[820] Give Me Liberty

Depending on your state of mind, what gets in gets dictated.

I wanted to start writing when it seemed as though there might be a crack in my otherwise “generally feeling better” last week and a half. I went into town, ate dinner, and upon returning to my car to check my work phone, saw that I had missed an appointment. I completely forgot about the appointment, but it was also missed because I took a sick day, and went the opposite direction of the idea that I should check in or touch bases. I was mildly perturbed and about to spiral into “What does the manager I like think of me now!” and “I said I didn't want to turn into [our boss who got fired for being too fuck it, literally] is this the change taking over?” I dropped the feeling immediately. That's not the game I'm playing anymore.

I've always been suspicious of people who've decided to see me in particularly positive lights. I know this is a pretty common disposition. Everyone knows the depth of their own depravity, and it's something of a cliché across mediums the story of “it's not you, it's me.” Mine has always been about the capacity and potential for undue manipulation. I don't want people to give themselves over to me. I won't turn you into a Project White Boy, well, mostly. I'll push until you break. This happens frequently to people who “want to be my friend,” and completely ignore the amount of times I try to caution them as to how it will go wrong.

But let's slow down and parse a little further. I had a feeling, and got rid of it. Others who have positive feelings around me, I'm broadly suspicious of. One would think, don't you want people to think well of you? What's the harm in that? I immediately think these are people who've experienced a soul-crushing amount of negativity and judgment, and who are blind to the prospect that no one likes you. Sure, but they extra don't like when you're a credible threat.

More to my circle of adjacent points though, being viewed positively in others' eyes does not seem to translate to me like I suspected it would. Whether you're good or bad, basic competency will have extra responsibilities foisted upon you. In theory, if people like you, you'll catch less crap, but that's anyone's guess, and increasingly less my experience. It's not your opinion of me that garnered the cash to do the things I actually want to do. In fact, I had to basically disappear into a shell of watching and reading so as to pass the time without feeling like a convict. I'm fairly certain I got my current job because my boss immediately recognized I'm not that nice or going to put up with too much shit.

Let's try to land on another line I was ruminating on the drive home tonight. I'm curious about “points of random convergence.” I like it for it's contradictory nature. Minds operate like this to me. You don't know all the different things that are going to come in to your mind. How they get spit out are almost perfectly arbitrary but for the convergent nature of speech or the explicit action you take. When I come across a handful of things that all seem to be speaking to a similar theme, is it so much a “happy coincidence” that the show, book, line from a movie, and sentiment from an acquaintance would all resonate the same way? Easier to understand is my mind being primed to look for sentiments that fit the mold.

For me, it's ideas regarding the kind of randomness and arbitrary nature of how things are connected. As such, there's loads to think on with the show Undone. I'm reading “Fooled by Randomness” which tries to make the case for wisdom and long-term accounting and probability in the face of immediate gains or losses. To an infinitely small degree I can anticipate the reaction to me being a dash of negligent in my duties today, but everyone I could bother to include in my mental calculation has their own kids, own lives, and as many chances to be influenced as to how to react to me as I'm searching to employ towards them.

Something that's important for me to hold on to is the ability to take in and analyze or work with the inputs. I already know the story of “show up to work long enough for x amount of dollars until things incrementally improve.” It's the story I'm trying hard to persuade myself against that it's worth quitting in the next few months over. Today was a good example of my days before I was obligated to show up to work. I slept until I wanted. I got bigger chunks of the side-projects and “time-waster” things I enjoy doing. I liked my life doing those, while I dreamed of “doing more.” I like my life less with this job while I continue to do the same mental mistake of thinking there's much more I could be doing.

I don't want permission. That's a big part of it. I don't want to be handed the keys after enough begging and scratching at the castle gate that my fingers can no longer hold the ring they're on. I don't respect those who presume to hold the power. I don't want what they're offering. I don't want the “culture.” And, increasingly, the only reason I want the money is so I can pay the bills many years in advance, and go back to sleep until I'm thrust out of bed excited by the idea that was able to make me do so. I don't need to keep blowing the amounts of money I've been on food. I don't need an array of new tools and half-assed construction experiments. I could choke down my bathroom aesthetic for years. Do I work another 6 months and let that translate into 5 years of security?

I suppose I'm just frustrated that even when you're no longer allowing that frustration to lie within you and your clenched jaw, it's still a basic kind of existential frustration flitting about. I still have to go to work tomorrow. I'd still have to do that 6 months. Everything I learned how to do that registered as worthwhile or “smart” growing up has translated into precisely the ability to suffer not doing those things in my own time and indefinitely. Does anyone I work with care about my ability to read and make arguments? Is my ability to play guitar poorly yet better than anyone else you know at the top of their thoughts about me? Care to discuss all the TV I know you're watching as well?

It's just gross. It's gross and arbitrary but for the randomly stipulated rules I'm starting to preempt in making sure you feel the unnecessary painful consequences of them a little more severely. I still need something a little more tangible to look forward to than the prospect of fun-enough ways of continuing to bide my time. Shit, that could be the theme of the title of my book: “In Waiting” “Biding Time” “6 More Months” “Just Around The Corner” “When We Flirted Over Dreams” “Staging 101.”