[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.