[731] Destination

I'm adrift.

Depending on which movie you watch, being adrift means you will eventually get saved, have wild hallucinations before you do so, or will freeze, drown, or be eaten well before anyone thinks to look for you. My fate is not written. I'm no less adrift.

I recently heard the line, “Man makes plans and God laughs.” I've heard it before. It's loud again because I've, mostly, forsaken the idea of plans. I pretend to make plans and it makes me dispositionally unavailable. What does that mean? When I so often am denied the consequences of my plans, I put away and hide the part of me that expects things. It's a measure of self preservation, but you must consider, if you don't expect things, you're at the mercy of them.

But let's not get too abstractly stupid and philosophical. Why, out of nowhere, did I think right now I needed to write? I want. I want so many things. I want them before I die. I want them for other people. I want them to inform wants I probably can't conceive of yet.

Think about that. I think of a party. I don't know what I'm going to say. I persistently make people laugh. Friends, strangers, and people upset with me. I never know what the comment will be. I'm not in the mirror rehearsing. I'm not filling notepads with jokes. Who I am, and how I speak, I've built into an end goal of getting a laugh. Can I say the same about larger goals? Is how I am suitable for something to take off one day and be of consequence? If I get my Jordan Peterson-light version of virulence, will I handle it with the appropriate degrees of tact and deference?

But that's so far and stupid to speculate, and of course the answer is no. Again, dude, what is making you write right now? What do you want that 1 person, years from now, by accident, to click with and realize in spite of all the other words to nowhere, they managed to find something?

I miss having things that are sad to say goodbye to. I talk so often of the sweet release of death. Tonight was a nostalgia night where I clicked through old band footage and random videos I took with my camera back in high school. Back when my ideas of me more matched my actual physical embodiment. Back when the arrogance was underwritten by hope and expectations. The catch? It's still right now. I still don't hate anyone who showed up in a party video. I still am exhausted from spending so much time sucking in a parking lot during marching band. I still laugh at the phrasing and jokes and smiles. There is a timeless quality. You never really have to say goodbye or let go.

In school you're thrown together by accident. None of you choose the different moves your parents made. And yet, every day you can find yourself creating something worth laughing about or remembering. You can find yourself organizing around a shared principle that renders your differences mute. You share. You experience. You struggle and joke and create. And even if it sucks, all of that time in between the performance is built into who you are. I was clearly fascinated by this and that's why I chose to film it.

Something so stupid does it. “Let's go to state!” With no chance of getting to state we spend weeks marching to death and rehearsing music only half the band cares to learn. “Let's all get drunk!” The fights and interpersonal bullshit of the week before doesn't matter because so and so decided it's topless time. The “adults” then organize around their jobs or their sports leagues or their trivia groups. It's lost on me why I can find people collectively pursuing inevitably failing ends across domains, and anyone doing something world-altering and worth a damn is tucked safely away in academia far away from the public. Catch that Vice special? No? No matter, you won't be able to afford a 3-D printed ear anyway.

But why are you writing!? What is it you want people to know? How are you the smallest gust of a half-hearted cough that “wakes up” someone picking your words instead of Google's?

I still feel real. I still believe in choice and consequence. I still think life is simpler than people give it credit for, and I still feel responsible. Without fail I can announce some plan I have for myself in the future, and the prevailing idiot of my moment will say, “No you won't.” I'm not him. I'm not a punk or a liar. I'm not at the mercy of depression or anxiety. I write away every sad sack capitulating bitch fest about how much I hate everything. I do this frequently. It's the process. It's the work. I rob myself of excuses and I take what I want from a world who always hides little explosives in my handfuls.

I want to stop asking things of people. I want to be so hard they just are too. I can never get where I need to be with words. Words are the sorting out of what I don't want. Words are the road my subconscious brain goes towards self-destruction. So I can pick the words. I can plant them here instead of there. I need more doing. I need more ownership. The solution is never to wait for someone to ask or until you feel comfortable. The solution is to pile it on. The solution is to try and exhaust yourself by going as overboard as you did in the past, but pull back before you literally pass out. And it doesn't take a commitment in a blog like your “structured indulgences.” It takes every day telling yourself, “Fuck you, you ignorant piece of shit who doesn't know anything. Get the fuck up. Change, you bitch. What are you? A bitch ass nigga like everyone who reads you and shits the bed?”

The answer is no. I'm not a bitch ass nigga. I'm not unduly harsh or skeptical. I'm me I get what I want. I change. I learn. I adapt. I do and try and own. While my arms work I need to paddle for shore. While my voice rings I need to yell at the sky. While my feet kick, I need to curb stop the bullshit that set me adrift in the first place. I make moments feel like years. Maybe I'm not as bad as it feels. But fuck that, of course I am. I'm worse. Because I even allowed myself that bullshit maybe.

I haven't wanted the responsibility. The call of age and relaxation and death is real. I act like I can't see the benefits. I act like it wouldn't be nice to not feel guilty about whoring up again. I act like I won't start seeing more ways to attempt to capitalize. I act like I don't want to see the scale counter go down. I act like I have a solid plan for my body falling apart in small ways all at once. I act like I can be evaluated on any scale that isn't my own. I act. I'm fascinated with the act and actors. I didn't know I was so method. I didn't know I embodied the role and it would take so many years for the academy to recognize my contribution to the medium.

I need to do better. Worse than that. I need to do the best. I need to watch all my TV. I need to read everything I want to read. I need to straddle all the depressing and ridiculous shit that comes with it. I need to look forward to goodbye when the things I care about end. I need to pursue the people who are at least as big of abject failures as me, but are going to give my life meaning in a way I'm forever unable to do on my own. I need to do it every day. I need to wake up not hating each day and waiting out my life. I want the new old parties. I want the new failed friendships and acquaintances. I want the person who's every bit as motivated and arrogant as he was in the videos he watched tonight, but with a dash of wisdom for how that shit goes wrong. I want it shared and celebrated. I want to make you be what I ask of you.

I won't get it otherwise. You're not me. You're not willing to listen or try or risk the things I am. So I need to take your life. I need to plug it in like I plugged it in to parties. I need to be an enabler. And I need to know it's mine and mine alone that will see it through. Failure isn't an option. I’m fucked. Do it anyway.