I want to talk a bit about the nature
of my mental roller coaster.
My head, which seems to be unlike many other heads, is always looking. Occasionally, I can get lucky and have a speech or argument that lets me focus in and carry me along for an hour or two. When I was obsessed with reading everything I could regarding “religion vs science,” my day, every day, was made, because I provided myself with new questions and someone might make a reference or argument I hadn't heard before that became my personal duty to refute. I entered that realm from a highly volatile and emotional state, and I left bored out of my mind years later.
One of the biggest reasons I'm anywhere I get in life is because I can't turn it off. This blog, like most blogs, has been brewing for a day or more. Some comment set it off and I've been rehearsing a few choice lines of inspiration that need exploring. In a sense, I'm always working on what to say next, or what to create, or trying to figure out how to fix a looming breakdown. There's an immediacy to my every moment, and I understand life as a set of probabilities that I have a meager ability to control or influence.
As such, the things I feel I can control are vitally important to me. Maybe I can't prevent my body from panicking about something dumb. I can remove myself from situations that beget panic consistently. Maybe I don't have a choice in my “dream job” and different goals to own my work are still a ways off. I still picked drug studies and living frugal instead of jumping head first into the “regular” working world. I know my disposition, while deliberately poorly understood, tends to rub “normal” people the wrong way, so I reserve my interactions to as many known friends as possible and stifle the urge to be drunkenly social to a few times a year.
Much of it can be summed up in simple sentences. I laugh with those who laugh with me instead of scowl and judge. If I had my own enterprise, pulling in even a modest amount I've already proved myself capable of, I can't get fired. If I keep myself working on tasks that don't require a measurement of my heart rate or dilation of my pupils, it really doesn't matter the coke-addled hamster in my gut as long as the task is getting done.
I speculate that part of my disposition has heavily drawn from all of the art and media I interact with. I'm the hero of my story. Everything is life and death. One small thing that you didn't even notice can set into motion a series of events that would fundamentally change the character. Whether my reality is massively changing or not, I remain ultra-sensitive to the idea that it can in fact change in a moment. Doomsday preppers come to mind. You might think they sound insane always talking about the end of the world, but you wouldn't hate to have their plan and resources in your life. I can go on and on about my dreams and want to create, but even if it takes longer than I'd like, and you get annoyed and exhausted with my descriptions of the journey, the stage is at least set.
Every single day can be the day. Every single moment. One inspiring line or point of contact can radically alter your existence. Do you want to be subjected to the kind of “randomness” that will throw you into someone else's story? I prefer intention. I prefer trying to prepare for better eventualities. You have to think too, “life” as it's understood as this context you need to survive in, does not want to be constantly changing at all. You want a stable job, partner, family, or TV show. Even your problems go down easy enough if you know they can be handled with a nap, a tool, or a pill.
When you acknowledge how the only truth is change, it can cause stress and anxiety. What are you changing into? What did you used to understand that's poised to turn you into a backwards FOX pundit looking super ignorant even when it's not deliberate and motivated? This is the nature of the anxiety when I choose a new “normal” job or have an opportunity to fight against something I think is dangerous to the health of society at large. There is no distinction between reality and what it is I'm making of it at any point. I'm always at once seemingly contradictory things, and whatever choices I make in service to smoothing out those contradictions. Faith without works is dead? My idealism might be tempered by reality, but I, and everyone who thinks like me, are better off when we don't have to work at the expense of our rights and recourses.
People want to argue these gun-control kids came out of nowhere. No, they stand on the backs of piled up dead kids and disregarding sentiments of greedy personality disorders. Your “stardom” or “pioneering leadership” or “challenge to the status quo” is not the ten minute story with a bow about being a self-starter, reading the right books, or donning the proper pedigree. It's the every day habit and thought process that pushes you to do more. That's not most people.
Consider, even people who think of themselves as “moral enough,” will do “extra,” but not necessarily “more.” You're a teacher who doesn't feel they are getting paid enough, and your struggle bumps up against your desire to help your students. So you spend your own money for more school supplies. Maybe you raise a concern to a school board member. The more that's truly needed though is what was done in West Virginia. I guarantee it was a small subset of teachers who organized and promoted to give everyone else the excuse to sign on. So it goes for marches and rallies in general. To simply agree, or suffer in solidarity, is never and not enough. For those who don't consider themselves heroes, that's all they'll amount to.
Can you be a hero without a destructive ego? The most relateable tales, from ancient history to now, show even the Gods suffering from their oversights and flaws. I think a healthy ego is simply one willing to accept the consequences. I'm prepared for angry attacks. People who organize know the “entitled” and “immature” comments are coming. Being someone of consequence is by default a threat. You have to work and prepare for the fallout. You have to imagine the next ten steps whether your plan works, and especially under the assumption that it won't. This is a lot to ask of anyone, which is why it only happens under those who ask it of themselves.
So I genuinely have to worry. To what degree am I allowed to tip my toes into the waters of “business as usual” and still maintain my focus and desire to change as necessary any moment? How comfortable am I allowed to get, financially or socially, playing their game? What's the balance? When there's no hard rule to tell you, you're locked into worrying about the details. The flurry of unknown details and lack of experience trigger the parts of your brain you hope are prepared to cope.
The question is never about “can” I accomplish or play along or succumb. It's whether and why. It's asking what the larger context is and making escape plans. You are a context embedded in contexts, and retaining an understanding and road for your decisions that transcend the contexts you don't like or want to see perpetuated into the future is what makes an individual. My personhood is under attack, and I don't want to be unwittingly attacking it because I got too tired or overwhelmed or persuaded by some excuse offered from someone who's too comfortable. I've attempted to condition myself to react pretty viscerally to what I perceive as throwaway advocacy of my death.
My brain is a black hole of ill-describe self-refutation in the mind of anyone who's under the impression they've figured something out. I doubt it. I doubt myself. I doubt my best and worst decisions. My favorite moments will be followed by inevitable tragedy, just like every delicious meal begets toxic waste. I'm harder to understand the less attention you're willing to pay to every single thing you do. The more words you let slip through the cracks. The more shoulder shrugs you offer, not because you don't actually care, but because you're unable or unwilling to prefer in general, the more adrift you'll be. The only reason I'm as “stuck” as far as “society” has let me, is because my singular will cannot combat collective complacency. And when that collective doesn't care to pay attention to just what it is their words or lack of action contributes to, then everything has to ride hopes and prayers until a march or tragedy “spontaneously” pretends to be of larger consequence.
I don't want my life at 49 to look like it does at 29. I don't want to hear the same bullshit in the news. I don't want to read catch-all anti-reporting nonsense about preventable struggles of “Gen Z” or how general ignorance fuels harsher conditions from runaway climate change. I don't want to be stressed out and depressed that, “if I had only tried to do it as I knew I should have,” maybe something would look measurably better today. If I had only spoken up, or fought, or sacrificed what now would seem like so little. It matters if I more hate than enjoy each day. It matters if my thoughts are consumed by whatever task is overloading my system. It matters that I know the details in trying to navigate my context and run my game across all others. It should matter to you too. It should always be prepared to change in ways you're stewarding, not just subjected to. Being anxious or stressed about that isn't a wrong or a disorder. No accomplishment or dollar amount is an excuse to stop.
It's taken me a long time to even figure out an approach to “balance.” Part of the reason I take in vast amounts of disparate sources of potential inspiration is because it's very real to me how much of myself I've “lost” or tried to mold into something more respectable and manageable. The “extremes” I go to in trying to accomplish something are a large story that's always working its way through my being. I had to make the case that watching TV or reading comics are worthwhile things to do. I had to persuade myself that “a little each day” is actually a good thing, be it addressing a craving or nagging sensation to do something that suggests your priorities are in order. I literally got a call between this and the last sentence to do some construction work for under the table cash where I might learn something or meet someone useful down the line.
Having that kind of “freedom” to experience things, like the freedom to pick up free stuff on Craigslist, is something I enjoy and helps me in random ways. It's worth it to keep asking yourself if the benefits of something new or safe outweigh other perks. If I was getting paid a ton so I never had to think about salvaging free things, the math of what matters in my mind changes. If I can afford the plumber, I don't necessarily need to learn how to be one. But, if I want as many accessible skills to be as useful as possible over time, maybe I want both. Just like simply because I can play enough instruments to make music or impress, doesn't mean I don't want to create more or better or become competent on others.
I don't know that I see balanced lives, if only because I never much hear what people aspire to. There's at least a broken balance between the life being lived and the life being striven for. I see people get the kind of job I'm about to take, and then “make it work” or “love the grind” or overburden some positive aspect. I don't want to get lost in those woods, so I'm willing to keep talking about which way my compass is pointing out of a healthy fear of looking too normal.
My head, which seems to be unlike many other heads, is always looking. Occasionally, I can get lucky and have a speech or argument that lets me focus in and carry me along for an hour or two. When I was obsessed with reading everything I could regarding “religion vs science,” my day, every day, was made, because I provided myself with new questions and someone might make a reference or argument I hadn't heard before that became my personal duty to refute. I entered that realm from a highly volatile and emotional state, and I left bored out of my mind years later.
One of the biggest reasons I'm anywhere I get in life is because I can't turn it off. This blog, like most blogs, has been brewing for a day or more. Some comment set it off and I've been rehearsing a few choice lines of inspiration that need exploring. In a sense, I'm always working on what to say next, or what to create, or trying to figure out how to fix a looming breakdown. There's an immediacy to my every moment, and I understand life as a set of probabilities that I have a meager ability to control or influence.
As such, the things I feel I can control are vitally important to me. Maybe I can't prevent my body from panicking about something dumb. I can remove myself from situations that beget panic consistently. Maybe I don't have a choice in my “dream job” and different goals to own my work are still a ways off. I still picked drug studies and living frugal instead of jumping head first into the “regular” working world. I know my disposition, while deliberately poorly understood, tends to rub “normal” people the wrong way, so I reserve my interactions to as many known friends as possible and stifle the urge to be drunkenly social to a few times a year.
Much of it can be summed up in simple sentences. I laugh with those who laugh with me instead of scowl and judge. If I had my own enterprise, pulling in even a modest amount I've already proved myself capable of, I can't get fired. If I keep myself working on tasks that don't require a measurement of my heart rate or dilation of my pupils, it really doesn't matter the coke-addled hamster in my gut as long as the task is getting done.
I speculate that part of my disposition has heavily drawn from all of the art and media I interact with. I'm the hero of my story. Everything is life and death. One small thing that you didn't even notice can set into motion a series of events that would fundamentally change the character. Whether my reality is massively changing or not, I remain ultra-sensitive to the idea that it can in fact change in a moment. Doomsday preppers come to mind. You might think they sound insane always talking about the end of the world, but you wouldn't hate to have their plan and resources in your life. I can go on and on about my dreams and want to create, but even if it takes longer than I'd like, and you get annoyed and exhausted with my descriptions of the journey, the stage is at least set.
Every single day can be the day. Every single moment. One inspiring line or point of contact can radically alter your existence. Do you want to be subjected to the kind of “randomness” that will throw you into someone else's story? I prefer intention. I prefer trying to prepare for better eventualities. You have to think too, “life” as it's understood as this context you need to survive in, does not want to be constantly changing at all. You want a stable job, partner, family, or TV show. Even your problems go down easy enough if you know they can be handled with a nap, a tool, or a pill.
When you acknowledge how the only truth is change, it can cause stress and anxiety. What are you changing into? What did you used to understand that's poised to turn you into a backwards FOX pundit looking super ignorant even when it's not deliberate and motivated? This is the nature of the anxiety when I choose a new “normal” job or have an opportunity to fight against something I think is dangerous to the health of society at large. There is no distinction between reality and what it is I'm making of it at any point. I'm always at once seemingly contradictory things, and whatever choices I make in service to smoothing out those contradictions. Faith without works is dead? My idealism might be tempered by reality, but I, and everyone who thinks like me, are better off when we don't have to work at the expense of our rights and recourses.
People want to argue these gun-control kids came out of nowhere. No, they stand on the backs of piled up dead kids and disregarding sentiments of greedy personality disorders. Your “stardom” or “pioneering leadership” or “challenge to the status quo” is not the ten minute story with a bow about being a self-starter, reading the right books, or donning the proper pedigree. It's the every day habit and thought process that pushes you to do more. That's not most people.
Consider, even people who think of themselves as “moral enough,” will do “extra,” but not necessarily “more.” You're a teacher who doesn't feel they are getting paid enough, and your struggle bumps up against your desire to help your students. So you spend your own money for more school supplies. Maybe you raise a concern to a school board member. The more that's truly needed though is what was done in West Virginia. I guarantee it was a small subset of teachers who organized and promoted to give everyone else the excuse to sign on. So it goes for marches and rallies in general. To simply agree, or suffer in solidarity, is never and not enough. For those who don't consider themselves heroes, that's all they'll amount to.
Can you be a hero without a destructive ego? The most relateable tales, from ancient history to now, show even the Gods suffering from their oversights and flaws. I think a healthy ego is simply one willing to accept the consequences. I'm prepared for angry attacks. People who organize know the “entitled” and “immature” comments are coming. Being someone of consequence is by default a threat. You have to work and prepare for the fallout. You have to imagine the next ten steps whether your plan works, and especially under the assumption that it won't. This is a lot to ask of anyone, which is why it only happens under those who ask it of themselves.
So I genuinely have to worry. To what degree am I allowed to tip my toes into the waters of “business as usual” and still maintain my focus and desire to change as necessary any moment? How comfortable am I allowed to get, financially or socially, playing their game? What's the balance? When there's no hard rule to tell you, you're locked into worrying about the details. The flurry of unknown details and lack of experience trigger the parts of your brain you hope are prepared to cope.
The question is never about “can” I accomplish or play along or succumb. It's whether and why. It's asking what the larger context is and making escape plans. You are a context embedded in contexts, and retaining an understanding and road for your decisions that transcend the contexts you don't like or want to see perpetuated into the future is what makes an individual. My personhood is under attack, and I don't want to be unwittingly attacking it because I got too tired or overwhelmed or persuaded by some excuse offered from someone who's too comfortable. I've attempted to condition myself to react pretty viscerally to what I perceive as throwaway advocacy of my death.
My brain is a black hole of ill-describe self-refutation in the mind of anyone who's under the impression they've figured something out. I doubt it. I doubt myself. I doubt my best and worst decisions. My favorite moments will be followed by inevitable tragedy, just like every delicious meal begets toxic waste. I'm harder to understand the less attention you're willing to pay to every single thing you do. The more words you let slip through the cracks. The more shoulder shrugs you offer, not because you don't actually care, but because you're unable or unwilling to prefer in general, the more adrift you'll be. The only reason I'm as “stuck” as far as “society” has let me, is because my singular will cannot combat collective complacency. And when that collective doesn't care to pay attention to just what it is their words or lack of action contributes to, then everything has to ride hopes and prayers until a march or tragedy “spontaneously” pretends to be of larger consequence.
I don't want my life at 49 to look like it does at 29. I don't want to hear the same bullshit in the news. I don't want to read catch-all anti-reporting nonsense about preventable struggles of “Gen Z” or how general ignorance fuels harsher conditions from runaway climate change. I don't want to be stressed out and depressed that, “if I had only tried to do it as I knew I should have,” maybe something would look measurably better today. If I had only spoken up, or fought, or sacrificed what now would seem like so little. It matters if I more hate than enjoy each day. It matters if my thoughts are consumed by whatever task is overloading my system. It matters that I know the details in trying to navigate my context and run my game across all others. It should matter to you too. It should always be prepared to change in ways you're stewarding, not just subjected to. Being anxious or stressed about that isn't a wrong or a disorder. No accomplishment or dollar amount is an excuse to stop.
It's taken me a long time to even figure out an approach to “balance.” Part of the reason I take in vast amounts of disparate sources of potential inspiration is because it's very real to me how much of myself I've “lost” or tried to mold into something more respectable and manageable. The “extremes” I go to in trying to accomplish something are a large story that's always working its way through my being. I had to make the case that watching TV or reading comics are worthwhile things to do. I had to persuade myself that “a little each day” is actually a good thing, be it addressing a craving or nagging sensation to do something that suggests your priorities are in order. I literally got a call between this and the last sentence to do some construction work for under the table cash where I might learn something or meet someone useful down the line.
Having that kind of “freedom” to experience things, like the freedom to pick up free stuff on Craigslist, is something I enjoy and helps me in random ways. It's worth it to keep asking yourself if the benefits of something new or safe outweigh other perks. If I was getting paid a ton so I never had to think about salvaging free things, the math of what matters in my mind changes. If I can afford the plumber, I don't necessarily need to learn how to be one. But, if I want as many accessible skills to be as useful as possible over time, maybe I want both. Just like simply because I can play enough instruments to make music or impress, doesn't mean I don't want to create more or better or become competent on others.
I don't know that I see balanced lives, if only because I never much hear what people aspire to. There's at least a broken balance between the life being lived and the life being striven for. I see people get the kind of job I'm about to take, and then “make it work” or “love the grind” or overburden some positive aspect. I don't want to get lost in those woods, so I'm willing to keep talking about which way my compass is pointing out of a healthy fear of looking too normal.
