As I "accidentally" stayed up all night completing the campaign for One Piece Pirate Warriors, I was listening to episodes of The Why Files. Any marathoning of media makes it easier to recognize patterns, and this was no different. The host talks about different conspiracies or cultural mythologies, relaying the story as you're likely to hear it from someone who believes what is being said. Most often, the answers to a conspiracy question land on aliens or government disinformation.
He asks in each episode, "Is this true?" and the reports on any debunking information or explains the criterion that would lead him to sympathize or trust what's being said. Maybe it's a trusted impressively careered professional being consistent and composed, not looking to profit, relaying their story and it corroborating with information from FOIA requests.
Today, I got another "basic" response to one of my blogs saying I was either an AI bot, or need psychiatric intervention. The thought that sprung up as I reflected on this comment, predicted in the post itself, was, "The fight is the point."
We want to hear ourselves talk. We want an adversarial identity. We want the noise of exchange. That means something in and of itself. That's why we maintain or viciously fight for our unhealthy relationships. A body - to fuck, to drive around, to talk at, is what we "need" first. If they can be bothered to share our interests, listen, "love" us , or refrain from causing undue harm, that's a bonus.
I think I underestimate this at my peril. It's framework that explains the fakeness in polite exchanges about hopes and wishes and excitement. It's even a thing you could use to understand animals fighting or playing with each other. You don't ask "why" the cat bit the dog's tail. You know. You know you bite tails all day, and you love it. I think this sentiment helps inform why there's so much moral fogginess and unnecessary "grey" on things that are pretty well figured out. It's the standing predilection to "two-sides" issues.
It's more insidious and deeper than just our brain trying to take shortcuts for the sake of condensing information. It's an animating force. How many times can I describe myself as a "spite engine" and not see myself deriving motivation from fighting for the sake of fighting? How much do I "really care" versus how much do I wish to be understood as someone who will fuck you back, harder, and well past any grasp or memory you have as to why?
Our platforms are default uninformed, hateful, combative, judgmental, and addictively exhausting. They're also overt tools of propaganda and control. That's the point. The point is algorithmically defined engagement. The point is if Trump pisses you off, he gets all of the attention points, packaged in any way that predicts that much more.
The point is explicitly not to make peace, get smarter, get connected, or share anything in earnest. It's to consume and be consumed by a level of emotion that keeps you clicking, arguing, or scrolling. The Why Files points out that NASA or "the government" doesn't even need to "disprove" its knowledge of aliens or "impossible" technology, they just have to keep you confused and arguing about it.
There's only so much room in your head. This is especially the case if you make no habit of attending to what gets in there, how long it stays, and what it's turning you into. I had to slowly recognize and make peace with the fact that my brain was going to operate in a "nag me with a blog a day at least" kind of way. I recognize that my baseline operating condition is overwhelming and exhausting to most people by default. There's a certain "fight" I'm in with my ideas and my next course of action that I'm actively navigating from almost the moment I wake up. Every day. I can't turn it off.
I also refuse to pretend like I'm not thinking. I can't smoke or drink my problem away. I can "flow," sometimes, a few beers or mixed drinks in, a little easier, but the brain doesn't stop swinging. My underlying animating force needs direction, explanation, and attention. It needs A LOT of it. I'm never convinced any moment I occupy, good or bad, is "enough" or "the truth" of what I "should" be or be doing. Unless it's this.
I think we'd rather have a diffuse, unsolvable and undefined, problem, than none at all. Not having a problem betrays conditioned "common sense." You still don't have enough money, right? You're not in perfect health. Your body in the next room has something to say about your attitude recently. You're still a laborer and can't exude the excruciating values of the leisure class. With the point being to keep the fight going, the invitation to reframe and consider "problems" as more "opportunities" or "evidence of your awareness or potential" feels empty or like it's missing something vital.
Actors might ask, "What's my motivation?" to learn how to fuel an embodied act. What's yours? What motivates you to maintain your "deepest" convictions? What are you really really acting like? What do you want your audience to believe about you? Or, what does your audience expect?
I'm driven by a great deal of hatred and sense of powerlessness. I resent how hard it is to look or sound "respectable" in what I find to be exhausting and insincere exchanges. I start more sentences with "I fucking hate," at least in my head, than I do any other way. I hate the idea of ever getting so tired and complacent that I wouldn't find the words, or take the time, or do the work to avoid acting like all the things I hate.
I'm not a man of "conviction" insofar as, if you have the better argument, I'll change what I think and work to alter the behavior. I'm committed to asking questions. I'm committed to practicing patience, with myself, and with the vast majority of people I'm prepared to bite their head off in an instant. For me, the point isn't to fight. It's to search. It's to account. I'm invited to fight by default. Fight for my attention. Fight to not be afraid to say or try something. Fight for the ability to exist in a standing state of qualified evolution.
I can't say what I'm "really acting" like because I don't feel like I'm acting. An actor is pretending, maybe tapping into an old real memory to evoke "more real" expression, I'm not pretending. I'm literally taking action when and where I can. I'm not "more hateful" than I profess to be, nor "more stressed" than the height of whatever needs to be written about next. I want my audience to throw "beliefs" about that, or me in general, out the window and see or contribute to what I'm working on.
Unfortunately, I don't think I have much of an audience, nor that if I did they'd have any real expectations of me. The 4 people who might consistently read me likely expect I'll continue to write, hang out with them, work with them, and beat my head against walls of indifference and confusion, but I'm happy to let them speak for themselves. My "secret" audience certainly doesn't.
I think you have an incredible amount of work to do on yourself, that won't be done, if you can read a digression like this (or pretend to read it,) tell me you "skimmed it," and the proceed to dole out nonsense "advice" about my "needs." But that's your point, to keep the "fight" going. It's to say your piece, because everything exists for you to engage with it in an inflaming way, not a sincere way, or patient way, or with a eye and ear towards meaningful exchange. Is there any real way to escape? Would you even want to?
Monday, February 26, 2024
Sunday, February 25, 2024
[1112] The River
There's a theme from Star Trek, Buffy, and Angel that is sticking out to me. The whole crew is under a spell, and maybe one character isn't affected or is the first to see that something is off. Because it's TV, that character devines a way to gain allies, break the spell, and explain the anomaly. No matter how many times it happens, whether the arc is resolved in a single episode or over several, no one ever seems to remember that this precise thing has happened before. They can't seem to build it into their wisdom banks and offer it as a first hypothesis about what's happening this time. They don't build systems or protocols that anticipate it happening again.
Exploring that narrative arc or the pitfalls in the people afterwards feels like it could be its own short-story. I think part of the reason it's sounding bells in my head is with each "random" or "lazy" response I get to my reflections about my nonprofit efforts. My blog auto-posts to reddit as I must be something of a curious and lightly masochistic beast. Invariably, there's someone who says one of the handful of same things over again. "You sound manic." (or other armchair diagnosis) "I didn't read all of that." "I don't know what to say, but here's a lot of words anyway."
It's instinctively dismissive, reductive, condescending - - the internet. But also, it's the same attitudes I encounter in social work. The people who beg for court intervention or involuntary confinement are the ones who adopt the same attitude about their perspective and behavior. They occupy a "safe" or familiar and protected universe where their actions and words make a certain kind of sense to them, and in fact their whole crew, and you're the only one who has a problem with them. The elixir, unfortunately, often came in a compellingly-worded appeal letter to the judge and sometimes years of involuntary therapy before we could put a child back in your custody. For some, the spell is absolute, and they fuck up large enough to stay incarcerated or lose their parental rights altogether.
As with everything, there's a spectrum. We're all under different spells and happy to reinforce them well past a healthy point. I've read the Vulture article on Joss Whedon which discusses the power of fandom. Joss is a person, complicated, "good" and "bad," and not everything he's done in 57 years is perfectly respectable, mature, or with a deep appreciation for his experiences that drive his behavior. If you're wearing a "Joss Whedon is my God" T-shirt, you're likely going to find every excuse one does for any god to dismiss or situate their divine behavior.
One thing that never works against the spell is to just call it out. That, by itself, doesn't understand the nature of spells. It's to create a wholly different world of meaning from whatever you might say about a truly universal or objective and "mathematical" conception of existence. If you talk normally, and the rest of the cast can only understand you through song, "You're all singing, and it's crazy," literally doesn't translate. It can't be interpreted anymore than white noise. Moreover, when you're talking about spells people adopt in the real world, they have a deeply invested interest in denying there's anything else to be said or learned. Every pissed off democrat decrying republican "hypocrisy" has no conception of the nature of the problem or the irony. Neither lens on the world can even imagine what a "crack" is.
Writing is me calling things out. It's received predictably and I don't expect that to ever change. I call things out that I need to better understand as "cracks" on my lens into the world or spells we're all under. I want to know what I can build into my anticipatory framework. If I think I see the same kind of meme too often, the same kind of show, hear the same punditry and propaganda, hear the same excuses, or silence, or not-so pleasantries I want to know if there's a way to navigate it so I don't suffer in ways I don't have to. I'm going to suffer, as anyone who's read one of my "manic-sounding" posts delights in pointing out, but the nature of it is intentional and incidental more than wanton or irreconcilable.
I don't know all the spells. I don't come from a place that presumes to intimately understand how compelling every narrative can be or the infinitely intricate ways it can be weaved together to preclude action or change. I just know there are spells. I know their nature. I know some of their patterns. I can't figure those patterns out "just thinking" in anxiety circles. There's no actual bell that rings once you've used a cliche enough times to constitute literally not thinking or maliciously antagonizing.
If I had to point to one culturally-compelling spell, it's denial. I think I'm the millionth person to speak to it, but there's an infinite list of things one could wish to deny in any given moment of their life. It's a sublingual instinct, "NO!" to keep yourself "safe" and "comfortable." If you experience revulsion or disgust, you've got a millions-of-years instinctual legacy to respect that or follow-up mechanisms for weaponizing it. We deny our capacity and potential more than anything.
When I first started writing, you would not have "persuaded" me that I would be doing it for 20 years. I didn't have the tools or the language to discuss the utility of writing. I was dismissive and judgmental to my own writing, let alone if I would have been presented to anyone else's. I was under spells of immaturity, hatred, desperation and loneliness. I was at the mercy of the cultural norms I grew up in. I had no concept that I could even have my own words or perspective and understanding of a situation. I could only suffer everything I didn't know or the rules I took for granted.
I knew I needed something "more," but I had no idea what that looked like. I think it's precisely here that people "find god" or "get spiritual," because the cracks amass, and you're alone, and you're incoherent, but you still crave the certainty and "perfection" of your perception that your doubts betrayed. I didn't become "autistically obsessed" with reading about religion or scientific refutations of religious arguments unless I was fighting against an all-encompassing, and wrong, series of notions about myself. Notions pertaining to the girl I liked too much and the assumptions about my inevitable future given my academic performance, looks, or demeanor.
What did I really need more of? Meaning. I needed things to make sense. I needed to see a consistent cause and effect relationship that helped me keep my mood and behavior oriented. I didn't understand the depth of the crazy-making contradictions of the sea of nonsense words I was swimming in. I didn't understand how we break ourselves along the rocks of generational trauma and unarticulated responsibilities. I had no idea what my role or "purpose" could or should be, let alone the notion that I'd have to dictate it, and do it persistently, alone, in evolving ways, or it didn't really exist. That's a fucking huge undertaking.
If I connect with anyone, ever, it's because piece by piece, over decades, I'm trying to puzzle together the nature of these stories we're telling ourselves and needlessly suffering. Are you really an "addict?" Is your "loving" relationship serving you? Are you "just saying" a series of empty or hateful epithets you can't even recognize as such? It's always yes and no, and it's always changing, and it only gets better when you can label the spell with your own words and trust that when you say them you mean them. You were the cause, and you expect a certain effect. If you're not getting the effect you desire, you have the power to recite a new spell, stop casting them altogether, or look for the intended effect to take place elsewhere.
If you fundamentally deny your potential and power of your words, so it follows the story of your actions. You don't understand the harm. You don't understand the conditioning it takes to carry out the meaningful work to maintain or improve. This is as real to me as it is the physical exhaustion I do or don't feel in attempting to work on projects on my land. Week 4 of hauling scrap, fence building, or rock dispersal feels dramatically different than days 1 or 2. It's easy to describe any task as fairly simple or straight-forward, until the weather isn't perfect, or the tool breaks, or you get sick, or literally any reason, or excuse, arrives for you to deny what it's going to take to get the job done.
Your posture matters. You need to demonstrate for yourself in a consistent way that walking "like that" is going to cause spine issues. Using the wrong tool is going to get you hurt. Making the same appeal to the same people in the same way and only finding yourself resentful and exhausted is a you problem. You're caught under the spell singing a very personal song only you can hear and the rest of the world thinks you look crazy. Can you even wake up from your own spell? Can you resist the urge, redirect the craving, to join someone else's? Yes and no. Can you exercise the process and language to identify and dispel versus deny regardless? Yes.
Welcome to the work. Each time you affirm and say "yes" you inch in a chosen direction more than you suffer one you didn't. Yes, I can. Yes, that may be true. Yes, there's a road to explore here. Yes, I grant that is your perspective and yes I hope we can both respect the limits and potential of perspectives.
"I am whatever you say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am?"
Saturday, February 24, 2024
[1111] Find Me
For better or worse, I have a strong intuition for when things won't work or will go wrong. A solid portion of any amount of time I take in between actions is spent evaluating how to navigate the wrongness in advance. Most often, I find myself having to do enough of the wrong for the sake of getting moving altogether. This is becoming more apparent as the action steps for my business involve less and less time in front of a screen or filling out paperwork.
Small example. I need to advertise. I need to advertise something that is supposed to maintain a particular "pleasant" or "professional" or "hopeful and helpful" veneer. I'm not inviting you to my pop up show on the weekend. I'm trying to introduce myself as a counselor with a home based casework nonprofit he's attempting to fund well into the tens of thousands of dollars. You've never met that guy handing out pamphlets in the street. You also almost never see an organization with those kinds of resources advertising on anything less than billboards and commercials. I've got flyers and little to no peg boards or community centers that "everyone" let alone maybe anyone is going to see.
I also have a service that most people who are using it are trained to misunderstand how it works. They believe they're already in counseling, not that they're being milked and babysat. They think they're doing "enough" to justify their place in the world because yada yada we all have a backstory. Who recognizes that what I'm offering is different? Well, the people who've already worked with me or the people who've felt how I exercise power. Confidentiality, which I'm increasingly convinced is a monopolizing tactic, means I can't just reach back out to them and say what's up. They have to find me "organically." My $0.30 a piece flyers can be torn down and discarded seconds after I put them up anywhere, especially if they reside close enough to the entities I'd be competing with…where all my clients are.
I wasted a lot of time and gas driving to places like Wal-Mart thinking they maybe had a board by the door. We've spent money on facebook and google ads which get clicks, but it's not a personal connection. I feel like I'm selling one of the hardest things precisely because it consists of dozens of conversations over time for it to sink in what we're doing. By analogy, if you're exhausted looking at one blog, how am I going to get you to buy a book?
My friend has said we should make videos, and I agree. You can complain about the landscape, or you can lean into how it has trained our attention. I don't really know how to make the right kinds of videos, and it sounds like more money I don't have, but it's likely the direction we're headed. I kind of want to do some Richard Branson-esc display and hold an event. I envision like curtains on a pop-up privacy office I can put in a field.
What compounds my sense of inevitable failure though is the feedback that results in no referrals or responses from people claiming the landscape is overflowing. If you've got people in mind, why haven't you sent them to me? If you have 150 through your doors every month, and everyone you call is booked, why is my phone silent? If you're sooooo excited to start using us, what am I to make of that when it just looks like a lie? At some point I'm going to have to expand or change the primary focus to be more "home based services" broadly that sort of "tricks" people into utilizing us for addiction counseling because….yeah, it's addiction. It's not really a problem and no one's really ready to change. I'm selling a very particular program for 1 out of 10 people who will do it right and consistently.
I have options though, that's the key. With the nonprofit, I can do a great many different things as quickly as I can change a flyer if one does not seem to be panning out. I still believe I need to lock in an expert grant-writer or fundraiser. That horse race is still going. I need services I can offer I don't need anyone above me to get paid to oversee. I need things to do as an individual that are low to no cost that can help me build the stats as far as work done. I also need to find a way to stop feeling like I'm doing basically all of this alone.
The last thing I want to do is pick up a normal job again. Whatever progress I think I can make here and there goes almost totally out the window when my mind and time is eaten up by wage-slavery. I'm convinced that most things that survive are only based on a handful of persistent relationships. I look at the donor lists for things like the symphony, and while there's certainly some sizeable donations, it's like 4 that really keep it going and the rest supplementing salaries. Who could I make my whale(s) has been on my mind a lot, and I've thought about writing personal letters to different celebrities or rich people I admire that might care about what we're doing.
Even just pairing up with an organization who is better connected and already doing close enough to what we're doing could fix our issue, but I get this impression that everyone thinks their cause is the special one, so if your "mission," (the language they use towards me) isn't to be subsumed or controlled by them, they aren't interested in what you bring, especially if it's any burden to their income. This, of course, because even the "nonprofit space" is another iteration of a capitalist monster in the hands of most.
On top of this, because my network isn't a network and my "friends" are in quotes, if and when I do things like ask, "Does your company donate each year or do you think your boss would be open to talking to me?" That question scares the shit out of people and they act like I've asked for their first born. You can't obligate anyone under any circumstances to advocate for you or open a discussion they aren't familiar with. They're not going to take the time to learn or translate what you're doing so it jives with what might connect. So even potentially monied people who are one-step removed from me I can't access with any remotely personalized approach. This one I find the most frustrating for several reasons I'm sure will be a whole new blog later.
Small example. I need to advertise. I need to advertise something that is supposed to maintain a particular "pleasant" or "professional" or "hopeful and helpful" veneer. I'm not inviting you to my pop up show on the weekend. I'm trying to introduce myself as a counselor with a home based casework nonprofit he's attempting to fund well into the tens of thousands of dollars. You've never met that guy handing out pamphlets in the street. You also almost never see an organization with those kinds of resources advertising on anything less than billboards and commercials. I've got flyers and little to no peg boards or community centers that "everyone" let alone maybe anyone is going to see.
I also have a service that most people who are using it are trained to misunderstand how it works. They believe they're already in counseling, not that they're being milked and babysat. They think they're doing "enough" to justify their place in the world because yada yada we all have a backstory. Who recognizes that what I'm offering is different? Well, the people who've already worked with me or the people who've felt how I exercise power. Confidentiality, which I'm increasingly convinced is a monopolizing tactic, means I can't just reach back out to them and say what's up. They have to find me "organically." My $0.30 a piece flyers can be torn down and discarded seconds after I put them up anywhere, especially if they reside close enough to the entities I'd be competing with…where all my clients are.
I wasted a lot of time and gas driving to places like Wal-Mart thinking they maybe had a board by the door. We've spent money on facebook and google ads which get clicks, but it's not a personal connection. I feel like I'm selling one of the hardest things precisely because it consists of dozens of conversations over time for it to sink in what we're doing. By analogy, if you're exhausted looking at one blog, how am I going to get you to buy a book?
My friend has said we should make videos, and I agree. You can complain about the landscape, or you can lean into how it has trained our attention. I don't really know how to make the right kinds of videos, and it sounds like more money I don't have, but it's likely the direction we're headed. I kind of want to do some Richard Branson-esc display and hold an event. I envision like curtains on a pop-up privacy office I can put in a field.
What compounds my sense of inevitable failure though is the feedback that results in no referrals or responses from people claiming the landscape is overflowing. If you've got people in mind, why haven't you sent them to me? If you have 150 through your doors every month, and everyone you call is booked, why is my phone silent? If you're sooooo excited to start using us, what am I to make of that when it just looks like a lie? At some point I'm going to have to expand or change the primary focus to be more "home based services" broadly that sort of "tricks" people into utilizing us for addiction counseling because….yeah, it's addiction. It's not really a problem and no one's really ready to change. I'm selling a very particular program for 1 out of 10 people who will do it right and consistently.
I have options though, that's the key. With the nonprofit, I can do a great many different things as quickly as I can change a flyer if one does not seem to be panning out. I still believe I need to lock in an expert grant-writer or fundraiser. That horse race is still going. I need services I can offer I don't need anyone above me to get paid to oversee. I need things to do as an individual that are low to no cost that can help me build the stats as far as work done. I also need to find a way to stop feeling like I'm doing basically all of this alone.
The last thing I want to do is pick up a normal job again. Whatever progress I think I can make here and there goes almost totally out the window when my mind and time is eaten up by wage-slavery. I'm convinced that most things that survive are only based on a handful of persistent relationships. I look at the donor lists for things like the symphony, and while there's certainly some sizeable donations, it's like 4 that really keep it going and the rest supplementing salaries. Who could I make my whale(s) has been on my mind a lot, and I've thought about writing personal letters to different celebrities or rich people I admire that might care about what we're doing.
Even just pairing up with an organization who is better connected and already doing close enough to what we're doing could fix our issue, but I get this impression that everyone thinks their cause is the special one, so if your "mission," (the language they use towards me) isn't to be subsumed or controlled by them, they aren't interested in what you bring, especially if it's any burden to their income. This, of course, because even the "nonprofit space" is another iteration of a capitalist monster in the hands of most.
On top of this, because my network isn't a network and my "friends" are in quotes, if and when I do things like ask, "Does your company donate each year or do you think your boss would be open to talking to me?" That question scares the shit out of people and they act like I've asked for their first born. You can't obligate anyone under any circumstances to advocate for you or open a discussion they aren't familiar with. They're not going to take the time to learn or translate what you're doing so it jives with what might connect. So even potentially monied people who are one-step removed from me I can't access with any remotely personalized approach. This one I find the most frustrating for several reasons I'm sure will be a whole new blog later.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
[1110] High On Believing
I've never felt so understood as when I watch Caveh Zahedi's "The Show About The Show." It mellows me out as a "simple" exploration and reporting on experience, and the emotional fallout from everyone around who does not like their behavior explored and reported on. It's as on-the-nose a piece of art as I've ever seen that matches my experience of the world.
I'm then drawn into this interview with someone who appears to be deeply aggrieved by the show, this character mrgirl, who interviews Caveh. It's like every conversational breakdown I've written about across 2.5 hours. mrgirl volleys some feeling-laden accusation, Caveh, extremely patiently, explains his perspective and relays why he doesn't agree or dismisses the assumptive premise the accusation builds in. I feel so deeply for Caveh trying to articulate something akin to, "Bro, you're making some harsh assumptions about me, moralizing what might otherwise be basic facts of existence I'm literally pointing my camera at, and if you had a better sense of honesty and decency you'd recognize the crippling projection exercise you're doing."
One of the best indicators someone is woefully dishonest is when they result in, "I know you are, but what am I." It's just the hallmark of a nonsense exchange when someone can't both qualify and explore to what degree they are something, but more in their immediate reactive "fuck you" that launches the comment after their behavior is pointed out.
One day I hope to be able to articulate this concisely or through a great story. It's a hard dynamic to talk about because I don't encounter very many honest people. More than that, I don't encounter honest people willing to put their sense of honesty into the world to be scrutinized. I can attempt to borrow from mythology or ear-wormy sentiments from pop culture, but building a comprehensive look that lands emotionally via scattered lines strewn about a thousand blogs is all I've got so far.
Sam Harris uses the term "moral confusion" to describe what's often people's loudest visceral reaction to something they poorly understand, but feel, beyond doubt, that they are on the "right side of history" about. How Israel is handling Hamas is the hot thing right now. Trump vs Biden for anyone confused about how fascism works. "Pro-lifers," always in quotes, think they're saving something that, allegedly, their savior already has. The hypocrisy and basic avoidance of defining words or evidence isn't even hard to do. There's aggressively motivated "reasoning" that tries to square truth and reality into your version of a moralized box.
But right there, the problem is much deeper than calling it "your version." Because, of course, it's not yours. It's "everyone's" to the degree you agree with and recognize how others are justifying in the same way. Any cultural movement grants you license to take liberties with the messy details or statistics that undermine a fundamental assumption that supercharges your righteously indignant feelings. Black Lives Matter kicked off that pendulum in some of the easiest ways to observe in either reflexively agreeing and enabling any version of a victimized black identity story, or being considered a complicit racist. Any individual that wrestled with evolving stories, details, or their own experience will all but certainly develop nuances and subtleties they'll feel "morally obliged" to stay silent about.
A big thing a dishonest person doesn't want to grapple with is how much "power" they're willing to cede to you in order to blame you. If you're the smart one, the rich one, the pretty one, or just the one with the idea and you bothered to say it out loud first, buckle up. If you're Louis C.K. you can mesmerize women who can't escape the force of your beaten dick energy radiating and hypnotizing. When I've tried to write about the worst accusations against me or my behavior, I was insisted upon, several times, to not even speak. Secrets were kept from me. It was if the "right" thing to do was to just shut up and take it. This, of course, because they already know how devious and articulate I am, therefore, when scrutinized I might not look so much like the demon they needed me to be. Can't have that.
Any given person's ability to see through you is bred from their practice of seeing through themselves. Whatever caricature you reflexively make about someone or something, there's at least 1,110 blogs of information about it, at least for me, you're not considering. You're not obligated to consider anything. I'm not obligated to respect or entertain you in turn. That's your power no matter how much you wish to give it away. That's an inescapable truth. I would also call it deeply unwise to teach yourself to avoid or attack conflicting variables. It's an uncomplicated point for people who can be honest with themselves about the power of, or holes in, their perspective. I know how much about you is unsaid, because I'm writing it. I'm speaking to it where you won't.
I appreciate how articulate Caveh is when he explores his own pathological behaviors and perspective of the people who feel "tricked" or "exploited" by him. In reality, they resent their own naivety, as though they are still children for whom it could be easier forgiven. We are infinitely naive and ignorant. That is the rule. There is an infinite amount of information we don't know, let's say for example, how we're going to feel after we try something or discover we're in over our heads. An honest person can say that and then hold themselves accountable to how they respond to or describe that discomfort.
If you pose nude for an artist and then recoil in disgust at their interpretation of your body, are you going to blame them? You thought it was going to be a flattering or emboldening and liberating thing, but it shocks you with a new reality to engage. You never imagined you "could be made to feel" like you did after seeing the work. So, what? The artist should apologize? They just manipulated you and you never wanted to pose in the first place? Of course not. Maybe they are a brilliant artist and nailed your form and expression perfectly. Now what? An honest emotionally accountable person simply states, "Oh, I didn't expect to feel this way. I should reconcile this feeling with my expectations or ideas about myself I took into this experience." 9 times out of 10, what do people do though?
In order to overcome or incorporate that discomfort, you have to be able to regard the artist as simultaneously fallible and harmless in the same ways you are. You have to make fundamental assumptions about intent or make peace with the degree to which everything is at least mildly mysterious and perfectly unknowable. "Why did he draw my eyes like that!?" You can drive yourself mad with endless "whys" to nowhere. And, what is "like that?" If it's a caricature artist, which you better not sit in front of if you aren't at peace with your own body, they did it because that's an exaggerated version of what we can all see. If you're asking from a desperate internalized sense of your own beauty and you think it's "ugly," maybe it's time to humble yourself or you've got a body dysmorphia thing going on like Megan from Megan & Jack.
It's hard not to feel trapped by this defensive, judgmental conversational environment. It's bolstered by everything from religion to TV. Most TV wouldn't exist were the entire plot not driven by a "secret" that doesn't need to be secret. It's "fun" and "funny" to artfully lie and parade yourself into ever-fantastical scenarios. It's a "compelling drama" to root for the consequences of doubling-down on the disingenuous dishonesties driving narrative arcs. Tony Soprano is a murderous family man, and so are you. The entertainment comes from asking if he's either/or indefinitely, and debating what side we're on, as if it's not both. In fact, it wouldn't be compelling television if it's not both combined with acting otherwise, because then we'd just accept and move to the next thing that sets us aflame or stop watching altogether.
The consequences of the superficial debate as it pertains to art feel safer. It's lazy and easy to project onto things that can't fight back. The imagination is being worked for you. Would you kill like they kill? Even the question might make you recoil. Would you fuck like they fuck? You don't want to entertain the thought. Would you risk the lives of the people you say you love and care about? Newsflash, you probably are already in myriad negligent ways, but you'll never entertain the thought looking for the next compelling narrative to glom onto. You won't figure it out while you're looking for the next person to blame. You won't arrive at some grand epiphany as you celebrate forgoing your agency.
There's nothing I've come to realize about myself that isn't available to you. That is, you can find the same things, or you can contrast the degree of difference. The patterns I point out I'm not generating, just accounting for. The language traps, and guilt traps, and blame cliches, and gut reflexes, and caricatured straw-men are waiting to be pointed out and felt and deliberately responded to. You can accept the responsibility and do the work in between dramatic scenarios or before you implicate others in your destruction and cover up. You absolutely can. That's going to depend heavily on whether you're reading this as some absolutely powerful mind-controlling attempt to get you to "believe" something nefarious about my intentions. Do I want you to have sympathy for my pathological compulsions? Am I unironically trying to escape the responsibility I insist upon others?
Sure, sometimes. But I bet you have a significantly harder time explaining when, where, and why than I do. And, I'm literally betting on the difference in our perspectives. That bet looks like every blog I write and word I define. It looks like the work behind getting the land developed. It looks like the effort and money I've put into the people I profess to care about. It looks like the emails I've written expressing the contradictions and moral confusions I could no longer entertain. It looks like the power I'm trying to harness with the company I started. And it looks like my continued ability to recognize and state my sense of obligation as I build more pieces into my awareness and practice.
I'm then drawn into this interview with someone who appears to be deeply aggrieved by the show, this character mrgirl, who interviews Caveh. It's like every conversational breakdown I've written about across 2.5 hours. mrgirl volleys some feeling-laden accusation, Caveh, extremely patiently, explains his perspective and relays why he doesn't agree or dismisses the assumptive premise the accusation builds in. I feel so deeply for Caveh trying to articulate something akin to, "Bro, you're making some harsh assumptions about me, moralizing what might otherwise be basic facts of existence I'm literally pointing my camera at, and if you had a better sense of honesty and decency you'd recognize the crippling projection exercise you're doing."
One of the best indicators someone is woefully dishonest is when they result in, "I know you are, but what am I." It's just the hallmark of a nonsense exchange when someone can't both qualify and explore to what degree they are something, but more in their immediate reactive "fuck you" that launches the comment after their behavior is pointed out.
One day I hope to be able to articulate this concisely or through a great story. It's a hard dynamic to talk about because I don't encounter very many honest people. More than that, I don't encounter honest people willing to put their sense of honesty into the world to be scrutinized. I can attempt to borrow from mythology or ear-wormy sentiments from pop culture, but building a comprehensive look that lands emotionally via scattered lines strewn about a thousand blogs is all I've got so far.
Sam Harris uses the term "moral confusion" to describe what's often people's loudest visceral reaction to something they poorly understand, but feel, beyond doubt, that they are on the "right side of history" about. How Israel is handling Hamas is the hot thing right now. Trump vs Biden for anyone confused about how fascism works. "Pro-lifers," always in quotes, think they're saving something that, allegedly, their savior already has. The hypocrisy and basic avoidance of defining words or evidence isn't even hard to do. There's aggressively motivated "reasoning" that tries to square truth and reality into your version of a moralized box.
But right there, the problem is much deeper than calling it "your version." Because, of course, it's not yours. It's "everyone's" to the degree you agree with and recognize how others are justifying in the same way. Any cultural movement grants you license to take liberties with the messy details or statistics that undermine a fundamental assumption that supercharges your righteously indignant feelings. Black Lives Matter kicked off that pendulum in some of the easiest ways to observe in either reflexively agreeing and enabling any version of a victimized black identity story, or being considered a complicit racist. Any individual that wrestled with evolving stories, details, or their own experience will all but certainly develop nuances and subtleties they'll feel "morally obliged" to stay silent about.
A big thing a dishonest person doesn't want to grapple with is how much "power" they're willing to cede to you in order to blame you. If you're the smart one, the rich one, the pretty one, or just the one with the idea and you bothered to say it out loud first, buckle up. If you're Louis C.K. you can mesmerize women who can't escape the force of your beaten dick energy radiating and hypnotizing. When I've tried to write about the worst accusations against me or my behavior, I was insisted upon, several times, to not even speak. Secrets were kept from me. It was if the "right" thing to do was to just shut up and take it. This, of course, because they already know how devious and articulate I am, therefore, when scrutinized I might not look so much like the demon they needed me to be. Can't have that.
Any given person's ability to see through you is bred from their practice of seeing through themselves. Whatever caricature you reflexively make about someone or something, there's at least 1,110 blogs of information about it, at least for me, you're not considering. You're not obligated to consider anything. I'm not obligated to respect or entertain you in turn. That's your power no matter how much you wish to give it away. That's an inescapable truth. I would also call it deeply unwise to teach yourself to avoid or attack conflicting variables. It's an uncomplicated point for people who can be honest with themselves about the power of, or holes in, their perspective. I know how much about you is unsaid, because I'm writing it. I'm speaking to it where you won't.
I appreciate how articulate Caveh is when he explores his own pathological behaviors and perspective of the people who feel "tricked" or "exploited" by him. In reality, they resent their own naivety, as though they are still children for whom it could be easier forgiven. We are infinitely naive and ignorant. That is the rule. There is an infinite amount of information we don't know, let's say for example, how we're going to feel after we try something or discover we're in over our heads. An honest person can say that and then hold themselves accountable to how they respond to or describe that discomfort.
If you pose nude for an artist and then recoil in disgust at their interpretation of your body, are you going to blame them? You thought it was going to be a flattering or emboldening and liberating thing, but it shocks you with a new reality to engage. You never imagined you "could be made to feel" like you did after seeing the work. So, what? The artist should apologize? They just manipulated you and you never wanted to pose in the first place? Of course not. Maybe they are a brilliant artist and nailed your form and expression perfectly. Now what? An honest emotionally accountable person simply states, "Oh, I didn't expect to feel this way. I should reconcile this feeling with my expectations or ideas about myself I took into this experience." 9 times out of 10, what do people do though?
In order to overcome or incorporate that discomfort, you have to be able to regard the artist as simultaneously fallible and harmless in the same ways you are. You have to make fundamental assumptions about intent or make peace with the degree to which everything is at least mildly mysterious and perfectly unknowable. "Why did he draw my eyes like that!?" You can drive yourself mad with endless "whys" to nowhere. And, what is "like that?" If it's a caricature artist, which you better not sit in front of if you aren't at peace with your own body, they did it because that's an exaggerated version of what we can all see. If you're asking from a desperate internalized sense of your own beauty and you think it's "ugly," maybe it's time to humble yourself or you've got a body dysmorphia thing going on like Megan from Megan & Jack.
It's hard not to feel trapped by this defensive, judgmental conversational environment. It's bolstered by everything from religion to TV. Most TV wouldn't exist were the entire plot not driven by a "secret" that doesn't need to be secret. It's "fun" and "funny" to artfully lie and parade yourself into ever-fantastical scenarios. It's a "compelling drama" to root for the consequences of doubling-down on the disingenuous dishonesties driving narrative arcs. Tony Soprano is a murderous family man, and so are you. The entertainment comes from asking if he's either/or indefinitely, and debating what side we're on, as if it's not both. In fact, it wouldn't be compelling television if it's not both combined with acting otherwise, because then we'd just accept and move to the next thing that sets us aflame or stop watching altogether.
The consequences of the superficial debate as it pertains to art feel safer. It's lazy and easy to project onto things that can't fight back. The imagination is being worked for you. Would you kill like they kill? Even the question might make you recoil. Would you fuck like they fuck? You don't want to entertain the thought. Would you risk the lives of the people you say you love and care about? Newsflash, you probably are already in myriad negligent ways, but you'll never entertain the thought looking for the next compelling narrative to glom onto. You won't figure it out while you're looking for the next person to blame. You won't arrive at some grand epiphany as you celebrate forgoing your agency.
There's nothing I've come to realize about myself that isn't available to you. That is, you can find the same things, or you can contrast the degree of difference. The patterns I point out I'm not generating, just accounting for. The language traps, and guilt traps, and blame cliches, and gut reflexes, and caricatured straw-men are waiting to be pointed out and felt and deliberately responded to. You can accept the responsibility and do the work in between dramatic scenarios or before you implicate others in your destruction and cover up. You absolutely can. That's going to depend heavily on whether you're reading this as some absolutely powerful mind-controlling attempt to get you to "believe" something nefarious about my intentions. Do I want you to have sympathy for my pathological compulsions? Am I unironically trying to escape the responsibility I insist upon others?
Sure, sometimes. But I bet you have a significantly harder time explaining when, where, and why than I do. And, I'm literally betting on the difference in our perspectives. That bet looks like every blog I write and word I define. It looks like the work behind getting the land developed. It looks like the effort and money I've put into the people I profess to care about. It looks like the emails I've written expressing the contradictions and moral confusions I could no longer entertain. It looks like the power I'm trying to harness with the company I started. And it looks like my continued ability to recognize and state my sense of obligation as I build more pieces into my awareness and practice.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
[xx-26] Bully
I have some time before my first session today. I need to break this conversation down or I'm going to be thinking about it more than it requires. Only read this if you're incredibly bored.
Context: I've been looking for people to help write grants, fundraise, and not pretend to work for $45 or more an hour to result in me getting nothing in return. This is the 40th or 50th person who's made an "offer." I'm trying, explicitly, to be mean, after her response to my explanation of my circumstances. Each time I read over it, there's really only two or three parts that I want to highlight and talk more about. I'll quote them at the bottom.
Context: I've been looking for people to help write grants, fundraise, and not pretend to work for $45 or more an hour to result in me getting nothing in return. This is the 40th or 50th person who's made an "offer." I'm trying, explicitly, to be mean, after her response to my explanation of my circumstances. Each time I read over it, there's really only two or three parts that I want to highlight and talk more about. I'll quote them at the bottom.
Her:
I am a Litigation Paralegal, previously incarcerated woman, writes grants, and in recovery, This is right up my alley but I have some different thoughts for you that I would be happy to share, If you would like to contract an hour over zoom, let’s do that! Depending on budget, remote access availability, and a slew of other factors, this sounds interesting and right up my alley. Let me knock if I may be of assistance.
Best,
Me:
I'm open to talking, but I'm bleeding so much money with zero coming in that I'm not in a position to hire anyone else that isn't "You get percentage of what you bring in" anymore. If you still want to talk, cool. If not, I get it.
Her:
That’s a hard push and honestly, you likely need to fire someone or get rid whatever you need to because I thought you are on the verge for something. Giving you all my ideas for fee is a sucky proposal. Why not apply for a grant? But you expect someone to do this for free? Not very mindful and the people you want to help you, has to be mutually beneficial. You knew this won’t likely work like you are hoping, I am afraid. Bu hell,
There is always hope. What about a partnership of some kind?
*know
I can’t spend time on growing someone else’s revenue for nothing. However, we might be able to collaborate together, if you can tell me more about your organization, business structure and status, what year in operation are you? Staff? If you ow this company solely, happen to belong ons underrepresented population? Rural or urban area? And services offered remote?
Ok you are a 501-c3? 150 k in this area for a grant isn’t huge and where are you located?
It’s late, but my husband is snoring the loudest EVER so, good things happen to people who do good, call me
Me:
I expect literally nothing of you. You messaged me. I explained my circumstances. You proceeded to offer advice that's wholly uninformed about what I'm doing. What makes you think I trust what else you'd have to say?
You want to chastise me about being mindful while providing literally nothing of value beyond a series of opinions I can't begin to understand where they came from. You proceed to tell me what I know. I suspect you believe something incredibly odd about what I have or am willing to pay for. The amazing ego of your behavior I wish I could chalk up to being in recovery, but it's nearly everyone. Your "ideas" aren't ideas. You, and everyone who has sounded like you, pretend I'm trying to get something for free. No. You, and everyone like you, have literally done ZERO for me in spite of insisting you can.
I'm on the verge? Yeah. I've been on the verge of rage navigating this abject nonsense from "professionals" who you must think you're better than? How does someone who is better than them look and sound exactly like them?
Now, wait a second. I've gone off and been explicitly hateful. Go ahead, take everything I've said as "clear" and "obvious" why I'm not getting the outcomes I desire as though you're the only person I've talked to in 2 years and not just the latest who's finally getting all of the pent up exhaustion of another invitation to spend more money on nothing from no one.
I want nothing from you. I want you to disappear and for me to pretend I didn't have another one of these inane ridiculous conversations attempting to placate your curiosity. You are incorrect. For you and I, there is no hope. We will not be partners. I will not ignore my instinct and hopefully this grand show of rudeness and impropriety will persuade you to block me and not even respond. You're "passionate" about uncovering the truth? I'm not hiding it from you. I hate that you messaged me and that I've been persuaded to write this. Good things happen when you do them. Do not let yourself believe you've done a good thing to or for me.
Let me call one more thing about you. Suppress the urge to wish me "good luck."
Her:
Woozars, the industry you are in is difficult and trying and life changing. Most do it because of this, I am not sure why you would suggest I persuaded you to write anything but no thank you. I am sorry you are going through it and my mom has been in and around nonprofits like forever, she pioneered women executives with outrageous budgets or something but it availed me to start an organization and I shouldn’t have used “partnership “ in nonprofits it takes on a derogatory word of sorts, lie stealing your ownership and hard work. I have s sense of humor perhaps hard to communicate with text and collaboration would have been a better word choice. If you had shared you offer remote services my thinking was you could provide services at a going rate, providing me with a service I allocated in budget already and this would hopefully help you and your organization. I am also a previously incarcerated woman and sober. I do want success for you and those around you. I would also like to share when we practice a culture of kindness, no bad intentions are made and nor is there room for anything but the kindness, maybe in more jest delivered than the support you need. I am sorry you are upset and find it fascinating that your thoughts went to making you believe me. We all have the ability to take in what we need and want, simply leaving the rest, maybe for someone else. You seemed to have want to intentionally hurt me with your words. Hurt people, hurt people. I get it. You are overwhelmed and something I said bothered you, again my apologies. Me: Couldn't help yourself? Everything you said bothered me. I could quote and write entire paragraphs about each line. Then, like an addict, you doubled down! You're not even reading what I wrote lol. Again, typical for "professionals" to hear what they want, react to that, and then pretend to empathize. I'm going to save this exchange and use it for a class one day. Please go away. Or, zero in on 3 words you'll somehow misinterpret and tell me again how sorry you are. Either way, this isn't good for either of us.
::I block her::
"Giving you all my ideas for fee is a sucky proposal. Why not apply for a grant? But you expect someone to do this for free? Not very mindful and the people you want to help you, has to be mutually beneficial. You knew this won’t likely work like you are hoping, I am afraid."
This is quintessential condescending mind-reading bullshit that fucks with seemingly every conversation I attempt to have. This is the "polite" way to "enlighten" me that I'm an idiot. How am I an idiot? I proposed she work for free! Except, of fucking course I didn't. I said I'm too poor, and if you want a percentage of what you bring to the table, more power to you, and if not, I get it. This bitch knows my hopes too! If only I were mindful and could figure them out for myself!
You know who's worked for fucking free? Me, currently, and on Byron's house, and Allie's garden. I know what fucking free work feels like, and it's not a few phone calls or sales pitches to your already instantiated network IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE EVEN FUCKING BRINGING TO THE TABLE - AND IT'S NOT. How gracious of this bitch to offer me MORE FUCKIGN IDEAS like "Why don't you write a grant?" BRILLIANT! How do you double or triple caps something?
She proceeds to ask questions that are all answered in the ad. So, you show up at 2:30 AM, don't read the ad, tell me you have a ton of "ideas," respond to my circumstances with a lecture you refer to as "humorous," then desperately ramble, still utterly delusional about what you don't have to offer.
"I am sorry you are going through it and my mom has been in and around nonprofits like forever, she pioneered women executives with outrageous budgets or something but it availed me to start an organization and I shouldn’t have used “partnership “ in nonprofits it takes on a derogatory word of sorts, lie stealing your ownership and hard work."
This is as messy and run-on nonsense as it gets. This betrays her opening. It's her mom who might have the expertise, not her. Big "might," because often people who are desperate to sell or justify themselves recall all of the "good sounding" accomplishments that have almost or completely nothing to do with what you need them for. She decides to hang on to the word "partnership," as though I made any specific point about it beyond to say we would not be forming one. She's creating her own straw-man one feverish back-peddled misspelled response at a time.
"I would also like to share when we practice a culture of kindness, no bad intentions are made and nor is there room for anything but the kindness […] I am sorry you are upset and find it fascinating that your thoughts went to making you believe me. We all have the ability to take in what we need and want, simply leaving the rest, maybe for someone else."
Mind-reading and perfect irony. Take the parts that explicitly tell you, several times, I do not wish to talk to you. Instead? Oh, she took what she needed to service another condescending word-salad salvo on "kindness." Her reflex to hang on to a single word or sentence shows up again. She thinks she "persuaded" me. No, dumbass. I persuaded myself to waste the effort being mean to another exhausting interaction.
I am every bit the asshole and "wrong" in how I treated this interaction. But, you know what, I don't give a fuck. I feel satiated. I'm tired of being told how wrong I am in attempting to do things "right." I'm tired of your fucking lazy opinions. I'm tired of waiting around and fake enthusiasm and self-congratulations cozying up to the idea, magical farcical idea, and you're righteous by association. I'm fucking over it. I understand every maniacal CEO. How the fuck does anything work if you aren't tyrannical about cutting this bullshit out of your interactions? How many people on the planet can do a real call and response useful exchange of information?
I am a Litigation Paralegal, previously incarcerated woman, writes grants, and in recovery, This is right up my alley but I have some different thoughts for you that I would be happy to share, If you would like to contract an hour over zoom, let’s do that! Depending on budget, remote access availability, and a slew of other factors, this sounds interesting and right up my alley. Let me knock if I may be of assistance.
Best,
Me:
I'm open to talking, but I'm bleeding so much money with zero coming in that I'm not in a position to hire anyone else that isn't "You get percentage of what you bring in" anymore. If you still want to talk, cool. If not, I get it.
Her:
That’s a hard push and honestly, you likely need to fire someone or get rid whatever you need to because I thought you are on the verge for something. Giving you all my ideas for fee is a sucky proposal. Why not apply for a grant? But you expect someone to do this for free? Not very mindful and the people you want to help you, has to be mutually beneficial. You knew this won’t likely work like you are hoping, I am afraid. Bu hell,
There is always hope. What about a partnership of some kind?
*know
I can’t spend time on growing someone else’s revenue for nothing. However, we might be able to collaborate together, if you can tell me more about your organization, business structure and status, what year in operation are you? Staff? If you ow this company solely, happen to belong ons underrepresented population? Rural or urban area? And services offered remote?
Ok you are a 501-c3? 150 k in this area for a grant isn’t huge and where are you located?
It’s late, but my husband is snoring the loudest EVER so, good things happen to people who do good, call me
Me:
I expect literally nothing of you. You messaged me. I explained my circumstances. You proceeded to offer advice that's wholly uninformed about what I'm doing. What makes you think I trust what else you'd have to say?
You want to chastise me about being mindful while providing literally nothing of value beyond a series of opinions I can't begin to understand where they came from. You proceed to tell me what I know. I suspect you believe something incredibly odd about what I have or am willing to pay for. The amazing ego of your behavior I wish I could chalk up to being in recovery, but it's nearly everyone. Your "ideas" aren't ideas. You, and everyone who has sounded like you, pretend I'm trying to get something for free. No. You, and everyone like you, have literally done ZERO for me in spite of insisting you can.
I'm on the verge? Yeah. I've been on the verge of rage navigating this abject nonsense from "professionals" who you must think you're better than? How does someone who is better than them look and sound exactly like them?
Now, wait a second. I've gone off and been explicitly hateful. Go ahead, take everything I've said as "clear" and "obvious" why I'm not getting the outcomes I desire as though you're the only person I've talked to in 2 years and not just the latest who's finally getting all of the pent up exhaustion of another invitation to spend more money on nothing from no one.
I want nothing from you. I want you to disappear and for me to pretend I didn't have another one of these inane ridiculous conversations attempting to placate your curiosity. You are incorrect. For you and I, there is no hope. We will not be partners. I will not ignore my instinct and hopefully this grand show of rudeness and impropriety will persuade you to block me and not even respond. You're "passionate" about uncovering the truth? I'm not hiding it from you. I hate that you messaged me and that I've been persuaded to write this. Good things happen when you do them. Do not let yourself believe you've done a good thing to or for me.
Let me call one more thing about you. Suppress the urge to wish me "good luck."
Her:
Woozars, the industry you are in is difficult and trying and life changing. Most do it because of this, I am not sure why you would suggest I persuaded you to write anything but no thank you. I am sorry you are going through it and my mom has been in and around nonprofits like forever, she pioneered women executives with outrageous budgets or something but it availed me to start an organization and I shouldn’t have used “partnership “ in nonprofits it takes on a derogatory word of sorts, lie stealing your ownership and hard work. I have s sense of humor perhaps hard to communicate with text and collaboration would have been a better word choice. If you had shared you offer remote services my thinking was you could provide services at a going rate, providing me with a service I allocated in budget already and this would hopefully help you and your organization. I am also a previously incarcerated woman and sober. I do want success for you and those around you. I would also like to share when we practice a culture of kindness, no bad intentions are made and nor is there room for anything but the kindness, maybe in more jest delivered than the support you need. I am sorry you are upset and find it fascinating that your thoughts went to making you believe me. We all have the ability to take in what we need and want, simply leaving the rest, maybe for someone else. You seemed to have want to intentionally hurt me with your words. Hurt people, hurt people. I get it. You are overwhelmed and something I said bothered you, again my apologies. Me: Couldn't help yourself? Everything you said bothered me. I could quote and write entire paragraphs about each line. Then, like an addict, you doubled down! You're not even reading what I wrote lol. Again, typical for "professionals" to hear what they want, react to that, and then pretend to empathize. I'm going to save this exchange and use it for a class one day. Please go away. Or, zero in on 3 words you'll somehow misinterpret and tell me again how sorry you are. Either way, this isn't good for either of us.
::I block her::
"Giving you all my ideas for fee is a sucky proposal. Why not apply for a grant? But you expect someone to do this for free? Not very mindful and the people you want to help you, has to be mutually beneficial. You knew this won’t likely work like you are hoping, I am afraid."
This is quintessential condescending mind-reading bullshit that fucks with seemingly every conversation I attempt to have. This is the "polite" way to "enlighten" me that I'm an idiot. How am I an idiot? I proposed she work for free! Except, of fucking course I didn't. I said I'm too poor, and if you want a percentage of what you bring to the table, more power to you, and if not, I get it. This bitch knows my hopes too! If only I were mindful and could figure them out for myself!
You know who's worked for fucking free? Me, currently, and on Byron's house, and Allie's garden. I know what fucking free work feels like, and it's not a few phone calls or sales pitches to your already instantiated network IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE EVEN FUCKING BRINGING TO THE TABLE - AND IT'S NOT. How gracious of this bitch to offer me MORE FUCKIGN IDEAS like "Why don't you write a grant?" BRILLIANT! How do you double or triple caps something?
She proceeds to ask questions that are all answered in the ad. So, you show up at 2:30 AM, don't read the ad, tell me you have a ton of "ideas," respond to my circumstances with a lecture you refer to as "humorous," then desperately ramble, still utterly delusional about what you don't have to offer.
"I am sorry you are going through it and my mom has been in and around nonprofits like forever, she pioneered women executives with outrageous budgets or something but it availed me to start an organization and I shouldn’t have used “partnership “ in nonprofits it takes on a derogatory word of sorts, lie stealing your ownership and hard work."
This is as messy and run-on nonsense as it gets. This betrays her opening. It's her mom who might have the expertise, not her. Big "might," because often people who are desperate to sell or justify themselves recall all of the "good sounding" accomplishments that have almost or completely nothing to do with what you need them for. She decides to hang on to the word "partnership," as though I made any specific point about it beyond to say we would not be forming one. She's creating her own straw-man one feverish back-peddled misspelled response at a time.
"I would also like to share when we practice a culture of kindness, no bad intentions are made and nor is there room for anything but the kindness […] I am sorry you are upset and find it fascinating that your thoughts went to making you believe me. We all have the ability to take in what we need and want, simply leaving the rest, maybe for someone else."
Mind-reading and perfect irony. Take the parts that explicitly tell you, several times, I do not wish to talk to you. Instead? Oh, she took what she needed to service another condescending word-salad salvo on "kindness." Her reflex to hang on to a single word or sentence shows up again. She thinks she "persuaded" me. No, dumbass. I persuaded myself to waste the effort being mean to another exhausting interaction.
I am every bit the asshole and "wrong" in how I treated this interaction. But, you know what, I don't give a fuck. I feel satiated. I'm tired of being told how wrong I am in attempting to do things "right." I'm tired of your fucking lazy opinions. I'm tired of waiting around and fake enthusiasm and self-congratulations cozying up to the idea, magical farcical idea, and you're righteous by association. I'm fucking over it. I understand every maniacal CEO. How the fuck does anything work if you aren't tyrannical about cutting this bullshit out of your interactions? How many people on the planet can do a real call and response useful exchange of information?
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
[1109] I've Got A Secret
I think I cleared some of the cobwebs in my earlier attempt to write. We might drill down on a few more specifics here.
Trust feels like a word to land on. My anxiety gets aggravated when I feel as though I can't trust "anything." I know this traces back to childhood under my mom's reign. The floor could never be trusted not to turn into lava in an instant. I compare how I feel, to this day, when I go to my dad's house versus how I feel dealing with people at large. I can just eat. I can simply sleep. I can talk or ask questions and not have to anticipate the backlash of doing so "wrong." I think there's so little we can actually trust, and the taken-for-granted aspects of our environment proved wholly untrustworthy in increasing ways over time.
I could count on one hand the amount of people I've tried to be friends with or would claim to be my family that haven't betrayed my trust. I genuinely wouldn't believe it was a thing to have were it not for my dad and grandma. There's a character from Blue Exorcist that comes to mind who is viciously self-reliant after being left helpless when her family abandoned her. For me, trust implies you have my best interests at heart in the same way I have yours. We're gonna buy each other drinks and meals and bowling games. In a car breakdown scenario, I'll brave the drive, the night, and weather to get you back home.
That feels like a level that should be almost throwaway obvious. What about deeper things? What about long-term commitments and investments? What about emotional well-being? What about when called to sacrifice or choose, they pick you? This is where I feel my longing to "really connect" with people has served to get me betrayed over and over. If I pull you into my camp, I'm spending money on you, I'm giving you all of my time, I'm using my tools, my energy, and my ideas to see what I can do for you. You have a particular priority? Let's put it first. It's not "you pick where to eat" or "whatever movie you like." It's, "Shit is as real as it gets and long-term stability is on the line."
I've wanted to feel "safe" my entire life. I'm always chasing or running no matter how much time I take between accomplishments to see a performance or marathon TV. I want to feel like my friends aren't going to ignore me when I'm afraid of dying via negligence. I want to know the bills can get paid with a fair amount of time and effort and I won't have to degrade or hollow out myself in service to "practicality." I want to know that when I defend going about the work I do in the way I do, I'm not going to have to look like a desperate hypocrite because something foundational has to be sacrificed in order to merely survive.
A couple months ago I wrote a little thing to an ex telling her I appreciated the work she had done and that I didn't want to haplessly fall into a pattern where everyone I'm close to becomes someone who never wants to talk to me again. She never responded to it. I asked her today whether she received it at all. She said, "I got it. What's the question?" All I wanted to know was whether or not she had gotten it, so it got left there. Immediately though, I feel the same pattern and same lesson is beating me over the head. An effort to contextualize or offer friendship is met with silence. I'm likely a thing she'll spend a considerable amount of her time trying not to think about, like most people I know.
Brandy follows through. My dad follows through. Hussain, when he isn't a ball of stress, follows through. When I say "follows through," I mean does the work of being accountable to our shared dynamic. It's not just that we're incidentally familiar or "friendly" with each other. It's that we exchange real shit that we mean and can trust and rely upon. For a time I would have said the same things about Byron and Allie, hence my larger time and financial investments. Most of my connections can't be bothered to answer a text within a week, let alone plan a trip or entertain the practical work of overhauling a living or work situation.
I'm not looking for anyone to blame. I'm just struck. I'm flabbergasted. I get exhausted thinking about it. I don't know if I'm missing some more insightful conclusion to draw. My friend recently told me she's trying to let go of the worry around making a mistake or the "wrong" decision. I can't tell you how long I've made seeking the next mistake and learning the wrong shit to do my mission. Nearly everything I pursue most earnestly or with the most history to back up what it's worth, the overwhelming feedback is that it's still wrong. From strangers, from "experts," from frequently opinionated onlookers. Fuck, from people I pay to do the wrong parts right. I'm just fucking up one thing after another until I get a 10 minute reprieve every few months.
I got home not too long ago from a…it was certainly a rendition…of Jesus Christ Superstar. Jesus predicts his betrayal. The people killing him aren't even sure why he must die, but figure out how to get there, washing their hands of any responsibility. I wonder how many people see themselves in Judas or the Pharisees. I wonder how many consider themselves background dancers and vocals, not stirring the pot, but not willing or able to step into their own spotlight. Does Jesus trust his apostles to do anything beyond betray him and prove him obviously correct? My phrasing for years has been that I "trust" people to do exactly as they show themselves to be. That's held true for everyone that's fucked me the hardest.
I trust your insecurity to win. I trust you'll get defensive. I trust you'll rely on cliches and extremely vague ironically-named pleasantries when you're unable to explain your behavior, decision making, or provide a personally responsible answer to a question. I trust your resentment and ambivalence. I trust you'll stay quiet more than anything. I trust you'll gossip. I trust you'll find ways to undermine things I'm trying to do, and you won't even be consciously aware of why, but you'll pick a turn of phrase or let some derogatory detail or comment inform the next person's view of what I'm doing. If you're the DCS regional management cunts you'll literally prevent us from getting paid at all to meet a gaping hole in service provision.
I can't stress how much I do not believe in our "better natures." I do not think we are fundamentally good. I'm certainly not. It takes me an incredible amount of effort not to act like what is offered to me. Do you think for a second I couldn't be rich preying on people? Do you think my concept of "fuck it" isn't capable of the kind of destruction you read about? I work to behave otherwise. I talk to myself. I share the struggle. I ground who I wish to be in examples, like this, because I only get to brush against them occasionally when I'm spending time with the small handful of people who remind me I'm not actually alone.
In a world that is fundamentally untrustworthy, how could I even believe, "The work will speak for itself?" That's been a consistent line I try to fall back on when I'm floundering. I certainly get the "You're so amazing!" feedback often enough, but I've said plenty on why you can't trust that. I'm thinking about the people with the money, or how the people who receive the work interpret what's happened. If all you practically are is worth the amount you can market yourself or convince and lie that your "mission" is the same, what then? I don't think our mission is the same. I think mine is to work. I think yours is to tell people you support those who "help."
The work certainly feels a different way. I don't care how poor I get, when I'm actually doing the right things, I feel better. I can allude to all of the terrible horrible places I can entertain as thought experiments, but not feel like I'm taking some chance that I'll make them come true. I know how crazy-making and rage-inducing it is to sit and seethe over greed, lies, and injustice. If there's 5 people left on the planet who see and feel the same shit I do, I want to find and work with them or die trying. I absolutely refuse to play along and let you win.
Trust feels like a word to land on. My anxiety gets aggravated when I feel as though I can't trust "anything." I know this traces back to childhood under my mom's reign. The floor could never be trusted not to turn into lava in an instant. I compare how I feel, to this day, when I go to my dad's house versus how I feel dealing with people at large. I can just eat. I can simply sleep. I can talk or ask questions and not have to anticipate the backlash of doing so "wrong." I think there's so little we can actually trust, and the taken-for-granted aspects of our environment proved wholly untrustworthy in increasing ways over time.
I could count on one hand the amount of people I've tried to be friends with or would claim to be my family that haven't betrayed my trust. I genuinely wouldn't believe it was a thing to have were it not for my dad and grandma. There's a character from Blue Exorcist that comes to mind who is viciously self-reliant after being left helpless when her family abandoned her. For me, trust implies you have my best interests at heart in the same way I have yours. We're gonna buy each other drinks and meals and bowling games. In a car breakdown scenario, I'll brave the drive, the night, and weather to get you back home.
That feels like a level that should be almost throwaway obvious. What about deeper things? What about long-term commitments and investments? What about emotional well-being? What about when called to sacrifice or choose, they pick you? This is where I feel my longing to "really connect" with people has served to get me betrayed over and over. If I pull you into my camp, I'm spending money on you, I'm giving you all of my time, I'm using my tools, my energy, and my ideas to see what I can do for you. You have a particular priority? Let's put it first. It's not "you pick where to eat" or "whatever movie you like." It's, "Shit is as real as it gets and long-term stability is on the line."
I've wanted to feel "safe" my entire life. I'm always chasing or running no matter how much time I take between accomplishments to see a performance or marathon TV. I want to feel like my friends aren't going to ignore me when I'm afraid of dying via negligence. I want to know the bills can get paid with a fair amount of time and effort and I won't have to degrade or hollow out myself in service to "practicality." I want to know that when I defend going about the work I do in the way I do, I'm not going to have to look like a desperate hypocrite because something foundational has to be sacrificed in order to merely survive.
A couple months ago I wrote a little thing to an ex telling her I appreciated the work she had done and that I didn't want to haplessly fall into a pattern where everyone I'm close to becomes someone who never wants to talk to me again. She never responded to it. I asked her today whether she received it at all. She said, "I got it. What's the question?" All I wanted to know was whether or not she had gotten it, so it got left there. Immediately though, I feel the same pattern and same lesson is beating me over the head. An effort to contextualize or offer friendship is met with silence. I'm likely a thing she'll spend a considerable amount of her time trying not to think about, like most people I know.
Brandy follows through. My dad follows through. Hussain, when he isn't a ball of stress, follows through. When I say "follows through," I mean does the work of being accountable to our shared dynamic. It's not just that we're incidentally familiar or "friendly" with each other. It's that we exchange real shit that we mean and can trust and rely upon. For a time I would have said the same things about Byron and Allie, hence my larger time and financial investments. Most of my connections can't be bothered to answer a text within a week, let alone plan a trip or entertain the practical work of overhauling a living or work situation.
I'm not looking for anyone to blame. I'm just struck. I'm flabbergasted. I get exhausted thinking about it. I don't know if I'm missing some more insightful conclusion to draw. My friend recently told me she's trying to let go of the worry around making a mistake or the "wrong" decision. I can't tell you how long I've made seeking the next mistake and learning the wrong shit to do my mission. Nearly everything I pursue most earnestly or with the most history to back up what it's worth, the overwhelming feedback is that it's still wrong. From strangers, from "experts," from frequently opinionated onlookers. Fuck, from people I pay to do the wrong parts right. I'm just fucking up one thing after another until I get a 10 minute reprieve every few months.
I got home not too long ago from a…it was certainly a rendition…of Jesus Christ Superstar. Jesus predicts his betrayal. The people killing him aren't even sure why he must die, but figure out how to get there, washing their hands of any responsibility. I wonder how many people see themselves in Judas or the Pharisees. I wonder how many consider themselves background dancers and vocals, not stirring the pot, but not willing or able to step into their own spotlight. Does Jesus trust his apostles to do anything beyond betray him and prove him obviously correct? My phrasing for years has been that I "trust" people to do exactly as they show themselves to be. That's held true for everyone that's fucked me the hardest.
I trust your insecurity to win. I trust you'll get defensive. I trust you'll rely on cliches and extremely vague ironically-named pleasantries when you're unable to explain your behavior, decision making, or provide a personally responsible answer to a question. I trust your resentment and ambivalence. I trust you'll stay quiet more than anything. I trust you'll gossip. I trust you'll find ways to undermine things I'm trying to do, and you won't even be consciously aware of why, but you'll pick a turn of phrase or let some derogatory detail or comment inform the next person's view of what I'm doing. If you're the DCS regional management cunts you'll literally prevent us from getting paid at all to meet a gaping hole in service provision.
I can't stress how much I do not believe in our "better natures." I do not think we are fundamentally good. I'm certainly not. It takes me an incredible amount of effort not to act like what is offered to me. Do you think for a second I couldn't be rich preying on people? Do you think my concept of "fuck it" isn't capable of the kind of destruction you read about? I work to behave otherwise. I talk to myself. I share the struggle. I ground who I wish to be in examples, like this, because I only get to brush against them occasionally when I'm spending time with the small handful of people who remind me I'm not actually alone.
In a world that is fundamentally untrustworthy, how could I even believe, "The work will speak for itself?" That's been a consistent line I try to fall back on when I'm floundering. I certainly get the "You're so amazing!" feedback often enough, but I've said plenty on why you can't trust that. I'm thinking about the people with the money, or how the people who receive the work interpret what's happened. If all you practically are is worth the amount you can market yourself or convince and lie that your "mission" is the same, what then? I don't think our mission is the same. I think mine is to work. I think yours is to tell people you support those who "help."
The work certainly feels a different way. I don't care how poor I get, when I'm actually doing the right things, I feel better. I can allude to all of the terrible horrible places I can entertain as thought experiments, but not feel like I'm taking some chance that I'll make them come true. I know how crazy-making and rage-inducing it is to sit and seethe over greed, lies, and injustice. If there's 5 people left on the planet who see and feel the same shit I do, I want to find and work with them or die trying. I absolutely refuse to play along and let you win.
[1108] Oh Yeah
I "extra" don't know what I want to say with this. After a week or so of writing nearly every day 3 weeks ago, I've found enough to do or stay engaged with to find that ever-elusive "peace" or "balance." But, I'm home, and the obligations are calling again. The questions are popping up, and I'm left waiting and negotiating how far down I wish to travel in familiar rabbit holes.
One of the hardest things I navigate constantly is people telling me one thing, and then proceeding to do nothing. That is, if they don't do exactly the opposite of what they said they would do. Much as I try to make a certain kind of peace with the ambivalence "the world" treats its words and intentions, it's genuinely hard to understand how I, let alone anything, "work" in what appears to be a wholly unshared reality or sense of obligation.
I'm very careful about promising anything or saying I'll do something I don't want or know how to do. I qualify things with, "It'd be nice if I could," or "If these conditions are met," kind of sentiments. I don't tell you I have open availability if I'm overflowing with clients and can't take yours. I don't understand if you tell me, "I have over 100 every month and we're constantly looking for availability," and my phone isn't ringing every day. I don't understand how many people swear and promise and "will definitely do that" who don't even try.
I like that I can go back and read my perspective from 5 or 10 years ago. I strike so many of the same notes. It's the same feeling when I catch an episode of something from perhaps 60 years ago. There's just one conversation happening at all times. There's accessing a certain awareness and truth, or operating otherwise. I don't know how to describe my circumstances. I speculate that the "one conversation" used to be more intuitive when there weren't engines for isolating ourselves psychologically. Life and death were more viscerally felt. Consequences happened quicker. Now? It's like the fundamental environment is a caricature. Nothing is real. Every chance you might take to do something meaningful or impactful is undermined by default.
I'm deliberately trying to avoid catastrophizing with this exploration. I don't feel "hopeless" right now, but I do feel incredibly confused and paralyzed by the thoughts on what to do next. There's always options to spend more money. There's always options to be a squeaky, until you're regarded as annoying, wheel. There's always options to spin and complain and write the same blog a dozen times. What's the "best" or "more wise" thing to do next? It constantly feels like "wait." That'd be good enough were bills not still incoming or the overt cultural psychological distress that's relayed to me was being basically dealt with or alleviated.
I don't think we understand that silence is as much or more "the lie" at the heart of our behavior than anything else. When you don't or can't respond to something you're allegedly responsible and credentialled for, you're living a kind of lie that poisons us at our core. I can't feel good about too much time sitting around or watching TV. It is a lie that that is my obligation or "free choice" to make. If I want to feel good or like I deserve to live, I need to be contributing what I can where I can. This doesn't mean I have to exhaust myself or forgo indulgences. It does mean i could be spending considerably more time helping someone with their mess than I currently am.
How many times do you knock on doors and remind people? How much more available could I make myself? It feels like setting up the land. What's a more appealing circumstance than, "I have the time, tools, back, and knowledge to help you live for almost free." That's still almost universally rejected as a thought to even entertain, but lemme tell you how many posts I catch of people waxing about wanting to escape their current living situation. Now I've got addiction counseling as ODs and fentanyl flood the news landscape. Ok, let's talk. Hey, overwhelmed probation and addiction programs! Send me some of your people. Crickets?
I read a story of someone who had some extremely high level technical degree going door-to-door looking for a job. For as many times as I've talked about doing the same, this person was met with silence and a, "Oh, how sad" story about them. It feels like there's such an extreme disconnect between those with the money and resources and their professed intentions and the actual work it takes to improve things. Whether an A.I. takes over, or your "hot" job only needed people 10 years ago to enrich its current shareholders, or the new monopolies are content with their insurance schemes, there doesn't feel like any genuinely reliable roads to "normal."
I can't "just work on helping people" for any appreciable wage. "Let's network and build something!" Is just this fantasy and fake smile. "We're so overwhelmed," doesn't mean anything? "I'll definitely!" "Good luck!" "Our mission!" "That's so cool!" "That's exciting!" "I'm so looking forward to!" "I'll be in touch!" "This is a great opportunity!" I hear this shit a dozen times a week and I get NOTHING I don't personally grab myself. What the fuck am I supposed to do or think about that? I struggle to think I'm just impatient if I wait a week or more before I even send a one sentence follow up email or text. I struggle to think I'm unreasonable when I quote what you say to justify my severely-checked enthusiasm. What am I fucking missing?
I don't know how to capture the "I always feel wrong" feeling when I'm reaching out or talking to someone. It's like they can smell there's going to be some level of work, questions, or sacrifice that precludes a naive "easy" thing they imagined they wanted. No matter how quickly I could fix something, pay for something, or learn from something, there's zero interest in playing along. No amount of certifications, clarifications, polite reminders, or demonstrated examples and testimony breaks through. It suggests you have to Kool-Aid Man yourself into anything you profess to want to be a part of.
I also know it takes one piece of good news to wholly change how I might talk about my circumstances. I need one decently-sized grant. I need one or two more rich-enough individual donors. I still have 3-6 months I can tread water and look. It's tough because even with my business partner, I'm alone. I don't think he's seeing clients. I don't think he has the mental capacity to see clients right now, but I don't think he's going to just say that. That's what bugs me more than anything. I need people to not be lying to me. I need people with a remote grasp of their bandwidth, competence, and expectations. The next-level absurdity is when you think about how I'm attempting to talk to and work with literal therapists or counselors, "professional" writers, and otherwise leaders or supervisors in their particular realms.
I know when a stranger reads me they walk away with this impression that I'm disingenuously like screaming at people every day and wondering why no one wants to work with me. I've developed what feels like a superhuman level of patience and ability to stomach the empty pleasantries or professional communication. I have no one to talk to and nowhere to go to get anyone that empathizes with the nature of my issue. Why? They're swimming in it. They don't recognize it, or even care if they do or could. We've normalized nothing meaning anything to such an extent there's literally no constant authority a large plurality of people takes its cues from in how they too shall navigate the world.
You might get large corporations brainwashing people to accept their particular "family" values. You might get overwhelmed at an educational institution by youthful ignorance dictating policy. You might be an ardent follower of some podcaster or personality's world-spanning legion. Mostly, you'll just carry on like what I'm speaking to doesn't exist, or if it does, it's not as bad as I'm saying. You'll site the perks of your box and window into the world. And you'll do all of this in a moment of dismissive silent ego as you half-read what you think I'm saying. That's how I get, somehow, a little more isolated and the problem remains ever insurmountable.
I'm not attempting to work within a landscape that existed 5 years ago. I'm talking 2 months ago. I'm talking caseloads I've already juggled. I'm talking problems that were getting worse as I left each environment that was not interested in rising to the challenges. At some level it's dumb to expect a place that's seemingly proud of it's failing posture to reach out and do better. They didn't recognize or utilize you when you were plugged into them. Why would they go outside? Hey, Kool-Aid Man! That wall right there.
Increasingly it's looking like simple flyers and hitting the streets. I can't rely on people anymore than my clients can. It's not about sitting around and waiting for anyone to fix your problems. They can't even articulate or recognize the problems let alone fix them. They think it's a problem that I would even suggest there is one! Gotta just meet people one on one and one at a time.
One of the hardest things I navigate constantly is people telling me one thing, and then proceeding to do nothing. That is, if they don't do exactly the opposite of what they said they would do. Much as I try to make a certain kind of peace with the ambivalence "the world" treats its words and intentions, it's genuinely hard to understand how I, let alone anything, "work" in what appears to be a wholly unshared reality or sense of obligation.
I'm very careful about promising anything or saying I'll do something I don't want or know how to do. I qualify things with, "It'd be nice if I could," or "If these conditions are met," kind of sentiments. I don't tell you I have open availability if I'm overflowing with clients and can't take yours. I don't understand if you tell me, "I have over 100 every month and we're constantly looking for availability," and my phone isn't ringing every day. I don't understand how many people swear and promise and "will definitely do that" who don't even try.
I like that I can go back and read my perspective from 5 or 10 years ago. I strike so many of the same notes. It's the same feeling when I catch an episode of something from perhaps 60 years ago. There's just one conversation happening at all times. There's accessing a certain awareness and truth, or operating otherwise. I don't know how to describe my circumstances. I speculate that the "one conversation" used to be more intuitive when there weren't engines for isolating ourselves psychologically. Life and death were more viscerally felt. Consequences happened quicker. Now? It's like the fundamental environment is a caricature. Nothing is real. Every chance you might take to do something meaningful or impactful is undermined by default.
I'm deliberately trying to avoid catastrophizing with this exploration. I don't feel "hopeless" right now, but I do feel incredibly confused and paralyzed by the thoughts on what to do next. There's always options to spend more money. There's always options to be a squeaky, until you're regarded as annoying, wheel. There's always options to spin and complain and write the same blog a dozen times. What's the "best" or "more wise" thing to do next? It constantly feels like "wait." That'd be good enough were bills not still incoming or the overt cultural psychological distress that's relayed to me was being basically dealt with or alleviated.
I don't think we understand that silence is as much or more "the lie" at the heart of our behavior than anything else. When you don't or can't respond to something you're allegedly responsible and credentialled for, you're living a kind of lie that poisons us at our core. I can't feel good about too much time sitting around or watching TV. It is a lie that that is my obligation or "free choice" to make. If I want to feel good or like I deserve to live, I need to be contributing what I can where I can. This doesn't mean I have to exhaust myself or forgo indulgences. It does mean i could be spending considerably more time helping someone with their mess than I currently am.
How many times do you knock on doors and remind people? How much more available could I make myself? It feels like setting up the land. What's a more appealing circumstance than, "I have the time, tools, back, and knowledge to help you live for almost free." That's still almost universally rejected as a thought to even entertain, but lemme tell you how many posts I catch of people waxing about wanting to escape their current living situation. Now I've got addiction counseling as ODs and fentanyl flood the news landscape. Ok, let's talk. Hey, overwhelmed probation and addiction programs! Send me some of your people. Crickets?
I read a story of someone who had some extremely high level technical degree going door-to-door looking for a job. For as many times as I've talked about doing the same, this person was met with silence and a, "Oh, how sad" story about them. It feels like there's such an extreme disconnect between those with the money and resources and their professed intentions and the actual work it takes to improve things. Whether an A.I. takes over, or your "hot" job only needed people 10 years ago to enrich its current shareholders, or the new monopolies are content with their insurance schemes, there doesn't feel like any genuinely reliable roads to "normal."
I can't "just work on helping people" for any appreciable wage. "Let's network and build something!" Is just this fantasy and fake smile. "We're so overwhelmed," doesn't mean anything? "I'll definitely!" "Good luck!" "Our mission!" "That's so cool!" "That's exciting!" "I'm so looking forward to!" "I'll be in touch!" "This is a great opportunity!" I hear this shit a dozen times a week and I get NOTHING I don't personally grab myself. What the fuck am I supposed to do or think about that? I struggle to think I'm just impatient if I wait a week or more before I even send a one sentence follow up email or text. I struggle to think I'm unreasonable when I quote what you say to justify my severely-checked enthusiasm. What am I fucking missing?
I don't know how to capture the "I always feel wrong" feeling when I'm reaching out or talking to someone. It's like they can smell there's going to be some level of work, questions, or sacrifice that precludes a naive "easy" thing they imagined they wanted. No matter how quickly I could fix something, pay for something, or learn from something, there's zero interest in playing along. No amount of certifications, clarifications, polite reminders, or demonstrated examples and testimony breaks through. It suggests you have to Kool-Aid Man yourself into anything you profess to want to be a part of.
I also know it takes one piece of good news to wholly change how I might talk about my circumstances. I need one decently-sized grant. I need one or two more rich-enough individual donors. I still have 3-6 months I can tread water and look. It's tough because even with my business partner, I'm alone. I don't think he's seeing clients. I don't think he has the mental capacity to see clients right now, but I don't think he's going to just say that. That's what bugs me more than anything. I need people to not be lying to me. I need people with a remote grasp of their bandwidth, competence, and expectations. The next-level absurdity is when you think about how I'm attempting to talk to and work with literal therapists or counselors, "professional" writers, and otherwise leaders or supervisors in their particular realms.
I know when a stranger reads me they walk away with this impression that I'm disingenuously like screaming at people every day and wondering why no one wants to work with me. I've developed what feels like a superhuman level of patience and ability to stomach the empty pleasantries or professional communication. I have no one to talk to and nowhere to go to get anyone that empathizes with the nature of my issue. Why? They're swimming in it. They don't recognize it, or even care if they do or could. We've normalized nothing meaning anything to such an extent there's literally no constant authority a large plurality of people takes its cues from in how they too shall navigate the world.
You might get large corporations brainwashing people to accept their particular "family" values. You might get overwhelmed at an educational institution by youthful ignorance dictating policy. You might be an ardent follower of some podcaster or personality's world-spanning legion. Mostly, you'll just carry on like what I'm speaking to doesn't exist, or if it does, it's not as bad as I'm saying. You'll site the perks of your box and window into the world. And you'll do all of this in a moment of dismissive silent ego as you half-read what you think I'm saying. That's how I get, somehow, a little more isolated and the problem remains ever insurmountable.
I'm not attempting to work within a landscape that existed 5 years ago. I'm talking 2 months ago. I'm talking caseloads I've already juggled. I'm talking problems that were getting worse as I left each environment that was not interested in rising to the challenges. At some level it's dumb to expect a place that's seemingly proud of it's failing posture to reach out and do better. They didn't recognize or utilize you when you were plugged into them. Why would they go outside? Hey, Kool-Aid Man! That wall right there.
Increasingly it's looking like simple flyers and hitting the streets. I can't rely on people anymore than my clients can. It's not about sitting around and waiting for anyone to fix your problems. They can't even articulate or recognize the problems let alone fix them. They think it's a problem that I would even suggest there is one! Gotta just meet people one on one and one at a time.
Sunday, February 11, 2024
[1107] White Whale
An idea I brush against every so often is being "afraid of success." It's not a fear of responsibility or doing more work. It's not as if things will be unearned. But there's moments where I'm on the verge of doing "the next right thing" in service to my goals, and a flourish of panic will creep in. Some of it is just being forlorn and annoyed that I'm finally capitulating on something that's going to cost money, or be boring and time consuming. Some of it is anticipating getting the effort or the next series of incoming consequences thrown in my face. But, some of it definitely is concerned that it will simply work as intended, I'll be right, and then I'm left alone, correct, and then either waiting for something shitty to happen or dumbfounded it took so long.
Each individual piece of the complex puzzles I try to put together are never that hard. It's spending money. It's taking a giant breath so I don't berate someone for their insanity-making response to something I've said. It's asking the next question, or waiting around indefinitely for a response. Every piece of my house, every pallet and brick and tool it took to get them here, was just a series of "next best things" to do in service to the goal. I know what I should be practicing on the guitar to push me into the next level, just like I know what I need to do with the business.
It's the goal or goals that have become…looser? Foggier? Less insisted upon? A lot of what I initially drove myself to believe I could achieve came from an idolized concept of my intelligence, focus, and obsessiveness. I did, sincerely, in a manner of speaking, want to "take over the world," if only for a moment. I don't want the world anymore. I didn't have a great idea of what I meant by that when I said it at the time. I wanted more power and control. I wanted money. I wanted things I wasn't feeling I had and not claiming to want things I took for granted I already did.
Some of the more dramatic shifts have been in the underlying assumptions betrayed by lived experience. I won't necessarily succeed because I'm smart, obsessed, or focused. There's a fuck ton of luck. There's opportunities that exist at certain times in your life that are harder to cultivate or find at others, at least if you're not rich. No one, and I mean no one, can be "saved" from "the human condition" that gets addicted, self-sabotages, and exists in perfect metaphor as a refutation or contradiction of personal accountability. That's a person who can't accept that "the world" isn't a "thing" to "have" so much as a nugget of their personal narrative that maybe isn't serving them anymore. I never concerned myself that it's always the villain who has the same goal in the cartoons, The Brain didn't seem so bad.
I took my first real better step in denoting time as the thing I valued more than money. When it comes to owning a business, I was initially driven by the idea of making as much money as possible. Turns out, I can be incredibly busy with fun things I like to do, eat a ton of good food, buy expensive (to me) toys, and see people I actually want to for like $30K, $10K of that for bills. Huh. Math strikes again. If I had millions, I'm not convinced I'd be surrounded with friends or that the overall psychological morass would subside. Until I felt the financial and physical implications of even trying to manage a shed or 3, the giant dream home idea never registered in practical terms. I hadn't had a particularly long stint of feeling "safe" or "comfortable" in what I was doing or living in, so I kept looking for the next thing.
I like my house. I'd improve dozens of things, but this is my safe space. This is where I embody ownership and growth. This is where I feel free to fuck about. When I leave, I want it to be when I want and headed towards things of my choosing. That's been fairly true in an increasing way over the last 3 years. If I get a robust referral system and or yearly grant writer who nets the cash to keep the bills paid, I've won one of the hardest challenges I've set out for myself since I began. What then? I suspect the next series of problems and goals will call out to me, but I'm kind of staring over a cliff. Putting together a case load isn't rocket science.
Part of me doesn't feel allowed to be "okay." I feel often isolated in my effort and opposition to the circumstances that seem to keep us all quiet and oppressed. If I shuffle myself into some contented corner of the world, does it follow that the things I'm concerned about will burn that much faster? Should I care? Is there any way to actually measure what alleged impact I might be having? I don't suspect so. I do believe the more you account for locally you get the most positively impactful ripples macroly. I don't mean by your personal effort to recycle you'll save the planet. What's more local than being okay in your own brain?
Something I was less aware of in the past as well was needing to have my back against the wall or an adversary to fight against. Most often it was because, "Fuck you, watch this" and my so-named spite engine driving things. I didn't suspect I'd lose pretty much all of my respect for any given person as I got older. You have to understand what a naive true believer I was. I thought the world was full of adults. I thought people who did well and did things well were in charge. I thought you got out what you put in and that there were genuine forces you could put on one side or another as far as a morality or action tale.
I've remarked before how doing well in school was rewarded. I was safer when my mom wasn't pissed or finding excuses to beat me. I got recognition and handed more to do when I completed reading lists or bonus assignments. Obviously, no one gives a shit how much you do or accomplish as you get older as they bemoan trying to keep their heads above water. Don't you dare offer to help or you'll interfere with the same pride that was irrationally driving you. Little boosts like being better than average at something in high school pale in comparison to what you witness every day online so you, hopefully, figure out the joy in the work and nature of the process before you go mad trying to relive former glory.
Now? I kinda wanna watch my shows, go to music camp, go bowling, make money talking to people or helping them with things that I find easier, and mostly sit back and watch. For a minute there I wanted to get politically involved until it really sank in it's our broken cultural environment and psychology that's at bottom. I've wanted to influence "culture" since I've started writing, and I think I have and retain the capacity to do so. It just looks a lot like social work and blood feuds with irresponsible agencies more than house parties.
I've mostly always had more of an eye to the future more than the moment. Writing is a practice, not a disposition. Thinking constantly and fighting back a propensity to spiral out of anxious control is the disposition. If I'd finally done enough in cultivating my outside environment to allow me to occupy more of the present moment? Is that not just forming another excuse or metaphorical adversary? Excuse to do what? Stay salty and dream? I think I'm okay with that. I don't know that I want to be liberated from a certain kind of suffering or discomfort. I need obstacles and friction to exercise creativity and feel like I've accomplished something. Matter-of-factly stepping from one soulless series of movements to the next is like invincibility cheat codes. Why are you even playing the game?
I want a compelling story. I want things to be interesting, and I want the main characters to matter enough to be worthy of mourning. I want to see a unique expression of how genuine personalities relate to each other and their circumstances. The stories that get passed down are about the people who do things. The ones who travel to hell and back. The ones who fight monsters. The ones who look for that which is yet discovered. It's people who are trying and disappearing into the mysticism of existence itself. I wanna do magic shit.
It really is no wonder I was willing to dare the consequences of relationships or friendships that never really locked in. I wanna be in a band of cartoon pirates as much I do the fields of Letterkenny as much as I do the bridge of Serenity. I have supports, don't get me wrong. I do not have a team with a mission or spirit of adventure. I'm not part of a federation, squad, or a community thrown together by wacky circumstances, but staying together because they feel the same heartbeat.
That's another piece of my imagination that was severely lacking. I never really envisioned a future where I was alone. I took the empty sentimentality and pipe-dreaming of the friends I had much further than they ever intended. I assumed with a degree of money, energy, planning, and invitations people would be lining up for nights out and to keep the conversation going. I might be captain of the party boat, or 5th grade tag group, or CFTM, or recovery meetings, or now this nonprofit, but ain't no one following me nowhere. I do the work and tend to get what I want, but I think I'm hunting bigger monsters while many are wondering why I'm hunting at all.
Each individual piece of the complex puzzles I try to put together are never that hard. It's spending money. It's taking a giant breath so I don't berate someone for their insanity-making response to something I've said. It's asking the next question, or waiting around indefinitely for a response. Every piece of my house, every pallet and brick and tool it took to get them here, was just a series of "next best things" to do in service to the goal. I know what I should be practicing on the guitar to push me into the next level, just like I know what I need to do with the business.
It's the goal or goals that have become…looser? Foggier? Less insisted upon? A lot of what I initially drove myself to believe I could achieve came from an idolized concept of my intelligence, focus, and obsessiveness. I did, sincerely, in a manner of speaking, want to "take over the world," if only for a moment. I don't want the world anymore. I didn't have a great idea of what I meant by that when I said it at the time. I wanted more power and control. I wanted money. I wanted things I wasn't feeling I had and not claiming to want things I took for granted I already did.
Some of the more dramatic shifts have been in the underlying assumptions betrayed by lived experience. I won't necessarily succeed because I'm smart, obsessed, or focused. There's a fuck ton of luck. There's opportunities that exist at certain times in your life that are harder to cultivate or find at others, at least if you're not rich. No one, and I mean no one, can be "saved" from "the human condition" that gets addicted, self-sabotages, and exists in perfect metaphor as a refutation or contradiction of personal accountability. That's a person who can't accept that "the world" isn't a "thing" to "have" so much as a nugget of their personal narrative that maybe isn't serving them anymore. I never concerned myself that it's always the villain who has the same goal in the cartoons, The Brain didn't seem so bad.
I took my first real better step in denoting time as the thing I valued more than money. When it comes to owning a business, I was initially driven by the idea of making as much money as possible. Turns out, I can be incredibly busy with fun things I like to do, eat a ton of good food, buy expensive (to me) toys, and see people I actually want to for like $30K, $10K of that for bills. Huh. Math strikes again. If I had millions, I'm not convinced I'd be surrounded with friends or that the overall psychological morass would subside. Until I felt the financial and physical implications of even trying to manage a shed or 3, the giant dream home idea never registered in practical terms. I hadn't had a particularly long stint of feeling "safe" or "comfortable" in what I was doing or living in, so I kept looking for the next thing.
I like my house. I'd improve dozens of things, but this is my safe space. This is where I embody ownership and growth. This is where I feel free to fuck about. When I leave, I want it to be when I want and headed towards things of my choosing. That's been fairly true in an increasing way over the last 3 years. If I get a robust referral system and or yearly grant writer who nets the cash to keep the bills paid, I've won one of the hardest challenges I've set out for myself since I began. What then? I suspect the next series of problems and goals will call out to me, but I'm kind of staring over a cliff. Putting together a case load isn't rocket science.
Part of me doesn't feel allowed to be "okay." I feel often isolated in my effort and opposition to the circumstances that seem to keep us all quiet and oppressed. If I shuffle myself into some contented corner of the world, does it follow that the things I'm concerned about will burn that much faster? Should I care? Is there any way to actually measure what alleged impact I might be having? I don't suspect so. I do believe the more you account for locally you get the most positively impactful ripples macroly. I don't mean by your personal effort to recycle you'll save the planet. What's more local than being okay in your own brain?
Something I was less aware of in the past as well was needing to have my back against the wall or an adversary to fight against. Most often it was because, "Fuck you, watch this" and my so-named spite engine driving things. I didn't suspect I'd lose pretty much all of my respect for any given person as I got older. You have to understand what a naive true believer I was. I thought the world was full of adults. I thought people who did well and did things well were in charge. I thought you got out what you put in and that there were genuine forces you could put on one side or another as far as a morality or action tale.
I've remarked before how doing well in school was rewarded. I was safer when my mom wasn't pissed or finding excuses to beat me. I got recognition and handed more to do when I completed reading lists or bonus assignments. Obviously, no one gives a shit how much you do or accomplish as you get older as they bemoan trying to keep their heads above water. Don't you dare offer to help or you'll interfere with the same pride that was irrationally driving you. Little boosts like being better than average at something in high school pale in comparison to what you witness every day online so you, hopefully, figure out the joy in the work and nature of the process before you go mad trying to relive former glory.
Now? I kinda wanna watch my shows, go to music camp, go bowling, make money talking to people or helping them with things that I find easier, and mostly sit back and watch. For a minute there I wanted to get politically involved until it really sank in it's our broken cultural environment and psychology that's at bottom. I've wanted to influence "culture" since I've started writing, and I think I have and retain the capacity to do so. It just looks a lot like social work and blood feuds with irresponsible agencies more than house parties.
I've mostly always had more of an eye to the future more than the moment. Writing is a practice, not a disposition. Thinking constantly and fighting back a propensity to spiral out of anxious control is the disposition. If I'd finally done enough in cultivating my outside environment to allow me to occupy more of the present moment? Is that not just forming another excuse or metaphorical adversary? Excuse to do what? Stay salty and dream? I think I'm okay with that. I don't know that I want to be liberated from a certain kind of suffering or discomfort. I need obstacles and friction to exercise creativity and feel like I've accomplished something. Matter-of-factly stepping from one soulless series of movements to the next is like invincibility cheat codes. Why are you even playing the game?
I want a compelling story. I want things to be interesting, and I want the main characters to matter enough to be worthy of mourning. I want to see a unique expression of how genuine personalities relate to each other and their circumstances. The stories that get passed down are about the people who do things. The ones who travel to hell and back. The ones who fight monsters. The ones who look for that which is yet discovered. It's people who are trying and disappearing into the mysticism of existence itself. I wanna do magic shit.
It really is no wonder I was willing to dare the consequences of relationships or friendships that never really locked in. I wanna be in a band of cartoon pirates as much I do the fields of Letterkenny as much as I do the bridge of Serenity. I have supports, don't get me wrong. I do not have a team with a mission or spirit of adventure. I'm not part of a federation, squad, or a community thrown together by wacky circumstances, but staying together because they feel the same heartbeat.
That's another piece of my imagination that was severely lacking. I never really envisioned a future where I was alone. I took the empty sentimentality and pipe-dreaming of the friends I had much further than they ever intended. I assumed with a degree of money, energy, planning, and invitations people would be lining up for nights out and to keep the conversation going. I might be captain of the party boat, or 5th grade tag group, or CFTM, or recovery meetings, or now this nonprofit, but ain't no one following me nowhere. I do the work and tend to get what I want, but I think I'm hunting bigger monsters while many are wondering why I'm hunting at all.
Saturday, February 10, 2024
[1106] Mercedes Baby
I think the most powerful reason you would ever state you are concerned about someone "poisoning minds" is that you know, whether you wish to state it explicitly or not, that people are dumb as fuck and your own mind has been poisoned.
Joe Rogan is a moron. Joe Rogan has always been a moron. If you're worried that the moron is telling other morons to take advice and find commonalities with Alex Jones, Aaron Rogers, or other morons, you gotta move on through to accepting the depth of the moron pool we're swimming in.
Then what? What's your responsibility if this is the environment? Upvote the reddit post? Complain? Hashtag campaign? Traditionally, it seems you forget to vote, fail to organize, refuse to create systems or long-term accountable intelligent competitive environments. We've taken our institutions, history, and barely-true story of ourselves for granted. Trump, the nationalism around the globe, idiots like Rogan: these are the natural consequences of y/our bullshit.
You want "things" to be better and trust that the conversational or intellectual pollutants don't reach deadly toxic levels? Stop enabling them. Don't listen, first. Don't ignore the reasons they take hold and get popular. Don't stop asking yourself how you're complicit or in what area of your life you sound just like them.
You're not better than the craziest dumbest worst influence you can point to. You're not even good at hiding it. That's what we're fucking up. You don't have to be Alex Jones-level crazy to live in denial, lie, feel morally and righteously entitled to your small window on the world, or artfully construct narratives of who's to blame. I've seen museum curators on 60-minutes sound like meth addicts. The real drug is the story you're telling about yourself.
My "liberal," "educated," "not crazy" "friends" over the years have proven as lazy, judgmental, disingenuous, full of shit, and unhelpful as any genuine cunt I've ever met. I bet their private self-sacrifices or donations or rainbow flag sticker serves as a healthy pat on the 'ol back about how stalwart they are in their defense of a deliberately vague sense and hope for a brighter future. So much fucking complaining, in the same style over the same shit as we just repeat the same fuck ups that got us here.
It will take commitment, work, accountability, sacrifice, truth, networking, painful bravery, and decades of time in the face of incredible odds to claw back any remote sense of order or safety or sense. You think our zeitgeist of exhaustion, anger, distraction, excuses, ascendant authoritarianism, and reinforced motivated denial are up to the task? "My" people aren't mine, talking in whispers or cliches. My environment is primarily one of isolation, day-by-day, and desperate pleas for genuine engagement. You think I give a fuck about Joe Rogan in any real way?
I care about the "good natured" people in my professional orbits who lie to my face about how happy they are for me or how concerned they are about their clients. I care about the "friends" who bemoan "society" but can't be bothered to preserve or build one that cares to have me in it. I care about opportunities I've pursued or attempted to provide people only for them to have been resented, destroyed, or ignored. I care about how hard it is to find leaders. I care about how daily stories of success or accountability, the only building blocks that will work, get washed away by complacency.
1 in 10. I still maintain that 1 in 10 is the rule you can apply up and down levels of focus or hierarchy as to why anything works or doesn't anywhere. There's 1 person, doing 1 thing right, along 1 domain, and 9 intersecting with their effort to fuck it up. Within that 1 person, they have 1 thing, the story they tell about themselves, they'll overburden to account for the 9 other things they're fucking up.
You might be a people person and a terrible manager, so you and everyone you know will get roped into the story of how nice you are as your 1 not-dipshit employee keeps the business alive.
You might be a smart person with zero insight as to how people speak leading you to be naive and missing a crucial piece of what informs your ability to self-evaluate. The story of your smartness will do the heavy lifting unconcerned with wisdom or unknown unknowns.
You might be a "normal" or "boring" person, self-described. The connotative boost to your held-harmless posture let's you "just" say things as though your words and behavior are devoid of consequences.
Why am I confident I could listen to Joe Rogan for 10,000 hours and never find myself shaking Alex Jones's hand and excited to explore "mere questions" about Sandy Hook, vaccines, or whatever latest conspiracy comes spewing out of their asses? What's my brain doing that yours isn't? What's my brain doing that you don't trust someone else's to do? What's my brain doing that you can't recognize or define for yourself? I'm asking questions of myself. I'm asking questions of you that 9 out of 10 are going to ignore and pretend never got asked.
Why?
You're exhausted. You're angry. You're isolated. You're confused. You're distracted. You're lazy. You're a liar. You're scared. You're cunty and condescending. You're not wise. You're not smart. You're working on the reactionary justification impulse to downplay and dismiss my accusations, if you're reading this at all, before you even get to the end of the paragraph let alone piece.
I'm exhausted. I'm angry. I'm isolated. I'm confused. I'm distracted. I'm lazy. I'm a liar. I'm scared. I'm a cunt and condescending. I'm not smart. I'm not wise. I felt and suppressed a reactionary impulse because I'm both reading and writing as an accountable process of contextualizing and sanding off the sharpest edges of those true statements. It's not "whether" they're true, it's "how" they're true and what your process is to account for them.
When I'm exhausted, I pause. I don't stop entirely. When I'm angry, I say so, then write, then contextualize and search for a better definition of what I think I'm angry at. When I'm isolated, I make plans so I have things to look forward to that put me out in the world. When I'm confused I read more about the topic and ask questions. When I'm lazy, I apologize for not taking the time or putting in the effort. When I lie it's to protect myself from entities or people I don't respect or who maintain power over me. I'm scared that I'm more psychologically motivated by retribution and demonstrating how I'm right than almost anything else. Is being a condescending cunt not self-evident? I'm incidentally informed about a handful of things in any given moment that are constantly evolving. My awareness of that is about the extent of my wisdom.
Whatever peace I might maintain gets threatened by an email, shitty driver, being hungry, or sometimes even the weather. By disposition I'm not less reactionary. I'm no less informed by early trauma. I'm no less piecing together messy and incomplete pieces of a story about myself and alleged desires and perspective on how to achieve them. No matter how much I achieve or how quickly, I'm impatient. I'm demanding. I'm suffering my seemingly unfair and unreasonable expectations constantly. Accepting and building that awareness into how I navigate the world is my salvation. It doesn't take magic. It's just personal responsibility. I think, on the whole, we are practically and "spiritually" devoid of the concept. Whatever amount of it we have, it's in service to the 1 in 10 dimension that makes us feel the best.
As as average non or skim-readers reflexively like to point out to me, I don't "seem" to look, sound, or feel the best. Yeah. Thanks for nothing.
Joe Rogan is a moron. Joe Rogan has always been a moron. If you're worried that the moron is telling other morons to take advice and find commonalities with Alex Jones, Aaron Rogers, or other morons, you gotta move on through to accepting the depth of the moron pool we're swimming in.
Then what? What's your responsibility if this is the environment? Upvote the reddit post? Complain? Hashtag campaign? Traditionally, it seems you forget to vote, fail to organize, refuse to create systems or long-term accountable intelligent competitive environments. We've taken our institutions, history, and barely-true story of ourselves for granted. Trump, the nationalism around the globe, idiots like Rogan: these are the natural consequences of y/our bullshit.
You want "things" to be better and trust that the conversational or intellectual pollutants don't reach deadly toxic levels? Stop enabling them. Don't listen, first. Don't ignore the reasons they take hold and get popular. Don't stop asking yourself how you're complicit or in what area of your life you sound just like them.
You're not better than the craziest dumbest worst influence you can point to. You're not even good at hiding it. That's what we're fucking up. You don't have to be Alex Jones-level crazy to live in denial, lie, feel morally and righteously entitled to your small window on the world, or artfully construct narratives of who's to blame. I've seen museum curators on 60-minutes sound like meth addicts. The real drug is the story you're telling about yourself.
My "liberal," "educated," "not crazy" "friends" over the years have proven as lazy, judgmental, disingenuous, full of shit, and unhelpful as any genuine cunt I've ever met. I bet their private self-sacrifices or donations or rainbow flag sticker serves as a healthy pat on the 'ol back about how stalwart they are in their defense of a deliberately vague sense and hope for a brighter future. So much fucking complaining, in the same style over the same shit as we just repeat the same fuck ups that got us here.
It will take commitment, work, accountability, sacrifice, truth, networking, painful bravery, and decades of time in the face of incredible odds to claw back any remote sense of order or safety or sense. You think our zeitgeist of exhaustion, anger, distraction, excuses, ascendant authoritarianism, and reinforced motivated denial are up to the task? "My" people aren't mine, talking in whispers or cliches. My environment is primarily one of isolation, day-by-day, and desperate pleas for genuine engagement. You think I give a fuck about Joe Rogan in any real way?
I care about the "good natured" people in my professional orbits who lie to my face about how happy they are for me or how concerned they are about their clients. I care about the "friends" who bemoan "society" but can't be bothered to preserve or build one that cares to have me in it. I care about opportunities I've pursued or attempted to provide people only for them to have been resented, destroyed, or ignored. I care about how hard it is to find leaders. I care about how daily stories of success or accountability, the only building blocks that will work, get washed away by complacency.
1 in 10. I still maintain that 1 in 10 is the rule you can apply up and down levels of focus or hierarchy as to why anything works or doesn't anywhere. There's 1 person, doing 1 thing right, along 1 domain, and 9 intersecting with their effort to fuck it up. Within that 1 person, they have 1 thing, the story they tell about themselves, they'll overburden to account for the 9 other things they're fucking up.
You might be a people person and a terrible manager, so you and everyone you know will get roped into the story of how nice you are as your 1 not-dipshit employee keeps the business alive.
You might be a smart person with zero insight as to how people speak leading you to be naive and missing a crucial piece of what informs your ability to self-evaluate. The story of your smartness will do the heavy lifting unconcerned with wisdom or unknown unknowns.
You might be a "normal" or "boring" person, self-described. The connotative boost to your held-harmless posture let's you "just" say things as though your words and behavior are devoid of consequences.
Why am I confident I could listen to Joe Rogan for 10,000 hours and never find myself shaking Alex Jones's hand and excited to explore "mere questions" about Sandy Hook, vaccines, or whatever latest conspiracy comes spewing out of their asses? What's my brain doing that yours isn't? What's my brain doing that you don't trust someone else's to do? What's my brain doing that you can't recognize or define for yourself? I'm asking questions of myself. I'm asking questions of you that 9 out of 10 are going to ignore and pretend never got asked.
Why?
You're exhausted. You're angry. You're isolated. You're confused. You're distracted. You're lazy. You're a liar. You're scared. You're cunty and condescending. You're not wise. You're not smart. You're working on the reactionary justification impulse to downplay and dismiss my accusations, if you're reading this at all, before you even get to the end of the paragraph let alone piece.
I'm exhausted. I'm angry. I'm isolated. I'm confused. I'm distracted. I'm lazy. I'm a liar. I'm scared. I'm a cunt and condescending. I'm not smart. I'm not wise. I felt and suppressed a reactionary impulse because I'm both reading and writing as an accountable process of contextualizing and sanding off the sharpest edges of those true statements. It's not "whether" they're true, it's "how" they're true and what your process is to account for them.
When I'm exhausted, I pause. I don't stop entirely. When I'm angry, I say so, then write, then contextualize and search for a better definition of what I think I'm angry at. When I'm isolated, I make plans so I have things to look forward to that put me out in the world. When I'm confused I read more about the topic and ask questions. When I'm lazy, I apologize for not taking the time or putting in the effort. When I lie it's to protect myself from entities or people I don't respect or who maintain power over me. I'm scared that I'm more psychologically motivated by retribution and demonstrating how I'm right than almost anything else. Is being a condescending cunt not self-evident? I'm incidentally informed about a handful of things in any given moment that are constantly evolving. My awareness of that is about the extent of my wisdom.
Whatever peace I might maintain gets threatened by an email, shitty driver, being hungry, or sometimes even the weather. By disposition I'm not less reactionary. I'm no less informed by early trauma. I'm no less piecing together messy and incomplete pieces of a story about myself and alleged desires and perspective on how to achieve them. No matter how much I achieve or how quickly, I'm impatient. I'm demanding. I'm suffering my seemingly unfair and unreasonable expectations constantly. Accepting and building that awareness into how I navigate the world is my salvation. It doesn't take magic. It's just personal responsibility. I think, on the whole, we are practically and "spiritually" devoid of the concept. Whatever amount of it we have, it's in service to the 1 in 10 dimension that makes us feel the best.
As as average non or skim-readers reflexively like to point out to me, I don't "seem" to look, sound, or feel the best. Yeah. Thanks for nothing.
Thursday, February 8, 2024
[1105] WTF Was I Thinking?
I'm not crazy. I'm not. I'm not incoherent. Saying a lot of words does mean they are stupid words. Being detailed does not mean the details are irrelevant or in conflict. I'm not crazy. I'm not a fucking moron. I'm not deliberately or lazily going about what I'm trying to create. I'm not unreasonable. I'm not intractably argumentative or defensive. I'm not at the mercy of some insecurity or reasonable doubt I've been fighting to ignore. I'm not crazy. What I do and try to work on matters. I'm not alone. I'm never out of options. Money can be made back. Fortunes can change in an instant. I'm not crazy. My words have meaning.
I can breathe. I can breathe even if I can't believe. I can take the time to feel my breath. I can stop squinting. I don't have to tense up my temple or forehead. I don't have to wait in eager anticipation for the next dumb thing someone I've tried to hire says. I've wasted more money in the past and made it back. I've had more frustrating conversations. I have more room for the actual work, doing it for free or otherwise. I have several months of leeway to get in front of people.
You can't accuse me of not trying. If you can say nothing else about me, I'm working incredibly hard to, not just manage my own sometimes rollercoastering experience of stress and communication difficulties, but I put my money where my mouth is. I, in a bid to consistently demonstrate my values, risk and try and fight. I'm in pain right now in service to it. I wish that writing was doing what it's supposed to do and bringing the temperature down in my face and letting my ache subside in my head. But there's just so much left unsaid and so many things that are implicated with each new horrifying discovery.
Part of my pain comes from a desire to move "too fast." I feel a small sense of momentum. If I was the only one implicated in that momentum, I wouldn't have a problem. Because I have to wait to hear from people, or reach out after they haven't done so themselves in what feels like a timely and accountable way, my momentum has to turn around and drag or chase people. That hurts. Why can't you keep up? I'm not asking you to do what I do. I'm asking you, I'm paying you, to do what you say you do. Here, we get acquainted with the next painful reality.
You lie. You aren't a professional. You aren't good or quick or intuitive or practiced in what you do. You aren't even using the words associated with what someone who does do what you claim to do would use. I'm not even sure if you know you're lying. Regardless, I experience pain and stress each time you say or do something that costs me time, money, and effort trying to decode or untangle what you've lied about.
We're at 2 points of pain. Positive momentum gets turned into punishing break checks. Invested money and energy to specify timely goals gets functionally mocked and burned.
Then I have my own self-evaluation that constantly speculates about whether or not I'm going about things "good enough." I have a decent history of doing a lot of really cool, demonstrated proficiency, or unique and "new skill required" things. The same sensibility and reasoning I try to apply to new domains and things I wish to accomplish. Each betrayal of my sensibility makes me feel like the universe I've otherwise occupied up until that point is completely backwards. I'm stuck feeling perpetually gaslit. Surely my tools can't be irreparably broken? My life makes sense outside of these specific interactions.
I have to qualify that further. It makes sense in my extremely small context. If I apply my words, effort, money, or reasoning to something that's just involving me, I can get it to work. If I involve one other person I've got a history with who I can trust makes sense, we can make that work. I can say something, they understand it, we can both execute our individual moves, and it feels like magic. Those are the ones who I can travel to see. Those are the ones where we can shuffle larger sums of money or effort back and forth in service to each other.
My head takes the pain a step beyond. I have this incredibly disquieting and terrible interaction, and then I jump into wondering and feeling the pain of deep skepticism about anything working, working as it "should," or the prospects of breaking through without adopting a litany of amoral behaviors. I say amoral and not immoral because, under the dictates of capitalism or the fluffy self-servicing image-management and politics language of the nonprofit space, the rules don't consider practical human reality. You can lie there because lies aren't defined. You can call yourself a genius disruptor manager, and no one's following you recording the consequences of your behavior.
I'm terrified of ever being persuaded to be that kind of person. I don't have a lot of legitimate fears, but being the equivalent of a walking dead Alzheimer's patient who forgets or forgoes the distinctions between a morally culpable and rational actor and "following orders" is one of them. The temptation is there because, who wants to look, feel, or sound as stressed as I do when I talk about this stuff? What am I getting from fighting about this or explaining it again?
If me and 5-ish people are the only ones I can trust in this life, I'm going to die defending this reality I know exists and know is better than my experience of the alternatives. The irony of not doing so and also claiming to be a good addiction counselor should be allowed to kill me. I listen to self-serving delusional narratives and excuse-providing cliches for a living. Your god help me if I'm not a firehose of distinctions.
I ask people to define their goals and purpose all the time. Why are you letting (x) stress you out? What is your goal or relationship to that detail? For me? I'm worried about debt. I'm worried that I can't even pay people to do the things they profess to be able to do. That's a crazy-making circumstance. That suggests it's 100% luck and who you know that gets anyone any sizeable amount of money, and the work you do is completely irrelevant to the story you concoct about it. I can't live like that. That makes me want to give entirely up and just focus on indulgence and isolation.
I have clients who feel like that all the time. They don't explain why they feel that way. They don't know how. They don't practice. They don't have anyone in their life that can show them how or encourage them to keep trying. If I've personally experienced hundreds of people experiencing that analogously hellish place, and I know I have a demonstrated ability to pull out of it, work through it, and accomplish things in spite of it…what's my job? It's not to pretend like I can't, shouldn't, or don't want to help in spite of the clear and present pain it's taking me to do so.
In that goal and mission discussion, I want my time. I want the freedom to think and focus on the things I enjoy. Every moment my brain isn't hijacked by the next dumbest thing I can't believe or understand, I'm reaching one of my most foundational goals. My goal is to reach a place in life that I can comfortably and confidently field every insane, ridiculous, arbitrary, hate-inducing, "fucking what the fuck dude" comment I receive without breaking a sweat. I want to have such a robust and powerful floor or working operation that I can take it all in stride. I want the power to shake off the nonsense because I don't have to worry it's going to unduly reshape the entire game I'm trying to play.
I had that at DCS. Neither of us had any choice but to do things my way. I want that again, but without the threat. Every crazy-making idea someone tried to interject into their situation had to conform to our safety plan, series of questions, pictures, and accountable look at an investigation of the allegations. Each time I wish to create something, or hire for a position, you're an alleged grant writer or fundraiser. What's the evidence? Your title and hourly rate mean nothing to me. Your confidence means nothing to me. Your empty way-too-many words describing your beliefs and character mean nothing to me. I've heard motormouth pedophiles and child or wife beaters. WHY DO YOU SOUND LIKE THEM!?
Let's add another point of pain. I want and need standards. My instinct about that standard is likely to cut off my nose to spite my face. But, when I don't maintain that standard, I drag myself through the hell depicted above. I'm skeptical that my standard is correct because I know how fiercely and quickly I wish to judge people. So, just as a matter of deliberate refutation of my instinct, I allow for things that, had I any power, I never would. Saying it like that sounds like I'm dictating the beating heart of my failure. Let's take a look at some of the standard's I'd like to hold.
1. In your explanation of your history or competence, you never use the words "help" or "passion."
My reasoning? You're not helping me, I'm paying you. When you say "help" you're too comfortable with the fake "professional speak" that obscures what your responsibility is. When you say "passionate," you're a fucking crazy person.
2. You communicate via email or text at least every 2 days with updates about what you've done, are planning to do, or barriers that have arisen.
It takes 10 seconds. You're either doing something, or not. You're either accounting for your time and situating things appropriately, or you're not. I don't want to be up your ass every minute of every day. I don't want to be ignored for a fucking week because you had some life thing come up and I was your last priority. I informed my boss hour to hour sometimes what I was doing if I had multiple families in various levels of evolving crisis happening at once.
3. Read and answer questions or explanations I give you.
I'm not asking because I don't want to know. I'm not explaining because no one's asked in the past or because it's not more complicated than could fit on a popsicle stick. How dare you not even read or answer questions.
These things feel deceptively simple. They involve having trained your attention to properly prioritize. They implicate honesty. They require you to be accountable to information or answers you may not have yet or have an answer that makes you feel good about yourself, because I don't give a fuck if you feel good about yourself when you're wasting my time and money but are convinced otherwise.
But what can I do right now if these are my standards? Every stranger I contact is going to speak in polite pleasantries. Every time. That's the rule. I do it when I try to work for normal environments. I've never interviewed as even 10% of how I talk or think. I wouldn't get the job, because the job isn't the job.
Saying things like "help" and "passion" are as reflexive as saying "like" or "just" or "ya know" or "um" for a certain kind of person who feels drawn to the nonprofit space. What kind of tyrant is going to write off plucky "motivated' people just for speaking like a golden retriever?
As far as time management is concerned, isn't one of the perks of being "professional" that you can functionally fuck off and settle into the pace of "business as usual?" I took extended lunch breaks at DCS. I maybe spent a little extra time with the nice families in the nice homes to eat up the day's clock. I never turned my shit in late. I never did less than was required for any family. What I expected out of myself met a standard before I took anything you're tempted to call a liberty. I earned leeway. If I was just starting out working for you? You're gonna hear from me, in detail, until we establish our rhythm.
My expectations are the ones I hold for myself. The CEO can't expect the stock boy to act like he does. I'm looking for people who, and perhaps I'm just now seeing this blindspot, profess to be their own CEO but carry themselves like stock boys. I've met an exceptional stock boy and been an exceptional usher. I communicated regularly, talked bluntly about the work that needed to be done, and followed instructions or asked questions if something was unclear. So did he. The people around us didn't carry on that way, not even me when I was his subordinate stock boy.
It's possible that I've, again, carried too high expectations into a situation that requires dog treats, speech at half speed, and testing to prove you can handle it. Unfortunately, the people who could pass the test? They're the CEO of their domain, not applying for the jobs I'm posting. Maybe that's the most important insight I can take away from this investment. The people on Upwork aren't in the networks I want to be in. The people desperately looking for an escape on Linkedin aren't under-utilizing their skills. They're all looking to bolster that self-conception story and make "easy" money doing the bare minimum.
It really is my hope and desire to believe in people that I punish myself with. I can't stress that enough. I want to trust more people. I can't. I want to believe you deserve more money or will respect my time and effort. I don't and I can't. I want to believe you're not lying through your teeth, driven by insecurity and naivety that you can "help" something you don't understand, but every time I do I allow myself to get an incredible headache and fall into a disoriented panic. I can't stomach or believe or empathize with you, let alone dozens and dozens of you, who carry on that way and think they want to work like/with me.
So how do you not isolate, and punish yourself, and continually rediscover the will to keep trying? You're looking at it. I ate a Reese's. I complained to my friend, my coherent accountable practically helpful and consistent friend who responded with 7 names of people who might be relevant to grant-writing or community engagement enabling efforts. Of course she did. That's what people who work like we do, do. What the fuck was I thinking reaching out in the soup of random internet fucks?
I can breathe. I can breathe even if I can't believe. I can take the time to feel my breath. I can stop squinting. I don't have to tense up my temple or forehead. I don't have to wait in eager anticipation for the next dumb thing someone I've tried to hire says. I've wasted more money in the past and made it back. I've had more frustrating conversations. I have more room for the actual work, doing it for free or otherwise. I have several months of leeway to get in front of people.
You can't accuse me of not trying. If you can say nothing else about me, I'm working incredibly hard to, not just manage my own sometimes rollercoastering experience of stress and communication difficulties, but I put my money where my mouth is. I, in a bid to consistently demonstrate my values, risk and try and fight. I'm in pain right now in service to it. I wish that writing was doing what it's supposed to do and bringing the temperature down in my face and letting my ache subside in my head. But there's just so much left unsaid and so many things that are implicated with each new horrifying discovery.
Part of my pain comes from a desire to move "too fast." I feel a small sense of momentum. If I was the only one implicated in that momentum, I wouldn't have a problem. Because I have to wait to hear from people, or reach out after they haven't done so themselves in what feels like a timely and accountable way, my momentum has to turn around and drag or chase people. That hurts. Why can't you keep up? I'm not asking you to do what I do. I'm asking you, I'm paying you, to do what you say you do. Here, we get acquainted with the next painful reality.
You lie. You aren't a professional. You aren't good or quick or intuitive or practiced in what you do. You aren't even using the words associated with what someone who does do what you claim to do would use. I'm not even sure if you know you're lying. Regardless, I experience pain and stress each time you say or do something that costs me time, money, and effort trying to decode or untangle what you've lied about.
We're at 2 points of pain. Positive momentum gets turned into punishing break checks. Invested money and energy to specify timely goals gets functionally mocked and burned.
Then I have my own self-evaluation that constantly speculates about whether or not I'm going about things "good enough." I have a decent history of doing a lot of really cool, demonstrated proficiency, or unique and "new skill required" things. The same sensibility and reasoning I try to apply to new domains and things I wish to accomplish. Each betrayal of my sensibility makes me feel like the universe I've otherwise occupied up until that point is completely backwards. I'm stuck feeling perpetually gaslit. Surely my tools can't be irreparably broken? My life makes sense outside of these specific interactions.
I have to qualify that further. It makes sense in my extremely small context. If I apply my words, effort, money, or reasoning to something that's just involving me, I can get it to work. If I involve one other person I've got a history with who I can trust makes sense, we can make that work. I can say something, they understand it, we can both execute our individual moves, and it feels like magic. Those are the ones who I can travel to see. Those are the ones where we can shuffle larger sums of money or effort back and forth in service to each other.
My head takes the pain a step beyond. I have this incredibly disquieting and terrible interaction, and then I jump into wondering and feeling the pain of deep skepticism about anything working, working as it "should," or the prospects of breaking through without adopting a litany of amoral behaviors. I say amoral and not immoral because, under the dictates of capitalism or the fluffy self-servicing image-management and politics language of the nonprofit space, the rules don't consider practical human reality. You can lie there because lies aren't defined. You can call yourself a genius disruptor manager, and no one's following you recording the consequences of your behavior.
I'm terrified of ever being persuaded to be that kind of person. I don't have a lot of legitimate fears, but being the equivalent of a walking dead Alzheimer's patient who forgets or forgoes the distinctions between a morally culpable and rational actor and "following orders" is one of them. The temptation is there because, who wants to look, feel, or sound as stressed as I do when I talk about this stuff? What am I getting from fighting about this or explaining it again?
If me and 5-ish people are the only ones I can trust in this life, I'm going to die defending this reality I know exists and know is better than my experience of the alternatives. The irony of not doing so and also claiming to be a good addiction counselor should be allowed to kill me. I listen to self-serving delusional narratives and excuse-providing cliches for a living. Your god help me if I'm not a firehose of distinctions.
I ask people to define their goals and purpose all the time. Why are you letting (x) stress you out? What is your goal or relationship to that detail? For me? I'm worried about debt. I'm worried that I can't even pay people to do the things they profess to be able to do. That's a crazy-making circumstance. That suggests it's 100% luck and who you know that gets anyone any sizeable amount of money, and the work you do is completely irrelevant to the story you concoct about it. I can't live like that. That makes me want to give entirely up and just focus on indulgence and isolation.
I have clients who feel like that all the time. They don't explain why they feel that way. They don't know how. They don't practice. They don't have anyone in their life that can show them how or encourage them to keep trying. If I've personally experienced hundreds of people experiencing that analogously hellish place, and I know I have a demonstrated ability to pull out of it, work through it, and accomplish things in spite of it…what's my job? It's not to pretend like I can't, shouldn't, or don't want to help in spite of the clear and present pain it's taking me to do so.
In that goal and mission discussion, I want my time. I want the freedom to think and focus on the things I enjoy. Every moment my brain isn't hijacked by the next dumbest thing I can't believe or understand, I'm reaching one of my most foundational goals. My goal is to reach a place in life that I can comfortably and confidently field every insane, ridiculous, arbitrary, hate-inducing, "fucking what the fuck dude" comment I receive without breaking a sweat. I want to have such a robust and powerful floor or working operation that I can take it all in stride. I want the power to shake off the nonsense because I don't have to worry it's going to unduly reshape the entire game I'm trying to play.
I had that at DCS. Neither of us had any choice but to do things my way. I want that again, but without the threat. Every crazy-making idea someone tried to interject into their situation had to conform to our safety plan, series of questions, pictures, and accountable look at an investigation of the allegations. Each time I wish to create something, or hire for a position, you're an alleged grant writer or fundraiser. What's the evidence? Your title and hourly rate mean nothing to me. Your confidence means nothing to me. Your empty way-too-many words describing your beliefs and character mean nothing to me. I've heard motormouth pedophiles and child or wife beaters. WHY DO YOU SOUND LIKE THEM!?
Let's add another point of pain. I want and need standards. My instinct about that standard is likely to cut off my nose to spite my face. But, when I don't maintain that standard, I drag myself through the hell depicted above. I'm skeptical that my standard is correct because I know how fiercely and quickly I wish to judge people. So, just as a matter of deliberate refutation of my instinct, I allow for things that, had I any power, I never would. Saying it like that sounds like I'm dictating the beating heart of my failure. Let's take a look at some of the standard's I'd like to hold.
1. In your explanation of your history or competence, you never use the words "help" or "passion."
My reasoning? You're not helping me, I'm paying you. When you say "help" you're too comfortable with the fake "professional speak" that obscures what your responsibility is. When you say "passionate," you're a fucking crazy person.
2. You communicate via email or text at least every 2 days with updates about what you've done, are planning to do, or barriers that have arisen.
It takes 10 seconds. You're either doing something, or not. You're either accounting for your time and situating things appropriately, or you're not. I don't want to be up your ass every minute of every day. I don't want to be ignored for a fucking week because you had some life thing come up and I was your last priority. I informed my boss hour to hour sometimes what I was doing if I had multiple families in various levels of evolving crisis happening at once.
3. Read and answer questions or explanations I give you.
I'm not asking because I don't want to know. I'm not explaining because no one's asked in the past or because it's not more complicated than could fit on a popsicle stick. How dare you not even read or answer questions.
These things feel deceptively simple. They involve having trained your attention to properly prioritize. They implicate honesty. They require you to be accountable to information or answers you may not have yet or have an answer that makes you feel good about yourself, because I don't give a fuck if you feel good about yourself when you're wasting my time and money but are convinced otherwise.
But what can I do right now if these are my standards? Every stranger I contact is going to speak in polite pleasantries. Every time. That's the rule. I do it when I try to work for normal environments. I've never interviewed as even 10% of how I talk or think. I wouldn't get the job, because the job isn't the job.
Saying things like "help" and "passion" are as reflexive as saying "like" or "just" or "ya know" or "um" for a certain kind of person who feels drawn to the nonprofit space. What kind of tyrant is going to write off plucky "motivated' people just for speaking like a golden retriever?
As far as time management is concerned, isn't one of the perks of being "professional" that you can functionally fuck off and settle into the pace of "business as usual?" I took extended lunch breaks at DCS. I maybe spent a little extra time with the nice families in the nice homes to eat up the day's clock. I never turned my shit in late. I never did less than was required for any family. What I expected out of myself met a standard before I took anything you're tempted to call a liberty. I earned leeway. If I was just starting out working for you? You're gonna hear from me, in detail, until we establish our rhythm.
My expectations are the ones I hold for myself. The CEO can't expect the stock boy to act like he does. I'm looking for people who, and perhaps I'm just now seeing this blindspot, profess to be their own CEO but carry themselves like stock boys. I've met an exceptional stock boy and been an exceptional usher. I communicated regularly, talked bluntly about the work that needed to be done, and followed instructions or asked questions if something was unclear. So did he. The people around us didn't carry on that way, not even me when I was his subordinate stock boy.
It's possible that I've, again, carried too high expectations into a situation that requires dog treats, speech at half speed, and testing to prove you can handle it. Unfortunately, the people who could pass the test? They're the CEO of their domain, not applying for the jobs I'm posting. Maybe that's the most important insight I can take away from this investment. The people on Upwork aren't in the networks I want to be in. The people desperately looking for an escape on Linkedin aren't under-utilizing their skills. They're all looking to bolster that self-conception story and make "easy" money doing the bare minimum.
It really is my hope and desire to believe in people that I punish myself with. I can't stress that enough. I want to trust more people. I can't. I want to believe you deserve more money or will respect my time and effort. I don't and I can't. I want to believe you're not lying through your teeth, driven by insecurity and naivety that you can "help" something you don't understand, but every time I do I allow myself to get an incredible headache and fall into a disoriented panic. I can't stomach or believe or empathize with you, let alone dozens and dozens of you, who carry on that way and think they want to work like/with me.
So how do you not isolate, and punish yourself, and continually rediscover the will to keep trying? You're looking at it. I ate a Reese's. I complained to my friend, my coherent accountable practically helpful and consistent friend who responded with 7 names of people who might be relevant to grant-writing or community engagement enabling efforts. Of course she did. That's what people who work like we do, do. What the fuck was I thinking reaching out in the soup of random internet fucks?
[1104] Listen To The Wind Blow
Fire's still burning. This is becoming a mini habit waking up and writing to start my day.
I had a session with one of my clients from Groups who rejoined me. Obviously not speaking to specifics, but they launched into the pattern I've been seeing with regard to the "professionals" I've been attempting to hire. In recovery, there's any point along the way you might think you've done "enough" or "deserve" to indulge here and there. It's all relapsing. It's all excuse-making. It's all distancing yourself from taking responsibility and building that larger context of consequences.
I just fielded an email from one of the potential hires who claimed to have sent me an email (you know, that thing we can immediately search our inboxes for) that she didn't. She put the idea out there that it's not "best practices" to be submitting for grants or asking for donations. She said we're at "the very beginning" and didn't have "enough on paper." Now, she's one person of 8 or so that I've got writing grants, fundraising, or who've had a look under the hood. None of them have said what she's said, and if they had questions regarding what stage we're in, they asked them, I sent along the info, or they told us how to procure and dress it up.
Financial statements, for example, given that I haven't paid myself or anyone else anything, exist, as a series of zeroes. I can find and .pdf that form if you need. "Data" on who we've helped when it's a handful of people over the last few years as we've worked full-time jobs is not going to be a robust sales tool. Do you want me to convert and tell you my caseload numbers at those jobs? That then sounds like we're cross-pollinating inappropriate things. If both the federal and state government say we're a nonprofit and have all the rights and responsibilities associated with that status, I'm hard pressed to entertain your distance-excuse-making email on its face.
I'm happy to report that I'm less discouraged, reactive, and defensive about that stuff with each instance, but it's so telling and often just exhausting enough to need pointing out. To my client's credit, as they decided to go into more detail regarding complaints at previous methadone clinics they utilized and the clientele they were interacting with, they were receptive when I pointed out the complaints were a 1 to 1 parallel. If someone comes to you and behaves poorly and then blithely says, "Well, you know, I'm an addict!" and it's like a cheeky sitcom throwaway excuse, we can all see pretty clearly why that doesn't hold water. If you say, "Well, you know, I was never as bad as xyz…and have been clean for 5 years!" You're doing the same thing.
So it goes if we're not talking addiction or crisis situations. If your impulse is, "Well, YOU did that and didn't do that" and not, "My perception is this or that and here's my contribution to resolve or fix it" you're not talking about anything. You're not helping. You're not being honest about where you're coming from. You're doing a dance. Don't lay my ignorance or start-up struggles at the feet of "best practices." If you presume to be the holder of those keys, unlock a piece of knowledge for me or I don't trust you actually know what you're talking about. It's a subtle and feeble-minded attempt to retain or grasp power you don't otherwise feel you have.
Again I can only contrast this behavior with my own life. When I have resources, power, options, or knowledge, I try to share it and make it freely available. I commit to the work it's going to take to do so. Even something as silly and easy as sharing music. I told my dad I'd populate his old phone with all of his music so he could break the bonds of shitty radio. It took me over a week, hours a day, to get it all downloaded and organized. I didn't say, "You know, just buy Spotify Premium. I anticipated you having shittier music tastes with less prolific bands, and this is taking sooooo loooong." The project doubled my overall music inventory, which I've been building for 20 years.
It's occurring to me that this is a pretty precise means of accounting for how burnout exists in this field. How emotionally and "spiritually" exhausting it can be to field an endless waterfall of people's excuses. It's almost worse when it's people who occupy a higher financial or credential class because you think to yourself that person must be cynically indulging. If you grew up dumb, broke, or just generally inculcated in a culture of "ratchet" shit, okay, that's less on you. If you have the time, money, or access to be carrying on like you're above the hoi polloi with regard to your field or experience and then you're anything less than gracious and patient and eager to contribute? Yeah, I can't entertain that level of selfish insecurity.
If we're ever to understand "class warfare," we have to grasp that Warren Buffet's son sent $500 million directly to Ukraine, and in contrast, Warren Buffett signed a pledge that he'd donate his money when he dies. I'm not going to pretend I have an intimate understanding of either man and their or efforts/reasoning or financial games. What I will suggest is that Warren Buffet has $500 million dollars, and the headline addressing intervention in a potentially world-destabilizing conflict wasn't about him or the European countries who contributed less.
There's people who are looking for the things they can best do to help. There will always be a fire, conflict, missing piece or reasonable and compelling situation that you might be drawn to influence. Then, there's the rest of people who are playing along, looking for every reason to escape any responsibility, and who wish to build bubbles and blame. Rich or poor. Ph.D. or GED. Young or old.
To the idea that anyone who proves themselves willing to engage in that behavior wishes to suggest to me what "best practices" are is laughable if it didn't hurt so much to think about and experience sometimes. Do they even know what they're doing? I can't believe so if I'm going to be bothered to "forgive" or confidently continue to navigate their input. I have to check my impulse to bargain with the universe in questions like, "Why can't they just tell me they don't want to work with me without all the extra judgment, condescension, and inevitable "good luck" sentiment?" The fact that they defaulted to that tells me everything I need to know. They weren't the one speaking. They don't have accountability built in. I don't want to work with them regardless of what they'd pretend to be contributing.
I've learned that all you need is specifics. You ask someone for specifics, their whole world blows up. Detailed understandings, accounting, or effort is the kryptonite for the excuses, defensiveness, and empty judgment. Ask a politician to define anything, you get the broad feel-good catch-all qualified language. Your average person is a shitty politician. They use the cliches afforded to them. They're not used to being punished or pressed. They will demand you go away, leave them alone, stop talking or engage in, "I know you are, but what am I." You'd think with my knowledge of this I'd be able to better weaponize or utilize it. I'm not blindly stepping into it when I double-down on the shitty email and illicit the obvious response, but I'm not helping myself by doubling-down ever. That's something to move on from and improve on.
I can't keep your ego fluffed about the work you haven't shown me. I can't play the pleasantry game when I've invested money and you're mostly committed to your feelings. I have to prevent my "desperation" at the idea of not finding anyone worthwhile translate into retaliatory or antagonistic pissing matches with those people. The more vigilant and less hopeful I can be that anyone I'm working with is actually worth a damn is how I'll get through these interactions. But that just sucks lol, right? It sucks that people suck, and are liars, and children, and might spend their whole life crashing into and throwing mud at the things you're building.
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