Sometimes I look at my life as if it’s the granting of a wish by a genie. I didn’t need to be the most beautiful person in the world to catch more than enough eyes. I didn’t need to be born into millions of dollars to find myself relieved at having a month to slowly move the sheer amount of accumulated wealth I have. I’ve never won athletic awards, but never felt myself unable to hold my own across varying playing fields. I don’t have a particularly special brain that “automatically” recalls or does equations, but manage to retain self-respect in calling myself smart. I go out of my way to alienate the vast majority of people I meet, but I’m confident I have some of the closest friends, plural, yes in spite of how much time we spend together or talk, than when I hear about how other people describe who’s in their lives. I could write what complete and utter “perfection” my life has amounted to on paper by more metrics than I’d ever care to do as an exercise.
And yet, because it was granted by a genie, I’m always starved for “more.” I’m not contented to have “my youth” amount to fading memories from college or grueling experiences in school before that. It’s not enough to have the bills paid, clean water, and reliable enough electricity and internet. I’ll never see enough boobs. I won’t hear enough new songs or repeat too often the ones that have made me slow my car down or crank my head to lean into. I won’t play enough instruments or finger them fast enough (ha!). I’ll keep watching shows and movies well past my capricious fast-forwarding auto-pilot that sees the end and mocks the tropes.
I don’t think life is about “enough.” The entire universe, as far as we can tell so far, is physical reactions. It’s governed by impersonal laws and explosions and energy made of particles popping in and out of existence. That’s “enough” for it. Quarks don’t know they’re called quarks. Supernovas aren’t angry they exploded. Black holes aren’t thirsty. Reductionist materialists like to pretend like all we are is waving about in the same kind of impersonal sea, apparently in complete spite of the evidence we have of the shit we’re made of just doing things at random. If you wanted to speculate your “soul” was the smallest of the small particle only as capable of the same things we observe in nature, I think you’d find yourself terrifyingly liberated. You get a choice.
Ever since we developed the capability to completely end all human life, I think there’s been an ongoing referendum on our responsibility for the capacity that society has in no real way tried to cope with. How endlessly compelling it feels to cover your own ass and look out for those you care about. How superficially it rides to be the vagabond flitting about existence without a care in the world. How desperately noble it becomes to beat your chest for your god or country and lord what meager existence you’ve managed to scrape together for yourself. Once you submit yourself to the physics, it doesn’t matter the language you use to make your place in life seem justified. There’s a passably rational story behind how people end up the way they do.
It’s the word “rationalization” that I was bugged by earlier today. Some say they look to the bright side. Some say they lie to themselves and hide behind a few examples to negate and avoid the myriad bad ones. I find it has a mostly negative connotation in line with fooling or protecting yourself from the true consequences of your actions. It seems significantly easier to rationalize when you keep yourself choked. If you never voice what’s on your mind, you can let a little more light in on the positive things happening in your life while the negative remain unattended. This would help explain why you never speak no matter how many times I ask. You might actually start to sound like me. Eww.
But say we take it back to our infinitely small particulate “soul” with a “choice.” Do we even have to bother with a “why?” I know I often ask why enough regarding my decisions, but something that truly does feel well-beyond my control is a compulsion towards a kind of “sense” and “order.” The smallest of the small living organisms figure out ways to adapt and survive or protect each other and reproduce. They grow in spite of themselves and without regard to other things that want to do the same. At least for them, they don’t know any better. They don’t have “balance” in their vocabulary regarding ecosystems. They aren’t a “population” that needs resources intelligently distributed. They just are. They just do.
Lately, I’ve heard that idea expressed enough from a few people my age. “Just let me BE,” they insist. Let me stop pursuing the dollar. Let me wear my makeup or funky clothes without giving me shit. Let me love who I love, fuck who I fuck, watch what I watch, and please go over there and do the same. I feel this is incomplete. We’ve been given, “just being.” I’m being all over the place in blogs, infecting your minds, translating sounds and shocks in your head with whatever you choose to call “my being.” I find it perhaps the essence of life to exist as something that wonders what I’m becoming. Who am I after the next book? Who am I with better goals and wiser priorities? Who am I after years spent in service to an ideal larger than what I incidentally achieve before I die?
In order for me to “just be,” I need to defy that genie. I need to take every absolutely perfect thing in my life and transform it into something to step on, or step through. I think if I’m ever going to glimpse some end game that’s actually perfect or contended evenness, it’s not going to happen if my goals are less than what I can actually see and believe need to come true. I’m not full if someone’s still hungry. The argument isn’t over if no one translated the message. I can claim my life as my own but is it a big and glorious celebratory cake or something I take one bite of and claim to be full? Do I puke it up ashamed and sick at the idea that I even deserve cake?
Before I started writing this I just sat in silence and looked at my disheveled living room as I Tetris my way through the moving process. I’ve been energetic and motivated all day and never found my stride. The texts I sent went to the busy or out of town. There’s nothing particularly invigorating about shuffling furniture. I grabbed food and had a few beers with Byron. And it’s still not right. I still haven’t discovered the gig or technology or person that keeps me plugged into the world beyond the fleetingly tipsy judgmental ass people watching in the corner. As much as I wish I were better at getting everything I wanted by myself, it hasn’t been a secret how much I know how reliant I am on everyone else. But their goals are different, if they have them. Their lives aren’t as perfect as mine so it’s impossible to entertain what I’m talking about.
I’m not even angry enough to do something rash. I’m not desperate enough to sell myself on GoFundMe situated next to the dying children and funeral provisions. I’m not sad or pathetic looking in a way that provokes sympathy outreach and investment. I’m certainly not successful enough to have people beating down my door to lick up table scraps. I’m just perfectly able to keep going in the direction I choose even if I’m perfectly unable to move left and right like I’d prefer… like a cosmic bobsled. Maybe I’m just naïve to the consequences of having more control or responsibility. Maybe I’m just living out the karmic in/justice from a past life and don’t deserve anything more or less than I do in any moment. Maybe I really could have just used a good party tonight instead of another dive into the ever-shallow waters. I don’t know how to end.
