Let's see what's going on. A few things
have made me think it was time to write. One was a question that
comes up in media enough when a character asks, “If there was one
thing that you could change about your life, what would it be?”
Hearing it yesterday, my only thought was wishing for things to
happen faster. The second thing to explore was the question of what
makes something “logically coherent,” or exists as the reason one
sentence follows another.
Take the opening paragraph. When you're starting from “nowhere,” I often try to marginally preface how I anticipate a blog is going to go. Random jumble? Likely. Severe self-referential abstract “concept” blog? It probably won't get that bad. But because I don't quite know what I'm going to write, you shouldn't feel burdened to find “the point” anymore than I feel I need to land somewhere beyond “feeling better.” As it often goes, it is a line from a show or comment from someone I know that stirs up dust. This is evidence that dust hasn't settled.
I suppose one way to figure out if things are “logically coherent” or “true,” without getting into the symbols I don't understand from a logic class, is to see if the series of ideas leads to things manifesting in the tangible “real world.” My path in life has so far manifested in owning a fair amount of stuff, maintaining relatively good health, and at least bolstering enough lasting relationships that the ones which float away don't seem to unduly impact my mood or functioning. To the degree I wished to own my home, have too much money to play with, and flirt with ideas about “retiring” by 30, I think I've achieved a fair approximation for someone in my caste and cohort.
Can you measure a similar kind of coherence simply at the level of ideas or words? Perhaps I could contrast who I think I am now verses when I was a child. I could fall head over heels for a beautiful face as a child, never knowing what the day would have in store for me. Today, I know the relatively few things I would or wouldn't say to anyone I might be interested in, and it's nice if you're pretty, but I've probably seen a thousand naked versions of it before. That is, my “style” of interacting with a girl isn't befuddled emotion surprising me, and to the degree I express myself honestly, I get to return to a consistent and reliable personality pulse. That's not to say I'd be immune from character flaws that have been built into that personality, but at least we should be able to see them coming and decide how to manage.
I see so many hopeless memes. Here, because my two initial ideas I got enough “it” out about what I wanted to say on them, I don't know how or if it follows. The next thought. How? But I do, I see so many hopeless memes about not living up to dreams, seas of different manifestations of anxiety, and endless jokes about wanting to die. The wanting to die jokes make it into staffing meetings and active shooter trainings at work. Nostalgia is choked until it turns purple and then shaken until arms fall off. The “logic” of coping is my learned behavior of heartily laughing at so much atrocity. To some extent, I even get to walk around some days thinking things aren't so bad.
Let's reintroduce the idea of going “faster.” Why do I watch so many shows sped up? Why do I want to have the amount of money to sustain me where I'm at until I'm 100 “now?” Why did I want to complete my homework in advance in elementary school? My persistent ask of my life is to “get it over with.” If we have the recipe and a dictionary, don't condescend and ask me to make bacon and eggs first. I never want to quit my job more than when I'm told “you're still new” or “you haven't worked here long enough” to get into some new kind of training. Bitch, 7 months? That's a fucking eternity. This job isn't high-order intelligence and espionage. You think the stress results in high turnover more than the active prevention of allowing people to invest in themselves?
We can slow down. How easy would it have been to go on a tirade about the short-sidedness of work? Going faster is it's own animal. Like most people who achieve insane heights, and I think I've said this before, I want to prove things too. I wasn't perpetually told “you can't,” more than I still suffer the consequences of a world around me who feels like you can't. This makes me immensely angry. Of course you can. Of course everything you're saying about why you can't is horribly dumb. I want to race into the problem and blow it up. I want to spend all day and night adding one more layer.
I think for all of people's lofty talk about the future, their noble intentions, or “passion” for what they “love,” they don't actually conceive of much beyond themselves in the present moment. I think that's why what would otherwise be functioning relationships breakdown. Quit your good job? Doesn't matter if you're suffering, even for bad reasons. Want the upgraded version of your spouse? Feels like a less compelling argument the farther you stray from the language of what you “deserve” or are entitled to. We're bombarded with people's “personal truths” to compare our own to, and then it's off to the races to get matching Instagram pictures.
I take a lot of pride in getting to things before they become “cool.” At one level, I know there's no such thing, so it's more a measure of can you be Bernie railing about climate change and corrupt oil industries before people start chiding you for being too old to do something about it. There were climate activists and scientists warning about warming during the oil boom in the 20's. It's a component of the “faster” mindset. The second you become aware of a problem, you either race towards it and discover your responsibility to it, or you pretend. I think evil grows out of pretending, compounded when we pretend evil negligence is merely “tragic reality.” I think it's evil to regard genuine expressions of reality with “justified” indignation because your feelings were hurt. It's to continue to ignore or refuse to engage because the nothingness of your position and potential is laid bare. “We want social justice!” No, you don't.
We're most evil to ourselves. I have the weird experience of watching my friend find “project young white boys,” and turning them out. He'll play into their desires and insecurities. He'll dictate their medication. He'll put money and connections in their hands. Sometimes, briefly, they'll seem marginally better. But that thing, that lie, at the center of their being that allows him to do that? That rarely, if ever, goes away. It's case study after case study that might testify to how much it's not nature verses nurture, but what first impulses came with your nature that were nurtured when you were younger. Some kids make it out of the trailer park or hood. As a “global species” or “wealthiest nation” or “nicer newer more sensitive Gen Z” string of nonsense grouping qualifiers are concerned, we're nowhere near eliminating the hood and trailer as modes of being.
I want to pull off the bandage. Homeless? Give them homes, we have too many. You want me to read 9 books and write 5 papers? Let me see what I can do this week, don't make me pay for the whole semester. You're wildly depressed and I'm doing a bad job managing what to do with your stories about how or when you plan to kill yourself? I've literally handed you the blade and watched the blood pour down your wrist. Let's have the fight now. Let's build into our relationship going forward with every drop of fear and insecurity we can squeeze out of our thoughts. Let's build the mental and physical framework that protects us from the unyielding doubt and chance that will inevitably kill us. We're already dead, so let's work on how to continue dying well.
Take the opening paragraph. When you're starting from “nowhere,” I often try to marginally preface how I anticipate a blog is going to go. Random jumble? Likely. Severe self-referential abstract “concept” blog? It probably won't get that bad. But because I don't quite know what I'm going to write, you shouldn't feel burdened to find “the point” anymore than I feel I need to land somewhere beyond “feeling better.” As it often goes, it is a line from a show or comment from someone I know that stirs up dust. This is evidence that dust hasn't settled.
I suppose one way to figure out if things are “logically coherent” or “true,” without getting into the symbols I don't understand from a logic class, is to see if the series of ideas leads to things manifesting in the tangible “real world.” My path in life has so far manifested in owning a fair amount of stuff, maintaining relatively good health, and at least bolstering enough lasting relationships that the ones which float away don't seem to unduly impact my mood or functioning. To the degree I wished to own my home, have too much money to play with, and flirt with ideas about “retiring” by 30, I think I've achieved a fair approximation for someone in my caste and cohort.
Can you measure a similar kind of coherence simply at the level of ideas or words? Perhaps I could contrast who I think I am now verses when I was a child. I could fall head over heels for a beautiful face as a child, never knowing what the day would have in store for me. Today, I know the relatively few things I would or wouldn't say to anyone I might be interested in, and it's nice if you're pretty, but I've probably seen a thousand naked versions of it before. That is, my “style” of interacting with a girl isn't befuddled emotion surprising me, and to the degree I express myself honestly, I get to return to a consistent and reliable personality pulse. That's not to say I'd be immune from character flaws that have been built into that personality, but at least we should be able to see them coming and decide how to manage.
I see so many hopeless memes. Here, because my two initial ideas I got enough “it” out about what I wanted to say on them, I don't know how or if it follows. The next thought. How? But I do, I see so many hopeless memes about not living up to dreams, seas of different manifestations of anxiety, and endless jokes about wanting to die. The wanting to die jokes make it into staffing meetings and active shooter trainings at work. Nostalgia is choked until it turns purple and then shaken until arms fall off. The “logic” of coping is my learned behavior of heartily laughing at so much atrocity. To some extent, I even get to walk around some days thinking things aren't so bad.
Let's reintroduce the idea of going “faster.” Why do I watch so many shows sped up? Why do I want to have the amount of money to sustain me where I'm at until I'm 100 “now?” Why did I want to complete my homework in advance in elementary school? My persistent ask of my life is to “get it over with.” If we have the recipe and a dictionary, don't condescend and ask me to make bacon and eggs first. I never want to quit my job more than when I'm told “you're still new” or “you haven't worked here long enough” to get into some new kind of training. Bitch, 7 months? That's a fucking eternity. This job isn't high-order intelligence and espionage. You think the stress results in high turnover more than the active prevention of allowing people to invest in themselves?
We can slow down. How easy would it have been to go on a tirade about the short-sidedness of work? Going faster is it's own animal. Like most people who achieve insane heights, and I think I've said this before, I want to prove things too. I wasn't perpetually told “you can't,” more than I still suffer the consequences of a world around me who feels like you can't. This makes me immensely angry. Of course you can. Of course everything you're saying about why you can't is horribly dumb. I want to race into the problem and blow it up. I want to spend all day and night adding one more layer.
I think for all of people's lofty talk about the future, their noble intentions, or “passion” for what they “love,” they don't actually conceive of much beyond themselves in the present moment. I think that's why what would otherwise be functioning relationships breakdown. Quit your good job? Doesn't matter if you're suffering, even for bad reasons. Want the upgraded version of your spouse? Feels like a less compelling argument the farther you stray from the language of what you “deserve” or are entitled to. We're bombarded with people's “personal truths” to compare our own to, and then it's off to the races to get matching Instagram pictures.
I take a lot of pride in getting to things before they become “cool.” At one level, I know there's no such thing, so it's more a measure of can you be Bernie railing about climate change and corrupt oil industries before people start chiding you for being too old to do something about it. There were climate activists and scientists warning about warming during the oil boom in the 20's. It's a component of the “faster” mindset. The second you become aware of a problem, you either race towards it and discover your responsibility to it, or you pretend. I think evil grows out of pretending, compounded when we pretend evil negligence is merely “tragic reality.” I think it's evil to regard genuine expressions of reality with “justified” indignation because your feelings were hurt. It's to continue to ignore or refuse to engage because the nothingness of your position and potential is laid bare. “We want social justice!” No, you don't.
We're most evil to ourselves. I have the weird experience of watching my friend find “project young white boys,” and turning them out. He'll play into their desires and insecurities. He'll dictate their medication. He'll put money and connections in their hands. Sometimes, briefly, they'll seem marginally better. But that thing, that lie, at the center of their being that allows him to do that? That rarely, if ever, goes away. It's case study after case study that might testify to how much it's not nature verses nurture, but what first impulses came with your nature that were nurtured when you were younger. Some kids make it out of the trailer park or hood. As a “global species” or “wealthiest nation” or “nicer newer more sensitive Gen Z” string of nonsense grouping qualifiers are concerned, we're nowhere near eliminating the hood and trailer as modes of being.
I want to pull off the bandage. Homeless? Give them homes, we have too many. You want me to read 9 books and write 5 papers? Let me see what I can do this week, don't make me pay for the whole semester. You're wildly depressed and I'm doing a bad job managing what to do with your stories about how or when you plan to kill yourself? I've literally handed you the blade and watched the blood pour down your wrist. Let's have the fight now. Let's build into our relationship going forward with every drop of fear and insecurity we can squeeze out of our thoughts. Let's build the mental and physical framework that protects us from the unyielding doubt and chance that will inevitably kill us. We're already dead, so let's work on how to continue dying well.
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