[1028] All Too Human

I’m hesitant to write this as I feel it’s going to be more confusing or accidentally misleading. I think I’ve tried to speak to it in the past, but lately it’s been a hotter-button issue for me as I continue to inch forward in what I hope to achieve with my counseling business. The phrase that feels wholly incomplete is “I fear success.” That’s the most meager launching point that needs to be explored.

When I was doing drug studies there was a major panic moment. I had just bought my land, I think paid off my house, and otherwise set myself up to live fairly comfortably in what had been built so far. I wasn’t in debt. The future was bright and wide open, and I was scheduled for my next study that was going to pay out around $8,000. Up until this point, I always had something important to pay for or some foundation I was working to establish. It wasn’t just “free money” to “do whatever I wanted with.” I felt, for the first time, a sense of limitless possibility, and I could not slow my heartrate down enough to qualify for the study…or the next 2 or 3 after that.

I’m somebody who is hyper-conscious of needing restraint. I study history. I watch “good people” get corrupted constantly. I know, in my heart-of-hearts, how little I give a fuck about so many things and how rarely do I come up against anyone who would bother to check an impulse I might have. In reality, they’re most often just salivating at the prospect of what I’ll get up to next and whether or not it will be interesting enough to warrant a pause on their infinite scrolls. This is great, if you’re doing great, consistent, or driven by something more than potentially errant notions of freedom and power.

Spending is an analogue for me. When I spend with “reckless abandon” it’s actually after I’ve considered my dozens of potential budgets and made a decision about what is going to provide the most psychological satisfaction in committing to a lane. Am I going to a few shows of my “favorite artists” over the last few years, or am I going to ALL THE SHOWS in a concerted effort to meet or pass the amount I went to last year? The money is there or incoming. The debt, relative to what you’re in debt for, is manageable if not negligible on a not-so-broad scale. And it all makes sense in the context of what I’m hoping to achieve, experience, or play with. I didn’t hesitate to buy my land, build the coffee shop, or drop the cash to make my fort livable. They all made sense in a deeper longer vision way than any one expensive buy for mere indulgence.

I’m enthusiastic and persuasive. I have been for as long as I can remember. I know, intimately, how to play on people’s ignorance, lack of self-esteem, language, pathological cyclical thinking, or otherwise chaos and stress of the myriad decisions that they haven’t quite consciously made in service to the lives in which they find themselves embedded. I know I could build a following because I already have one, and have created one in every work environment that required trust and time and genuine relationships. I’m praised almost every day for my ability to encourage and provide practical “no bullshit” advice that isn’t judgmental or self-serving. My utility is a lock. There is no reason to believe that my perspective is going to magically transfer into shit advice the bigger we get.

But what happens when you get too removed from the day-to-day struggle? What happens when the practical constraints are no longer in place because you’ve got $8000 to “do whatever” with? What happens when the “professional” who might existentially wish for us all to do better and practice good habits and yada yada no longer has to show up to keep his bills paid, because the infrastructure or client list is so large we could fall into that failing posture of so many organizations that make millions and do so much harm? What happens when the directions we might take come down to a measure of my veritably regal good will?

I’m not suggesting I’d even be deliberately malicious, but the things associated with burnout play out in subtle ways. I don’t have it in me to hold the spousal-abuse victim’s hand, by the dozens, through the 7-year cycle of stuckness. Am I going to dedicate a large amount of time on oversight and accountability if I’ve got the money to travel and amuse myself? Will I take the necessary time to find the right people to account for the things I’d otherwise feel responsible for? I already don’t trust the people I’m closest to to operate like me, and I don’t even operate as well as I should! I trust them to do as good as they can for who they are and what they’re interested in, just like me, which will change as the business evolves and the money comes in.

I’m worried it’s all going to change so fast I don’t have the opportunity to establish a strong base to work from. I got the coffee shop running on a base of extraordinarily high rent and shitty advice from a lawyer. Even if we were breaking even, we couldn’t grow, and we were embedded in something that started costing us way more than just the money. I don’t want to be desperately clamoring to fit in to the broken expectations and dictates of the larger “sick care” system. I also don’t want to situate ourselves in a place of getting constantly taken advantage of in attempting to meet needs, but not getting paid what it takes to live ourselves while doing so.

With great power comes great responsibility. To whom much is given, much will be required. You can reduce your power by subscribing to a degree of chaos or adages regarding fate. You can pretend as though the wrong kind of selfishness is a virtue and that everywhere you’ve been in life lies solely on your will, capacity and awareness. If you’re gonna rise to the challenge, you have to try and account for all that comes with it. If I’m going to unironically believe in myself and my capacity, that comes with the obligation to check why “things” do or don’t look like I might profess a desire for them to.

It's my willingness to get ratchet that I worry about. I’m willing to be shameless and unrepentant in pursuing what I want, and that’s a problem. Especially as things ramp up and start actually working, I don’t envy who gets in front of me. There, I think I need to find a way to make the megalomaniacal story boring well before I get there.

There’s something that feels perverse though as well in helping people. Like, I know some people really deeply appreciate what I’ve told them. And I know they’re vulnerable. So, gimme $10? Gimme $50 because you need me that badly because your therapist and doctors are all shit? But it’s not just you, it’s every person with average intelligence unluckily born to a neglected area to abusive or ignorant average parents. I deserve to be rewarded that greatly for knowing you so intimately? For understanding the broader trends and nature of an average person?

I launched the website. I’ve been feeling more motivated and creative in ways to promote and open to navigating the foreseeable bumps in trying to punkishly DIY my way forward with a burning credit card. I need to make peace with the idea that there is no real check on power that doesn’t come with death. I don’t have any genuine desire to misuse power or take advantage of people. That’s a nice way to put what may still happen as things creep into areas I’m as yet unfamiliar with regarding freedom or opportunity. Make sure you speak up if you see things getting bad, but I can’t pretend I have any confidence you will.