Jordan Peterson related a line I heard
today about why you're motivated to do anything. Discerning what you
actually care about instead of what you've been compelled to can be
incredibly hard. He emphasizes how important it is to have a
framework from which to see the world. Be it religious or personally
constructed, you can't operate without a set of values and means from
which to judge whether you're in line with something.
He relates Carl Jung who said the present self is the future self
trying to manifest. Somewhere deep inside you view yourself as less
than or incomplete, so no matter your explicit effort to lay in bed
all day, whether your motivation is simple like getting fed or a form
of lofty ideal and recognition, a reason manifests.
The friend who was recently angry at me for relating the “blah” I've inhabited for too long asked me if I finally figured out that I should live for someone else yet. I took her to mean more in the form of becoming a Big Brother or earning to give sense than hand myself over to the whims of someone else. I don't know what to make of the idea. In one form or another, you could say it's a godlike conception of ourselves. Jesus died for you, after all. The source of clearly all of my inspiration over the last few years, again Peterson, cautions against doing someone else's work for them. Surely he doesn't mean don't be a mentor to a child, but the stress is on the idea that people need to come into their own and take responsibility.
I feel I'm a super fan of blaming myself for things. I dig myself into holes. I chase people away. I stick to my rhetorical guns. I bite off bigger chunks than I can handle. I own every schizophrenic voice. I take immediate pride and shame at once in whatever I've chosen to share. I'm responsible for my own little hamster wheel. Long period of despotic bitching, celebratory day or two when something productive or unexpected happens, maybe mild period of contented contemplation, back to bitching. I still maintain a level of respect for myself over what I might hold for most people. I at least admit I don't like myself or circumstances, and whether you believe me or not, I don't have any creative or motivated fixes.
The word I can't escape these last few weeks, or maybe it's days but it feels like weeks, is “victim.” The string of sexual assault accusations, the anger I drew from my friend, the pleas from legislators and late night hosts about guns, and the millions of people who will be hurt and killed from the violent disregard for health and the environment all make a swirl of numbed panic. We've managed to normalize the idea of roommates into retirement, never getting married, never owning annoying, massive debt, underpaid jobs, broken social scenes, and the fleeting memory of animals we saw as children at the zoo. The world has disregarded our president insofar as they cross their fingers he won't start another war.
I'm thinking that part of that U.S. “you're special” narrative has done a fair amount of work to dismantle the care and respect you should have for the victim. This seen no more obviously than the stories of women in the past who were blown off or fired no matter where they turned, and what's been instantiated across industries today. If you didn't grow up feeling like you owned and ran the world, you might have a predilection to make the circumstances better so that people don't get victimized. I frequently disavow any claims I might have to victimhood no matter the blows I take nor yet for my growing concern over my mental state.
I wonder if victimization could be reduced to a numbers a game. So many points for having what are currently considered “privileges” weighted against instances or institutions designed to keep you stuck. This a game so delightfully perverse I'm sure I just made an ardent post-modernist cum in their pants. I don't want to play it, but I think the relative nature to oppression and means to fix it would be loud and present immediately. Don't just march, women, 90% of you go on strike like they did in Iceland. Peaceful protests are one thing Black Lives Matter, but the Panthers were a nice touch.
It wasn't so long ago we emboldened the Nazis to start marching again. Think they're screaming and chanting because they feel empowered and capable and worthwhile? No no, they're victims of the immigrant hoards and other incoherent babble. Purely at the level of using the word “victim” though, no one would want to be compared to an insecure Nazi. If that Nazi were human, then his actions might make more sense and there'd be some common ground. If he wasn't so filled with hate for his environment and how it makes him feel, we might be able to shuffle him into a reeducation camp until he's gung-ho about officiating lesbian Jewish weddings one day.
Victim seems to stem from an inability to go tit for tat. A girl is a victim because she can't fight back without risking further harm. A minority is a victim because they're outnumbered or denied access. Children are victims because they don't know any better. Animals are victims of the forces of nature to begin with before tinting that nature human hues. This could speak to why a word like “equality” has such a poignant ring for many people. This seems to speak towards the gun-lover's fever dream of fighting off a tyrannous government. This is the resentment the rich feel for “moochers” and “entitlement.”
Each case is slightly different, but they all require a certain blindness. Whether that blindness is imposed or faithfully adhered to is going to depend on each person's level of personal responsibility. The idea of being like water just popped into my head. Does the girl really want to take on the greater risk of fighting back, or can she flow into another form of exercising power and resistance? If you're black in the U.S. is your community destined to fall into disrepair and violence without the tax base, or did efforts to stay organized and informed leave with the money? I feel perfectly blind to how I'm going to achieve my goals in a manner that doesn't keep me glued to my car delivering food or some otherwise demoralizing and uninspired labor, and the stress of how to flow around that hurdle is constant.
This is the only way I know how to try and understand why people don't get anywhere. This is rough. This is sad. This is lonely. I hate it. I hate myself. I'm not a victim, but that's a statement bread from hopeful denial of the list of things I'd lose my breath trying to say all at once. I'm forced by my own conception of personal responsibility to always acknowledge, but downplay, the negatives happening to me. I have to keep inventing new options, exploring the smallest chances, and shaming every moment I can't get it together. I've fashioned my life around something like, “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.” Me doing everything I know how to the degree I'm capable needs to put me in the parking lot before the building opens, if you want to discuss my idea of “early.”
So now, I might try to claim I'm a victim of my own mind. I've habituated a delusion. I've condensed every conclusion into some flawed metric by which to judge my value or place. And I can't shut it off. Everything I do that isn't in service to “what matters” is by default on a scale from boring to harmful. Worse than resenting other people's happiness, you don't even recognize it. What does a kiss on a mountain top have to do with me? Why do I get the impression your nightly prayers are for your cats or dogs to speak English? How fondly will you regard your vacation when you're 70 and still working without a pension or 401(k)? I don't care to be bothered by matching someone else's happiness, I want them to match my concern. I want an acknowledgment of our collective victimhood with regard to our avoiding minds and get-used-to-it biases.
My future self isn't trying to get everyone to quit their jobs and just get drunk in a field with me indefinitely. My future self is one who never has to bitch because he's gotten to the ground floor of problems that can actually be fixed. He wants to give a shit about happiness. He wants to think it's worth bringing kids into the world. He wants to spend as much time tripping balls or on morphine as it takes to forget he's on his way out, and when it's over, no one will have to use his death greedily and fearfully. My future self is creating and exploring not out of desperation, but because new details and new technologies will require pioneers. Does anyone reading this feel like that? Can you remember when or if you ever have?
I don't seek to make it sound so dramatic, but we get absolutely nowhere alone. You don't get a title or a dollar amount and then finally time to start on your dreams. I didn't do the coffee shop alone, the party house, picnics, acid trips, or ice skating by myself. I didn't get all fucked in the head about relationships and friends or get to be better than average at Super Smash Brothers from steeping my nose in preteen novels and watching Twitch. I didn't even get a single task done correctly on the land over 3 months and 4 thousand dollars until my dad drove the 3 hours to knock out a 2 day task in 2 days. Whatever you think about the path you're on, if you have some specific conception of yourself that you've hung over the fence surrounding your job or convenient social structure, it's dead in the water. That's why you grieve for your lost loved ones whether they've physically died or not.
Why not? I'll ring it again. I want help. I need help. I need presence and the smallest enthusiasm with which to run with. I'd settle for someone to talk to while I'm digging a hole big enough to burn 80 yards of carpet in. Do I deserve it? I'm not a lonely kid or hungry veteran. You probably only want to help the real victims, piecemeal, in ways that make you feel like you're contributing. You're not a victim in lieu of them, right? The battle you can win? You're right on time.
The friend who was recently angry at me for relating the “blah” I've inhabited for too long asked me if I finally figured out that I should live for someone else yet. I took her to mean more in the form of becoming a Big Brother or earning to give sense than hand myself over to the whims of someone else. I don't know what to make of the idea. In one form or another, you could say it's a godlike conception of ourselves. Jesus died for you, after all. The source of clearly all of my inspiration over the last few years, again Peterson, cautions against doing someone else's work for them. Surely he doesn't mean don't be a mentor to a child, but the stress is on the idea that people need to come into their own and take responsibility.
I feel I'm a super fan of blaming myself for things. I dig myself into holes. I chase people away. I stick to my rhetorical guns. I bite off bigger chunks than I can handle. I own every schizophrenic voice. I take immediate pride and shame at once in whatever I've chosen to share. I'm responsible for my own little hamster wheel. Long period of despotic bitching, celebratory day or two when something productive or unexpected happens, maybe mild period of contented contemplation, back to bitching. I still maintain a level of respect for myself over what I might hold for most people. I at least admit I don't like myself or circumstances, and whether you believe me or not, I don't have any creative or motivated fixes.
The word I can't escape these last few weeks, or maybe it's days but it feels like weeks, is “victim.” The string of sexual assault accusations, the anger I drew from my friend, the pleas from legislators and late night hosts about guns, and the millions of people who will be hurt and killed from the violent disregard for health and the environment all make a swirl of numbed panic. We've managed to normalize the idea of roommates into retirement, never getting married, never owning annoying, massive debt, underpaid jobs, broken social scenes, and the fleeting memory of animals we saw as children at the zoo. The world has disregarded our president insofar as they cross their fingers he won't start another war.
I'm thinking that part of that U.S. “you're special” narrative has done a fair amount of work to dismantle the care and respect you should have for the victim. This seen no more obviously than the stories of women in the past who were blown off or fired no matter where they turned, and what's been instantiated across industries today. If you didn't grow up feeling like you owned and ran the world, you might have a predilection to make the circumstances better so that people don't get victimized. I frequently disavow any claims I might have to victimhood no matter the blows I take nor yet for my growing concern over my mental state.
I wonder if victimization could be reduced to a numbers a game. So many points for having what are currently considered “privileges” weighted against instances or institutions designed to keep you stuck. This a game so delightfully perverse I'm sure I just made an ardent post-modernist cum in their pants. I don't want to play it, but I think the relative nature to oppression and means to fix it would be loud and present immediately. Don't just march, women, 90% of you go on strike like they did in Iceland. Peaceful protests are one thing Black Lives Matter, but the Panthers were a nice touch.
It wasn't so long ago we emboldened the Nazis to start marching again. Think they're screaming and chanting because they feel empowered and capable and worthwhile? No no, they're victims of the immigrant hoards and other incoherent babble. Purely at the level of using the word “victim” though, no one would want to be compared to an insecure Nazi. If that Nazi were human, then his actions might make more sense and there'd be some common ground. If he wasn't so filled with hate for his environment and how it makes him feel, we might be able to shuffle him into a reeducation camp until he's gung-ho about officiating lesbian Jewish weddings one day.
Victim seems to stem from an inability to go tit for tat. A girl is a victim because she can't fight back without risking further harm. A minority is a victim because they're outnumbered or denied access. Children are victims because they don't know any better. Animals are victims of the forces of nature to begin with before tinting that nature human hues. This could speak to why a word like “equality” has such a poignant ring for many people. This seems to speak towards the gun-lover's fever dream of fighting off a tyrannous government. This is the resentment the rich feel for “moochers” and “entitlement.”
Each case is slightly different, but they all require a certain blindness. Whether that blindness is imposed or faithfully adhered to is going to depend on each person's level of personal responsibility. The idea of being like water just popped into my head. Does the girl really want to take on the greater risk of fighting back, or can she flow into another form of exercising power and resistance? If you're black in the U.S. is your community destined to fall into disrepair and violence without the tax base, or did efforts to stay organized and informed leave with the money? I feel perfectly blind to how I'm going to achieve my goals in a manner that doesn't keep me glued to my car delivering food or some otherwise demoralizing and uninspired labor, and the stress of how to flow around that hurdle is constant.
This is the only way I know how to try and understand why people don't get anywhere. This is rough. This is sad. This is lonely. I hate it. I hate myself. I'm not a victim, but that's a statement bread from hopeful denial of the list of things I'd lose my breath trying to say all at once. I'm forced by my own conception of personal responsibility to always acknowledge, but downplay, the negatives happening to me. I have to keep inventing new options, exploring the smallest chances, and shaming every moment I can't get it together. I've fashioned my life around something like, “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.” Me doing everything I know how to the degree I'm capable needs to put me in the parking lot before the building opens, if you want to discuss my idea of “early.”
So now, I might try to claim I'm a victim of my own mind. I've habituated a delusion. I've condensed every conclusion into some flawed metric by which to judge my value or place. And I can't shut it off. Everything I do that isn't in service to “what matters” is by default on a scale from boring to harmful. Worse than resenting other people's happiness, you don't even recognize it. What does a kiss on a mountain top have to do with me? Why do I get the impression your nightly prayers are for your cats or dogs to speak English? How fondly will you regard your vacation when you're 70 and still working without a pension or 401(k)? I don't care to be bothered by matching someone else's happiness, I want them to match my concern. I want an acknowledgment of our collective victimhood with regard to our avoiding minds and get-used-to-it biases.
My future self isn't trying to get everyone to quit their jobs and just get drunk in a field with me indefinitely. My future self is one who never has to bitch because he's gotten to the ground floor of problems that can actually be fixed. He wants to give a shit about happiness. He wants to think it's worth bringing kids into the world. He wants to spend as much time tripping balls or on morphine as it takes to forget he's on his way out, and when it's over, no one will have to use his death greedily and fearfully. My future self is creating and exploring not out of desperation, but because new details and new technologies will require pioneers. Does anyone reading this feel like that? Can you remember when or if you ever have?
I don't seek to make it sound so dramatic, but we get absolutely nowhere alone. You don't get a title or a dollar amount and then finally time to start on your dreams. I didn't do the coffee shop alone, the party house, picnics, acid trips, or ice skating by myself. I didn't get all fucked in the head about relationships and friends or get to be better than average at Super Smash Brothers from steeping my nose in preteen novels and watching Twitch. I didn't even get a single task done correctly on the land over 3 months and 4 thousand dollars until my dad drove the 3 hours to knock out a 2 day task in 2 days. Whatever you think about the path you're on, if you have some specific conception of yourself that you've hung over the fence surrounding your job or convenient social structure, it's dead in the water. That's why you grieve for your lost loved ones whether they've physically died or not.
Why not? I'll ring it again. I want help. I need help. I need presence and the smallest enthusiasm with which to run with. I'd settle for someone to talk to while I'm digging a hole big enough to burn 80 yards of carpet in. Do I deserve it? I'm not a lonely kid or hungry veteran. You probably only want to help the real victims, piecemeal, in ways that make you feel like you're contributing. You're not a victim in lieu of them, right? The battle you can win? You're right on time.
