Without warning, and for what is most
assuredly “no reason,” and actually during or right after
“things” feel “complete” or “perfect,” a mild to severe
panic sets in. Thus I had to stop what I was doing and start
writing.
I've said before that I can see the rest of my life. Reflexively, the urge is to laugh or scowl at the little kid who's pretending to have figured something out. But I don't mean in a specific sense like predicting I'll die at 90 in the south of France. I mean in the sense of a feeling. I've gone 29 years with a sense of comfort and stability no matter the degree of “problems” I introduce into my life. It isn't hard for me to imagine 29 more. I can live in a way that less than a week out of the month is required working. I'll always have food. I have about 4 years worth of movies and television personally downloaded that I haven't seen yet. Simply, it won't take much beyond exercising the habits and expectations drilled into me since birth to float along this path until I'm dead.
I do not find this reassuring.
The comfort of this moment, the only moment, then registers as a trap. I'm comfortably full. I've got exactly what I want to be entertained with in front of my eyes. I'm even the right temperature. The other side of the equation over the last 2 days has seen my car die twice, in the most convenient places I could have asked for, and my phone get cracked, solely on the back in no way affecting the functionality. My “bad” isn't even that bad. It's been the perfect analogy for basically my entire life. I'm perturbed at the prospect of buying a phone case, replacement solar lights, and a new car battery, which I can afford because I work my at-will job that allows me to watch TV all day, all day.
I think the panic registers as a form of guilt. I think it speaks to everything more I'd like to go more right than it currently is. I think it's the reality setting in that I'm just as “nothing” comfortable loner with his TV shows as I am quasi-impractical impulsive romantic dreamer. I can hear the dad-speech in my head about how “living the dream!” I am that you'll find on /r/redditforgrownups. The hours I work don't register as me “deserving” this, or any form of comfort, until I'm able to work on what I think really matters. I don't want to use all of my time for the resolved sigh of relief as I “comfortably” buy a replacement car battery.
There's a distinction here too I think between what I'm feeling and simply being ungrateful. My broken car is a replacement for my significantly more broken car, given to me, as all my cars have been, by my dad. If I didn't run them into the ground working with them, I'd feel I have more to atone for or make even. I was recently called a “mooch” because everything in life is currently in opposite land. A charge which might have some staying power if I didn't pay rent and a “mortgage” to occupy this couch guilt free and keep months ahead on my garage.
To go along with this sense of panic is a line that's been trapped in my head, “It isn't about you.” I think I may have written about it before, but it's taken on a new kind of significance as I feel myself sliding into my remorseless brazen ego. I think I remember why I was persuaded by the idea. I wanted to help. I wanted to help the “ignorant masses” back when I was learning about religious stuff. Stuff I only bothered to learn because I was head over heals for a girl I wanted to be all about in high school. I've taken the examples of my dad and grandma who showered everything they could on the offspring so they could be happy or comfortable. And yet, I'm constantly watching TV.
That is, I'm battered with “stars.” I'm watching thousands of examples screaming every week, “No no, it IS about me!” It's the celebrity endorsement that gets money sent to a cause. It's the “new comedic voice” that gets greenlit. Sexual assault gets to trend and be of consequence after the rich white ladies have had enough. If it isn't about me, then it can't be about you either, which would contradict the whole exercise of picking friends or family. No matter how many giants' shoulders you're standing on, it's a select few that get the prizes and recognition. For all of the talk of sheep and shepards in biblical tales, they still dignify a soul! Even if the followers are predictably ignorant in the ways they choose to acknowledge and apply it. We relish hero tales, while the background regular people barely make it through a season.
For all of the faux-humility coming from...fuck, where is it even coming from? One-off misquotes from the bible about rich people having a hard time getting into heaven? The meek inheriting the Earth? The wave of, “Look at me!” has been going on for quite some time now and every modest civil servant is being roasted over the coals of the savages who take charge.
The task then seems to separate “celebrity” from “egomania.” I could stand to be something worth celebrating. I wouldn't mind recognition for my creativity. I still actually like getting likes even if people still only feel comfortable telling me they read and agree with something months or years later and mostly after they've been drinking. I've gone on enough digressions about the different kinds of “selfish.” The dread I feel is from finding the wrong kind of selfish too compelling. I need to keep the engine primed to work in service to a new direction at a moment's notice. The snug and comfortable blanket will get too hot and make me sweat.
I've said before that I can see the rest of my life. Reflexively, the urge is to laugh or scowl at the little kid who's pretending to have figured something out. But I don't mean in a specific sense like predicting I'll die at 90 in the south of France. I mean in the sense of a feeling. I've gone 29 years with a sense of comfort and stability no matter the degree of “problems” I introduce into my life. It isn't hard for me to imagine 29 more. I can live in a way that less than a week out of the month is required working. I'll always have food. I have about 4 years worth of movies and television personally downloaded that I haven't seen yet. Simply, it won't take much beyond exercising the habits and expectations drilled into me since birth to float along this path until I'm dead.
I do not find this reassuring.
The comfort of this moment, the only moment, then registers as a trap. I'm comfortably full. I've got exactly what I want to be entertained with in front of my eyes. I'm even the right temperature. The other side of the equation over the last 2 days has seen my car die twice, in the most convenient places I could have asked for, and my phone get cracked, solely on the back in no way affecting the functionality. My “bad” isn't even that bad. It's been the perfect analogy for basically my entire life. I'm perturbed at the prospect of buying a phone case, replacement solar lights, and a new car battery, which I can afford because I work my at-will job that allows me to watch TV all day, all day.
I think the panic registers as a form of guilt. I think it speaks to everything more I'd like to go more right than it currently is. I think it's the reality setting in that I'm just as “nothing” comfortable loner with his TV shows as I am quasi-impractical impulsive romantic dreamer. I can hear the dad-speech in my head about how “living the dream!” I am that you'll find on /r/redditforgrownups. The hours I work don't register as me “deserving” this, or any form of comfort, until I'm able to work on what I think really matters. I don't want to use all of my time for the resolved sigh of relief as I “comfortably” buy a replacement car battery.
There's a distinction here too I think between what I'm feeling and simply being ungrateful. My broken car is a replacement for my significantly more broken car, given to me, as all my cars have been, by my dad. If I didn't run them into the ground working with them, I'd feel I have more to atone for or make even. I was recently called a “mooch” because everything in life is currently in opposite land. A charge which might have some staying power if I didn't pay rent and a “mortgage” to occupy this couch guilt free and keep months ahead on my garage.
To go along with this sense of panic is a line that's been trapped in my head, “It isn't about you.” I think I may have written about it before, but it's taken on a new kind of significance as I feel myself sliding into my remorseless brazen ego. I think I remember why I was persuaded by the idea. I wanted to help. I wanted to help the “ignorant masses” back when I was learning about religious stuff. Stuff I only bothered to learn because I was head over heals for a girl I wanted to be all about in high school. I've taken the examples of my dad and grandma who showered everything they could on the offspring so they could be happy or comfortable. And yet, I'm constantly watching TV.
That is, I'm battered with “stars.” I'm watching thousands of examples screaming every week, “No no, it IS about me!” It's the celebrity endorsement that gets money sent to a cause. It's the “new comedic voice” that gets greenlit. Sexual assault gets to trend and be of consequence after the rich white ladies have had enough. If it isn't about me, then it can't be about you either, which would contradict the whole exercise of picking friends or family. No matter how many giants' shoulders you're standing on, it's a select few that get the prizes and recognition. For all of the talk of sheep and shepards in biblical tales, they still dignify a soul! Even if the followers are predictably ignorant in the ways they choose to acknowledge and apply it. We relish hero tales, while the background regular people barely make it through a season.
For all of the faux-humility coming from...fuck, where is it even coming from? One-off misquotes from the bible about rich people having a hard time getting into heaven? The meek inheriting the Earth? The wave of, “Look at me!” has been going on for quite some time now and every modest civil servant is being roasted over the coals of the savages who take charge.
The task then seems to separate “celebrity” from “egomania.” I could stand to be something worth celebrating. I wouldn't mind recognition for my creativity. I still actually like getting likes even if people still only feel comfortable telling me they read and agree with something months or years later and mostly after they've been drinking. I've gone on enough digressions about the different kinds of “selfish.” The dread I feel is from finding the wrong kind of selfish too compelling. I need to keep the engine primed to work in service to a new direction at a moment's notice. The snug and comfortable blanket will get too hot and make me sweat.
