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.
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