I don't know about you guys, but I'm having a wonderful time.
Yes, in spite of my many years of complaints, things going on lock down, and general wave of fascism and ineptitude killing many things, I'm on a bit of a high. It's not manic, it's not a swell in my chest of deep appreciation or joy, and it's not the kind of schadenfreude you might expect from someone as spiteful and riddled with hatred as me.
I'm happy because reality is creeping in. Once you get past boredom, you're forced to stare at the nakedness of your state. Once the virus reaches your door, you're forced to look death in the face. Once you're hungry, can find no place for recourse but the increasing fear and violence from your neighbors, you're provoked to act, even reflexively, as if there's something deeper motivating your survival that's been ignored.
At bottom, we're a confusing set of contradictions, if only at least verbally. We want to save the planet while maintaining the edifices that give us wasteful and destructive things. We want to "love our neighbor," but mostly as long as it is in the form of a Facebook like for the guy who's going to be delivering them groceries. We believe in equality when we perceive an injustice is being done to us or an entertaining Netflix documentary highlights the plight of poverty and generational neglect.
The day-to-day vocalizing and struggling with life's circumstances are expressly avoided, distracted, or denied. As such, being a person who prides himself on trying to vocalize "at bottom," I find myself in perpetual opposition to what I might describe the "insinuated or seemed life." There's a form of communication that is perpetual dog whistles of different pitches. There's politicking and passive aggression. I, almost always, stay silent or just call you a cunt.
So what does a cocky cunt like myself afford himself with this access to what may crudely be deemed a better approximation of "truth?" In a crisis, I have affordable land and the ability to grow food on it. I have solar panels, so even if I had to dramatically scale back my energy usage, I could stay warm or filter water. I have a calm and deliberate disposition when faced with change. I accepted things were hard a long time ago and picked to sacrifice the appropriate things to be better when times got tough.
This kind of stuff makes me mildly smug, but also resoundingly hopeless. I gave my group of friends credit they didn't deserve, because I thought we all understood the times we were living in and what was coming. I thought we all could decode the implied language, and translate it into being deliberate and accountable for all of the pitfalls and failures we were expected to deal with. I thought we could look at our funny, pretty, intelligent selves and cut out a place to be together.
What I'm increasingly learning about society, or the human animal in general, is that it does not give itself the credit that I wish to. My friends don't believe in themselves like I do. They don't believe what they are capable of. They don't trust when I admire them. They don't believe they can change literally the entire world to meet their ends. You still can. I'm still working to.
Yesterday, I was in a conversation about the harsh words I have when I see a certain kind of "fat bitch" or just ridiculously clothes or haired person that just gives you pause. I put little stock in my sentiments. The superficial cutting people down is as weak or strong as you want to make it. It was making my conversational partner uncomfortable that I might be derisive of the idea that "really pretty" people might have the same shit to talk about me.
What's key in our conversation is the discussion that spun from it about creating your own reality. If I got ripped over the next few months and was still regarded as less attractive than Brad Pitt, it doesn't matter. I'm no thirstier for anymore eye-fucks than he might be. I don't regard attractiveness as a qualitative measure on which to judge someone. I've never needed to be ripped to be a whore, and I struggle to understand the person who would tear themselves or my partners down for their looks to try and humble me. Attractiveness can be accounted for scientifically, but the psychology of what's attractive is significantly more complex and nuanced. Take over the mind, and the body follows.
We construct reality, and to parts of the brain, dream-like scenarios don't differ from being awake. This necessary construction of being conscious does not negate the reality of viruses or math, but it does leave a gaping hole at the center of how we're to understand ourselves and place among others. The reality you construct can be a series of choices informed and encouraged by the facts so-discerned so far, or it can be a painful contradiction that manifests as continued problems impeding your movement through the world. If I thought I was "so hot" that it prompted me to approach everyone "under" me with derogatory comments or an inability to engage them with respect, we'd have a major problem. My meager concept of them would Trump my capacity as a human to empathize or act better.
The psychology of the realities you can inhabit is up for grabs. It's not a single choice in the moment of intense feeling, but a series of decisions over time that embed themselves into your core and mold your instincts. There are a great many misconceptions I've been under that I trained myself out of, and it enabled my ability to navigate the world with a degree of confidence that might seem harsh, naive, or needlessly scrutinizing, but is the giant Band-Aid covering all of the screaming, crying, or confusion that used to be there.
I don't care if it's a crisis, a bump on the head, or a triggering line after years of reading and contemplation, I want as much or more for you as I want for myself. I understand that as perpetually working and reminding myself how and why it can actually work. I live in spite of the abject failure of the scientifically accounted for math of our collective fuck ups and immaturity. I live in service to what I have accomplished or believe I still can and the people I want to do it for. But first, I chose to do it for myself, blame myself, and see how in some way it was my fault or responsibility all along. My sole recourse in life is the piling on of things I'm responsible for. This doesn't mean you have none, it means it's that much more I'm continuing to expect out of you. The chasm between us will grow or shrink along that understanding.
I hope the time alone, or the brushes with death, are the right kind of exhilarating and opportunity for you as they have been for me.
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