. If you want a child to do something, you can threaten them or you can encourage their best behaviors. I view humans as perpetual children. Hilary is threatening us with Hitler 2. Hitler 2 threatens everyone and encourages people to as well. If it's “my” vote, I choose die in the self-righteous flame of actual progress. I've been saying I don't believe in progress, which seems as of late to speak to the deficiency of language. There's things I want over other things. I want Bernie over Hilary, practically anything over Hitler 2, an informed and rational population over oligarchy and capitalism. And what I want is still out there, and it needs advocates. It's realities want a shot at being the new “practical reality” (you know, unless you're already there as a different civilized country.)
If Hitler 2 wins, it will be your fault. You don't know what you stand for and you deny your fear. You took it easy on your racist uncle. You adopted a catch-phrase about undocumented workers. You refused to read links I often provide offering context or numbers that soundly destroy some mythology shat out over pundit bickering or Hitler 2 himself. You allowed yourself to be swallowed, as we're all swallowed, by the system and then resolved yourself. You got tired and didn't ask why. You gave away all your time and then clung to the weekend that much harder. You threw personal pity parties and trumpeted your shallow conception of self-worth and righteousness as waves of ignorance and guilt washed out the notes.
My vote for Obama was because I hadn't figured out what I stood for. I was raised in a Democrat household. I believed minority opinions needed to be elevated and by that metric alone might help things. I thought the system was “basically good.” By all comparisons, my life is a breeze, the breeziest of breezes, and it's because of this country. But the foundation of my life is not because of the politics of today. It's because the people before me stood for something that we've lost all institutional memory of. How does it come back for my grandkids? Not with my vote for Hilary Clinton. How will I know I don't want grandkids? When you show we've accomplished so much only to elect Hitler 2.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
[522] Nothing In Particular
I'm trying to figure out why I've just
been staring at nothing for the last half hour. I can't seem to
orient myself. I have shows to watch that I'm not. I have a pile of
books I managed to half address for a couple hours when I woke up.
There's inventory and cleaning I wanted to do around the house. But
it's like I was stuck. Clicking aimlessly between tabs not really
looking at anything in particular. Glancing at the clock as if I'm
waiting for the cue to perhaps leave or I don't know what else.
Why? What am I facing when I'm not really looking? What's pressing down on my shoulders and directing my eyes to (finally) movement focused on a single point? Maybe too many thoughts at once? Maybe lingering regret about the last thing I wrote not quite reaching a satisfying conclusion? Some stark realization that my gut and subconscious are trying desperately to keep from my waking mind?
Sometimes I think I'm as angry as I can ever be, but all the time. Not “ready to explode,” but actively, perpetually exploding. I'm angry at my own effort to learn things. I'm angry that I can be made to feel self-conscious not in a way that would make me stop, but provoke me to double down. I'm angry that I pretend there's a thing called “progress” and that enough conversation can fix nearly anything. I don't like how I think, even though I've spent years trying to undermine how I got here.
The flow of it all just leaves me dizzy. Within 30 seconds I can be in a perfectly understood and receptive dialogue and slip into entrenched dislike or anger for my being. The internet of course making the transition all the smoother for when I'm not drunkenly table hopping for conversations. I don't understand why people are willing to harbor such resentment without any effort to explain themselves. Or worse, that explanation reduces to a bevy of insults and accusations with no patience for your position.
Old news though. Why do I care? Why did I ever choose to care? What's left in me that I'm referring to it as “caring” at all, at least as it functions to leave me confused and paralyzed? Again, old news. The whole song and dance about togetherness and empathy. “Respect” for “friends” so on and so forth.
I'm really fucking annoyed though. I want to know why I allow myself to get worked up about what you refuse to do. Is it that I don't want to face the inevitable consequences? Am I just really that bored with seeing things coming? Do I play the scale-up game where I see how your behavior lays the foundation for what we're seeing nationally concerning politics? That connectedness idea is a total bitch. Every one of my failed interactions is a statement about the whole and its capacity. Maybe just too many examples are clouding my view of the world from the negative camp.
I think for the first time I actually voiced how lonely it is to have all of your time on your hands. It gets worse though when you hear how the rest of the world is spending its time. When you really think and can't escape and can't discuss the larger systems of behavior and attitude we're plugged into. I'm just watching people rot. I'm watching my makeshift wood plank sailboat drift farther from the shore. I just turned 28, most people I know have been 40+ for as long as I can seem to remember anymore. I've worked so many jobs like theirs. I've spent so many hours playing the exact same games. How does it not drive them crazy?
It's almost a paradox. The less I pay attention and just focus on indulgences, I can genuinely feel my mood improve. I almost feel motivated to start taking selfies. (okay, that's a lie) I could budget random trips and show you how worldly and cool I am. I could have dozens of beautiful meals. That's how we're judging each others' happiness and stature still, right? It didn't switch on me and I should be making Vine videos about Pokemon Go?
What's next? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Your job still gonna be there? Are you truly afraid of Hitler 2 or just playing along with the copious offered cliches and dialogues? Are you mad? Are you feeling your sanity slip? Are you settled and comfortable riding out your life the way it's going now? Are you just tired enough to find yourself no longer concerned about my, disparagingly named, “ramblings?”
After my facebook account fiasco, my friends list went from 60 something to 48. It's diminishing fast. Who really cares to stay on for the ride? At this rate, by the time I'm 30 I'll be lucky keep my dad on the list. Am I bad? Can people pick on something about me that looms too large? Have I hurt you? It seems like I rarely have to look far for someone mad at me, but I have to wonder if I'm really the enemy. How much harm can one person do from their basement with blogs and statuses to such a small group of people? It seems like way too much.
Maybe I'm just in a weird mood because of the imposed silence for so long. Even reading a book on the future I'm sitting here going, “Don't I already know this, Kaku?” I don't know what I've left to learn or do that isn't wildly complicated, and even then, to some nondescript end. I have no place but to self-indulge. I have no design but to wait for everything I know to degrade or change dramatically. I don't expect growth or understanding. I barely conceive of teamwork or “shared” anything. The friends I engage with constitute that “barely.” Maybe I'm scared of unburdening myself with the responsibility of caring about when things go wrong.
What kind of shit show would that spell? Countless throwaway drunken escapes? Years of social depravity and exploitation? A stark look back down the line flooded with regret about all the wasted time and how “they won?” I don't know who I am but for what forces its way out of me. Lines of potential that keep my fingers moving and allow for projects to run in the background, but I can't force everyone's hand to work per my guide and deadlines. It's just, when am I going to discover something new? Be it to say or do. Is that the faulty destructive assumption I've been operating under? “Newness?”
Why? What am I facing when I'm not really looking? What's pressing down on my shoulders and directing my eyes to (finally) movement focused on a single point? Maybe too many thoughts at once? Maybe lingering regret about the last thing I wrote not quite reaching a satisfying conclusion? Some stark realization that my gut and subconscious are trying desperately to keep from my waking mind?
Sometimes I think I'm as angry as I can ever be, but all the time. Not “ready to explode,” but actively, perpetually exploding. I'm angry at my own effort to learn things. I'm angry that I can be made to feel self-conscious not in a way that would make me stop, but provoke me to double down. I'm angry that I pretend there's a thing called “progress” and that enough conversation can fix nearly anything. I don't like how I think, even though I've spent years trying to undermine how I got here.
The flow of it all just leaves me dizzy. Within 30 seconds I can be in a perfectly understood and receptive dialogue and slip into entrenched dislike or anger for my being. The internet of course making the transition all the smoother for when I'm not drunkenly table hopping for conversations. I don't understand why people are willing to harbor such resentment without any effort to explain themselves. Or worse, that explanation reduces to a bevy of insults and accusations with no patience for your position.
Old news though. Why do I care? Why did I ever choose to care? What's left in me that I'm referring to it as “caring” at all, at least as it functions to leave me confused and paralyzed? Again, old news. The whole song and dance about togetherness and empathy. “Respect” for “friends” so on and so forth.
I'm really fucking annoyed though. I want to know why I allow myself to get worked up about what you refuse to do. Is it that I don't want to face the inevitable consequences? Am I just really that bored with seeing things coming? Do I play the scale-up game where I see how your behavior lays the foundation for what we're seeing nationally concerning politics? That connectedness idea is a total bitch. Every one of my failed interactions is a statement about the whole and its capacity. Maybe just too many examples are clouding my view of the world from the negative camp.
I think for the first time I actually voiced how lonely it is to have all of your time on your hands. It gets worse though when you hear how the rest of the world is spending its time. When you really think and can't escape and can't discuss the larger systems of behavior and attitude we're plugged into. I'm just watching people rot. I'm watching my makeshift wood plank sailboat drift farther from the shore. I just turned 28, most people I know have been 40+ for as long as I can seem to remember anymore. I've worked so many jobs like theirs. I've spent so many hours playing the exact same games. How does it not drive them crazy?
It's almost a paradox. The less I pay attention and just focus on indulgences, I can genuinely feel my mood improve. I almost feel motivated to start taking selfies. (okay, that's a lie) I could budget random trips and show you how worldly and cool I am. I could have dozens of beautiful meals. That's how we're judging each others' happiness and stature still, right? It didn't switch on me and I should be making Vine videos about Pokemon Go?
What's next? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Your job still gonna be there? Are you truly afraid of Hitler 2 or just playing along with the copious offered cliches and dialogues? Are you mad? Are you feeling your sanity slip? Are you settled and comfortable riding out your life the way it's going now? Are you just tired enough to find yourself no longer concerned about my, disparagingly named, “ramblings?”
After my facebook account fiasco, my friends list went from 60 something to 48. It's diminishing fast. Who really cares to stay on for the ride? At this rate, by the time I'm 30 I'll be lucky keep my dad on the list. Am I bad? Can people pick on something about me that looms too large? Have I hurt you? It seems like I rarely have to look far for someone mad at me, but I have to wonder if I'm really the enemy. How much harm can one person do from their basement with blogs and statuses to such a small group of people? It seems like way too much.
Maybe I'm just in a weird mood because of the imposed silence for so long. Even reading a book on the future I'm sitting here going, “Don't I already know this, Kaku?” I don't know what I've left to learn or do that isn't wildly complicated, and even then, to some nondescript end. I have no place but to self-indulge. I have no design but to wait for everything I know to degrade or change dramatically. I don't expect growth or understanding. I barely conceive of teamwork or “shared” anything. The friends I engage with constitute that “barely.” Maybe I'm scared of unburdening myself with the responsibility of caring about when things go wrong.
What kind of shit show would that spell? Countless throwaway drunken escapes? Years of social depravity and exploitation? A stark look back down the line flooded with regret about all the wasted time and how “they won?” I don't know who I am but for what forces its way out of me. Lines of potential that keep my fingers moving and allow for projects to run in the background, but I can't force everyone's hand to work per my guide and deadlines. It's just, when am I going to discover something new? Be it to say or do. Is that the faulty destructive assumption I've been operating under? “Newness?”
I don't even know what I sound like
anymore. Is that weird? I feel like all semblance of a “tone”
that's supposed to accompany questions or ideas is losing its grip on
me. I sort of take it for granted that people feel by virtue of me
asking a question they immediately feel I'm accusing them of
something. In a sense they'd be right, but it's only that they
probably don't know what they're talking about. That clear path to
winning friends and influencing people Socrates mastered. But why
make it about me? Just because I asked. Just because you don't know
anymore than I do, why does the anger and blame have to be directed
at me and be mine? Why can't you just be as angry and explosive as
you'll ever be, in general, and use it to address your approach to
yourself?
I just know I'm not going to stop. I'm going to pick and pick and pick until you make yourself unpickable. And usually, that has nothing to do with me needing to quench an insatiable desire to destroy. I need people capable of talking back, keeping me in check. I need real friends. I need real conversations. I need something to rely on. I wish it was you, but we seem to learn so quickly sometimes how it isn't. You don't care, right? You don't care and want me to go away. Say so, or I promise I'll bring it to your door eventually.
I just know I'm not going to stop. I'm going to pick and pick and pick until you make yourself unpickable. And usually, that has nothing to do with me needing to quench an insatiable desire to destroy. I need people capable of talking back, keeping me in check. I need real friends. I need real conversations. I need something to rely on. I wish it was you, but we seem to learn so quickly sometimes how it isn't. You don't care, right? You don't care and want me to go away. Say so, or I promise I'll bring it to your door eventually.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
[xx-18] Marriage Blurb
Of
course do you and I've been to some fun weddings, but the more I read
this, the more I'm proud of its concise yet encompassing nature. I also
may have lied about being married because reddit is where I go to lie 
. The question was "What does marriage mean to you?"
Marriage is sobriety. I've personally never been capable of prolonged "deep feeling" regarding anyone, so when I was married, it was more transactional and for her. It's impossible for me to deny the attraction I have for...well everyone I find attractive, and I don't make strict line in the sand comparisons about the fun or conversations I can have with who I was to my wife. The sober reminder, that while you care about this person, they are a person, one of many potential "the ones." Something *beyond* you and them belays ideas of *us.*
Marriage is putting someone first. That was sort of the guiding light that many people call "commitment." I allowed certain things I wanted to do or say be subsumed by her desires. Unfortunately, it's hardly a perfect system when your spouse decides to stop talking to you or the stress from sacrificing yourself works its way into your bones. It was nice while it lasted, but hardly something I consider reliable.
Marriage is convention. Regardless of what I discovered over time, be it in someone's struggles they shared online or in a book, or just what I figured out through dating, the all-purpose fixer-upper glory day remains when you get married. If you're lucky you get to revel in the honeymoon phase. You start to adopt a way of speaking that you've heard from your parents or on television. I inched out a lot of the quirk or spontaneity I considered myself, at one point, full of.
Marriage is an investment. Like all investments, it's subject to inbuilt risk. I made big romantic professions. I put money down. I opened up to moving mountains of my personality so the packed earth could house something we would build together. I found the market to be rigged. A fantasy stoked as often as someone opens their mouth to profess the love and beauty. When it fails, instead of blaming obvious culprits, a game of finger-pointing and hot potato ensue. Neither of us deserved it.
Marriage means an illusion. It's the illusion against divorce. It's the illusion that your life can mimic a Disney movie or your favorite romantic holiday. It's forcing yourself to focus on the special date or great sex scene while ignoring years of dirty clothes, passive aggressive comments, and morning breath. It's the song and dance of togetherness and renaming "forcing it" with "better together." Marriage means politics. This is your cage so come to the table or be nuked and sanctioned. But make sure your facebook only displays the best smiles from the convention.
Marriage means denial. Denial for its roots in property negotiations. Denial of systems that do it in an arranged way with equal or greater "success" when you consider social power dynamics. It's denial of human psychology and sexuality. It's denial that the "sanctity" is not bestowed by some timeless all-loving being in the sky.
Marriage is hope. The childlike hope instilled in you since you can remember that it's about you and your feelings and your story and nothing else. The hope that while you pursue the heights of selfish indulgent and extravagant thinking, you'll remain capable and worthy to opine on selflessness and "love." The hope that people will believe your photo montage and forget what they know about you from school. The hope that even one thing can remain stable against the tide of truth that is enduring change.
Marriage means nothing to me, and it's why I understand it as something that can mean absolutely anything to someone else.
[521] Salt To Taste
If you're willing to pay attention, you
can catch your own attention. It's also hard to imagine if you're
habitually taking your awareness and perspective for granted. One
method that I seem to have recently discovered is to just shut up.
When you shut up, and focus on shutting up, then you can retreat and
wait for what provokes you to want to speak. At that point, you may
get more “heartfelt” professions from your inner core than
mindless ramblings.
Pulling away from too much political dialogue has certainly helped me. Every headlines, every interview, every “debate” is reinforcement. You are forced, your perspective locked in, to how those people frame the issue. I wouldn't be able to justify my vote for Jill Stein listening to the mainstream media. It's essentially a vote for Hitler 2! They don't recognize what I'm trying to affirm. They don't see it as the cart being put before the horse. I'm lumped in with indignant “Bernie or bust” types who don't understand math and should be as afraid.
Here we can perform the layers and splitting game. Of course I'm afraid. I was afraid of the millions of people who showed up to vote for Sarah Palin in any capacity. Now that they're back out and stirred up more, I'm even more afraid of their new glorified posturing ignorance. A vote for Hilary Clinton denies those people exist. It's to shove them under the rug. I want to channel their fear and make it fight against what I actually believe. Hell, not even “believe.” What I've gone to great lengths to write about, read about, and argue for that is actually rooted in history or science. I don't “believe” we should care about each other or that there are ways to afford what we want. I didn't pray about it.
I'm generally looking for the surprise outside. I like to think I'm a redundant open book. It's why it's kind of relief to feel motivated to write. There's potential for new analogies or discoveries. I can piece together the handful of lines I thought might have kicked off a new blog a few days or weeks ago that couldn't hold up. It was my birthday 2 days ago, and I had about half the desire to be a selfish rod of destruction as I normally do. It clicked, I don't want anything for my birthday that I didn't want the day before or will want the day after. I don't need distractions or even strictly money. I need a place in society lol. I need to feel invested in more than my future.
To me, at least, “things” just feel like they're going to get worse. Hitler 2 is the new normal. Jobs being consumed by technology will leave people who've wrapped their whole identities into catch-phrases surrounding the nuclear family adrift. We'll keep being angry at each other. We'll still be isolated. Our conversations stunted and afraid. Our prospects appearing at random and still draped by a cloak of exploitation...Uber. But, I'm not sitting here shivering. I don't even have a pain in my stomach. I just look at it and go, “duh.”
I can't stress it enough, I can't repeat it enough. I don't know if you should take anything away from this more than the following idea. I almost never, in fact practically never, hear people express how wrong they are. We are culturally isolated from our capacity to be wrong. Line after line flows in service to arguments and rebuttals and never not once does someone go “you know, I may be wrong.” When it does happen, it's half-assed like, “Oh, I agree Hilary isn't literally the devil” and still not even phrased with the operative word “wrong.” If you've no capacity to respect how wrong you are, let alone how compoundingly wrong those wrongs pile up, the potential truth of your words can't begin.
If you sat in a room next to someone with completely “opposite” views and neither of you said a word, how would you feel? Murderous intent? Suspicious of their motives? Terrified of their color? The words fuck everything up. Blame them first. Blame yourself for using them irresponsibly. Blame a system that teaches you that yelling is better than reading. Figure out who you're mad at, learn that it's yourself and often forces you've yet to properly identify and then stop being mad and start trying.
Pulling away from too much political dialogue has certainly helped me. Every headlines, every interview, every “debate” is reinforcement. You are forced, your perspective locked in, to how those people frame the issue. I wouldn't be able to justify my vote for Jill Stein listening to the mainstream media. It's essentially a vote for Hitler 2! They don't recognize what I'm trying to affirm. They don't see it as the cart being put before the horse. I'm lumped in with indignant “Bernie or bust” types who don't understand math and should be as afraid.
Here we can perform the layers and splitting game. Of course I'm afraid. I was afraid of the millions of people who showed up to vote for Sarah Palin in any capacity. Now that they're back out and stirred up more, I'm even more afraid of their new glorified posturing ignorance. A vote for Hilary Clinton denies those people exist. It's to shove them under the rug. I want to channel their fear and make it fight against what I actually believe. Hell, not even “believe.” What I've gone to great lengths to write about, read about, and argue for that is actually rooted in history or science. I don't “believe” we should care about each other or that there are ways to afford what we want. I didn't pray about it.
I'm generally looking for the surprise outside. I like to think I'm a redundant open book. It's why it's kind of relief to feel motivated to write. There's potential for new analogies or discoveries. I can piece together the handful of lines I thought might have kicked off a new blog a few days or weeks ago that couldn't hold up. It was my birthday 2 days ago, and I had about half the desire to be a selfish rod of destruction as I normally do. It clicked, I don't want anything for my birthday that I didn't want the day before or will want the day after. I don't need distractions or even strictly money. I need a place in society lol. I need to feel invested in more than my future.
To me, at least, “things” just feel like they're going to get worse. Hitler 2 is the new normal. Jobs being consumed by technology will leave people who've wrapped their whole identities into catch-phrases surrounding the nuclear family adrift. We'll keep being angry at each other. We'll still be isolated. Our conversations stunted and afraid. Our prospects appearing at random and still draped by a cloak of exploitation...Uber. But, I'm not sitting here shivering. I don't even have a pain in my stomach. I just look at it and go, “duh.”
I can't stress it enough, I can't repeat it enough. I don't know if you should take anything away from this more than the following idea. I almost never, in fact practically never, hear people express how wrong they are. We are culturally isolated from our capacity to be wrong. Line after line flows in service to arguments and rebuttals and never not once does someone go “you know, I may be wrong.” When it does happen, it's half-assed like, “Oh, I agree Hilary isn't literally the devil” and still not even phrased with the operative word “wrong.” If you've no capacity to respect how wrong you are, let alone how compoundingly wrong those wrongs pile up, the potential truth of your words can't begin.
If you sat in a room next to someone with completely “opposite” views and neither of you said a word, how would you feel? Murderous intent? Suspicious of their motives? Terrified of their color? The words fuck everything up. Blame them first. Blame yourself for using them irresponsibly. Blame a system that teaches you that yelling is better than reading. Figure out who you're mad at, learn that it's yourself and often forces you've yet to properly identify and then stop being mad and start trying.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
[520] Ode to My Basement
Here no one can hurt me
Here I can lie and lie
Here it is warm and cozy
Here could be a nice place to die
I shouldn't stay nor should I go
There's nothing to and nothing fro
Burn it down, it's all a show
Never are sure of what you know
Here I can read and write it too
Here I can sleep and dream
Here I can bang or blow a tune
Here I reign supreme
I am trapped in my own mind
It's the only one of its kind
Nowhere to run, I cannot hide
Too much of the world provides
Here I drive myself insane
Here we mask each inch of pain
Here the crooked point holds weight
Here lies buried a life of hate
I stare blankly at the wall
Curl up tight into a ball
Every instant ever so small
With each step you mind the fall
Here I stand in stark contrast
Here I have noise and shapes
Here things move too fast
Here I start to waste
There but for the grace of God
To other worlds I give a nod
Need to feel or else so odd
Point me to nearest escape pod
Here I fight the silence
Here I am fighting the noise
Here I can play with the violence
Here I'm not one of your toys
I wait around for nothing new
Listen close it could be true
Probably not, left black and blue
Dramatic save not meant for you
Here I run on empty
Here I can see the end
Here I given you entry
Here where reality bends
Trickled out speck by speck
I never know what's coming next
No relief in 'nother breath
Not soon enough my impending death
Here I can lie and lie
Here it is warm and cozy
Here could be a nice place to die
I shouldn't stay nor should I go
There's nothing to and nothing fro
Burn it down, it's all a show
Never are sure of what you know
Here I can read and write it too
Here I can sleep and dream
Here I can bang or blow a tune
Here I reign supreme
I am trapped in my own mind
It's the only one of its kind
Nowhere to run, I cannot hide
Too much of the world provides
Here I drive myself insane
Here we mask each inch of pain
Here the crooked point holds weight
Here lies buried a life of hate
I stare blankly at the wall
Curl up tight into a ball
Every instant ever so small
With each step you mind the fall
Here I stand in stark contrast
Here I have noise and shapes
Here things move too fast
Here I start to waste
There but for the grace of God
To other worlds I give a nod
Need to feel or else so odd
Point me to nearest escape pod
Here I fight the silence
Here I am fighting the noise
Here I can play with the violence
Here I'm not one of your toys
I wait around for nothing new
Listen close it could be true
Probably not, left black and blue
Dramatic save not meant for you
Here I run on empty
Here I can see the end
Here I given you entry
Here where reality bends
Trickled out speck by speck
I never know what's coming next
No relief in 'nother breath
Not soon enough my impending death
Monday, July 11, 2016
[519] Mortal Criti-sin
I'm trying to recall the last time I
heard someone criticize something in colloquial conversation that
didn't reduce to a cliché. It strikes me that the backlash I receive
for not describing things in generally positive ways might be
comprised of several screwed up forces in tandem. Like threads on a
rope that snap together to whip me into submission.
Consider Pokemon Go. It seems like it is on its way to taking over the world. Jokes about getting outside for the first time in whenever. Screen shots of who's got the most and where they found them abound. For every article that's abused the relentless capacity for “millenials” to feel “nostalgic,” this app seems to have screwed right into the heart of it. I certainly don't blame people for having fun or connecting with people. I'm unable to shake how this feels like a culmination of perpetual infantilism.
I liked Pokemon as much as the next guy. Then I started to grow up. I don't want this to be overstated as I don't draw stark lines in the sand about acceptable ways to kill time, have fun, or whatever. Collect Pokemon, stamps, jerk off all day, I don't give a shit. I care that we only seem to find enthusiasm for “stupid” things like apps or get arm-chair “outraged” by things like shootings and racism. Our emotional perspective seems trapped, stunted, and ignorant.
What if we put as much time and emotional energy into learning about the world as we did wandering the neighborhood to catch Pokemon? Let me put it to you like this. Time is the most valuable thing. I have watched more movies and television than anyone I've ever met, and am a couple hundred levels from beating the main story of Candy Crush. I know how to waste time. I don't call what I do any more or less worthy of my time but for it's capacity to distract me or keep me entertained. But I couldn't do any of those things unless I thought I could offer a salient opinion about my place in my country or our collective responsibility to the world. I get guilt stricken. I feel lazy and dishonest. I honestly don't know if other people do, and frankly doubt it.
I fear we abuse apps and “nostalgia” like we abuse alcohol or drugs. One is arguably better if you had to choose, but what provokes the abuse and, perhaps overstated enthusiasm, I think is the same mechanism. The mad dash away from coping and dealing with larger problems. These are late 20's people who can't afford shit, aren't fucking, and have been under the unrelenting heal of debt and corrupted social services, if the news is to be believed, so why not Pokemon? It rings like the modern peasant farmers who at least get to get wasted at the end of the day.
Your 20's seems to have become this new tender age. People react so poorly to my critical statements because subconsciously their whole life has been under review and doubt and problems. They're just now maybe glancing at an opportunity to look like an adult and achieve things they dreamed about as kids. And here I come shitting even more. The stark contrast between why I seem to get along with adults verses kids is simple. Kids just wanna have fun and I'm a meanie. Adults have grown resolved to hear it all and move with or work past without much fuss.
While I was working out the details of emotional struggles and the lack of wisdom in relationships, people were doubling down on those feelings and believing in the future 10 years later. While I was giving myself headaches learning every angle of choose-your-topic, school was stressful enough for them or, “what's the point?” of driving yourself insane about things you can't fix. Add the backdrop of financial insecurity onto the undeveloped disposition of a batch of children, it's not a secret why anything remotely not ironic or critical on a site like reddit gets shit on to oblivion. It doesn't matter if you have a point, no one has developed the capacity to see it.
This is also different from a pretentious thing. Like, you can make convoluted crazy “points” about anything, drawing from your disparate experiences that...well they certainly seem to make sense to you. I'm talking about a kind of ignorance that has old white people saying Black Lives Matter is overreacting and need to take more responsibility for themselves. Any black person, as well as any reasonable person, would not look at someone in police custody ending up in a coma and say, “He should have worn a seat belt” like the dude wasn't kicked the shit out of. You can see the rates of incarceration, read histories worth of racially targeted legislation, and just be generally awake and honest and land on the side of sympathy.
I look down on those people. The ones who have no reason to pretend about something simple, but choose to anyway. Impersonal hive-mind children on an internet forum? Not my target audience. The same mechanism of defensive fear for conceding that the world ain't roses? I think it stems from the same kind of insecurities. The world can be described accurately in a way that transcends your opinion. There's degrees and levels to consider if you're going to act like your approach is relatively wise. If we persist under a cultural lunge to suppress and escape, well, Hitler 2 is actually a presidential candidate.
So I'm willing to double down. I'm willing to write 10 blogs contemplating why you would think it's me who's “negative.” The negativity stems from your avoidance and reluctance. It stems from your inability or unwillingness to respect your time or capacity to change something. Me talking about it isn't the problem, and never will be. You making me the enemy instead of yourself will always be. By choosing to react to the suffering of institutional guilt instead of motivating yourself from a personal one, you ensure we'll drive right over the edge of a cliff while I insist it’s not worth trying to catch the Onyx at the bottom.
Consider Pokemon Go. It seems like it is on its way to taking over the world. Jokes about getting outside for the first time in whenever. Screen shots of who's got the most and where they found them abound. For every article that's abused the relentless capacity for “millenials” to feel “nostalgic,” this app seems to have screwed right into the heart of it. I certainly don't blame people for having fun or connecting with people. I'm unable to shake how this feels like a culmination of perpetual infantilism.
I liked Pokemon as much as the next guy. Then I started to grow up. I don't want this to be overstated as I don't draw stark lines in the sand about acceptable ways to kill time, have fun, or whatever. Collect Pokemon, stamps, jerk off all day, I don't give a shit. I care that we only seem to find enthusiasm for “stupid” things like apps or get arm-chair “outraged” by things like shootings and racism. Our emotional perspective seems trapped, stunted, and ignorant.
What if we put as much time and emotional energy into learning about the world as we did wandering the neighborhood to catch Pokemon? Let me put it to you like this. Time is the most valuable thing. I have watched more movies and television than anyone I've ever met, and am a couple hundred levels from beating the main story of Candy Crush. I know how to waste time. I don't call what I do any more or less worthy of my time but for it's capacity to distract me or keep me entertained. But I couldn't do any of those things unless I thought I could offer a salient opinion about my place in my country or our collective responsibility to the world. I get guilt stricken. I feel lazy and dishonest. I honestly don't know if other people do, and frankly doubt it.
I fear we abuse apps and “nostalgia” like we abuse alcohol or drugs. One is arguably better if you had to choose, but what provokes the abuse and, perhaps overstated enthusiasm, I think is the same mechanism. The mad dash away from coping and dealing with larger problems. These are late 20's people who can't afford shit, aren't fucking, and have been under the unrelenting heal of debt and corrupted social services, if the news is to be believed, so why not Pokemon? It rings like the modern peasant farmers who at least get to get wasted at the end of the day.
Your 20's seems to have become this new tender age. People react so poorly to my critical statements because subconsciously their whole life has been under review and doubt and problems. They're just now maybe glancing at an opportunity to look like an adult and achieve things they dreamed about as kids. And here I come shitting even more. The stark contrast between why I seem to get along with adults verses kids is simple. Kids just wanna have fun and I'm a meanie. Adults have grown resolved to hear it all and move with or work past without much fuss.
While I was working out the details of emotional struggles and the lack of wisdom in relationships, people were doubling down on those feelings and believing in the future 10 years later. While I was giving myself headaches learning every angle of choose-your-topic, school was stressful enough for them or, “what's the point?” of driving yourself insane about things you can't fix. Add the backdrop of financial insecurity onto the undeveloped disposition of a batch of children, it's not a secret why anything remotely not ironic or critical on a site like reddit gets shit on to oblivion. It doesn't matter if you have a point, no one has developed the capacity to see it.
This is also different from a pretentious thing. Like, you can make convoluted crazy “points” about anything, drawing from your disparate experiences that...well they certainly seem to make sense to you. I'm talking about a kind of ignorance that has old white people saying Black Lives Matter is overreacting and need to take more responsibility for themselves. Any black person, as well as any reasonable person, would not look at someone in police custody ending up in a coma and say, “He should have worn a seat belt” like the dude wasn't kicked the shit out of. You can see the rates of incarceration, read histories worth of racially targeted legislation, and just be generally awake and honest and land on the side of sympathy.
I look down on those people. The ones who have no reason to pretend about something simple, but choose to anyway. Impersonal hive-mind children on an internet forum? Not my target audience. The same mechanism of defensive fear for conceding that the world ain't roses? I think it stems from the same kind of insecurities. The world can be described accurately in a way that transcends your opinion. There's degrees and levels to consider if you're going to act like your approach is relatively wise. If we persist under a cultural lunge to suppress and escape, well, Hitler 2 is actually a presidential candidate.
So I'm willing to double down. I'm willing to write 10 blogs contemplating why you would think it's me who's “negative.” The negativity stems from your avoidance and reluctance. It stems from your inability or unwillingness to respect your time or capacity to change something. Me talking about it isn't the problem, and never will be. You making me the enemy instead of yourself will always be. By choosing to react to the suffering of institutional guilt instead of motivating yourself from a personal one, you ensure we'll drive right over the edge of a cliff while I insist it’s not worth trying to catch the Onyx at the bottom.
Saturday, July 9, 2016
[518] Extra Extra
Provoked by the movie Mr. Nobody, reading The Drunkard’s Walk, my facebook profile being flagged and blocked, my birthday on the horizon, as well as that impending sense of doom that’s not anxiety always in play, here I go.
I know I’m not the center of the world. I don’t want to believe it, but I know it. When I watch a movie or ruminate on what it means to be a star, it sets in how perpetually reinforced the ideas of being “special” or “consequential” are. Some lament the “selfie” craze and point out it has reached ridiculous and deadly heights. Others I’ve read point out that we’ve been trying to copy and represent ourselves since cave drawings.
The Drunkard’s Walk helped lock my head into thoughts about how random things truly are. They’re so reliably random, we have mathematical constructs that can predict across topics the degree in which you’ll find those star outliers or abysmal loses. And no matter how detailed a picture we give, no matter how accurately we attempt to measure and account for the forces beyond our control, we retain the judgments about ourselves and others about what should or could have been done.
Mr. Nobody has the world’s last and oldest human recounting several different lives different versions of himself took. Each one meaningful, filled with love and loss. It’s frankly creepy that I managed to watch it randomly right after finishing the book. It explores each reality existing on top of each other and as Mr. Nobody recounts fragments of each tale, he never once refers to himself as his name. He’s merely a figment, an idea. Nobody in particular at the center of all possible worlds.
The movie makes me think I’ve already seen the last of the “fun” or “spontaneity” that are classically associated with youth and naivety. The big bad stressful life wrecking ball came in and smashed any temptation to throw caution to the wind. I’ve complained about seeing “the end” for years, and I feel steeped in it like a soggy tea bag. Like I can see the handful of conversations I’m going to have with a few specific friends. I’m only going to hang out perhaps less than 10 times with a few others. Like, then we die. I watch you update your profile picture a few times, we get coffee, then we die.
The book constantly reinforces how not to make the popular mistakes when attempting to reason through probabilities and statistics. If you think you have a 7/10 chance of being fired after sending an email and your boss doesn’t respond as quick as they normally do, you’re leaving out any number of circumstances that may be holding up your boss. Before I phrase it in a stupid or incorrect way, the idea is to not pretend you can accurately account for all variables, nor should you use confirming “evidence” that only exists in your mind to make you feel bad.
Anecdotally, I consider friend interactions. Whether it’s responses to texts, facebook messages, or willingness to join in some get-together. I can state over and over that I know I live a different kind of life filled with more time and more money than people usually have. I don’t have the same stressors. I treat social media platforms as trying to be social and actually have debates or share things that genuinely push the limits of my knowledge or interests. This in contrast to memes, Buzzfeed, or 70 similar pictures of my walk through the park. Even with cutting my list down to 68 ish friends I don’t see nearly anything they post anymore, let alone know what to think about what I post may not be getting through.
I think my habits are what make a place like facebook so depressing. When I can’t stare at 50 people who used to have a good time bowling or drinking or would love to go down a waterslide, I eventually have to cut them down to 30 who might if I badger them. When the badgering starts to feel rude or they’ve moved away, let’s lose 20 more and shoot for 10 that I’ll prepare well in advance and employ tactfully to coincide with something else.
The term coming to mind is “FOMO.” It’s not so much a fear of missing something as it is a general dismay felt for every day that’s lost to the noise and hustle. I just missed a 4th of July get-together, a house party, and a friend I haven’t seen in maybe a year. I find this tragic in so many senses. Not only because they happen so rarely, but even if I had made it, I’m scared of what being around all the adults does for my disposition. There’s a place in between alcoholism and nursing a beer all night.
With my profile being blocked and me sending angry expletive-laced commentary to facebook about how ridiculous it is to ask for someone’s license to confirm such a bullshit profile, I managed to finish the book start to finish. I was acutely aware of how many times I looked for the facebook emblem to be flashing. How much time I spend looking into the abyss waiting for a notification of something happening or interesting to take place. In fairness, It’s heightened given that my options are a bed and hallway at the moment, but then it also occurred to me that facebook is my only connection to many of these people. The hallowed few who haven’t met the drunk fatalistic unfriend axe. To collect them all back on another profile, I started asking if it was worth it.
There’s that saying about living simply and cleaning your house; if you pick it up and it doesn’t bring you joy, get rid of it. It get’s complicated for me because the joy comes so few and far between, at least as far as experiencing personalities in person. The joy is the thought that you exist and are being kickass you wherever you are, and I mostly just have a memory of it. One corrupted each time it’s accessed. I think it’s why friendships I thought I could rely on “randomly” blow up. The parts of you that liked or recognized what I’m about became subjected to something else. I find them primed to explode over a long decay that ends abruptly when something...real?...happens.
There’s just a general sense of receptiveness I feel has died. From economic forces all the way down into how old you feel locking it away. Friends too old for you. New people way too sad. (Turns out most townies don’t stay because they’re hyper enthused about the town and their place in it.) I don’t even know if I’m saying anything of value at this point. I had to say something, maybe you’ll figure out how to say it better than I can. This remaining my rather meager means of keeping you abreast of what is or isn’t changing about me.
I know I’m not the center of the world. I don’t want to believe it, but I know it. When I watch a movie or ruminate on what it means to be a star, it sets in how perpetually reinforced the ideas of being “special” or “consequential” are. Some lament the “selfie” craze and point out it has reached ridiculous and deadly heights. Others I’ve read point out that we’ve been trying to copy and represent ourselves since cave drawings.
The Drunkard’s Walk helped lock my head into thoughts about how random things truly are. They’re so reliably random, we have mathematical constructs that can predict across topics the degree in which you’ll find those star outliers or abysmal loses. And no matter how detailed a picture we give, no matter how accurately we attempt to measure and account for the forces beyond our control, we retain the judgments about ourselves and others about what should or could have been done.
Mr. Nobody has the world’s last and oldest human recounting several different lives different versions of himself took. Each one meaningful, filled with love and loss. It’s frankly creepy that I managed to watch it randomly right after finishing the book. It explores each reality existing on top of each other and as Mr. Nobody recounts fragments of each tale, he never once refers to himself as his name. He’s merely a figment, an idea. Nobody in particular at the center of all possible worlds.
The movie makes me think I’ve already seen the last of the “fun” or “spontaneity” that are classically associated with youth and naivety. The big bad stressful life wrecking ball came in and smashed any temptation to throw caution to the wind. I’ve complained about seeing “the end” for years, and I feel steeped in it like a soggy tea bag. Like I can see the handful of conversations I’m going to have with a few specific friends. I’m only going to hang out perhaps less than 10 times with a few others. Like, then we die. I watch you update your profile picture a few times, we get coffee, then we die.
The book constantly reinforces how not to make the popular mistakes when attempting to reason through probabilities and statistics. If you think you have a 7/10 chance of being fired after sending an email and your boss doesn’t respond as quick as they normally do, you’re leaving out any number of circumstances that may be holding up your boss. Before I phrase it in a stupid or incorrect way, the idea is to not pretend you can accurately account for all variables, nor should you use confirming “evidence” that only exists in your mind to make you feel bad.
Anecdotally, I consider friend interactions. Whether it’s responses to texts, facebook messages, or willingness to join in some get-together. I can state over and over that I know I live a different kind of life filled with more time and more money than people usually have. I don’t have the same stressors. I treat social media platforms as trying to be social and actually have debates or share things that genuinely push the limits of my knowledge or interests. This in contrast to memes, Buzzfeed, or 70 similar pictures of my walk through the park. Even with cutting my list down to 68 ish friends I don’t see nearly anything they post anymore, let alone know what to think about what I post may not be getting through.
I think my habits are what make a place like facebook so depressing. When I can’t stare at 50 people who used to have a good time bowling or drinking or would love to go down a waterslide, I eventually have to cut them down to 30 who might if I badger them. When the badgering starts to feel rude or they’ve moved away, let’s lose 20 more and shoot for 10 that I’ll prepare well in advance and employ tactfully to coincide with something else.
The term coming to mind is “FOMO.” It’s not so much a fear of missing something as it is a general dismay felt for every day that’s lost to the noise and hustle. I just missed a 4th of July get-together, a house party, and a friend I haven’t seen in maybe a year. I find this tragic in so many senses. Not only because they happen so rarely, but even if I had made it, I’m scared of what being around all the adults does for my disposition. There’s a place in between alcoholism and nursing a beer all night.
With my profile being blocked and me sending angry expletive-laced commentary to facebook about how ridiculous it is to ask for someone’s license to confirm such a bullshit profile, I managed to finish the book start to finish. I was acutely aware of how many times I looked for the facebook emblem to be flashing. How much time I spend looking into the abyss waiting for a notification of something happening or interesting to take place. In fairness, It’s heightened given that my options are a bed and hallway at the moment, but then it also occurred to me that facebook is my only connection to many of these people. The hallowed few who haven’t met the drunk fatalistic unfriend axe. To collect them all back on another profile, I started asking if it was worth it.
There’s that saying about living simply and cleaning your house; if you pick it up and it doesn’t bring you joy, get rid of it. It get’s complicated for me because the joy comes so few and far between, at least as far as experiencing personalities in person. The joy is the thought that you exist and are being kickass you wherever you are, and I mostly just have a memory of it. One corrupted each time it’s accessed. I think it’s why friendships I thought I could rely on “randomly” blow up. The parts of you that liked or recognized what I’m about became subjected to something else. I find them primed to explode over a long decay that ends abruptly when something...real?...happens.
There’s just a general sense of receptiveness I feel has died. From economic forces all the way down into how old you feel locking it away. Friends too old for you. New people way too sad. (Turns out most townies don’t stay because they’re hyper enthused about the town and their place in it.) I don’t even know if I’m saying anything of value at this point. I had to say something, maybe you’ll figure out how to say it better than I can. This remaining my rather meager means of keeping you abreast of what is or isn’t changing about me.
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