[935] The Clincher

I hate writing what I feel is the same thing I'm always saying. If I'm truly writing for me, this wouldn't be but a hiccup or mild discomfort as I would clearly need to keep seeing it relayed, or it wouldn't be on my mind and moving me to write. In a sense, I'm lucky that I rarely if ever get any feedback on what I say. Whether I had it in my mind that anyone was reading or not is rendered mute. I wrote earlier today as just a series of personal complaints about things so small and ridiculous, it still floors me how often they rise to the level of painful crisis in my head.

What am I always saying? I don't connect. I'm not into “people.” I have dozens of high-minded conceptions about what to do with my words or time that are routinely trampled by how we're to conceive of the lowest common denominator of human traits or behavior. My gilded existence is a series of seemingly deliberate naïve forays into attempts at getting along doing things in the “normal” way, with people whose feelings I've yet to be persuaded are worth dancing around. Yet, I can't seem to escape this whole “being human” thing. I want to connect, in a manner of speaking.

My idea of connection is formed primarily around dudes and the utility we bring each other. My best friend and I are constantly analyzing situations, cracking jokes, or otherwise finding ourselves wrapped up in the flow of attending to the needs of those who tend to find us in the most desperate situations or use us as de facto pseudo-therapists. My business partner was willing to get into the same kinds of trouble I did, standing for the truth of a case verses falsifying a narrative to suit the targeting from insane case managers. His anxiety or high conscientiousness keeps him constantly trying to get things done and work like me. My dad has modeled a level of chill, trust, responsibility taking, and work ethic that carries over and jives with experiences of my buddies and their dads.

Sometimes I carry on like my life isn't in perpetual “pending” status after I've made the good-faith effort or sacrificed enough of my time or self-respect to change directions. I keep trying. Trying at what, exactly? Well, to “fit in.” It's not exactly that I think I can relate to the insecure feelers, it's that I think I'm missing the angle in which their behavior doesn't resonate as though it's indicating the fall of man. I think the arguments for “practically” securing some means of a paycheck outweigh the frustrations or negotiations with my identity. I can't actually tell if I'm repeating a pattern, or if I'm so boringly trying to budget for things I don't need and find new ways to flavor all of the time in between.

I don't believe a soured relationship was one that necessarily existed at all. I'm imagining a fire hose delivery system for water. If you need water, say while you're marooned in the desert, you'll take getting blasted to the face in order to survive. If you had a fire hose system shooting through every spout of your house, the conversation is less about the necessity of water to survive, and more about how you've designed your house in such a ridiculous way. If you're the loneliest, most self-loathing, and painfully shy and insecure person on the planet, you might adopt the series of abusive and cold relationships in the mockumentary story of what your life is worth. If you're identified by what's wrong or broken with you unconsciously calling the shots, do you and the connections you form really exist? Or is it just incidental runoff flowing as water flows?

Basically, just because I discover, or am forced upon, the failure point, does not mean I go into things seeking failure. I wish to learn why someone or something doesn't work, but I'm not self-sabotaging. I'm literally trying to speak to and stand for what I believe used to be taken-for-granted behaviors that spoke to self-respect and worthwhile connection. If I tell you I budget my time, you make a point of making sure I'm not wasting my time. If I tell you that 5, 6, or a dozen times over the course of a month and a half, and you make no effort to change your approach to my time, you don't respect me. Am I getting that wrong? I should leave that situation, no?

Something I deliberately avoid is saying something like, “I'm being made to feel like...” That's never true nor precise. I may in fact feel like I'm always “wrong” or too antagonistic or bull-headed, but you didn't make me feel that way. I've trained my senses around what I think are reliable indicators that you're full of shit. I lie in waiting for the patterns of behavior that spell disaster and then go into self-preservation mode. I don't bitch in a vacuum. I don't lie to myself about how I do or don't believe in what I'm doing. I don't lie to you about what I think is fucked up. This course of action, wholly life-saving and meaningful to me, is never appreciated. I don't know what to feel or how to react to this, because I'm not going to stop. I'm going to “attack” until I die. I'm going to feel the release of tension by voicing what's fucked and that's going to tell me I did the right thing in spite of the, usually petty, yet painful drama.

Something else I've spoken to in the past is how I'm amazed at how things can stand, grow, and remain so self-insulated or superficially successful in spite of the corrupted core. You can look at the U.S. “justice” system, or billion-dollar industries destroying the planet and instituting slavery. You can look at basically any appreciable amount of money ensuring its voice gets instantiated in perpetuity as it threatens violence, carries out violence, or creates worlds more intricately detailed and denial-ridden than all of humanity's fiction authors could conceive. That's how you know you're doing well, right? You have the money to pay people, put your voice out there, or people are willing to throw you tens of thousands in bids at their own immortality or chance to glean self-worth by association.

If I were to boil down my “real” issue in this moment, it's that I don't just have the job I'm good at waiting for me to do it. I'm bored, so I'm getting into trouble levying the burden of timely accountability and specific goal-oriented behavior on children running themselves the kind of ragged I thought was appreciable as a teenager straight-through until I had the coffee shop. Still, though, I worked jobs, showed up on time, did well in school, answered the phone, and all of the other “basic” things that you apparently don't have to do in order to reach defensive-posture-inducing levels of achievement.

Arguably, I don't even wish to be recognized by that type of person. I want to create my ventures independent of that slop. I want my impact to be felt in the way that words never will. I'm playing an entirely different game than other people around me, and I still find myself getting frustrated when they don't know the rules. I co-opted the rules from what I thought was “society,” but it turns out these were just part of the propaganda of America's “greatness” perhaps? In actuality, your only obligation is to your feelings and the dollar amounts. Everyone else be dammed.

There's also this contradiction where this is really all I wish to give people who don't live up to my standards, but I also, fundamentally, want nothing to do with them. Why do they get a blog? Well, it's not about “them,” is it? It's about how there is no “we” beyond the intermingling pathological conceptions we have of our value and how it intersects with the demands of any given environment or concept of leadership.

I have this fantasy where I never get another tension headache. I want to pretend that there's a place I might exist where my jaw is never clenched because I've figured out just where I fit amongst all of the “mess” of people's worst ideas and behavior. I want to believe I'll work out a philosophy or travel itinerary that avoids the worst impacts of fascism. I'll plug all of the absurd holes of my interactions with people and redefine what it means to call it “fuck you” money. What nags continually is that up-and-down the layers of problem analysis. What sense does it make to speak of fascism or environmental catastrophe when your experience is people taking seriously that you don't consider it appropriate to provide the polite and requisite “grace” to disregard your time, voice, and concerns? Haven't they already explained this to you!? There's more important people to deal with!

One of these days I'm going to dislodge the wrought-iron stick that reads “irony” wedged between my throat and taint.

I demonstrate respect by showing up on time, ending on time, and being consistent in my expectations. I take responsibility by not only telling the truth, but inviting you to share yours. I put work into things well before I say I “believe” in them. I'm not superficial in my praise nor stingy in sharing what I like about you, myself, or what you may bring to the table. I cut both ways. All I've talked about for the last few years is getting this house in order. Would you be prepared to shit on me as hard as I'd deserve if I had no good reason for this house to not exist in its current order? Would I demand respect for every complaint I've had about my social work environments disappearing like so many farts in the wind, or am I the mother fucker that opens up his own shop?

I know what I'm talking about. I know why my principles matter. I know consequences. I know how fragile even the most robust conception of yourself might be when it's marred by so much time, errant words, or provocative doubt when something new feels incredibly familiar and old. Am I a dick on top of that? Maybe, sometimes, but also no, you're a fucking dick. You're a fucking dick, a fake, and a liar. You're a bitch, you whine, and you do nothing but talk yourself into self-satisfied frenzies searching for acolytes, not partners, not bosses, not equals. You don't look for people who demand your best to match theirs. When I start feeling guilty that I'm taking advantage of you, so I stop, that's a good fucking thing about me. But it's like I said, I'm playing a different fucking game.

[934] The Clench

I just need to complain.

I've spoken in the past about how the common denominator in all of your complaints is you. I never want to be so blind, insecure, or dishonest to the mere fact of my disposition or perspective in how someone or something is failing seemingly independent of my best efforts. That said, to the extent I can document, predict, and correlate what I perceive to be the failings, and see them in vastly different domains or subject matters, suggests to me that my perspective isn't so much a failure of my being as much as it is the persistent awareness of, and similar response to, the human condition.

Tangibly, what does that mean? It means when I complain that no meetings start on time, don't end on time, and don't focus on what the meeting is purported to be about, in my world, I think this demonstrates a lack of respect, focus, organization, and what I consider the bare-bones sense of accountability. Be on time, no? When you're not on time, you can have any number of excuses, perhaps occasionally reasonable, but mostly to try to mask or cover up whatever it is about you that can't make their life comport with better allocating time. Between the two of us, if only one of us can be expect to respect my time, it's going to be me.

What about when it comes to carrying out or denoting responsibilities? I was hired as a sales person. Initially, I sat in on calls, heard the general pitch to be part of an “anthology series.” First, we wanted authors to write a chapter. It was never clarified if we would pay them $1000 or expect them to pay us. Then, we wanted specifically high-dollar or million-in-revenue authors. We expected them to pay $5000. People to call were making their way to our calendars predicated on old LinkedIn copy which they wished to change. That change didn't take place for a month and a half. Stated differently, it took a month and a half for “someone” to write 10 or less lines so we could begin again email spamming people.

What are you getting for your $1000, or $5000 dollars? Another meeting! Each request for something for each author to sign to was met with the proverbial, “that makes sense, we should do that” then silence, or another meeting in which no one was tasked with creating the thing to sell that would generate any money. Did I mention that the calls we were supposed to make ranged from people who haven't been spoken to in maybe a year, extremely wealthy people which the owner has a previous relationship, shots in the dark cold emails, and people who were considered fence-sitters, but we should try to close anyway, even though the dollar amounts they might bring would be generally negligible?

So, you're presented with this choice to take initiative, call people vaguely associated with one of the categories above with an incomplete pitch, or dare to ask for something explicit, again. What happens if you take initiative? Well, they change the pitch, as is what happened in the $1000/$5000 discrepancy in which I shouldn't have left a message for a prospect about the change. Were I wise, I would have taken for granted that we would just eat the $4000 disparity and continued to pursue him. It's not that I should expect them to be clear, it's that I'm so foolish as to think it unwise to play continual balancing act for what bullshit or arbitrary things we've told to people.

Weeks later, lists, uncategorized, provided without context, are distributed. Who to call? Everyone! Well, except this one, that one, and, on you know don't do this chunk right here because...whatever the reasons. What should we tell them? Well, we refuse to answer that. These people are just random connections, not the millionaires we'd like for the anthology. An anthology the head of sales voiced is trying to dissuade the owner from pursuing anymore, by the way. What we should definitely do though is reach out to them and get them on the calendar. Why? So they can get in another meeting! So we can pass them on to the only people you really want doing sales, because you're ambivalent about whether or not I know what I'm selling.

If you put voice to any of this, you're attacking. Once you attack, the mood shifts. People aren't sharing with you that they actually just called everyone they could, and if you thought you were redundant or irrelevant before, look now. People talk out of one side of their mouth urging you to share honest feedback and to be patient, then persistently shuffle you into the background and complain about everything they've already told you about how little regard they have for your time, it just looks nicer when I say it has to do with client management.

I just quit this miserable “job.” When I put voice to my desire, I felt relaxed. Again, like every shitty job I break with, I feel better, like the right course of action has finally taken place, and like I can get back to putting my head towards things I believe in and wish to work for.

People are fundamentally insecure. I don't know of a louder or more persistent truth. From that insecurity, every level of hell vies to capture the best parts of you. The very concept of “truth” is rendered mute. The only currency is the collective narrative which bolsters the angry mob in your gut, lashing out at criticism and clapping back any suggestion that your behavior hurts more than helps. I'll invite you to think of half the country still touting QAnon and Trump conspiracies.

I feel hopeless. Not for myself, of course, but for ever making something worthwhile with the “normal,” painfully inadequate and resentful world. I'm just glad I've worked hard enough to exercise my privilege to quit. I tense up and clench my jaw when no resolution feels possible. That is, no resolution but ending the relationship. How many do I need to attempt before I stop altogether?

[933] Brick

I've felt a bit off. Something is missing. About a week ago I got a 24 hour flu, and the subsequent recovery from that kept me a touch achy and thinking I had all but erased any remote cardio achievements.

There are real problems. Is that a particularly controversial or difficult thing to state? We have real, honest to goodness, can kill us all, problems that permeate to the basest levels of our psychology. We have big broad “ism” problems. We have interpersonal issues. We have logistical nightmares. We have the haphazard violence of accidents and ambivalence woven into every moment. Why, ever, do we choose to make that even more difficult? Why compound the problem?

This is one of the questions at my core which drives my behavior. Am I just hurting myself? Is my life needlessly burdened by tying itself to some idea, person, or task that may have stopped making sense? If a rock is in my shoe, I take off my shoe, remove the rock, and proceed to walk the already difficult path. This is not to say I only ever do the “logical” or “easy” things, but it does mean I try to remain conscious of the conditions under which I might choose to hop about and kick the rock to a part of my shoe perhaps not directly under foot.

Today, much is referred to as “problematic.” From your jokes to turns of phrase, the idea that you would emulate something from a culture that isn't yours, the fact of your job or choice of associations. One way or another, you're always the problem, killing the planet, fueling capitalism, capitulating just inadequately enough to the incensed to remain frosty for a target bigger than you. “Identity” is up for grabs, and those on the attack will be dammed that you get to dictate yourself before they're done thrashing.

Writing is my perpetual grasp at an identity. Some of my most persistent memories are of being curious how to engage the world. I didn't know how the adults could sit around a table and talk for hours. I didn't know how people answered questions on game shows. I didn't know what it was to be charming more than fumble within mutual immaturity. Abstract concepts remained that way because it didn't occur to me to unpack every syllable that gave me pause. I want to know better. I want to do better. I want it to be easier and easier with each attempt. I want to fit everywhere I go.

Of course, I'm me. I don't fit. I imitate. I adopt the language. I build an entire psychological housing for a perpetually defiant and spiteful narrative underpinning my motivation and instincts. “Fuck you, watch me.” I can't speak to people without pissing them off. If it isn't that viscerally demonstrative, they maintain a defensiveness almost by default. I'm reflexively critical. I exist in a state of doubt. I'm daring you to be accountable to your word. I'm longing for the recognition of what mine is worth.

“Me,” is not something that can “go with the flow.” I have to speak up. I get headaches when I don't. I feel sick to my stomach. I clench my jaw. Mind you, none of these things happen when I'm merely managing or working through something difficult. I can do physical labor all day and not clench my jaw. I can try to parse every word in some argument and not have a headache while doing so. I don't feel sick at the prospect of starting or running a company. Those conditions are inflicted upon me when they arise from avoidable circumstances. When I can recognize the environment as destroying me, and can't change it myself nor expect you to give a damn, I suffer. Or worse, I can change it, but it means I have to get that much colder or ambivalent about you.

I haven't found a good fix for this. I'm occupying many environments at once. I can always alleviate the pressure here and there by putting a show on, putting you on mute, or wrapping myself up in some physical task. But, overall, my environment is not the one I want. It's still begging for the bills to get paid. It's still feeling the giant “fuck you” from the organizations I've worked for. It's still dependent on the sense of time and agency from people who've likely consigned themselves to miserable fates years ago.

I need a partner. I don't mean romantically necessarily. I need to meet my match about some foundational things. I need someone who sees things as urgently as I do. I need someone who has just a touch of elevated yet healthy anxiety about waiting just one more day. I need more tangible examples of what I know I'm worth to act as a balance against the distractions of time in between.

I shouldn't have to have “dumb” conversations about cause and effect or what constitutes “work.” I think a component of my “new” anxiety is how much more precious every second of wasted time on bullshit feels. I don't want to be in a dozen meetings and still left with nothing to do. I don't want to be having a meta or meta-meta-conversation analyzing why you can't give clear direction or complete a task in a time-respecting way, then positing it's really to do with my feelings that there's any real problem.

What I want is so simple. It's so simple it takes 100 hours of paperwork, weeks of miscommunication, the tact or organization to stay budgeted above water in the meantime, and a propensity to do several other things concurrently, you know, just in case it's not so simple.

Again, I pause, and take in my home. I put all this shit together. I put a new cat in it. I got power to it. I have supplies in the mail to hopefully fix the heat long enough. I'm full. I'm comfortable in my free chair I got with my awesome truck. I'm still at a certain peak. I saw an awesome movie yesterday, painted a bedroom, had help with a concrete run. I got my concrete vibrating motor working today for 60 less dollars than I thought it was going to cost. Barring extraneous spending, I'm already owed enough money to keep me solvent through the end of the year.

My life still happens in spurts. I certainly exist in between those spurts, but I'm not actually only and perpetually down to just...wait. I'm not keen to the excuses you use to feel better about how bad a job you're doing. I want to ride the energy of what I've done into the things I can't yet imagine. That doesn't happen, at least in a psychologically gratifying way for me, two or three days at a time every week or two when I have the money, time, energy, or help. I want the dominoes falling continuously. I don't want to wait for you to get better, I want to fire you and move on. I don't want to wait for you to remember what we talked about, I want someone chasing down the piece we need to move in service to any conclusions we drew.

This is a propensity that can get out of hand. This can lead to a lot of waste or potentially hasty decision making. The problem is that I'm 33, not 13. Most of the things I want to execute I've thought out for quite some time, or made moves in service to. Even if the precise mechanisms might change, the manner in which they operate has not. I know how to budget. I know how to efficiently invest. I have an imagination for the feasible permeating tracks I can take in business or with the land. In my own way, I'm inching along on the land in not pretending I don't have a working back or desire to fight the ever-encroaching pounds. There's always something to do, even if it's just log the next episode, but it won't suffice for taking the ride I wish to be on.

[932] Storied Toys

I'm as imaginative, creative, willing to fantasize, or naively capable of getting caught up in a compelling story or dream-like narrative as the next guy. There are a great many things I want to believe. That's what moves you, after all. Your genuine, unadulterated and compelling belief in your most hopeful mind's eye. It compels believers into cockpits, buildings. It makes you sappy and pliable after the hundredth re-watch of your favorite movie. It's what chills your spine and coaxes the tears over the edge after the perfect lyrics land on every overloaded sense. And, what a gift, the nature of your existence will do nearly everything it can to keep you from distinguishing troublesome “reality” from every imaginable world you might otherwise occupy.

I think I use my imagination differently. If it's most often an escape, I force mine to explore. My imagination is for running experiments, not pretending. My imagination prompts a search for what action steps I can take to bring it from abstract obscurity into lived and worked demonstrability. I feel trapped, in a sense, in my sense of reality. However I define it. Whatever peace I make with it. It's mine alone. Just like I'll be the only one who writes this. “Me” is trapped by these words, the impressions I leave, and the consequences that follow.

I force my imagination to work. I don't sit around and daydream at “random.” I watch “everything.” I let myself play like the characters on TV. I try to trap what I imagine into what seems possible. If you go about this the wrong way, very little indeed seems possible. If you refuse to trap anything, nothing really is.

We find ourselves trapped in many stories, but can't imagine acknowledging them. We trap ourselves behind big words left deliberately undefined. We trap ourselves within titles meant to do the work of what they're supposed to represent. We box ourselves in to genres quickly parsed by the algorithms more than capable of predicting what you'd like to surround yourself with next. You don't imagine you're trapped because, what else is there? We're thankful for our stories, no? We enjoy relaying our tastes and the warm familiar narratives we've built upon for generations.

Besides, doesn't “trap” make it sound like someone or something set you up? What? Do you think someone is trying to catch you? Or, maybe you take much comfort in how much every trap, humane or otherwise, is just part of your god's plan, and it's your job to fall in, not question. Whether you fall in to a pit of vipers or fall in love, fate is the wind to ride well above analysis. Why, if you're feeling or claiming you're been trapped by a story or ten, wouldn't you know it, just tell yourself a different one.

As someone claiming consciousness, I feel it is existentially imperative to identify and determine as many narratives as may constitute me as are relevant to a worthwhile existence. This is no small task. It's literally an infinite game. I'm always looking for myself. I'm looking for myself in how others conduct themselves. I'm looking for myself in how others tell stories. I'm looking for who is laughing. I'm looking at what and whether you're working. I'm listening for if you're bothering to speak at all.

It's only natural that so much of what I imagine is provoked by TV. It hasn't been until relatively recently (the last 2 years,) I've been able to do much beyond remain focused on providing myself a new floor to imagine from. Whatever you might say about how poorly my ex and I communicated, it was at least clear to me how directly my actions and motivation arose from a desire to help her. I have my latest dream, at least, a strong resemblance of it, so I'm trying to live it and create new things. Whether I'm imagining having the kinds of relationships on screen, or turning over the work to evolve what's displayed on my security cameras, the narrative is important.

I think it takes a big broken imagination to pretend you can “control the narrative.” It's the first move from someone wholly petrified by the responsibility and enormity of their individual task. It's so encapsulating a fear, we formalize it in fascist governance and are born predisposed to the psychological protection it offers. Tell me, do I look “controlled” when I'm searching my imagination in blogs? Perhaps when I'm lashing out or dissecting some forgone fight, inevitable given my disposition? Maybe I seek some kind of security in obscurity, and that's why nothing I say could possibly be understood. Easy to maintain a high-minded conception of yourself if you leave them always incapable of knowing what to criticize.

The narrative is important as long as you wish to get somewhere. Directions that take you in circles are for those that wish only to be dizzy. I wish to not only habitually redefine myself, but see it manifest in the world. I wish to remain worried if I'm fading before I'm due. I wish to imagine myself getting earned attention for doing work I believe in for people I respect...as people, if little else. I want to ride the flow that turns the work into every reason to live and spread the gospel of what's so amazing about now.

Lately, I've been feeling the squeeze, not of precious loved ones, but of what the TV stories and my own memories suggest they are supposed to represent. The TV gives you the lines, the enemy, and inconclusive conclusions. The memories get to marinate in idyllic spices and pair beautifully with wine you're prepared to drink too much of. I have a romantic imagination. It's a romance unacquainted with work and untainted by reality. I am able to recognize my imagination for what it is. It's an engine for desire, even lust. It's a place where the temptation to stop working feels altogether appropriate. It's a place betraying its own power by provoking me to call it a “trap.”

I can accept atrocity. So far, I've yet to be so traumatized that I need a permanent “escape” in some form of psychotic break or habitual chemically-induced alteration. I can talk myself into anything, but I can only work in service to so much. What I work on needs to bring about the consequences of what I deem worth doing, not what was most likely to happen whether or not I was there. That's my center and sanity. Everything I bear witness to while I write this is my work, from the stolen plush Steak N Shake claw machine animals holding up my faux insulation blankets to my tick-and-worm-free cat sleeping on my leg. If nothing else proves true, not even your impression of my view, the work to bring this picture into focus means more to me than words will ever capture.

Existence makes a lot more sense when you flirt with whatever makes up the feelings that tell you you need to. It's not the same as being carried away and horny or borrowing from tropes you're allegedly feeling regarding your offspring or insecurities. When you need to make sense of something and you need it to look and feel a certain way in order for all of the problems related to it to make sense as well, you change. You're not a default character. No one can just play you and press your buttons for predictable moves. It becomes insufferable that someone would choose to waste what you've made out of your character in service to their fantasy and ill-attended work. That they would reduce you to their mood or gossip and remain blind to the drive and work that justifies your being; it's like being invited into a suicide pact.

Then what? You rob them of their agency and reduce them to caricatures and cliches as well? You try to hold them responsible to your standards? You piss off and do your own thing? You linger, long enough for it to feel forced, on all of the things you just said meant so much to you? Try to squeeze the precious meaning and motivation for all it's worth when every new foray provokes apoplectic anxiety that perhaps nothing has made sense ever and your oft misconstrued narratives are ultimately suicidal.

My imagination is suffocated by what I don't know. I can't work with what I don't know. I can't fit a missing piece into a puzzle with an indefinite amount of pieces. I can't imagine “fixes” to undefined “problems.” I can't see the road I'm to travel if I'm stuck on a true-believer's doomed plane. What does that leave me with what I must believe about myself? What does that say about what has to be said in order for me to feel like I exist? Would I believe in me if I weren't fighting? Would I trust work I haven't done? Am I to be swept up by all manner of words. however you wish to deploy them. against the ethics and sensibilities I've decided to exist in service to embodying? I want to work, and it takes no work at all to merely exploit. Is there anything so exploited as the story we tell ourselves?

[931] Got You On The Run

I must continue to explore my unease.

I understand what it's like to deeply believe in something and wish to protect it. I broadly conceive of life, and the many ideas we might concoct during it, fragile. Fragility does not mean we can't weather blows or questions, and frankly, I've decided for myself a long time ago that nothing is so taboo or sacred that it can't be joked about or spoken to honestly. Expressing myself, exactly as I feel, as earnestly as the moment persists, is almost wholly responsible for me not being in jail or depressed and low-key suicidal. Every ounce of intense pain or instances of regret I have churned through every word they took to express. The intense scrutiny, reminders, reiterations, and recurring themes aren't just important in terms of coping; they are necessary for a life I consider worth living.

I'm moved to write a few hours after unpacking another one of my “you just had to go there” kind of digressions and explanations. I ripped through all of the superficial goodwill and fake smiles. I had to turn my critical eye to the things that failed instead of carry on like life is beautiful and because we're all friends here, no need to remark on the smell.

I don't understand why a habitually “corrupted” view of things and “good-natured belief and enthusiasm” need to be married. The food tastes bad? Say you like the silverware and compliment the chef for staying in business so long. I don't mean expressing “looking on the bright side” or “glass half full” sentiments. I mean when something is persistently and demonstrably wrong, there's immediately an impulse to cover it up. The dog shits in the floor, we lay a towel over it, and move right along with the more pressing calls of the day. I worry a lot when I see this behavior play out. I almost confused it for guilt.

I'm extremely sensitive to being put on edge. For better or worse, I've been highly trained in attuning to the rotten smell at the center of the problem which must not be named. I literally have a persistent stress response, like a creaky knee in the coming rain, when the truth of the pain and drama in your body refuses to be vomited out like so much poison. That was my mom, choking, endlessly, on her own vitriol, unable to clear the despair. If you didn't judge correctly how much had piled up behind her teeth, she might kill one of your friends or beat the shit out of you.

It is deep my disdain for this deference to the unmentionables. It provokes all sorts of chained memories related to the spilling consequences. What I find so much worse than how I physically feel or mentally suffer, is how shockingly ambivalent people are to acknowledging how much dog shit is festering under so many towels. When you wish to clean up the dog shit? HOW DARE YOU HURT MY FEELINGS! I encourage you to spend an afternoon in a mentally unwell person's home literally cleaning dog shit up, and perhaps the extent of the aberrant end of consequences will move your cowardly heart to stop letting the little piles fester.

When I think of the things people are struggling to discuss, I can only conclude we've gotten way too comfortable as a species. You won't own your poor time management skills? You won't bite the bullet of an expense made in haste that turned to waste? You won't cop to the idea you might communicate the wrong things at the wrong times, if at all? What you can't say about me, regardless of what you think of my communication style, is that I'm unwilling, late, or unprepared to get way more detailed than you may care to hear. I can also be concise if the moment calls for it. Blogs don't call for it. Work directions do.

I know fascists have co-opted the idea of “woke,” and I don't exactly struggle, but hate to even flirt with sounding like them, but so much has been made of “discomfort” over the years. White people uncomfortable with black people call the cops in bids to get them killed. Challenging subject matter in schools threatens rich kids paying out-of-state tuition, so it's gotta go. Bullying campaigns and trauma awareness causes the pendulum to swing so far the other direction it's unclear how much has amassed on the “things you can't say/joke/think about” board, but I assure you, it's literally anything that's ever given someone pause or freaked them out. I can genuinely feel it oozing into so many of my interactions, the sensitivity, the dare, and the kind of anxiety I couldn't imagine it would ever occur to the person on the other end to tackle proactively.

I have a right to offend you. You have a responsibility to handle me. That's my claim and cause every time I say the truth, you agree it's the truth, and then you fall back to the idea of what your pathetic bitch ass feelings are telling you. Be strong, grow up, and fucking deal with it. Better yet, own it. Own the fucking thing I said, that you agreed with, that you know is fucked up and needs to change. I don't need to stop telling the truth. I don't have to adopt every occasion under every circumstance to provide you what I consider the truth, but goddammit, I'm not a child. I speak up when I need to. I speak up when I can see the consequences and the proverbial shit that's about to get beat out of me.

You know what I don't do? Just levy empty judgments and accusations at you. I don't just spill mindless hate because nothing happened, I just hurt, and I'm lashing out like a trapped animal. I sit back, watch, listen, ask, reflect, reflect again, re-read, ask again, ask different people, rephrase, write shorter, write longer, wait, wait, wait, play nice, and then finally, I don't get paid, and I turn the heat up to 2 on a scale that goes to 20, and all of a sudden you're suspicious of my motives and long-term feasibility or loyalty? Fuck that noise. I'm loyal like an abused fucking dog, and I'm sick of that getting preyed upon through negligence or disingenuous posturing.

You know why I'm so prepared to flirt with boundaries or say what you won't? No one else will. No one else will, and we have to. You have to know how you're fucking up before you can contemplate the magnificent effort it usually takes to change. You have to have accurate-enough data informing your long-term planning and decision making. You must demonstrate more than a basic grasp on the concept of accountability if you want to do more than be feverishly kicking as your head barely remains above water. I have to speak to everything good or bad about me, or I don't find the motivation or direction to see my life and plans through.

I have YEARS worth of things I could engage in to “kill time” that are not a pointed persistent direction providing a meaningful example to set. There is a reason for the things I do or don't do. There is a running conversation in my head trying to put always new, but more-often old, information into the right categories provoking or tempering my behavior. I do almost nothing reflexively or “lightly” anymore. I've got some set of guiding principle or game or goal in place for every moment of my day. Nowhere on that agenda is “start lying to myself for you.”

It's a rage-inducing thought to be presented that choice so often and so fluidly. I'm not about exchanging knowing glances with my other corrupt cops as we convene to convict the innocent. I'm not prepared to sum up my conception of yours, mine, or our collective problems with aphorisms and exhaustive smiling. I don't fuck up when I say something you don't like or make you doubtful or afraid. I fuck up in treating you like someone remotely concerned with owning, learning from, and dealing with your fear in an adult way. Everyone's their own little mob boss, courting “loyalty” and killing snitches, as the dogs cake the rug in shit.

You know what I never did in two years working for DCS? Lie. I didn't have to. I know what the job is, and it's not to put up a false notion of the circumstances in service to my assumptions, biases, or in reaction to people who've pissed me off. By not lying, I never have to worry that when I'm subpoenaed for an old case I'm gonna end up perjuring myself or a file I tried to bury will magically appear. I don't fear some aggrieved family rolling up on me at the gas station ready to kill. I don't have to avoid eye contact with anyone I've worked with or under. I know people whose lies ended up in front of judges who had to call them out. I know people who didn't get fired for letting that happen.

I'm under no illusions about how dangerous liars are. Before commentators made it cool, I already coined The Big Lie. I know what lies add up to. I know they double-fuck you in that they first deny, then preclude, whatever you might rightfully do to make the situation better. Again, I refuse the invitation. Again, I need to reconcile myself and the angle with which I will or won't fuck with your liar's game, a pithy spin-off of the business-as-usual world writ-large. I refuse to believe that everyone I meet and everywhere I go is like this as long as I keep championing the standard I need to keep. I still exist. I can own if I fuck up payroll, meeting times, or didn't provide copy. If you call me on what I've fucked up, I'm not going to question your motives. I'll then apologize, pay you, and get to work getting you what I should have two weeks ago by my own admission. Fucking emotion addicts.

[930] This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

 Goddammit.

I was all set to just play Spider-Man for the next few hours. What did I do instead? I had a 45 minute conversation about what my words “feel” like.

I started moonlighting as a sales guy for a book publishing company. All of my general intrigue, charm, and practice makes for a pretty fluid transition from traumatizing environments to all the happy thoughts and motivation for getting your baby published.

Wait, I'm sorry, did I say I was a sales guy? What I meant was, I've taken 7 or 8 calls, at almost random, been told 3 to 15 different things about what I'm to focus on or say, and didn't get paid last week. I've otherwise kept to myself, sitting in on “training” calls consisting of painfully obvious questions asked and answered by people with messy kinds of confidence.

Did you know that you just are supposed to sit pretty, keep the faith, and stay tight-lipped when you're not paid, not given anything to do, and no one feels bothered to call or talk to you for a week and a half, and then it's at 7:45 PM when they do? I haven't told you my sin yet. I told another new hire to get her stuff in writing and that I'm not completely sure the time-management and expectations are where they need to be. I'll quote it below.

“Hey [new hire]. So, as perhaps the newest person here besides you, I don't what to give you the impression I have a particularly informed view of the onboarding or scope of the things I know [owner] is attempting to address. What I do think you might be able to work with is the facts given our last team meeting. Last week, for example, I didn't get paid. I'm not saying I had a whole lot to do, but I was also hired on with the expectation that I'd be making phone calls to prospective clients and/or eliciting people for the anthology, for which I've been waiting 2 weeks for approved copy. If there are internal tools they wish to use/upgrade for managing client flow, I don't have the logins. It's unclear to me that either [owner] or [my boss?] has the time for the clients I have on the wings who either want to get published, or who [owner] might wish to partner with.

I would just make sure to get a very deliberate and very in-writing formulation of what your responsibilities/hours are going to be. I was up until 2 AM taking a call for a South African client starting her day at 8. I wasn't hired on to be contracted on a per call or close basis, and I've otherwise been asked to focus on calls that aren't forthcoming verses tend to anything that speaks to perhaps why I'm not getting paid, a high-ticket client found someone else to do part of her project, or why an all-star copywriter is criticizing our ability to communicate. I've gotten pretty quickly worried there's a lot of goodwill and effort, but little consequential action/response or specific communication.”

Ouch, right? I didn't sound super cheerful and supportive. I didn't fish for concerns related to the company, they literally offered them via a screenshot and hour-long digression where the move to make excuses to accuse a doctor of being impatient came almost immediately. The things that made them lose money on a project they were all “rah rah we're gonna upsell!” and a person who I've been told several times is a go-to to either contract or do several more books with are speaking exactly to the problems I've been raising since I got here. And, did you catch the part where I didn't get paid?

My message felt like it was attempting to undermine their efforts. Am I naïve to the idea of how it would come across that way? Of course not. Was that what I was attempting to do? Of course not. But, these are people. Worse, these are younger-than-me people whose feelings are incredibly sensitive to criticism or doubt. I've stepped into a shit storm.

On my 45 minute call, I mentioned that during our last team meeting, frustration was expressed for the idea that someone like me or the new hire would be getting paid when the “core team” has been “sprinting” and doing all sorts of “extra” work in service to a couple higher-ticket clients. Wouldn't you know it? I've brought this up to the owner and offered, no less than 7 times, to work very piecemeal or for a fleetingly small amount of money to ensure his people were getting and staying paid. I offer this because I believe in the people and the company. I offer this because it is my privilege from organizing my life the way I have. What did the owner want when I told him this? Names. They should be coming to him with their concerns!

Nowhere during this call was I told they'd get me paid. Nowhere on this call was a commitment to dates or times in which I'd be completing these calls. What if I scared this new hire away and cost the company money? What if I had sent a message like that to one of the more testy or aggrieved employees? What if I sent something like it to a huge dollar amount client! I got the impression my concerns and message were met with the most putrid and puerile insecurity that plagues everyone who is coming from an insincere and incredulous place.

One of the things I do to take the fire out of people's feelings, especially while they still feel obligated to “professionally” exchange with me, is just ask questions. Do you think it's reasonable to be concerned I didn't get paid and you wrenched my budget? Do you understand the inclination to want to help the new hire when she expressed concern the team might not be getting paid correctly at the last meeting? Is it unreasonable for me to reclaim my time in service to my other projects when you haven't prepared the calls, scripts, or copy you'd like me to work within?

Bear in mind, I've had a half dozen conversations about the things, save the not getting paid as that was new, with my boss, the owner, and the entire team, all of whom have said they are enjoying my “fresh eyes” speaking very deliberately to the things they've been complaining about. If we're keeping score, everyone not mid-panic-attack or on the verge of tears is cheering me on, at least in private, and the owner is seriously having to consider just how I can fit or focus and be “all in” in spite of the wave I drove through with the message. He knows I want to help, but dammit, that help needs to be in the form of loyalty, not honesty, especially honesty phrased like I phrase things.

I'll take this moment to remind you I'm tuned for picking up word choices and signaling. I know the difference between accountability language and excuse making. I know a tone that's actually feeling better and resolved, and one itching to go tit-for-tat if I slip up and say too much after asking a forgone conclusion and leading question. I heard “throw-away” shots at accountability. The exact same style that's been dragging me through this process all along. “I've been meaning to! We gotta get you on the schedule! We were gonna take care of that weeks ago! That makes sense! I totally hear where you're coming from! Your input is spot on!”... K.

I can admit that I'm mildly aggrieved I didn't get paid and got sick of empty platitudes. More importantly, nothing I said was untrue. Pissed or not, I want to be relaying my feelings and thoughts honestly. If I create an organization that operates like this, particularly because I'm dealing with a population who doesn't need anymore crises imposed upon them, I'd be changing how I operated, quickly. There is a big difference between asking for grace or room to breathe and learn, and neglecting what you're responsible for. Your employees should know what to do each day and you should be paying them. This shouldn't be hard 12 years in.

What seems lost on this work environment is that there's a push to “grow” and court significantly higher dollar amount people. Will they manage to ensnare a few and hobble along? Especially with me on the first phone call, absolutely. Will I feel good about what I'm doing and worry about tarnishing my name or reputation when it goes wrong? Blame it on my big head if you want, but I don't want to be a liar. I don't want my skills and good name to get fucked with, no matter the industry. You know how you make or retain a lot of money if you're not a wholly-protected trust-fund-esc person? You maintain habits of communication, efficiency, and clarity like I demand. If I was this company's client right now, I don't know what's expected of me, I have nothing to work with, I didn't get paid, and no one reached out for a week and a half.

Tomorrow, I get to run circles around another person in leadership. I'm slipping back into “because I can” feelings. I have the conversation instinctively mapped out; the points of contrition, the questions I'll ask, the deference to pay, and the wholly apologetic for being so naïve and panicked that I was just so dumb to have over-stepped in my concern for the new person. I'll get a little stern and off-putting when I move to defend my values and make sure the conversation ends in a draw. I'm gonna open incredibly friendly and welcoming and mention how great the conversation with the owner went. I may or may not pick a moment to meander for a bit to kind of twist up any tension or awkwardness after a choice comment. I'm just chugging along my engineered fall and redemption arc provoked by demonstrated incompetence. It's gonna be wild.

Rest assured, I'm not going to do anything to cost the company money. I genuinely like the people and wish them all the best. But I need to find a way to enjoy this embarrassing and disrespectful ride so I don't end up causing more harm than good. So, I'm going to do to them what they're so eager, but can't seem to be bothered, to utilize me for. You gotta respect what I'm saying and bringing, or be subject to it. I don't make the rules.

[929] Underneath It All

Lately, I've been able to imagine achieving “big” things in ways that feel deliberate and accessible. When I think of the music industry, there is an endless list of “gods” in their respective genres, at their respective instruments, famous and infamous, session or stage, composing, conducting, or commenting. For as time-consuming and spell-binding as music may be, many people find ways to access it at varying levels of greatness, either in listening and enjoying, or producing and playing. I can recall as a kid seeing VH1 documentaries and thinking it was almost other-worldly how you recognize and capture talent. I thought there was something mystical happening in an artist's ability to garner millions of fans or have your lyrics traverse decades.

It wasn't until relatively recently that the business and equations and methods for achieving “greatness” started to come together. There's certainly elements of luck. You should absolutely be individuated. But the world is small. If you're Eminem, someone is finding you. Once they do, the cultivating, refining, promoting, airplay, branding, etc. have more-or-less the same means of rolling out. The executives know each other. The radio stations have a price. You have to be “good,” and just in case you're not, there's a roster of songwriters, producers, or even banks of songs we can rework to match or frame you better. No one will notice the bad lyrics or lazy beat with a kickass music video or dramatic outfit and makeup.

Any industry can have that same kind of “mystifying” aura about it. I think it's that kind of veil that we habitually react stupefied in service to that protects rich people and their money. If you grant a kind of nobility towards the things you don't understand or envy, you just give them license to take advantage of you. You just create an environment that prevents them from feeling accessible or worth criticizing in ways you might apply to yourself. If I understand the mortgage crisis as “rich people lent poor people money they knew they couldn't pay back,” things come into focus. If I understand famous musicians as “15 hour days writing and recording for at least 20 years,” it's not about how brilliant any one song is. You're clued into the nature of the work, and thus, perhaps what you're not doing so you can pretend you wish you want to be like the thing you're in awe of.

So little “impresses” me. I think to say that because of this persistent flex I keep hearing about these sales trainers I've been sitting in on and their ability to make “7 figures.” Nothing they've said has made me think, challenged me, nor been as comprehensive as I've had to invent on the fly in my “sales” experience. They're all young, beautiful, and use a lot of lingo to make a lot of common sense notions of a good, curious, and informed conversation sound complicated. They've got this weirdly sincere naivety about them, which I suspect is a kind of psychological protection mechanism to keep the money flowing. If you ever come across as too needy for the props or cash or too judgmental or condescending, or worst, too aware of what you're doing, the whole sales culture would implode.

Do I blame them for something? Do I wish to hold them accountable? I mean, I hear songs I don't like every day and I don't create something personal out of it. Is it ever really a question of them “deserving” their wealth anymore than an artist who finds the right business connections? I'm not jealous of the tall buildings in the background and the YouTube-influencer vibes beaming to me from the Zoom screen. It's just...missing something. It leaves me feeling kind of gross.

In the same vein as the route to stardom though, as you listen in on more people's issues, methods, and questions, I can't ignore how “basic” and universal these spaces are. The “big guys” are buying leads to call. Hugely profitable enterprises are fumbling phone calls and promising too much. Apparently, budgeting is immensely hard for many. What should you do if you call someone who doesn't have the time? Leave them with something valuable, call-back when they do. What should you do if your money-back guarantee is bleeding you dry? Stop guaranteeing the expensive things you need paid for can be refunded. There, I saved you $2000 a month in advice.

Every day, I grow more convinced of the universality of the human experience. I grow ever confident in my choices to engage with the world and you the ways I do. I know it's not magic or necessarily brilliance that you're riding for your stature or wealth. I know you're after the exact same things emotionally or “spiritually” or in terms of entertainment and curiosity. I know when I build into my floor a certain level of honesty, demonstrated behavior and expectations, and approach to problem solving, I'm going to better navigate the universal struggles, because that's how I have the life I do now with its elevated and privileged struggles.

By the time you're working with me, you're not going to be curious what your job responsibilities are, and I'm not going to forget to pay you. I'm not going to converse with you in catch-phrases or haughty business nuspeak. I'm not going to lie, even “little” ones about what I expect when it comes to client engagement and thorough accounting of needs and action going forward. I don't take anything more seriously in life than I do the power or control I can yield over someone else's life. You shouldn't find yourself holding any less respect. The stakes may present as higher when you're talking people's addictions, convictions, or family makeup, but every professional realm conjures the high-stakes feelings.

You get bigger. You grow indefinitely in service to what you do. It's why gluttony is a sin. What should be nourishment morphs into heedless gorging for the memory of the original purpose. That's why you should work out your words and direction before you enlist others to your cause. That's why you should have a beginning, middle, and end in worlds you wish to be saying something valuable. That's why my bullshit detector goes off hardcore when what I'm told and what you wish of me doesn't match my experience of you. I start with the benefit of the doubt and goodwill, and end at the distance I need to maintain to fight for continued goodwill.

I know, or I've learned how to recognize, the steps I need to climb to be more like the person I want to be or the fleetingly small amount of people I wish to better emulate. I'd like to be nicer, and calmer, and able to experience “touching” moments with ease. I'm not going to get that way in environments that provoke criticism and anxiety for the own-goals happening each day. I want to remain open and honest about the kind of people or partners I want in my life. I can't do that if I can't talk to you because I'm too busy dancing around you, and my money, well-being, or sense of security will be threatened if I don't. I want growth that I can sustain and respect at every level, not to feel desperate to reach a certain dollar amount because my insecure ego bellows from the depths of the valley in my chest.

I'm still the torch-bearer for my experience, my ethics, work or otherwise, and the words I use to orient and mold the world into what I wish to see. Not you, not your money, not your silence, not your worst ideas about me nor even the impressively meager thousands of pages and hours under which one must get credentialed and indicate value. I don't bemoan this like some crazy pseudo anarchic-libertarian eschewing competence or regulation, I just watch a lot...maybe most...people get the easy things wrong. I certainly don't consider myself “people,” universal as my experience may be, because I tend to own my behavior as choices for reasons in service to short and long-term goals; it's not the mindless fluttering of wings to carry me away from the consequences on the winds of excuses.

I got certified as an outpatient provider that can do counseling for people struggling with addiction today. Before I got into social work, I worked people socially. Before I had any idea how low the bar was for what constituted care for people's lives (cases), I was under that fog of presumed respectability for the players tasked with handling the drama and pain that can accompany addiction, child welfare, or different court systems. The fog was lifted, and I'm now combining my business sense, social capacity, and method for unpacking the nature of my goals and why into what may be the most robust, consistent, and profitable thing I can deliver on indefinitely. I didn't have to lie about my motivations, success, or grievances. I didn't force myself to partner with someone I had to swallow out of desperation (which is true both in the past and now). I ensured my floor was established in this inexpensive yet spiritually fulfilling living environment before I ventured out into the 3-month waiting/start-up/learning period.

I did the work. I have the memories and experience. I've built the trust. I've watched how I compare to those around me. I genuinely want to be me more than anything or anyone else. I want everything I do to be infused with the power and perspective I've worked for and granted myself. I want it to be felt. I want you to watch it unfold like each dose of character I add to my land. I want the common cause and nature to translate well-beyond my attempts at garbled thought digressions. I want the money to show you what I'm really doing, if it can, that you've just been too polite to speak to so far. 

[928] Guess I'll Go Eat Worms

 I'm gonna try really hard to keep this from sounding conceited.

I'm anchored in the past. So much of my thought harkens to what I've accomplished more than what I dream. It's not that I don't dream big, but by definition, it's speculation. Many of my desires over time have changed, and I've found healthier ways and things to want I had yet to discover. When I think I'm getting something I want in the present, and it conjures a familiar sense or pattern from the past, I'm immediately swept back into more I need to explore.

One doomed skill I seem to have is my capacity to garner resentment. The Oxford definition of “resentment” is “bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.” In my life it forms as a Catch-22. The more I try to be fair, the bitterness and indignation from others grows. Fair to what? Now we get to jump into the million dollar question.

I recently explained to a colleague how I felt regarding a “sales training,” and I use that term liberally, fell short of my lived experience. Her takeaway was to “like,” “bomb” emoji, and tell me “it sounds like there was some useful takeaways.” I like her. I think she's smart and works hard. I'm defeated that she read that I took anything useful away from that training. She's attempting to be professional, cordial, and nondescript, which I understand, but struggle to relate to. I was attempting to speak “above” what the lowly, rich, sales people were saying. My idea of a “fair” interpretation of a lacking presentation can either be “bomb” entertainment, or perceived as condescending and potentially stoking resentment. In our culture, if I'm not making their kind of money, what do I know?

I get treated like something “dangerous” a lot. People will get this look on their face after I say something in a peculiar or grating manner. I've heard a number of people offer how my reputation has preceded me. I am dangerous. I'm not dangerous because I'm looking for a fight or super keen to take advantage of you. I'm dangerous because I know I'm capable of doing both. I'm dangerous because I've made peace with how that works.

In my explanation, I told my colleague I understand myself to be selling people “themselves to themselves.” I know enough about my desires, needs, and self-dialogue that I can abstract it out to scripts or world-building that helps facilitate behavior. I think most people are less conservative about sex or partying than our shitty culture might suggest, so I created an environment that gave them license to explore that. I think most people wish to be more daring and assertive regarding their ideas and dreams, so I collapse the fog of the unknown into the action steps they can take on the road to achieving greater things. I believe people are generally dumb and terrified, so I smile and laugh and joke to ease what is more often confusion and insecurity well before maliciousness or insightful.

The past is all I have to attest what I claim to be aware of. When I try to have the “on the level” conversation about “what we both know,” more often than not, people pull away. It's an unconscious revulsion for the idea that they would dare engage in that manner of psychopathic exploration. When I take for granted I've met someone who “gets it” like I do, there's no quicker road to hell. This has you feeling a certain kind of loneliness, and it makes me try to get even more exacting in how I try to relate to people. The Catch-22 kicks in, I get more refined, less genuinely close or intimate, and the more I detail out that process or understanding, more alienated.

I was a veritable whore in college. I set my sights on what would facilitate that whoriness. I understood not merely that alcohol lowers inhibitions, but that when you formulate an entire party culture, setting, and series of buy-ins and entertainment, everything flows with a certain “naturalness.” Ok, plug in that kind of work and understanding with 20-somethings still piecing together their identities. You're gonna garner a lot of deep resentment for the manipulation and control you demonstrated. Moreover, people are going to hate how they gave themselves over to what you've created, say, if they decide they were a little too drunk or embarrassed or otherwise experience the regrets that often accompany drinking.

There's an irony, because people know they're capable of the same control, awareness, and work. What other basis would they have for their anger or resentment? If you didn't feel yourself under the sway of someone who seemed to recognize something about you, maybe know something better than you knew yourself, you'd just otherwise be a player in your own game. You'd confidently black out. You'd budget for morning after pills and wager that you've chosen to party with a crowd that wasn't trying to exploit you upon doing so.

Something that has kept me sane is refusing to take responsibility for what you haven't figured out. I'm able to do this because I write. I literally, before, during, and many years after, continue to write about the step-by-step machinations of my head, reasons for or against my behavior, and how it has informed or changed what I do going forward. I won't throw the same parties I did in college, but I'll still throw parties, and I'm still a whore. My writing has been public and accessible, particularly to the parties inspiring the thoughts. I'm perpetually inviting people to engage and create a shared dialogue and understanding of how we're to relate to each other.

What's the prevailing opinion? Silence. I'm gleaning from Wikipedia that scientists consider resentment a secondary emotion elicited from insult and/or injury. Clearly, I pretty fluidly maintain something of an ambivalence to insulting people, and for many years, I was poorly understanding how much pain I was causing by my words. That is, I didn't know enough about the brain in that it doesn't split hairs as often as I might wish it would.

In any event, the responsibility that comes with owning everything you are capable of has not been something I've witnessed people being willing to take. As such, it tends to make them poor assessors of the conditions and nature of responsibility. I think a lot of this confusion is lending itself to the current “woke” crisis and ideas of “safe space” or “freedom” and “rights.” None of these things make sense if you can't fairly account for your responsibilities. And you don't know what's fair because you're not counting and you don't claim the necessary levels of responsibility.

I recently watched The Defiant Ones. In a final sequence, the rich and famous offer their concluding sentiments about pursuing goals:

“If you want to accomplish something that hasn't been accomplished, you have to be relentlessly, and unapologetically determined.” - Bruce Springsteen. “Be true to yourself. Be true to your art. Never take anything for granted.” - The D.O.C. “You don't have to conform. You can be as raw as you need to be.” - Ice Cube. “Don't ever change who you are.” - Eminem. You can't please everybody.” - Patti Smith. “Do more. Do more. You are the underdog.” - Wil.i.am. “Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. - Gwen Stefani. “Treat everything like it's your first opportunity.” - Kendrick Lamar. “Quit fucking around” - Trent Reznor. “Stay in the fucking saddle.” “Deliver quality.”

Taken individually or all at once, you are always obligated to unpacking how those sentiments influence your thoughts and behavior. All of the crazy shit that informs any of those people's work is both theirs and transcends them. It is our work and our culture to be worked out and celebrated or suffered. You can be made to listen to a song until it becomes tolerable, or you can create or choose the music you wish to hear. You have to recognize how the craziest people use the exact same ideas in the opposite ways. I find Paul Ryan touting his affection for Rage Against the Machine constantly instructive. There's no irony when you're unaware, so you fluidly say dumb shit and blame the world around you for not understanding.

I think I have a handle on why people react to me the way they do. I know the unconscious interrupted flow that makes it intolerable for me to even hike next to you after you've been forced to reckon with my previously voiced ambivalence or displeasure for the outdoors. Do I care if you like what I enjoy? Be it partying, watching TV, jumping sporadically into a business or project? No. I just do them, confidently, and with a spirit of trying to demonstrate what I think and say. I try to fail forward. I work in spite of the open questions, detestations, and speculations, deliberately uninformed, of my motives. I keep talking after voicing how much I hate your silence.

I think we all understand that being capable doesn't mean you are worthy. Your potential is not something to be taken for granted. Your potential is earned or it's exploited or it's wasted. But it can only be any of those things when you, or someone else, is aware of it. When you can't tell the difference of what's happening to or with your potential, you can't blame other people. You can't blame me. You're literally still watching me work to remain aware of what I think I can or can't control and how I wish to better dictate how I use my time. You're looking at the words that have inspired another digression. You're seeing how I turnover the past. I can't choose to wake you up to your own process. I can't put the words on your lips, even if I can put the shot in front of you.