[1022] 2nd Gear

I continue to return to the word “stuck.” If you want the most comprehensive reason I would buy dozens of tickets to things well in spite of whether or not I “technically” had the money, it’s because in the quiet times, the “in-between” space, I feel stuck. I think this is a more universally felt thing than I ever hear about. Notably, I just heard it from my best friend, but we’re not ruminating on “stuckness” more than we’re pivoting what might otherwise be depressive anger into dinner, video games, and in his case, smoking.

I think to myself often, “If nothing else.” It’s why I have supplemented TV in for so much of my time. If nothing else, a show, perhaps an infinitely obscure and outdated one, can fill the air. I’m not drilling my guitar in that space. I’m not diligently reading through and notating my books. But, if nothing else, I can have access to an easy series of thoughts or opinions about whatever pops up next. If I don’t get in shape, more practice in, more workable usable knowledge, well, at least I’m digesting something or building in my self-care process this mindless no-stress activity I can do all night and alone.

I have every reason to believe the biggest things I wish to achieve will fail for a series of infinite reasons that have nothing to do with me. I was born to a particular time and place and given a narrative that I believed about my value, capacity, worth, and what I should expect. The “universe” whispers more and more each day that I should break. The suggestion is that I should just keep this state, this miserable, barely alive, just above water space, and disregard the larger ambition. I don’t live in a country that cares about its people. I’m not going to get paid unless you’re able to pay for yourself. This country doesn’t produce companies that want people with a voice and vote. I’m not going to find agency and leadership that aligns with my values.

It’s not in my nature to give in. That is, I tend to find little reason to not continuously try to get what I want. I’m not persuaded by, “I’m too mature, too tired, too busy” cliches. I can always defer to “the bigger picture” and relent in fighting for a T-shirt at a concert, particularly when I don’t want to look like an asshole in front of groups I enjoy. I have “buckled down” and learned how to work for “professional” organizations without feeling as though my eyes and ears are constantly bleeding. I can’t shake the notion that I am the world and the world is me, though. Conceding to dumb shit from “out there” is a 1:1 justification for stagnant self-destructive behavior and dialogue “in here” in my head. I’m still not the suicidal type.

I need things to do. That’s just how I’m wired. Whether it’s the simplicity of watching the TV show, or staying awake for the drive to the venue, I’m the kind of person who will do damn near anything before I’m doing “nothing.” Do I like the shows I’m going to? Sure. Would I go to half of them if I had a family or more friends? Would I spend more for an “Owner’s Club” experience over 4 days than I did on a car if I had something to plug into with dozens of people I enjoyed all working towards something that mattered? I’m running from my pathetic amount of work responsibilities, not running towards music. I barely pick up my instruments. In old blogs, I’m excited by the prospect of coming out here so I can be as loud as I want in the middle of nowhere and middle of the night. Not too long ago, my creepy fucking neighbor told me he could hear my piano practice, and the illusion that I was alone and free further shattered.

I’m tethered to the practical realities regarding my ambition. If I want to build, I still need a fair amount of money. I’m currently living through a period where we’re pretending “inflation” is responsible for corporate greed. My house will need repairs. Projects take nails. Cars take gas. At bottom, the “problem” in the chain to me continuously getting what I want is making myself functionally free in the exercise of my time and getting money under less and less restrictive circumstances. My current snap shot is maybe working 15-20 hours a week, driving to the office 1 day (supposed to be 2, but fuck em), working 4 days a week, and making if not precisely, a hair’s length above inflation-adjusted minimum wage. My job figured out how to not pay you what you’re worth by divvying out convenience.

In any given moment, I don’t know how to move ahead without continuously campaigning for a fully-remote role, continuously looking for new roles, or I have to go up against the difficulties and feelings related to getting my business started that, every day, reminds me is practically impossible in this country. I can’t drop out. I’m not trying to work manual labor, adding to the time taken away from even TV, let alone inclinations to work outside again. I’m not so uncreative that I can’t attempt to parlay my trips into the office into other “productive” activities like hitting the gym or grocery store. But the questions keep begging. Why am I bothering? Who is this for? What do I “really need” to find the focus and intention to read, play, and watch while I let the rest go?

People constantly encourage me. I get consistent good feedback from people who perhaps over years of counseling will thank me for caring and trying and holding expectations or putting people to actual work on themselves. Where do they factor into my calculation about the impact I’m having? Where do they register on my “job satisfaction” or story of my value and worth? I view it a little like being a child of my mom. She was obligated to feed us, house us, and keep us barely alive. Maybe that’s all she could do with her capacity and lack of tools or awareness, but I’ve never given her special points or a sticker for being nominally responsible for the people she brought into the world.

The tools I have are lent just as basically. You want to give me a hug because I’ve parlayed my intelligence or interests into a form of advanced cheerleading? Cool, I guess, but it’s not the work I need to do to make me better. I’m in it for the money that enables my indulgences, and hopefully enables attacks on bigger targets that undermine the notion of what it is we’re doing altogether. I’m not trying to be cold or disparaging, but I’m not here for you, you need to be there for you, and the clearer you get about what you want and need, the more we’ll be able to determine how to really help each other. I want to live as though there’s considerably more to enjoy than heedlessly “work” on. I want us all to share a basic sense of stability and self-worth. I don’t want to keep talking from a place of either privilege or hard-fought insight that stems from a wholly inaccessible universe to onlookers.

We’re about halfway through the experiment. There’s plenty of sacrifices and points of discomfort from moving out here, but I’m watching my indulges evolve. I’m stuck in significant ways just being the only one out here, but also in the form of moral support. I remember one day I was reacting to my ex’s nervous energy after I’d worked that day and just wanted to sit down. Instead, I rushed to try and weld my truck rack. I did a shitty job, immortalized the shitty job with an Instagram post, it broke a few weeks later, and my effort was not celebrated or recognized or felt as a point of solidarity in the heart and mind of who I was reacting to. Even when you’re convinced you’re sharing something, you’re on your own path.

[1021] Tribe

I did absolutely nothing to prepare myself for getting back into “work mode” after my trip to Phoenix, so now I’m finding it a bit of a struggle to pull it together to knock out my handful of tasks. I had many times I wished to write in the last few days. The last several times I’ve written it registered as annoying and wasting time and effort repeating myself. A few major themes arose this time though I wish to explore. A general recounting of the trip I also want recorded.

Again, I found myself on a plane. It felt a little less “enlightening” or “liberating” and more “routine” than the one earlier. Flying is fascinating every time, but like all things, you can habituate and take for granted what’s happening. I needed to get to several somewheres for this trip, driving wasn’t going to cut it, so quick trip across the country, and now I’m back home.

“Tribes” came to mind. Bill Maher talks a lot about the tribal nature of the country and our politics, but I don’t know that I let it sink in as deeply as it felt on this trip. We want to belong so deeply. I was listening to some of the people’s conversations around me, and it’s always striking when they talk about the band members like they’re friends. They just use their first names like they’re talking about a brother. They talk about their lives as though they aren’t experiencing them through Instagram updates. There’s this deep connection, seemingly less about whatever band, than just the desire to feel like these people are representing something much more than themselves through their music.

When we talk about “politics” and whether or not our message is “inclusive” enough, I think we somehow completely miss the notion of the tribal identity. Who feels like they belong in the narrative around speech policing and identity games? It’s eggshells and resentment. You know what resonates with tribe members? I, me, mine. “Protecting” whatever abstract notion of things like “freedom” or “the unborn” that you can slap the designator on. Anger and hatred are felt across all tribe members no matter what their political compass might tilt towards. Who do you really feel is on your team? Who’s angry at the same things you are?

Do you know your enemy? When we’re trying to explore what or whether it’s worth getting angry about, things get complicated because we’re not taught to look for a soup of causation. There are many ingredients in the mix that speak to the overall taste and expression. If you want to be indefinitely incensed by abstract “isms” and “ists” you’ll never get to the heart of your issues. If you want to bemoan “poverty” or “injustice” or “inequality” you’re not giving people the specific tools to address how it’s manifesting, not just in their lives, but as a measure of their perception of their lives.

A poor person who grows up poor doesn’t think they’re poor. A rich person who grew up rich doesn’t think they’re selfish and entitled. Dumb people don’t think they’re dumb. Hippies don’t think they smell. It’s never enough to offer soap, “educate,” bemoan what’s “fair,” or talk in terms of a “minimum wage” when it’s all an infinitely abstract and individualized series of perceptional markers. “Hate?” “Hope?” Those win elections. You personally hate or hope for things. You get on the ground and validate, you win.

I don’t care how similar your experience sounds to someone else’s you experience it in the confines of your individual mind. You can get help in how to identify similar trail markers or environmental stimuli, but you have to recognize and choose to walk the path yourself. If you have a strong notion or set of experiences and evidence to suggest how people find that path, your wisdom and insight means nothing if you can’t recognize the nature of the road they’re currently on.

I saw Mest, Zebrahead, and Unwritten Law. The venue was excellent if only because the doors were opened between sets to cool down the room. The crowd was energetic and respectful. There were mosh pits, crowd surfing, free things thrown and collected. I had good tacos at the restaurant portion of the venue. I was first in line, front and center at the stage, and I got there, to the AirBnb, and the airport in timely and safe ways. I had breakfast at an award-winning nationally recognized spot. I got to familiarize myself with a bit of downtown Phoenix and Tempe. It’s about as good of a trip as you could ask for.

I then came up against the ambivalence and disregard of Frontier Airlines. I’m still embroiled in what will almost certainly be a civil suit for the return of $200 they’ve effectively stolen from me. I come off a great trip with a 10+ hour delay keeping me stuck in the Phoenix airport, overpaying to eat, and searching for a way to stay comfortable and plugged in until my flight that was supposed to arrive at 12:30 in the afternoon now ensures I’ll get home at 11:30 PM. I had a decent amount I planned to get done that day, all still pending and contributing to the mental backlog that is preventing me from moving on to my work obligations. The stress of the situation was 5% being made to wait, and 95% the attitude and posture of Frontier.

My tribal principals regarding what’s fair and who should be accountable have been violated. I’m not driven through a persistent uncontrollable rage to try and get my money back, and were I to “let it go,” when I don’t need or want to would functionally enable the continued taking advantage. I didn’t eat enough yesterday, given my wonky schedule and headspace, so combined with the stress of arguing with Frontier, I started getting light-headed and feeling generally “off.” I forgot my keyboard at work, and even drove to work in the first place intending to use the many hours before my first group to do everything I’m hoping to achieve when I get done writing today.

I have the practice and self-awareness to know when, and over what, it’s worth calling it quits. I sent $150 to a guy whose shitty car I was going to buy. He’s poor, excuse-making, and full of shit. I tried, nominally, for a month or so to politely explore how he might return the money for the car that was sent to the junk yard and never received. It’s extremely unlikely I’m getting that money back, and weeks ago I deleted the chat bubble on facebook that was our only means of communicating. That’s a different kind of stupid and impoverished situation. He doesn’t know how poor and dumb he is, nor how badly he smells. I knew I was gambling. I’ve heard the song he was singing from hundreds of similarly situated clients over the years.

The second we stopped bothering to police ourselves in service to the wrong kind of entitled and selfish claims or ownership and self-expression is when we forgot how to dutifully and justifiably punish the obviously objectionable. It’s most frequently a story of “they did” verses “I can.” It’s reflexive and fluid. “He manipulated me! They control the narrative! They’re the ones with the most power!” As though you don’t have a brain or agency. Well, you don’t. You’ve donated it to the dialogue that keeps you disenfranchised and at the lack of mercy from whatever’s not really thinking about you in the first place.

Wherever you go, you can overhear a conversation about a person’s sports team. Mest is from Chicago, and their lead singer spoke of the Bears’ first draft pick for doing so terribly. He’s as much in his punk-rock tribe as he is his sports team’s tribe. The bouncers were discussing the fate of, I forget what teams were competing in the playoffs, but I think they were close enough to Phoenix. The trivia nerds playing on the patio outside of the venue overwhelmingly answered that Larry Bird played for The Lakers. We’re constantly indicating what tribes we do and don’t belong to. Even when we’re wholly not part of it, we know which one is closest or what we’d default to if cornered. We’re disinclined to access that which unites independent of our familiarity or preferences.

I wish I had a bigger tribe. I wish I had more in common with people than where we were from or that we saw the same TV show. I wish I had people who I could dedicate my effort to enabling and they were inclined to reciprocate. Instead, we all generally get walled off into our own worlds. I’m not downplaying or denying the impact the friends and connections I have in my life, but I see it in our dynamics as well. I’m very lucky to ever get someone on board to come to a show. I’m almost never called to come join whatever someone else is doing. They’re either not doing anything, or we’re just not in that kind of tribe, if we’re really in one altogether. I’m not suggesting they aren’t “maintaining their family” or “defending their stability and status quo,” but I talk to enough people in a regular way who make literally no time for themselves to enjoy, indulge, decompress, or even acknowledge there’s a world beyond the bounds of their stress and obligations. I would literally invite everyone I remotely liked to everything I ever do, just as I did with the party house. I’d be right back here whining about how they’re all too tired, busy, poor, or more into “their tribe’s music” to enjoy anything about the show we might head to.

People in my tribe might be kind of bored if invited to a football game, but would recognize an opportunity to drink more or make funny comments, people watch, and spend time with their friend. People in my tribe are looking to build and experience. That’s the prevailing character trait of Hussain, Byron, and Hatsam. They’ve contributed to growth and building things up or creating something new. Where others talk, they do, or did. You make the best of the ongoing shit sandwich of life or your options. You acknowledge the absurdity, dig that much deeper, and come out mangled but self-assured about what you’re capable of. I can walk to the top of mountains. My former tribe apparently plagued by the idea of how I must not be enjoying myself.

What are you using your tribes for? To self-validate like a basic politician getting you to agree to what you already agree with and stay blind to the consequences of their votes? Does your desire to belong lead you down paths that I tripped all over in trying to befriend the wrong characters? Do you pretend your favorite team or band feels connected to you and your details like you might in hoarding and reciting information about them? You’re just a person first, and they’re just a player. Are you capable of recognizing what they’re playing? Are you willing to see what you’re playing at?

[1020] Missed You

I hope I can take my time with this. I had a lot of fun and helpful ideas on the drive home, but I don’t know that I’ll recall them all. First one is easy. I’m allowing myself to use the word “hope” again. I haven’t found a good substitute, and I think I’m aware enough to not allow hopes and dreams to supersede any amount of work it would actually take to get something. I think I’m fundamentally a hopeful person, but that always felt like a kind of shameful notion. Fuck hope, work. Why bother hoping if you can do? And then as you pay attention to so many things you can’t do anything to help or fix, the desire for them no less antagonizes, and you’re hopeful, if not still helpless.

I almost posted a tipsy status saying something like, “I want to do big things.” It’s a stupid statement. It’s the first pass of an idea, vague, nonsensical, and empty for its very “hopeful” sensibility not backed by any tangible commitment or sacrifice. I felt like it bubbled up as a reminder. I want to make a discernible impact on the whole of experience. I want to shift “things” and demonstrate an awareness or capability with power that you can measure independent of opinions. That hasn’t stopped being true no matter the seemingly infinite series of humbling scenarios I’m meant to swallow with regard to my budget, time, or energy.

There’s a chance for a role at work to be fully remote. I want it, but of course I don’t. I want it so bad that I continue to work to create my own business, again. What kind of “exotic” locales could I be in while I conduct my groups? How much “freer” would I feel if I could literally plan to spend more time with friends located much farther than 20 minutes from me? I bet I spend less on gas to and from the airport with $9 a day parking than I do driving to bumfuck Bedford.

Today has been weird. I haven’t felt anxious in a bit. Once I figured out it was my righteous “fuck you” impulse that spoke to my difficulty doing “easy” notes for work, I pretty much mellowed out. Then, ex-girlfriend comes back into the picture, and I’ve just been off. It’s not even confusing or complicated to me, but I’m in this observer state. I don’t feel seen by her. The last time I reached out, I was admonished, and it was made clear to me that if there was going to be any kind of “friendship” going forward, it was going to be on her terms and at her pace. Umm, great, but friendship is an exchange. What do you have to give to the person who can’t see you?

She suggested we walk around a trail at the dam near my house. I’m tired, don’t give a fuck about trails, it’s cold, and I’ve been less than adequately active for months. It felt like an analogy for our dynamic on the whole. I was just along for the ride. She spent a year or so discovering more about herself and finding the capacity to apologize. Cool, good for her. It has nothing to do with me. You want to spend time with me and have a “low key” or chill environment? Come bowing or let’s get food. That would suggest you have a remote inclination about what I’m into or would put me more at ease with you.

And I could just say “no.” I could just be like, look, I don’t trust you, I’m not angry at you, but you don’t make me feel good and I don’t want to have a dumb forever non-conversation about what it takes to look and feel like a friend, but I appreciate your effort or the direction you feel you’re trending. What does that get me? I couldn’t begin to pretend to understand how that might register to her. So, instead, I’ll be tired and complicit in my own caricature, walking along the forest path small-talking like I’ve recovered from the severe blow to my hopes and dreams come back to manifest as a perhaps more self-aware ex who confidently dictates the means by which we might relate.

Whatever.

I both enjoy and am a touch worried about how much I’ve learned to shut the fuck up and let things go. I’m literally too old. I’m 34. I really don’t need to say anything most of the time. I’ve seen it before. I see you coming. I’m not lacking in confidence or direction. I’m not an insecure or proud know-nothing powering through idyllic fantasies. I just want to hang out, build some shit, laugh, watch my shows, and not entertain too deeply the thought that were my plane to go down, I’d be getting off easy.

I’m taking more planes. I’m barely in less debt than I normally am, and I’m being way more deliberate about booking the flight, getting the place to stay, and just manifesting that “do shit and see people” ethos I wanted to be at 10 years ago. I don’t care about the debt. Even if I have money in the bank, I’m still in debt. There will always be utility bills and property taxes. I’ll always have to eat. My car…is a car, and I have 3 of them. So, debt? Oh well, at least I visited wherever, saw the band or friend, and get to talk about it again in whatever blog comes next.

I’ve been refreshing myself on different philosophers lately too. So many seemingly concerned with finding the best ways to live and think about things. Meta questioners by default mostly folding their arms after a quasi-circular reasoned thing registers as a novel way to state the obvious by the onlookers.

It's two days later.

I’ve been listening to Philosophize This! segments. I’m reminded in simplified ways that the vast majority of remotely “novel” insights I’ve ever infused into my perspective are pieces of what stuck from classes in college or reading. Each philosopher answering and undermining and substituting their words and versions to help explain just what it is we’re made of and why we bother.

I’m here at the beginnings of the last couple days where faint anxiety has started to creep back in. For a while there I was pretty smooth, working out why notes were such a chore and resolving myself to work at my own pace and/or in advance. My stomach still drops a little at the prospect of working each day, but it registers as an insult to the idea of suffering to bother mentioning it (over and over and over again). I feel bad I missed my friend’s text. Part of me heard my phone 2 hours ago, but a larger portion of me was in my own head. I put on a cheesy movie from 2002 and proceeded to play with sewing a pair of pants I’ve been saving for several years for repair because they fit so well. They deserve a person who actually knows how to sew or with the patience to watch more Youtube videos.

I tried to go to the gym today. My body was reaching that odd state of discomfort that knows it needs to be pushed in a way that I haven’t in a while. I thought I had the clothes packed and discovered otherwise in the parking lot. My plan was to use the energy working out tends to give me to come home and work some notes in advance. I act as if I’m not going to be up until 2 or 3 anyway. I’ve been fighting the temptation to maximize a level of debt to spur myself into more movement. At bottom, I know I need to move, I just rarely seem to identify what that’s supposed to look like each day.

For all of the different schools of thought and means of describing the same restless-human-syndrome, I find myself drawn towards the “everything at once” and “all is connected” sensibility. I think it’s why writing persuades me in a persistent way that it’s actually working at doing something. It’s an analogy for the perpetual process. The words can be infinitely translated and reinterpreted. Every time I return to them, they mean something just a hair different to me than they did before. They’re an embodied “form,” mathematically described, yet perfectly abstract and inaccessible until you activate your machinery for determining meaning. It really is a fascinating “thing.” When I’m dead, they get to act as different reincarnations. In summary of everything I’ve written, you might gather I’m rather angry and don’t like jobs.

It’s the next day.

I’ve just gotten off another dumb interaction in the world of sales. I find it fascinating there are people who have been in business for decades selling crap to idiots with cliches and soulless imploring who don’t have the persuasive skill and coherence I intuited at 15 fucking up your credit with Target red cards. I’m too sharp a weapon, man. I need to take your kids or go at 35 felons at once. I recognize my capacity to make “instant-friends.” Why can’t I get introduced to ones with money or influence lol? Is there truly nothing of value that needs introduced to someone who could use it? It’s always got to get gross and kinda forced or hidden under the corporate-speak that doesn’t let you engage with thoughts about how you’ve abused their ignorance or sold your soul?

I have to end this thing at some point. This week already feels incredibly long and I have a party I was invited to Thursday, Louis C.K. Sunday, and didn’t realize I’m off on Monday. I’m caught up on notes.

I say often how I’m lied to dozens of times a day. I think people mistake this as though I feel I’m somehow on the receiving end of deliberate attempts at deception. No no, it’s the colloquial language lies. It’s body language lies. It’s professed standards and competencies with no discernable measurement or distinction worthy of holding. I’m awash in lies and they make me extremely sensitive to when there are attempts to cajole me with them. I find commercials often psychologically tortuous. I hear on repeat the “wrong” word like “opportunity” you’re calling the cold-calling bait-n-switch “sales” job. Your acronyms and mission statements mean nothing to me. All the hyper-insisted upon “I’m sorry” “I don’t know” and “good luck” sentiments fogging your mind and air.

If I’m a philosophical cliché in being ever-restless and striving to individuate or manifest my power as described in dozens of works and religious traditions, so be it, but whatever I’m after I’m wholly convinced is impossible to achieve while under the spell of so much bullshit. If nothing else, no matter how obscure what it means to exist may be, you don’t do it better lying. You don’t do it better calling those lies “pretending” or “professional” or “mature” or anything that helps conceal and disguise the intention to hide.