[1098] Get What You Need

I want to talk about what I hope is the near future and this sensibility that feels old and familiar.

I'm the kind of person who would confidently assert, "I always tend to get my way." This was bolstered by a consistently demonstrated ability and willingness to do the work behind whatever that desire might be. It's a forgone conclusion that I'll spend the money, make the drive, deal with the weather, learn the skill, or reach out into an infinite sea of cold-calling waters to find someone to help me figure something out. I also feel like the range of my desires has been fairly-well tempered. I don't want obscene amounts of money, control, or pseudo "influence." I don't want a tired notion of power that builds on people's weakness or resentments. I don't want things in ways that need to deprive you of getting what you want as well.

The "bigger" I make my wants, the more glaring my social and financial circumstances become apparent. Everyone I know is poor and poorly connected. Everyone I know is busy, tired, distracted, or well-rehearsed in their memorized cliches for justifying conservative complacency. It has been that way since I ever voiced desires or dreams that went outside a norm. Even something as relatively straightforward as the party house got turned into a piece of resentment. Not because everyone wasn't drunk, high, fucking around, or trying to have fun, but because, at bottom, it wasn't their idea. They wouldn't have done it without my drive and desire. People love to be along for the ride when they get all the benefits, and flip immediately when something goes wrong, or it feels like work, or shines a light on their behavior.

I've never made the genuine investment to plug into the "bigger" world. I haven't hired the $100+/hr 30-year veteran to put me in contact with "the people who do your sort of thing." I haven't had the credentials or experience to really market myself in that most pleasant feel-good language about what I can accomplish. Regardless of my work ethic in blue-collar or white-collar realms, it's turned into a thing that has generated resentment and targeting and taking for granted. And no one's interested in your struggle or potential, so if you've spent 15 or 20 years killing it in areas people don't understand or don't find interesting, you're nothing.

Well, addiction is hot and going to stay that way as the miserable organizations in place trying to "reduce harm" compound the issue. Nonprofits are their own playing field of those good-looking stories and sympathies people dwell in independent of any real attention paid to precisely how the money gets used if the numbers and marketing reflect the right vibes. That's incredibly sad and ridiculous, for the record. I have no intention of wasting or playing games with donations or grants. But you read often enough, like super pacs, the nonsense people get up to.

I need $10,000 a year to live "okay." You're considered a "micro" nonprofit if you play with less than $1,000,000 a year. When I put up a post looking for a professional fundraiser, I get people with incredible resumes and dollar amounts I can barely conceive of how to use the money in a single year. If I pay them thousands to land tens of thousands I'm still wildly comfortable and free to be up and running working without looking over my shoulder. I don't have to "believe" in myself or my "mission." I just have to run with the basic boring fact of people's self-interest and financial stake in the success of my company. I have the leeway to offer/pay them more than the companies they may have already raised millions for.

I get those pieces in place, a major chunk of my long-term puzzle project is taken care of. For a good period of time, I felt like I had kind of…peaked? Mind you, I'm still first-world poor, spend nearly all of my time alone, and haven't taken the time to do things like properly insulate my house, but the major goal was to have my home altogether. It was made of dozens of smaller goals like getting water, electricity, drywall, air conditioning, extra rooms built, getting a driveway, fence line, and amassing the tools to do future improvements better and faster.

I wanted that for years, and now I've had it for years, so the wants started moving into entertainment and indulgences. I've been to 200 music or comedy shows in the last 2 years. I've upped the fanciness of the toys I buy like my computer (arguably more a need than a want with how old my last one was), instruments, or video game systems. There will always be something "new" or "next" to buy, and you don't need a degree in introspection to know that no amount of crap you buy is going to scratch the depths of a need for meaningful interactions itch.

Where do I find meaning? In spite of the resentment and blame, I like being the energy in the room or providing the space. Whether it's the space to get fucked up, or create and experiment, or to breathe and reflect. I like seeing people actually relax after talking with me. I like hearing excitement in someone's voice because I phrased something in a way they haven't heard of before. I like hearing what someone has accomplished because I got to play cheerleader cluing them into the awesome shit they did that no one is willing to acknowledge or grant them.

I reflexively want to help. I know the difference between being an appeaser and a real attempt to fix a problem. It's why I've been able to "peak" and feel stuck treading water for so long looking for a way to get to the next level that wasn't thousands more in credit card debt. It's not that I wasn't aware I could go look for these hopefully better connected and experienced people. I just had to exhaust previous attempts and narratives that hadn't concluded yet. I've only been a nonprofit for 3 months. I've talked about becoming one since day one. It's not cheap, and I hadn't learned nor been fucked enough to just start as one.

The years-long process I've never had to have "faith" in though. That's another big part of it. My "dreams" have rarely been that. I know it's going to take months or years longer than I want it to. I know the budget is going to be off by 30 to 50% depending on how desperate I am to get something moving "now." The lived experience is in my bones for how slowly "professionals" communicate or respond to things. I don't have to hesitate in knowing you are better suited to be the grease and point of connection because my exhausted blunt autistic ass is going to negligently burn something that it doesn't have to.

I don't know how else to really put it. Right now feels "fuller." That "Yes, of course, I expect this next" feeling is rounded out in a way that it hasn't been for a while. I didn't feel like this when I hired the junk insurance empaneling company. I didn't feel like this getting in contact with these loose "connections doing something similar" or who "might be able to help me." Literally, none of that shit has ever panned out. Every single time I've taken the reigns, spent the money, had the conversations, or "did the thing" we've made a little money, or upped our presence, or been turned on to something more explicitly relevant to do or ask for. Why should I think this time will be any different? It's just the next bite of a gigantic meal.

There are thousands of incredibly rich/robust entities doing all sorts of crazy to decent things. The money is out there. The problems never go away. I'm trying to occupy a frame and ethic throughout. I think that's incredibly important to state, restate, and build into every conversation about this. Anyone can raise money, go through motions, look nice and proper, and functionally or practically destroy and betray everything they claim to be about. It takes a very particular and consistent kind of cunt to say, "This is the standard regardless." I want to be that cunt. It's how I get, and will hopefully continue to give, what is needed for a meaningful existence more than what I merely want to distract me from how fucked we all are.