This is probably going to be loaded. At the same time, just like everything I’ve written, it will just be one blog. It will be one thing among hundreds of things I’ve written that speak to a feeling. One feeling comprised of random thoughts and influences or struggles throughout my day. It’s usually one line or one article that prompts me to finally spit up the flow that surrounds a solitary idea that needs significantly more than one word to express.
Maybe your idea is about love. Maybe however you feel and barely think about love is what provokes you in most of your actions. An inability to see how it’s been tarnished gets you into bad relationships and keeps you abused. Maybe it’s one memory from your childhood about how your parents treated each other that sits at the base of your being. Maybe it’s your favorite romantic movie or the memory of a lost loved one. I think if most of us were pressed, we’d be able to center around the one person who showed us what it meant to be there for somebody or worthy of respect and affection.
I say it’s often about fear. Your fear of death making you scream louder and louder at refugees or terrorism. Your fear of feeling inadequate or picked on making you rush to forward your propaganda and ignorance with brazen scorn for fact checking or consequences. How afraid the liar is about their looks or friends or accomplishments. Most animals don’t walk up to you and let you pet them, opting instead (as if it's a choice) to bite or run, even into traffic. We’re no different.
As my dreams and ideas about my place in the world get beaten to death by the word “humility,” I search in desperation for the “one thing” each day that’s supposed to keep me going. I look for an off-shoot of my original idea and see if I can comport myself with the reality of my circumstances as well as the realities of my past or capacity. I can dream about a big house and a dozen entrepreneurial gigs all I want, but $400 bucks in the bank means deliver food and stock shelves to avoid eviction. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve repeated to myself, “at least I have the land. If everything fails, I have the very basic condition from where to start to keep surviving.”
That one idea keeps me, the word I want to use is motivated, but it’s also not at all the word I want to use. My motivation died with the election of Hitler 2. I can’t even fake it. There is no safe place. There is no workaround. Our “leaders” are complicit and have been for a long time. We’re a generally very tired, very stupid, very intimidated and drug addled and depressed population. We’re no different from our predecessors but for our ability to accelerate our demise. For those of us like me who think they can shuck and jive around the impending carnage, there’s a certain calm and relief that life has gotten remarkably simpler, survive, but I’m hardly motivated like I think my impact is bound to really fix anything.
That “one thing” idea can belay your attitude towards any topic. I try to root mine in the wisdom of others. I have “one idea” about sex, and that’s that it isn’t going to define me or my relationships. This allows me to focus on building and speaking towards what I think actually matters. I have “one idea” about what I refer to as “magic thinking.” It pollutes everything. People are going apeshit about the Muslim ban. It’s unconstitutional and racist and ridiculous. I won’t hesitate to call Muslims as ridiculous as Christians in their ability to justify bullshit on faith. At bottom, that societal propensity has much more to do with why we’re all fucked than any one offshoot version of the dogma.
You can only arrive at “one thing” ideas with a capacity to differentiate. You have to be able to separate your ability and responsibility from what’s being perceived about “society” as it’s being sold to you. Can you talk objectively about the quality of a TV show without appealing to season number or popularity? Can you approach traditions with an eye for objective harms they may cause? Can you explain instead of justify?
The whole exercise of writing is about that distinction. I don’t need you to feel good about my drunk blathering or recent switch on how I decide to refer to or talk about “friends.” I need as many words as exist to speak towards the feeling. I’m not trying to persuade you of the danger we’re in living in this country now, but maybe one line will stick with you or the tone of one blog will resonate with something you were feeling as well and something more sincere and helpful can come about. We’re being swallowed by the rivers of bullshit and opinion and fear. My one thing is learning how to sustain so I can escape.
Look for your own thing. At bottom, why do you eat what you do? Why do you have your particular friends? Why did you go to school or pick a certain major? What do you fundamentally believe about your place in the world that keeps you going? What one lyric, or one author, or one movie keeps beating away in your head? How do you explain being trapped? Because that’s what we are. We’re trapped by incidentally infectious ideas and anxieties, and our only choice is to pick an idea that lets us escape. I hope I see you on the other side.
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