[878] Foul Balls

I'm going to try and write a blog from my phone. I reflect on a lot while driving anyway, but having chased out another "friend," talk of a coup, and a recent interaction with someone regarding my facebook available plot post, there's much to sort.

Underneath, I'm always me. I'm always mean. I'm always ready to engage. I've spoken to this before in thinking about Riddick and the scene where a character goes, "but the Furyan in me..." before aiding his kinsman and evaporating in the sun. I'm anchored by this sensibility. I'm considerably worse off as a person when I try to ignore or deny it.

The part of me that maligns hope resides here. When I want to believe I'm speaking to something important and universal, this part calls you all dead inside assholes ready to ignore or lash out. It doesn't fundamentally believe in anything beyond the anxiety certain thoughts and interactions provoke. It's constant. I think if and when people have that same constant sense about themselves, it's riddled with corrosive doubt about its utility and significance.

I think people are broken. I think this because I regularly see the same patterns in how they engage with the world that breed the conditions for their problems to get worse. They celebrate dishonest interactions. They shut out "negativity." They know full-well what "too much" means to them, but have no concept of "enough." They'll feel overwhelmed by anxiety, shut down, defriend, but they'll never find the language or motivation to address the heart of the anxiety. They never get enough of the cycle through bad emotions, self-righteousness, and silence.

I talk all the time. I talk calmly and professionally. I say fuck and cunt as often or moreso. There is a constant flow of thoughts I occasionally am not plagued by and can refrain from voicing. I've habituated relaying my experience, so it lets me draw contrasts and parallels to the crumbs of people's lives that they relay to me. I'm impatient with people who insist every conversation needs to immediately devolve into character assessments and accusations. I can play that game too, and it's boring, immature, and unhelpful. I'm ambivalent enough at my core to choose to engage stupidly, incorrectly, and often.

What's happened is that I've seen no evidence being less than a forceful insistent cunt gets anywhere. I simply don't believe perpetually appeasing feelings and stepping around confrontation is healthy or a strategy for long-term survival. The anger manifests regardless. It becomes intractable and maybe runs for President. It becomes the mechanism by which you tear everything down, now with zero mercy or perspective as to why or whether you actually should.

I like to destroy. I don't like to destroy for destruction's sake, but I like to break things that need broken, and I don't mind picking up the pieces. I've shattered dozens of conceptions of myself. Depending on who you ask, they'll affirm I've brought down businesses that deserved it. I know that I've destroyed things I shouldn't have and don't want to mirror in my future. What I'm not is someone who tries to deny we're living in a perpetual state of creation and destruction which is wholly ambivalent to our preferences and intentions.

This speaks to why I hate victims. This is why issues that could be blocks in a coalition are refered to as "radical" and allies are in short supply. They never get over the idea that they are the most oppressed. Whether it is along racial, sexual, or financial lines, whatever your poison you can build a complex. You can insist, until you're red or blue, the universe has targeted you, your feelings matter the most, your view of the world is the most correct, and any lack of conformity is tantamount to oppression and tyranny. Unfortunately, none of those things will ever be true about you or your position.

When you couch your Identity in how small you feel, introducing the larger perspective is an attack by default. Telling you how unimportant you are isn't a boring circumstantial fact, it's provoking your deepest fears you haven't honestly engaged with. You might pay lip service, but you haven't gone to battle.

This denial plays out in familiar ways. It's uncritical. It surrounds itself in a bubble. It takes pride in turning the complexity of their issues into memes. It has nothing to offer but cliches and insincerity.

It needs to be attacked. Those who are severely traumatized need a steady routine, calm demeanor, and maybe medication. I'm not suggesting everyone needs beat over the head at all times. Are you so traumatized? Am I too much for you? I feel gross even arriving at the question. God forbid my words could break "you," or we're about as fucked as my most damming conceptions.

Switching gears a bit, I met a man about storing cars on my property. If he responds affirmatively to my offer, in a moment I could go from needing at least 2 months of job I don't want to paying off the credit card and then some. I could breathe a touch easier. I could finally say I've drawn ”passive" income. It would only come after 30+ empty, hateful, and unresponsive conversations that came before. The ratio is my concern.

I'm always looking for numbers that describe us in bids to keep things impersonal. When I first heard the sentiment about being lucky if you die with 5 friends you can genuinely rely on, I looked at all of my acquaintances with increased suspicion and coldness. When I see statistics on psychological dispositions, successful businesses, or even results to surveys, I attempt to draw a broad conception of where an "average" person sits or how much weight I should give an idea.

When I learned how to be genuinely enthusiastic about "small" things, it came with the growing appreciation for the aberrant nature of the examples I was setting. Fleetingly small portions of people start things at all, let alone see them through. Few people write, despite what seems like a flurry of words everywhere. Fewer people are listened to or actively shared or shaping the culture.

If 1/30th of people might speak to an appreciable change to my bank account, do we consider in depth what that means logistically? Can't one person or bad interaction derail your mood? Can't you be deceived by 5 or 10 who sound a lot like something you can work with? Mind you, no money has even changed hands yet, the number could be higher in how much shit you have to sift through for a small patch in your general quilt.

I consider my voice important because no one is relaying these kinds of thoughts to me. I have to find the practical light in the darkness. I have to prepare for the struggle, develop the coping skills, and denote why I'm not a victim of my disposition, infinitely small perspective, or worst impulses. I'm already comfortable with the inevitable confrontation, loss, or overwhelming hopelessness and precariousness of trying anything at all.

Until you can say the same, I'm not confident in your ability to "human." You can survive and drag the whole of our baggage around with you, but you're not affirming yourself in spite of it all. You can have habits that resemble a healthy and productive way to be, but your stomach won't settle, your breathing won't calm, and your environment will look like significantly more cries and condemnations than gardens and room extensions. You can be like the farm cat I intend to adopt, riddled with ticks and unaware you need a human to pick them off and get you vaccinated.

I've got 57 "friends" and falling. That's 52 to go before I consider myself extremely lucky. I'm demanding. I have expectations. I'm not just tired of the same appeals, empty conversations, and poor excuses for my 30-year-old cohort to find the balls (sometimes literally) to "adult" and do better. I'm as comfortable breaking a bad dynamic as I've ever been. Do the work. You are your own worst enemy. When I start aggressively asserting pyramid schemes, UFOs, or Qanon you can dismiss me with ease. When I'm imploring you to stop turning words into things that aren't said, share science articles that bolster your views, and find enough self-respect to represent yourself with something of more depth than a picture of Obi-Wan or Kermit, I'm not the problem, even when I call you a lazy fuck for doing so.