[942] And, I Stress

I just got done watching a movie in which a reviewer said something I agree with. They were sad about what the movie “could be.” There were elements that were interesting or entertaining. There were thoughtful twists and intriguing narratives. But it was messy, and kind of got away from itself. The tone was disorienting and it’s as if too many thoughts went into how it unfolded.

I used to think it very weird to criticize movies or art in general. I can appreciate a pretty face and broadly prefer order to chaos, but my perspective heavily skews towards “I don’t know” or “I can’t recognize” what it is people like aesthetically or artistically. I like things that make me think. As such, most of what constitutes life I’ve already categorized into neat, uninteresting categories which do not serve that purpose. I’m not watching movies to get lost in each one, nor reading to confirm my biases.

For example, a “cool” car, to me, is one that works, gets good gas mileage, or operates as a useful tool like my truck. My opinion on color, body style, year, special features, engine rumble, yada yada is non-existent. We already know how much I’ve suffered the anger or resentment for not being able to take in the scenery of whatever we might be wandering through or past. My own sense of presented “style” is what makes the mot sense for the sheer amount of mud and dust I tend to experience. My curls are almost always pulled back out of the way.

To say any given movie needs to serve a purpose might suggest you haven’t seen very many. Sure, many want to make money. Obviously, there are genuine entertainers and writers hoping to make people laugh and feel. The impact of any given piece of work has always felt incidental to me. Whether or not someone is a brilliant performer, painter, or other kind of artist does not dictate what the masses or observers are going to respond to. Joshua Bell performing on a 1.5-million-dollar violin, on the subway, to maybe the appreciation of 4 people, one a child, over the course of an hour comes to mind.

What could have been? What might you make out of the experience of a world class musician on a world class instrument if you caught the pedigree, ear, or dialogue of classically renowned music? You’d have another check on your list of experiences? You’d feel it resound in the depths of your soul? You might walk away with an autograph?

I’m the kind of person who stops and watches street performers. I dance and sing to songs playing in stores. I saw a performer in Colorado doing something of a circus act. As much as I noticed and appreciated him practicing his craft, I’m also the kind of person watching the people who walk past. He had about 30 people watching him when I joined the crowd. He ended the performance with more than double.

Why? Did they all appreciate his show like so many $100 a ticket buyers for Joshua Bell the night before his performance in the subway? They clapped. Many gave money. He’d clearly been to some sort of school for crowd work. Did any of them walk away thinking to themselves, “That would have been really cool if only he had…” We know people buy-in to the crowd and environment as much or more than whatever’s going on on stage.

Our experience is just that, ours. When I find myself struggling to figure out what to do, I try to pay attention to what anyone else might be suffering or sacrificing their attention to. It’s our struggle, unlike so many dictators. We’re all, mostly, trying to live well and die peacefully in our sleep surrounded by loved ones. We’re all attempting to do meaningful work and find recognition for those things about us it’s impossible to put into words. Certainly, I’ve continued to talk and never feel complete.

I take on a lot of things at once. Until recently, I’d never really describe my life like that. I take on what I think matters, what I think I can pull off, and what is worthy of someone like me. But, it’s a lot. Where I see people find the focus, or limit the pain, of pursuing one thing in earnest, I want it all. I want to flip houses, and start a business, and evolve my space, and read everything, watch everything, and make fleeting stabs at staying decent on several instruments. It’s not structured, it’s not consistent, and at least for the last few months, it’s felt like an incredible amount of stress.

I think I conceive of stress differently. To me, it’s inevitable. Things piss me off pretty much by default. It’s stressful to have a problem with…existing. So, you build it into a certain kind of ethos and coping strategy. It’s not going away; it’s a chronic condition. It becomes a challenge to yourself to pick what kind of stress you want. That’s maybe harder than it seems with a lot of unknown unknowns in terms of consequences. I had to start by denoting the kinds of stress I didn’t want.

Let’s say in relationships. I used to be the open ear for all of the drama in my friends’ relationships. Trust issues are core. Communication staticky at best. Whom has the most feelings for whom, and when, and why, if so, did they so disappoint? I didn’t want any of that, so I stated my values about sex or commitment that, let’s say have yet to be fully appreciated by anyone flirting with partnership. I didn’t want to cite my mortgage as a perpetual reason to justify my inability to change jobs. I want to continually experiment and explore routes to both independent wealth, and free exercises of my time.

This shit is hard to live up to. It’s not just hard to carry your giant torch burning with all of your values, dreams, or intention, but it’s fucking raining constantly. I’m proud of the work I do in getting this house flipped? Well, just take it on the chin and move on when your buddy’s dad comes down and says most of it needs to be redone because the aesthetic is wrong. It’s an aesthetic you can’t recognize and was in fact discussed and decided upon weeks ago. It’s “wrong,” seemingly likely to devalue the house if not fixed, and you’re left adrift, wondering if this vitally important and specific thing needed to happen no matter what, why does it no longer feel like “our” struggle to convey to me how it needs to be. I don’t need it to be that way, and, not for nothing, I barely know what I’m doing.

What is the work for? Mine is the experience of any artist. To grow in your craft. Every exceptionally rich and famous person has been told drastically more disparaging things than “this has to be redone.” All in all, it’s not even an overwhelmingly time consuming or difficult task. But it hits deep and is extremely stressful nonetheless. Before you find the temerity to judge the work, are you asking yourself what you could have done to improve it, inform it, or understand it?

When I at least have some consistent beat or obligation, I tend to even out in my pursuit of constant stimulation. Even a bad job can be a consistent job or subject of gratifying focus. I haven’t had that in a while. The work on the house is in spurts. I’ve, not once, returned to the house where a thing discussed that might be done in my absence was done. It’s not “our” struggle. It’s my series of limited crises, until I get around to doing the work. It’s my increasingly desperate search for evidence that things will be okay or progress when I’m not there. I’m struck down again when I get to learn my work isn’t worth what I thought it was either.

Meanwhile, I have already hours-a-day level problems in attempting to navigate insurance companies and bureaucratic grudges. I have a replacement outdoor unit, and now a wood burning stove, neither of which are installed or keeping me warm. I need to find a job, a car, and keep my pissy and combative cats alive. It all exists as a measure of my chosen mental fog. It’s “better” stress that, once I work my way through, I might have a lot more money, working knowledge of things I didn’t previously, and if the cats are good for nothing else, an inability for too-late critical feedback is a major plus.

I wonder if I’ve learned how useless it is to ask for help. People rarely seem to understand me, even if they can appreciate the jokes or just before the resentment for the work kicks in. My buddy’s dad said, “I wish you guys would have called me.” We have, a dozen times, and with him not on site, he’d either offer advice that didn’t quite fit, or we couldn’t make sense of it. He flirted with changing the decided-on wall color. It was suggested that the floor I laid down in the kitchen would need to be pulled up to accommodate where the cabinets would sit. This has been an emotionally traumatic roller coaster. It’s not because of the work in and of itself, but because my face is pressed right up against a burning “What is the work for!?” sign, and I’m not coming up with good, emotionally gratifying and consistent answers.

There’s always the “one day” narrative. I know “intellectually” how things can play out if we crank out a nice house and I learn to match the “right aesthetic.” It gets a little less fun and meaningful at that point. It feels less like learning and more like the same parody of “professional” environments. It’s not lost on me that this house should in no way resemble mine for a “normal” market, but I return to, it’s not like I’m getting paid for my time, and by the time I do, I’ll have made considerably less than minimum wage. I’m dealing in a certain kind of “promise” currency, in which I promise to keep myself available and working indefinitely, and they promise around the time I’m in my late 30s maybe early 40s, I’ll have everything I expected of myself by 30, and maybe 5-10 grand in 10 months.

Man does not eat faith, hope, and dreams. I have zero real genuine belief or inclination my buddy nor his family would fuck me or are less than sincere or capable of supporting what we might become. I’m still poor, and my inability to find a satisfactory monetary path makes the idea of tearing down what I’ve been working on all the more searingly painful. The idea that I’ve lent myself to this task over one just as important and potentially lucrative and revolutionary in how I wish to construct it, starts to feel like I’ve betrayed myself or have been incredibly naïve, again, to make such a large bet on something I don’t understand.

I need structure. The unfortunate reality is that it will most likely be imposed by another stultifying transitory work environment. Whatever guilt I might conjure for not having done “enough” in service to any of my chosen stressors will get to compound in the hours I’m driving or stacking or taking direction from someone born to be middle-management. Are we in it together? Am I not persuaded that it’s my burden, nay, responsibility, to weather every critical review or unintelligible insurance form? I have to keep myself warm, even if the cats are quick to jump in next to me. Who am I kidding? They’re first to jump on top.