[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.