[865] Checks And More Checks

 

The goal of writing this is to, upon completion, go outside and get as much of the room extension built as possible. A big impediment to me ever getting things done is when my mind is occupied with the trivialities of interpersonal conflict. My labor squabble has a new battery in the mail, but the principles that were ruffled are still at play. My understanding of the situation can be parsed into further detail.

It's safe to say that everyone has insecurities. I prefer with regard to myself a language of “unsecurities” more than insecurities given the connotation. I'll walk naked down the street, inject myself into any conversation, and defend what I've created or learned without hesitation. My access to affordable healthcare is an unsecured variable undermining my otherwise secure conception of myself in the world. The same goes for other kinds of insurance, number of connections leading to work, or sense of competencies to routinely achieve things like building a room addition. I'm confident I can always build and explore more. I'm secure in the knowledge that rarely am I unable verses unwilling or uninterested, if only for the present moment.

Insofar as we respect the things about each other that we would like to improve upon, and name or discuss when we get it wrong, I'm as cool as can be to interact with. My proclivity to fight, while tempered and wrought with more considerations than were I properly alone or simply naive, is an unsecured variable. I'm significantly happier than the average person to cut ties, look for something else, or struggle through working within my confines than seek to borrow something or assistance. Very rarely is anyone freely offering. Very rarely will those instances not be used to emotionally leverage or justify shitty behavior. My dad coming down to help me install drywall is not going to result in him texting me two days later to clean his garage or I'm not invited to dinner.

My willingness to allow for “slippage” in respect or common courtesy is not a willingness to justify or coddle it. I know I'm not perfect in this regard, and don't expect you to be either. I do expect that you retain the ability to recognize what you fucked up. I do expect you to take responsibility for the severity of your incivility, just like I mentally walk myself through lock-up when I feel like I might beat the shit out of you.

There are solid arguments for remaining accommodating and forgiving. I certainly do not think every disagreement rises to the level of existential crisis for the soul of the concepts of "accountability" or "respect." I do think that I've the lived experience of behaving in accommodating ways, and watching the eventual and inevitable consequences be of much greater significance than whatever initially ruffled feathers. How many hundreds or thousands of little negotiations at DCS were made before I was at the end of a targeted attack? How many people are sacrificed at the alter of “petty” grievances because the principle underneath wasn't advocated and fought for?

The only way to have the kinds of discussions that lead to mutually sharing responsibility or respect are to allow for as many relevant facts into the discussion as possible. Your side can certainly feel passionately, but what did you actually say with regard to the issue? What's true independent of your racing heart? Superficially, we all pretty much agree on a long list of modes of “best” ways to behave and terms for engagement. The details matter.

Is it fair to say that I have a “problem with authority” or lack the requisite respect to carry on in the world? That's certainly not my choice phrasing, but it's an easy enough one for me to conjure in my speculation in how I'm perceived. To what degree is this a problem? I think you have to look at the goal. The broader your goal or the narrowness of your expectation is going to determine the answer. Do you “just want a paycheck?” Do you expect no one to improve or account for their behavior ever? Well, then you're a complete fool for not habitually capitulating to anyone's demands for your deference or conciliation. Keep your suspicions of power or authority to yourself. Don't wax poetic about the example you think you're setting.

What if you believe, as I do, as a foundational stone in your being, that there are not enough examples of pointing to the naked emperor as naked, and the responsibility to yourself and world is to check lazy and emotionally manipulative behavior? Well, now you can either do the work of recording and parsing conversations (like I do), or you can feel at the end of everyone's manipulative and lazy behavior and cry your victimization at every opportunity. What prompts me to build checks on, as I've stated, my foundation? Where do I find balance when my heart races and a new affront has been made to not just my being, but how we're all supposed to live with each other!?

This is where I look to my small, and begrudgingly if only occasionally responsible for me, crowd. This was a big reason I started writing. If one day the people I respect took what I was saying and were like, “What the ever loving fuck dude, you're slipping,” okay. I tell people frequently to “train me.” If you have a certain friend you know I'm going to “be all Nick P.” about, say so, I'll refrain or stop. My life is not a series of looking for fights or destroying opportunities. It's me highlighting pivotal disagreements or disconcerting scenarios after a lengthy period of trying things your way. My willingness to fight and name and double down on exacting a narrative is not a hunger for it. I wish shit was simple. I wish we were both fighting back our willingness to give room, give pause, or give reasons. I wish we gave so much, that left unchecked, would be taken advantage of. I wish the impulse was, culturally, to take on more, not assign blame, be condescending, or retreat to a place where you hold yourself hostage to prevent solving your own problem.

The guy I'm in a disagreement with signs my checks. When I told him to take the money for his battery out of it, he said no. To me, this is a great example of the kind of principle mind games people play when they're trying to fuck you in the ass. He wants me to bend over more than he wants a new battery. Would you be willing to bend? A “solution” to this problem arose after Allie and I discussed how uncomfortable she anticipates feeling being “in the middle” of us and after she raised the prospect of just buying the battery herself. Of course, that would be ridiculous and unfair and was regarded by me as a bad self-invitation to a problem that didn't really concern her. I explained that, in service to my care and concern for her, I would let a package arrive at her office with her name on it with the battery, and Venmo her the cash. Men, right?

He'll get his battery. He'll make whatever assumptions he wants about interjecting her in the middle of it. Neither he nor I will still feel good about the situation. He still wants me to bend over and won't admit it to himself. I'm still aggrieved that he made nothing of my good will, demonstrated effort, and willingness to make the situation better before he whipped his whole ass out to kiss in claiming to try and mentor me or pretend I claimed to be a victim. I suspect he'll raise concerns that it's not “new” enough for him because it came from the “used” button on Amazon with “Brand new” in the description save the original packaging. If and when he raises that concern he'll prove ever-more his insincere and disingenuous perspective. I've maliciously offered the opportunity for him to keep pedantically spiraling.

I'm increasingly trying to exercise the idea of the much larger world of options. But he's got a network! Yes, so do other smelly hippies in other towns. But what if word gets around? If grown men want to quibble about lost batteries, I struggle to think their larger enterprises are something I want to be too deeply involved with. I genuinely am thankful it only cost me $38 to learn what a fine psychological line of civility and coherence he walks. I've casually excused or glossed over the several unclear and constantly changing directives with regard to the project I was hired on for in that accommodating and remaining pliable spirit. I have to continue to believe it is possible to not operate like the people who send me to the page.

While he and I's text battle was going on, I was offered a phone number to my neighbor's friend who needs tree work done. This morning Allie and I discussed fixing up and cultivating 11 acres of a friend of hers in Kentucky. I remembered that I used to pay my rent and beer money with plasma donation. I've listed exactly “0” things for sale, nor even thrown together a basic bitch website. There are always a thousand things to do otherwise. There are always options and configurations to explore. You don't even have to spend time re-framing your shitty circumstances as something better than they are. Fuck him just like fuck everyone else who behaves like him, I'll figure out something different. I've made peace with how little I care about that kind of burned bridge. I want to burn as many bridges made of naive hopes and twigs as possible.

My confidence in a “curt” or “terse” sense of being paired with cracks in my walls holding back on more exploitative tendencies likely won't get out of hand. It will make me look significantly meaner and uncaring than I think I already project. The last few weeks has been about making peace with that as well. I didn't move to a tick-ridden field in the middle of Trump country with a lifetime's worth of TV, reading material, and yard work because I had a fairly robust sense of trust or working relationships with the people and environments I've otherwise spent the rest of my life in. I'm not going to let the same negotiations to survive under those conditions pollute the new one I'm looking to create if I don't have to.

I don't remember it exactly, but there's a story of two generals who were constantly at war. Eventually, a peace treaty was orchestrated and both came to the table unwilling to budge on their respective conditions. Their wise mediator framed the conditions in terms where neither general had to feel like they were backing down and could return to their people with something to celebrate that they won. There's a story of Steve Jobs raking a contractor over the coals to make a contract look like he had gained more or paid less than they were charging, berating her until she returned with the exact same information arranged as more palatable.

I don't want to be a foolish general defending some cheap sense of honor for my position in constant and desperate need for a mediator or for whom to pawn off my responsibility. I think stories like that illustrate a pragmatism, desperately needed, for situations with seemingly considerably higher stakes. I'm not responsible for people's lives in a war scenario, and Jobs's ego and shit behavior was the stuff of legend. The amount of people directly impacted by not capitulating in those instances would render some personal sense of indignity mute. Do I have some secret army I'm commanding? Do you regularly voice your support for my disposition and behavior to lean one way or another? As far as I can tell, I'm just another spectacle.

Mitigating agents are important. Respect for the stressors and responsibilities of the parties involved is too. I want to believe that I'd be a general who proactively created agreements that could give a little more than they take and result in peace. That's what I did in offering to buy my own equipment, reimburse a tool I thought I lost and later found, and in offering my battery to replace one I don't believe I'm responsible for losing. That's clearly not full-proof either though. You can't buy or perform  good will nor prostrate yourself enough to not look like a threat. Alone, you survive by staying in their good grace, removing yourself from the hostility, or becoming the bigger threat. That is an emotionally exploitative and exhausting job all by itself, and at inflation-adjusted minimum wage, I was only willing to do for families in need and not the pathetic people who pretended to manage them. No one's come close to paying me enough to condone or cheer them on while they fuck me.