There's been a lot on my mind the last couple weeks. I almost thought I could write every day for the last one. I figure I'll try to capture the snippets and maybe be done thinking for a while.
My aunt, who
the last time I talked to I asked to borrow money so I could handle some
coffee shop closure related issues, asked my dad for my information in
order to update her will. She decided to do so after my dad told her I'd
be taking care of the family gravestones after my dad, who currently
does so, dies. My aunt has had 3 husbands, all wealthy, 2 died leaving
her everything, and has lived magnitudes of extravagance I could only
imagine. She didn't give me the loan, but the idea that I might make her
look good in death will get her pocket book to crack. I assume it will
be just enough to buy flowers and maybe a solid lunch.
My
family, on paper, had an extreme amount going for it. Three men that
were my dad and uncles and one aunt born to two steel-working
immigrants. All the building I'm doing out here, you'd think we might
come together and knock some impressive shit out. All went to school and
consistently worked. My grandparents set them, and intended to set
their grandchildren up, for comfortable and cared for lives. The richest
people in my family are millionaires. The poorest live in a stolen
paid-off house, hoard, and refuse to even call repair people to fix
things around that house. They stole money that was supposed to come to
me. They exist in service to movies and their pet dog.
I
couldn't help myself from thinking about some payout when my aunt dies. I
consider it a kind of temptation that, for the sake of irrepressible
thoughts I'll indulge, but I have nothing invested in getting any
luckier. Some key ingredient was missing from the makeup of my family.
Whatever my grandparents did to keep things together, perhaps they never
really did, completely died when they did. I pretend our annual Cubs
game outing with one of my uncles makes up for how fucking shady he is.
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I'm still trudging along in my quest to draw attention to DCS. I'm not getting the kind of feedback I think I'd appreciate. It's no matter, but I can't tell if I'm completely lost in the woods, or maybe new Facebook is taking away attention, or maybe people are exactly as they've always been, mute, with regard to anything that matters. My fliers are printed. I'll be going to The Hill maybe tomorrow or sometime over the weekend. I kinda like the idea of being a lone person standing in the silence. Dignifies it, kinda.
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I
have a neighbor who epitomizes the difference between city-folk and
country-folk. City-folk would be wholly unknowing that this man has, in
his estimation, made hundreds of thousands of dollars across random
ventures, but mostly trucking. He's spent all kinds of money on tools
and equipment to turn his plot next to mine into a mess of vehicles,
sheds-under-construction, and bought an excavator/loader “I really can't
afford” but for the thousands he routinely seems to spend each day for
projects maybe years away. He's 55 going on death, 3 heart attacks and a
host of other health issues. He's rough, grungy, and sincere in his
particular track of how he wishes to behave towards people. He keeps
regular hired help who he refers to as “Retard Ricky.” It's unclear if
Ricky appreciates this moniker.
I'm wary of my neighbor. My gut
tells me that if things every go wrong, he's not going to be insanely
keen to talking things out without some form of overt contrition. He's
let us use his big equipment, and is routinely trying to give us things
he doesn't think he'll have a use for. I don't want it to go bad, but
these are the kind of entanglements I moved far away to avoid.
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I
was thinking about how lucky I am to have been born during the
transition from offline to online. My earliest habits aren't shaped by
instant gratification and convenience. I appreciate having a working
memory. I have the visceral experience of watching “the conversation”
get stultified and “woke” as no one had received direction, no one was
interested in giving it, save ideologues, and now we have overflowing
buckets of anxious and depressed nihilists speaking to each other in
memes. To be sure, the generations that failed them are adopting the
same habits because they in no way know how to cope with the severity of
the irony.
In my brief 32 years, I get to keep watching the
same lessons play out as if it's impossible to learn. I wondered whether
or not it was really possible to learn a lesson. To some degree, every
single human interaction is different, and general rules of thumb might
prove catastrophic throwing everything you know into question. I think
of James Baldwin asking, “How much time do you want for your “progress?”
When are you going to be comfortable enough with yourself and your
responsibility to even speak? This is why I choose to have an ongoing
“hate-hate” relationship with most people. It's always a constant dance
around doing what you should, saying what needs to be said, or
representing on behalf of the positive and vital forces that constitute
why any of us are here.
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Every day I get a little more done on the land, I swell with pride. I point to my effort in service to my idea and ideals, not mock and cope with endless layers of otherwise oppressive forces. The key is to figure out how you're going to channel all of your obsessive and doubtful energy. I have debts too. Debts that feel less bad than the stress of working at DCS. I have pains and open-ended pursuits that may lead to good things, or may devolve into petty fights. They started in earnest. They started under a philosophy of exploration and options.
My girl has
expressed concern that were her mother ever to come out here, she'd turn
up her nose at the amount of “negotiations” we have to live like we do.
While I know I live like a king, you may find yourself hopelessly lost
in a hole of judgment at exposed drywall or extension cords in the
rafters. To each there own. I'm fully, warm, and parlaying the expensive
aesthetics into more living space, gardening tools, and business
speculation.
More to the point, my capacity to recognize my
king-like status is informed by the current status of the vast majority
of how people live on the planet, knowledge of history, and honest
evaluation of what it is I actually need to feel good about how I'm
oriented and positioned in the world. I've always hated apartments. I
don't want a mortgage.
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I
say pretty often that I don't get how people can live “backwards.” I
don't understand the appeal of being someone like Trump. I don't get
being a sycophant aiding and abetting. I don't get how you think it's
“just business” or like some iron law that you can hoard money, steal,
and people suffer for no other reason than you're empty power games.
When your concept of power is about how much destruction you can cause
or attention you can bring to yourself.
I remember being an
attention seeking kid. I'm still a fan of attention, but I want it to be
for the right reasons. At least, each time I flirt with being the kind
of person who could behave differently, it tends to lose its appeal.
What's the wiring? Why do I remind myself that I need to build in
struggle, I need to remain humbled by how things perpetually go wrong,
and I need to cherish each moment, dinner, or laugh because life is
short, while others can just take and break and scream, and seemingly
live forever in our collective nightmares? Why do I think you have to
start with a deep appreciation for how bad you actually are before you
can ever approach being appreciably good?
There's no worse
thought I have than in believing these people are choosing to behave
this way. I didn't see bullies growing up as kids in traumatic
households. I didn't see ego for how fragile it was. It wasn't until I
started writing did I really grant myself the agency of my decision
making and the ongoing consequences. I stopped taking it for granted
that just because you reach a certain age important perspectives and
valuable modes of being should have soaked into your bones. It seems
people get to carry on as louder and louder indictments of their
otherwise potentially better selves until they die and bequeath their
license to the next one.
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