Saturday, October 29, 2016

[544] Earth Wars & Tie-Fighting

Other than being dramatically angry or drunk, a prevailing motivation to write is the attempt to tie together absolutely random ideas that pulse away and refuse to dissipate. I consider it my subconscious trying to breakthrough, but it's only learned to use the language of complete words very recently. Much as a mother might be able to know her child wants to eat from a “bah” or “umm” that signifies its favorite food, the relationship I've developed with the back of my head is always attempting to understand and care for the baby poised to scream or cry at any time.

Let's lay out the random thoughts. I'm struck by how many people want to dress as stormtroopers. I'm bothered by the idea that someone would think I believe I'm a “secret misunderstood genius.” A further sentiment from that douchebag was that “everyone in my life views me as toxic.” I saw a tattoo that said “forever” that was 1/3 on its way to fading out. My precisely sharpened and longer nails make me think my right hand is a girl. I caught an article headline that said “80% of millenials think of themselves as leaders.” I'm at the front door of being genuinely concerned that I don't believe in anything.

Challenge accepted. The tattoo seems the easiest. Of course it was written on a white trash hand attached to a white trash dude standing in a McDonalds line. If there's any group more in need of the idea of consistent belief in something, it's the bad-tattooed financially insecure ya'll crowd. The fair amount of low income apartment complexes I've lived in or next to somehow have the theme of yelling at each other all night with kids who don't have school in the morning. The crowd with several hundred pictures of their babies or dozens of status updates about how their boyfriend is the most special in the world. General lack of class and tact. Not even managing the high-brow nature of this paragraph.

What to make of “forever?” It's a cause for insanity, provided it's coupled with consciousness. I'm managing to drive myself crazy just reading into peoples' motivations or lack thereof; trying to conceptualize my place among the herd. Is it because I wasn't raised to be a stormtrooper? Mind you, these people don't even dress up as the special red or black ones. They just want to be the light-saber fodder with a few lines. I go into movies reflexively comparing myself to the main characters. In the human storyline, will there be more references and deference paid to the stormtrooper than Luke Skywalker? If conventions and Halloween have anything to say about it.

I recall going on a quest to find a Rey action figure because I thought she was pretty badass. I think it's only a positive thing to move depictions of heroes into the realms of the underrepresented. But again, what if every stormtrooper was a woman? People would be upset that the girl wasn't the hero nonetheless. We have an inclination to root for and popularize heroes, who even all together across all Star Wars tales and games would never be able to build or maintain the collective power behind the Death Star. I suppose it's fitting for me to see myself in Rey given my slow transition into a girl that's started with my right hand.

You might be unaware, I've grown out my nails to play classical guitar. Even being on my own hand I can't help but think of femininity when I look down or see how I have to adjust in using my phone. When I hear the tap on the screen or how long it took me to get used to typing. I then started to think about other ways in which I might be turning into a girl. I started insidiously, considering games of emotional manipulation. I can recognize when someone likes me, but could I turn it into gifts and attention? Even if I tend to believe in myself, it's not really my game to do that. The gifts part at least, because I think I'm extremely girl-ish, as it's depicted classically, in trying to gain attention.

The problem is that I go about that attention in conflicting ways. I talk loud. I write introverted thoughts in explicitly extroverted ways. My hair is a little too on the nose. I'll stay exceedingly quiet during studies and garner the kind of attention that has people feeling insecure about me thinking I'm better than them. One wonders if they'd feel worse knowing I don't really think of them at all, let alone feel the urge to make a comparison. I'm catty like a fierce bitch. I seem to only ever really get along with older women as well. They're the ones who like my comments on political articles. They're the ones I can sit around the table at a wedding with. They're the ones flagrant about their opinions and flirtations as I am a few too many shots in. I just get to act out with this big dumb boy body and they get the freedom of being society's “invisibles” because they're no longer considered a sex object. I'm not saying our stations in life are fair, just worth considering in making comparisons.

Do people regard the old wise-ass lady laughing too hard as “toxic?” Hardly. She's a gas! She's a loveable Golden Girl who we want to see get away with a certain kind of verbal murder so we can aspire to that level of honesty and laughter when we're on the verge of dying. Maybe I've skipped the line? Is the wisdom from grandma “misunderstood” or a particular kind of sage “genius?” It seems to me it's usually bred from simple experience. Trying a hundred things, watch 99 fail, figure out you're still alive and remember what kept you that way. You get too tired of being stressed out so you make the jokes. You see what keeping up the facade did to your happiness and relationships, so you stop pulling punches. You feel yourself pulling up to the hard eternal stop sign, better lay on the gas.

I try to be unscientifically scientific about it though. If I had 1 text to go out and do something for every 100 I sent out, I'd be surprised. We can include facebook messages and things like “checking in” and whatnot. As a person who doesn't believe his own bullshit made up stories about what people do or don't think of him if he hasn't asked, I consider it more a story of our era's psychosis regarding what we're burdened by than some personal statement about me. As always, I wish it were about me because I'm an egomaniac, I know I barely register, so I seek an explanation for the external forces. And just to cover my ass, if it is about me, well, you only have yourselves to blame for not saying anything.

I adopt that burden of conceiving and re-conceiving of “friendship.” If I consider us close, it gets to me if I see the last date on our facebook chat was 2 months ago. 2 months is a considerable amount of time. Yet, it definitely doesn't feel that way if you're not really doing anything new nor expecting your experience to deviate from your current norm. Mind you, even with 59 friends, I still only manage to talk to a handful on any sort of quasi-regular basis, and those mostly include roommates, my dad, or people who comment on things. I didn't even opt to invite myself to hang out with a few this evening let alone drive out to a party a few hours away.

Those decisions weren't an accident though. Because merely claiming “friend” status via facebook or feeling “burdened” by lack of conversation or contact isn't really a root distinction. These are friends who instead of watching movies and crawling around their bowels, play a lot of video games. If I don't care about those games or know anything about their shared job life, we're not friends on the kind of page where we'd both get something out of me being there. The party is with people I work with and semi-regularly accost drunkenly via email when I think about all the work that has to be done to get my map in order. I don't know that I'd settle in nicely and “blow off steam” or carry on in polite conversation with strangers. The heart's gotta be in it.

Mine's just not. It's not that I don't believe in what I'm doing or don't see paths forward or anything resembling sad pathetic people who go broke between studies for ridiculous reasons. I just don't feel. The things I want or think I can achieve are still too far away. I can have little manic spurts. When I first got wind of the land I had a few solid hours of heart racing and excited talking, but even that could have closely resembled anxiety worried something would go wrong and I wouldn't be able to get it. This map, having something tangible to play with, and seeing the thoughts that arise as I put in different kinds of articles, has me seeing a price tag more than revolution. I see my vanity in wanting to be extremely capable of forming arguments and knowing details in a way generally reserved for geniuses and the autistic.

Because, who am I kidding? If you don't have the time to read, what good is me organizing for you all that you never could access anyway? If you're like my friend I argued with the other day and think “entitlements” is an adequate catch-all phrase for a lazy argument regarding how we reduce the federal government, when have you ever given a shit about the historical shifts in party platforms that fed your parents ignorant dialogue they've passed down to you that serves no function but to obscure and impede progress? People talk about the partisan divide. It's a language divide. It's a priorities divide. It's the obnoxious and lazy against the obnoxious and motivated. Because they can cultivate self-satisfied ever-confirming windows into the world via the internet, your tool can't get through. It's the impartial flow of power's realm now, egged on at all levels of violence.

Do I think I'm a genius? Not even remotely. Misunderstood? Basically every minute of my life. Because when I get the chance to explain myself, people seem to be on board. When I give them the tools to act like me, or give them the positive and reassuring attitude, they eagerly adopt it. Were I not so keen to make debasing comments on my situation and the nature of my relationships, I could see a lot of people discovering the wisdom in devoting a large amount of time to the consumption and contemplation of media and the arts. But as it stands, it's me, and now Byron essentially, who are implicated in running the contrary game. It's great to have a partner finally, but 2 people does not a village make, yet.

Who do the stormtroopers follow, though? The one who can use the force. I'd bet the most reenacted scene that every stormtrooper engages in is being choked out by Darth Vader. He's there even when he's not. You stand at attention when he shows up, and it's his voice in your head about where to point your weapons. I've proclaimed my willingness to be the villain before, and in the real world where the lines about the dark and light aren't handed to you, I know I serve a greater purpose than to develop lightning fingers and blow up planets.

I don't even have to believe in my cause. I just have to embody the consequences of my dramatic betrayal filled life. I have to take my talents or understanding of the force and make them my own. Oh to be infamous, or an icon, and leave it at that. To finally be appropriated seems the highest form of flattery. If anyone seems to empathize or deeply understand then, well, good for them I guess. But the story of how I get anywhere or anything in life will have nothing to do with how I sell it, how you interpret it, or whether or not some lame qualifier applies to my position in the echelon. It'll be because that's what I picked, and I waited around for something that seemed appropriate to happen. The rest is a story of “uhhh” and “mmbrm” bubbling in the back of my head keeping me from looking respectable or productive. As if I've anything to live up to or could provide what isn't already available.

No comments:

Post a Comment