[1040] Take Me Home

At a basic level, what I "really" want is incredibly simple. It's so simple, I find myself pushing astonishment at the amount of effort I exert in trying to get it. I'll spend thousands to spend time with a friend who I can trust actually likes me and isn't looking for a reason to get upset. I'll try to start companies to get paid, not even obscenely, but looking for the "comfort" of not always describing things in debt-ridden terms or that comes with comprehensive insurance and a decent car. I just, on a whim, started another one of my hasty wood-working projects because I didn't know what to do with my energy and wanted to test out my cleaned-up garage-esc space. Just having something to focus on that involved my tools and hands has brought me to 6:30 AM, only a tinge tired.

I don't actually understand why it has to be so hard. I don't know why I have to have a predictable amount of dread at the prospect of going to work for people who don't give a fuck about me. I don't know why I have to dream about the circumstances that will make sitting and reading a book feel justified. I don't know why most people most of the time can't be relied upon to grab regular drinks, movies, shows, or otherwise.

It occurred to me that I've been trying to convince myself to "go harder" in service to my business. I want to manage a business, people, and have a spattering of clients. Starting a business is none of that. Starting is pleading and fighting and taping together pieces that need glue and nails. Starting is putting a hundred things out of your head in an active way so you can focus on the next phone call, email, or form you can't define with no one to help you. I want people out there going door-to-door or to businesses to convince others to donate in service to care. I don't want to be the salesman, because I'm not selling anything. I'm a good counselor and manager. I just want to do the work.

I could be a good wood worker. In whatever I find to do part-time, I'll be good at that too. It takes a while, a sort of by default patience, that has to occur in order for me to discover how "simple" whatever it is I'm doing actually is. I used 20 different tools to cobble together this bed bench. I didn't even get a splinter, and I made the thing with my shirt off.

There was a reddit post about some person in an intentional community saying they have 4 or 5 families living together on the same land in a couple multi-family spaces. They were friends growing up, and through college, and then transitioned to the community they created. What was the secret? What are they hiding? It's hard not to feel perfectly objectionable and "crazy" in my constant advocacy to change or join up or experiment. I'm not jealous of those who can pull it off, I just get angry. Are my circumstances a particular kind of fucked? Are my "friends" somehow more pathological in their behavior than I might diagnose "the masses?" Am I setting such a terrible example that I've been allowed to persist within some kind of desperate and sick complex you've been salivating while watching this whole time?

I feel good just hanging out. I feel good using expensive appropriate tools to create fleetingly passable things. I feel good when I work with someone who takes themselves seriously enough to push through discomfort and skepticism. I don't actually want higher-order indulgence or a fuck ton more money. I want to be able to live approximately as I already do, not in debt, with a persistent presence of one or a dozen people I care about. I want help. I want to know I'm not insane, and that's impossible to do alone. What's the next example I need to set? Who am I not being enough like? Am I uncreative or uninspired?
I don't know where to turn, so I'm over here hyper-cleaning my house, binging shows and movies, and making ear-shattering noises with scrap wood.