One of the things I used to pride
myself on, and still do to a certain extent, was the ability to get
things done fast. I didn't
just want to get an A, I wanted to be the first one done. I'm still
the guy who cuts through parking lots to save time driving places.
I'll risk my back to transport more than I can reasonably carry 2x16s
so I can make less trips. There's always this push to not just get it
done, but get it done now.
I know people like Elon Musk have the same sense. You don't get to Mars thinking to yourself it's time to wait around for the funds or technology to catch up. For those of us with less specific ambitions, I wonder if my “now” is speaking to the “let me help stave off a nuclear holocaust” sense or “there's starving people now, lets feed them all” or “somehow, literally no one is tracking this important number.” I mean, I got a tattoo that symbolizes, for lack of a better explanation, inherent evil, or maybe rephrased, evil inherent in us all, and that's an all-the-time right now kind of thing to be contending with. Every good decision suggests you could be doing the opposite and vice versa. I should probably go to the gym every time I pick fast food instead.
Just like if you overdo it with shitty food you'll get fat, if you keep stepping in service to what's easy or “evil” or less than you wish for yourself, that's where you'll end up. You'll remove the “now” from your sensibilities because there's always time to be self-indulgent. There's always time to employ a selfish excuse for your behavior. It's a solid way to connect with the world around you, as everyone else is waiting for their ideas about themselves to catch up to their day to day reality too. You'll fit in.
I think it speaks to the reason I'll watch old or uncomplicated shows sped up. I want to experience more, now. I just got the extension on my house completed, and now I can feel myself raring to go insulate it, but the weather is shit and the work to turn it into a bathroom requires more money than I currently have. I've had patience imposed on me for several years at this point, and while I know how long it takes to get what I want done, I don't know what my money situation will be like or if the car will implode. I have to temper myself, constantly, or I have all of this energy that just turns into pure and needless frustration.
I feel as though some people would say, “Turn that energy into something else productive!” To me, it's not enough to simply have the energy, you have to have the focus and time. I still mostly have to work most of my time in order to move forward and stay ahead on bills. I think a lot about the rich white “geniuses” that discovered so many things in science. You might stumble across a few fundamental truths about the universe if you had your entire lifetime to kill searching. In less than 10 years I've seen whole schools get constructed, businesses turnover, apartments and condos flood the landscape. I need a day or two here and there. I need the thousand dollars, and the week I can feel comfortable not working. It's, of course, precisely when I can't get into drug studies now I have all of these things I could be occupying my time with besides television. I still feel my stomach sink and heart flutter at even the thought of attempting a screening.
I suppose what's hardest about having this volatile and excited energy is the constant pressure to pause it. It's not anymore healthy to be manic than it is depressive. But I crave the flow of constant creative production. I'd love to wake up early each day excited for the work to do, go home exhausted, and start up doing it all over again, always seeing the larger goals getting closer and closer. It's why I don't hesitate to spend my savings to finally get something done. My goal isn't to have an extra $1000. It's to have a place to shower and shit and store things I don't want in the house proper. I want my own place to live. I want to know that all of my money is going towards paying it off, and getting the little things done while I'm out there like sapling removal and trash burning. I want to blast my music or shows at all hours of the night.
I feel like I say too often how close I am. I'm as close or as far as I've ever been or ever will be. It's hard to exercise the idea that there's only “now” when now doesn't look like what you want it to. I want that meal plan and personal trainer, that schedule to get lessons and rehearse music, that time in the greenhouse, the conversation about the next step in the map, that scheduled time to get furniture moved, and that weekend fire party now. I want it now, and tomorrow, and the day after for as far as I can see. And when that itch is scratched I want the next thing. You can't do it out of order or pretend otherwise. Or, I can't.
I'm never finding the 100K a year job, hell, the 50K a year job. The jobs once professionals are clinging to are about to be taken over. “Benefits” are never coming back. The oligarchy wins. So I need, more than anything, to be able to ride it out or escape it. That means off-grid super-cheap living situation. To occupy the privileged place of business speculation is hard enough as it is if you don't want to simply lie and hustle your way through dozens of things you're not interested in or are barely qualified for.
I don't even know if I had anything to say in this. I just feel awake. I feel like I should be buying insulation, cutting drywall, and pricing plumbing parts. I should be doing piano scales. I should be compiling and organizing the best journalism and maps to tell different kinds of stories. Or I should be learning how to afford the outsourcing of what I want with as little money thrown to dozens of Indian men at random as possible. But I can't, yet. Not really. I can half-ass and try to give myself a story. Be half-paying attention during a trumpet lesson, overpay for parts in service to expediency, or barely glean ten words from that in-depth look at what's about to fuck humanity for the next 20 years.
I want to explode in the best way. I want to pursue like college never let me. I want to build as extravagantly as I imagined when I played with blocks. I want to celebrate like nothing matters but the party in the moment, and I want to wrap as many people up in my world as are worthy. And I want to do it right now. Every little piece that falls into place suggests I'm still on the path. If I could blackout and wake up a year from now, presuming things went well or were tolerable, I would. That seems like a weird thing to say if my concern is time, right? But if I could just have an even floor, I could run faster. The cuts and scrapes of crawling through the woods aren't helping anything.
I know people like Elon Musk have the same sense. You don't get to Mars thinking to yourself it's time to wait around for the funds or technology to catch up. For those of us with less specific ambitions, I wonder if my “now” is speaking to the “let me help stave off a nuclear holocaust” sense or “there's starving people now, lets feed them all” or “somehow, literally no one is tracking this important number.” I mean, I got a tattoo that symbolizes, for lack of a better explanation, inherent evil, or maybe rephrased, evil inherent in us all, and that's an all-the-time right now kind of thing to be contending with. Every good decision suggests you could be doing the opposite and vice versa. I should probably go to the gym every time I pick fast food instead.
Just like if you overdo it with shitty food you'll get fat, if you keep stepping in service to what's easy or “evil” or less than you wish for yourself, that's where you'll end up. You'll remove the “now” from your sensibilities because there's always time to be self-indulgent. There's always time to employ a selfish excuse for your behavior. It's a solid way to connect with the world around you, as everyone else is waiting for their ideas about themselves to catch up to their day to day reality too. You'll fit in.
I think it speaks to the reason I'll watch old or uncomplicated shows sped up. I want to experience more, now. I just got the extension on my house completed, and now I can feel myself raring to go insulate it, but the weather is shit and the work to turn it into a bathroom requires more money than I currently have. I've had patience imposed on me for several years at this point, and while I know how long it takes to get what I want done, I don't know what my money situation will be like or if the car will implode. I have to temper myself, constantly, or I have all of this energy that just turns into pure and needless frustration.
I feel as though some people would say, “Turn that energy into something else productive!” To me, it's not enough to simply have the energy, you have to have the focus and time. I still mostly have to work most of my time in order to move forward and stay ahead on bills. I think a lot about the rich white “geniuses” that discovered so many things in science. You might stumble across a few fundamental truths about the universe if you had your entire lifetime to kill searching. In less than 10 years I've seen whole schools get constructed, businesses turnover, apartments and condos flood the landscape. I need a day or two here and there. I need the thousand dollars, and the week I can feel comfortable not working. It's, of course, precisely when I can't get into drug studies now I have all of these things I could be occupying my time with besides television. I still feel my stomach sink and heart flutter at even the thought of attempting a screening.
I suppose what's hardest about having this volatile and excited energy is the constant pressure to pause it. It's not anymore healthy to be manic than it is depressive. But I crave the flow of constant creative production. I'd love to wake up early each day excited for the work to do, go home exhausted, and start up doing it all over again, always seeing the larger goals getting closer and closer. It's why I don't hesitate to spend my savings to finally get something done. My goal isn't to have an extra $1000. It's to have a place to shower and shit and store things I don't want in the house proper. I want my own place to live. I want to know that all of my money is going towards paying it off, and getting the little things done while I'm out there like sapling removal and trash burning. I want to blast my music or shows at all hours of the night.
I feel like I say too often how close I am. I'm as close or as far as I've ever been or ever will be. It's hard to exercise the idea that there's only “now” when now doesn't look like what you want it to. I want that meal plan and personal trainer, that schedule to get lessons and rehearse music, that time in the greenhouse, the conversation about the next step in the map, that scheduled time to get furniture moved, and that weekend fire party now. I want it now, and tomorrow, and the day after for as far as I can see. And when that itch is scratched I want the next thing. You can't do it out of order or pretend otherwise. Or, I can't.
I'm never finding the 100K a year job, hell, the 50K a year job. The jobs once professionals are clinging to are about to be taken over. “Benefits” are never coming back. The oligarchy wins. So I need, more than anything, to be able to ride it out or escape it. That means off-grid super-cheap living situation. To occupy the privileged place of business speculation is hard enough as it is if you don't want to simply lie and hustle your way through dozens of things you're not interested in or are barely qualified for.
I don't even know if I had anything to say in this. I just feel awake. I feel like I should be buying insulation, cutting drywall, and pricing plumbing parts. I should be doing piano scales. I should be compiling and organizing the best journalism and maps to tell different kinds of stories. Or I should be learning how to afford the outsourcing of what I want with as little money thrown to dozens of Indian men at random as possible. But I can't, yet. Not really. I can half-ass and try to give myself a story. Be half-paying attention during a trumpet lesson, overpay for parts in service to expediency, or barely glean ten words from that in-depth look at what's about to fuck humanity for the next 20 years.
I want to explode in the best way. I want to pursue like college never let me. I want to build as extravagantly as I imagined when I played with blocks. I want to celebrate like nothing matters but the party in the moment, and I want to wrap as many people up in my world as are worthy. And I want to do it right now. Every little piece that falls into place suggests I'm still on the path. If I could blackout and wake up a year from now, presuming things went well or were tolerable, I would. That seems like a weird thing to say if my concern is time, right? But if I could just have an even floor, I could run faster. The cuts and scrapes of crawling through the woods aren't helping anything.
