[1180] 404

After the last thing I wrote, I found myself stuck, repeating to myself the idea of just how often I needed to remind myself of the same ideas. Each moment is an invitation to rebuke perhaps a standing solution to your problems. That is, you might already be doing everything you have to do, but because a certain outcome isn’t arriving, you think it’s time to burn things down. I’m not really at the burn things down stage, but I do feel like the toddler who is watching the same movie over and over trying to build a reliable anticipatory framework for something I can’t yet realize.

If I were judging my life from the outside, I could understand someone thinking that I’m increasingly lazy, particularly disingenuous, and almost thrive on circularly talking about or writing about subjects they’re bored of, or never found interesting in the first place. Oh? You have another issue with a lazy empty-speaking coworker or disorganized boss? Really? Tell us all, we’re dying to know. Oh? You’re lonely, taking a stab at one of your hobbies, seeing a show, or are remarking on some line from an obscure podcast or article I don’t care about? Let’s see if you once again land in a place where you’re pretty much already correct in what you’ve been doing.

When I watch classical guitarists in particular, there’s still a pretty major disconnect for me in what precisely they need to practice to sound like they do. I’ve learned a few bits of a few classical pieces, so I have cracked open the door, but there’s still major chunks of the techniques and baby steps that I’ve never really tried to incorporate into my playing. I know what the process looks like for speed-pickers and scale warriors, and I know when I was able to play like them I put in 10-12 hours a day for weeks at a time. No one sees that 10-12 hours of analogous effort or experimentation in service to anything else you do, they just might hear and bother to remark on when you flub or pinch a note.

I do things like make a lot of calls and send a lot of emails trying to find people who can help me do things. I almost never get return calls or emails. I’ve probably sent out questions and info to or called hundreds of people in trying to develop my land in any remote way. I’ve looked through thousands of job postings trying to find one even close to allowing me the leeway I’ve been seeking with my time or savings of my resources. I’ve usually asked for or spoken to some issue, be it at work, or in my life, easily dozens to hundreds of times before I find the resolve to do something like actually spend the money in service to something fun, or shift my attention entirely.

I’ve been online for 3 hours this morning, trying to find, let alone apply, for real remote jobs. I’m open to nearly anything I’m even fleetingly qualified for. I have the time, equipment, background, and capacity. The infrastructure to find and apply? Absolute garbage. So I can spend 3 hours, maybe, applying to 2 or 3 actual jobs? And those will be so far removed from what was advertised when I clicked, it’s a wonder why I’m bothering to apply to those at all. Take that 3 hours and map it across dozens of days, month after month, and then you’ll have a robust understanding of why I would take almost anything willing to pay, like I did with the YMCA.

It’s stuck with me the notion that videogames have come to play an increasingly important role in people’s lives because it’s supplementing for what doesn’t exist in professional development. You can’t reliably find a job that will pay you enough to bother keeping, develop in that job, reliably get promoted or pay increases, and build your skill into your actively working identity. I know, sooner or later, I’m going to get my base to level 30 in Last War in a way I’ve never trusted I’ll be able to achieve things in work environments. There’s no mentors. There’s no leaders. There’s no one with a vision and agenda but to keep whatever ship is floating basically afloat while they extract as much money and time from people as possible. We aren’t artisans and craftsmen anymore.

If I build a decent shoe-rack, there’s not a dozen more in line daring me to refine my skill. If I nail a difficult sweep-picking solo, it’s not going into a performance, recording, or lesson plan. If I put together a comprehensive and deeply immersive plan at my job, if it was recognized for what it was at all, it’s not going to mean more money, responsibility, or power. I’ll get a shout-out email and an invitation to the next he-said/she-said. My early life in school really set this expectation that if you do well, you’ll be rewarded or those around you will recognize that you’re getting something you deserve. Maybe post-internet, that’s not even close to true.

I still can’t shake the disquieting notions about “how things work” though. I’m explicitly not surprised we have creeping stupid fascism because of this instinct that feels the vast majority of the routes to take in life are almost wholly corrupt. Merit feels like it’s not a thing unless you’re in some uber-brainiac niche medical or computer circles. There’s no will to fight for anything you might claim to want or need. Just because I’m not as burn-everything curious as my countrymen who elect sexually abusive fascists doesn’t mean I can’t taste it in the air.

I think it’s a mistake to think if you disappear into a selfish hobby “things” will feel, let alone actually become, better. I’ve been to over 300 comedy or music shows in the last 3 years. Most were a good to great time. I’m still right back here, bemoaning the heart of my cultural sickness as I tire of running up the tab and pretending music will save me. I’m experiencing the visceral contrast to being back in the area where I grew up for the holidays, hitting the bowling alley with my dad and concerts with my friend, and now back home, alone, with the cats and my stressed-out, too-busy, otherwise-always-disinterested or distracted crowd that I’ll be lucky to bowl or grab a drink with once every few months.

Join a club? Practice or meet-ups conflict with work or are populated with people who make you feel worse than being alone. I don’t think that one gets talked about enough. I’m not introverted. I’m not tactless. But I am in need of particular types of people who have an endless reservoir for talking about anything, joking about anything, and a foundational interest in explicating their unique experience of the world. Too many conversations about the weather between frames will see me dropping the bowling ball on my head to escape.

I don’t want to become the lonely opinionated guy in front of the too expensive camera for what he’s doing, trying to build a “brand” by being obnoxious or inflammatory about pop culture. I don’t want to perpetuate faux civility and regard for people who have no interest in working, let alone hard, or honesty or in service to something we could both find meaningful and fulfilling. I don’t want to spend all day on hobbies until I become as intimately familiar with details as I was when I was sucked up into the “new atheist” world. That is, I don’t need more personal gratification. I need evidence each day that there’s something to believe in that isn’t magic, nor squeezing the life out of something approximating stoicism.

[1179] Problematic

I think one of the bigger, presumptive, places that I’m more readily moving away from is the idea that, nearly anyone, is genuinely interested in “solving a problem.”

This isn’t meant to sound like some kind of abstract fatalism. I think my appreciation for what constitutes “problems,” people’s perception of them, and the utility they serve has been a major blindspot and underappreciated. That is, a “problem” to you is explicitly someone else’s “solution” devoid of a shared context. This can be anything from a political football topic like abortion to substance abuse to every layer of self-deception both necessary or insisted upon to ride the story of your life.

I try to be careful in my formulation and definition of “problem.” I find myself, particularly after I developed a habit of writing, qualifying my problems with things like, “first world,” and “I’m healthy, fed, have supports, stuff, etc.” My problems, by and large, are qualitative, selfish, and an extension of what I choose to indulge. That can certainly get fuzzy depending on what lens through which you wish to analyze and scale, but I’m not yet in genuine fear I’m merely at the mercy of the worst consequences of stupid-fascism, or hunger, or that sickness has to offer….yet.

The two areas of life where I dare invoke “problem” most often are with work and interpersonally. with work, I’m often trying to align the stated work goals or obligations with my personal values, competencies, or monetary goals. Interpersonally, I’m navigating people’s interpretations of how I speak to and attempt to achieve my goals. This is a consistent and ongoing series of conversations, roadblocks, and experiments.

Every year, I try to “give myself more room” to “engage problems” in a comprehensive way, and also via social experimenting. It’s not some kind of technical and scientifically robust experiment, and no matter how broad or encompassing I’d like to believe about my efforts, I’m always missing most of the story or necessary components. Nonetheless, this is how I tend to approach my “existential problem” of undiagnosed-ADHD or “multi-potentiate” or “busy-brained” or “woefully-under-achieving-high-achiever” kind of existence.

Practically, this looks like being childless and having my shed-house in the middle of nowhere so I can free up funds. This looks like the cars I drive that cost less than the tires I need to replace on them. This looks like my ability and willingness to both take and quit jobs that it’s unclear if they’ll serve my broader ideals and lifestyle. It’s the tone in my emails when I’m met with professional irrationality. It informs the standards for my friendships and concept of family. It helps me put my Amazon wishlist in order, because some toys expand how you might work or create, and some are just nice to have.

A lazier and imprecise me might say I have a problem at work with someone who recently emailed my boss an outright lie. It’s a simple lie from a simple person about where I spent my time during a holiday party. It’s an invitation from that person, and my boss, to get into a he-sad/she-said infinite digression that foments resentment, stress, and inefficiency. Thankfully, I’m not that lazy and imprecise. I knew, before I ever took the job, the kind of people I’d be working with, the blindspots and vulnerability of my boss, and most importantly, my broader series of goals.

If, stupidly, my goal was to persuade that staff member to tell the truth, I’d be stuck in a hell of my own making. If my goal was to make my boss better at discerning who to trust, or better at holding people accountable, or better at organizing her own responsibilities it’s the same deal. I don’t couch my goals in my ability to necessarily transform how people behave. This is a subtle, but important distinction from “holding someone accountable.” I can’t change you. I can change the environment from which we operate. If the environment lacks someone willing to speak clearly and honestly and able to account, I can choose to be that person.

In my experience, this has been both my personally mental-health saving series of choices, and professional ass-saving one as well. I’m not the kind of person who fucks around at work and makes it easy or obvious that I should be fired, written-up, or otherwise condescended to about how I’m approaching a role. I get the privilege of that confidence because I accept and recognize how I feel good and thrive when I choose to operate that way versus any other. Be it at the grill at Steak-N-Shake or at the table of other “directors,” I’ve met an endless array of people who complain. They have no desire to organize, fix, unite, or even speak to those above them. Worse than all that, they refuse what power they have to operate as good as they can in their own realm.

I find this propensity everywhere. It’s the first-line call center representative who knows your problem can be fixed with a click or a pass to the supervisor, but pretends for 20 minutes otherwise until you get angry. It’s my addiction counseling clients who, intellectually, have every answer to every problem, but can’t be persuaded there’s anything to tangibly practice or is worth experiencing discomfort during as they learn. It’s family who make (or have stolen) hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars who only tell stories of what they can’t afford. It’s apologetics of every flavor. It’s infinitely tailored to your industry, hobbies, and psychology.

I’m not under the illusion that I’m perfectly helpless and at the mercy of history. I’m deeply baked into how fucked “everything” is and how amazing everything is relative to something else all the time. I’m an “all things being true” kind of person who then asks the question of what my next move could or should be. Almost always, the answer starts with something like this. I take the endless flow of competing and messy ideas, write them down, read/listen to them, and keep asking where “I” exist, my agency and choice, to engage parts, all, or none of it.

I don’t consider it a “belief” system that we’re all united by something shared, coherent, or “greater” and “more powerful” than ourselves. This is the language we have, not the words I’m married to. I talk about how you don’t need complicated math or philosophy to pull your hand out of a fire. Barring a unique medical condition, that shit will hurt, kill you, or otherwise make it untenable to be conscious, so if you’re choosing to stay alive, you stay the fuck out of the fire. We get to decide how to frame our imprecise concepts as “more fiery” or not.

A good portion of my life has been in a state of confusion about what constitutes fire. That’s because I was basing it on the people around me. When my aunt was getting routinely physically abused by my uncle, it never made sense to me why all of these large men on my mom’s side of the family, one of them being an army sergeant, didn’t beat the fuck out of her husband and tell him to stop. And my dad’s side, I never understood why my uncle was able to get away with talking to my grandmother like she was trash. My grandmother whom he lived with his entire adult life, cooked for him, cleaned, and was just a beacon of love and care for her family.

As an adult, I can understand how notions of “family,” or “love,” or histories between people can complicate whether or not, on balance, for any individual, a little physical or verbal abuse is the bargain solution for a sense that it’d be hotter, for all involved, otherwise.

Most people most of the time aren’t going to write out pages of context and situate their series of choices as things to own and embody. Most people are going to reflexively react and justify, like a child who says, “Yes, I hit him, BUT.” Most people don’t grow out of that, they just turn it into something superficially more complicated.

In the spirit of that superficiality, a lot of choices look downright bizarre devoid of that shared context and sense of reality. Why take jobs you don’t like? Anyone with a remote sense of responsibility might angrily answer that question. Why spend your money on (x)? If you have an acute sense of time and how quickly it’s running out, things snap into focus. Or, if you adopt a fairly ambivalent or nihilistic sensibility, you’ll puff, pop, and glug away until your successful acceleration of your time to go. How invigorating and engaging can we make isms/ists, religiosity, gossip, reality TV, or consumerism when the alternative is to face and suffer the details that belie their appeal?

Who wishes to wake up everyday with a mantra akin to, “I’m an angry, afraid, irrational and infinitely ignorant great ape with bad habits, harmful biases, and a terrifying capacity to destroy, but there’s genuine hope and reason to believe things will be okay, and not because a strong-man or magic sky daddy told me so.”

Ultimately, my problems have nothing to do with you or your behavior. They have to do with my willingness to engage my perception in any given moment and perhaps reevaluate my goals or approach. Right now, I need to make just-enough money. I need to continue learning about my latest interests in music production, day-trading, and woodworking. I need to do some chores, finish some episodes, and maybe run a few errands. I need to stay on top of how much time I spend in service to an ideal versus rumination on when it’s been violated. I’m not here to argue a case more than live by an example. And, to be sure, it’s an example for me first, because I don’t believe a goddamn thing about what you say about the example I’m watching, recording, or navigating through what you set.

I think if you’re upset about pay, you organize and demand more. I think if you recognize and wish to fix the catastrophe of gossip, don’t pass it along. I think if you find yourself stuck in a chronically abusive dynamic, it’s a choice to define your situation as such, and detail your responsibility to it, all things being true about the tyranny of your oppressor. In this way, you don’t have to be naively optimistic, dispositionally blessed, or exceptionally lucky to enjoy most moments of most days. You’ll start to see the way out of suffering in small or selfish ways. That is, if you think it’s even a problem to do so, and want to fix it.

[1178] Talk At Me

We return to one of my favorite themes, communication.

I play the phone game Last War. Recently, one of our alliance members left, citing an unwillingness of the fellow members to garrison his base when his shield fell. “What’s the point of an alliance if we’re not going to protect each other?“ He bemoaned how often people say they have too many troops they need to burn. He complained that he’s been there from the beginning, and now the game is turning into Farmville light. He joined the proudly fascist UMG Trump group shortly after.

There’s half a dozen reasons you might not be shielded, from going out and seeking to engage your competition to being stuck on ”war fever“ which prevents you from enabling it. You might just not be paying attention on Thursday night when the new round begins and end up getting attacked, losing all your troops, and teleported somewhere randomly on the map. There is no mechanism for telling your alliance members your shield is down. There is no perfectly reliable explanation nor implicit obligation around shielding that everyone who plays the game knows is supposed to occur besides doing so if you’re not active and don’t wish to cost your alliance points. That was summarily ignored so this player could point the finger and leave.

I, being bored and feeling not-quite-trolly yet still unwise, messaged him and said I hope whatever else was wrong in his life gets resolved. Before he left, I made the feeble attempt to lay out those half-dozen reasons anyone at his base level would be perfectly familiar with. We’ve all spaced and not shielded when we were supposed to. We’ve all tried to garrison lost causes. I was met with, ”You don’t know me! You don’t get my point!“ and ”You smug assumption-making yada yada!“ (not direct quotes) As if you need to know a person’s intimate inner life to know when they blame others and pretend not to understand you, it’s a sign they’re thinking clearly and doing well.

This, petty, interaction occurred on the heels of communication breakdowns at work. I’m about a month in. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time assessing. I want to see what works and doesn’t. I want to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of the people on the ground. I want to see, just like when I worked for the State, if the narrative in any way matches the evidence. Let’s lay some groundwork first.

On Wednesday, during a time when I was attempting to quiet our kids, apparently something I said got interpreted as, ”You don’t have to listen to the other adults here, I’m the one in charge.“ This sent one of my staff into a panic/rage in which she didn’t show up to work the next day, called several people associated with the company to decompress, and eventually send another staff member over to me to relay her frustration and interpretation.

When I asked what it was they thought I said? No one really knows, all they know is how they felt.

Further context, I’ve created an Excel sheet with messages about my leading philosophy. I’ve said, in writing, I will support them in any punishments they deem necessary. I’ve said, to both my boss, my bosses boss, and every single person at my site, that I’m not even trying to keep the role I currently have. I’m looking to demonstrate I can bring order to chaos and would prefer a more administrative and logistical role that engages the adults more than the kids. Nothing about every word I’ve offered previously, in writing or otherwise to anyone that would listen, would make the idea of ”Hey kids, fuck all these other adults, I’m the boss!“ make any sense whatsoever.

I can cop to being inarticulate. I write for a reason. When I get worked up, like I was Wednesday after a truly annoying and problematic individual aggressively chose condescension within 5 minutes of meeting each other, I can feel myself talking too fast and stumbling over the rush of words fighting to come out first. I can believe full well that whatever I said, it didn’t come out as I wanted or meant. That said, this is where adults and people interested in being fair and patient might go, ”Huh, that was weird, is that what you meant?“ And allow the awkward or weird moment to be checked, addressed, and moved on from in that moment. Instead, it became a Chinese telephone game of gossip and drama predicated on perfectly misinterpreted nothingness.

It gets a layer deeper in goofiness. I said for the last few weeks I’ve been mostly observing how my aftercare program does or doesn’t work. What I have done is introduce 1 thing, a small story/chat, before our snack time, to try and settle the energy. I observed this from another school and site director who is lauded for her program and who I’ve connected with and had prolonged discussions with each morning at my site. I’ve not told a single person how to discipline. I’ve not told a single person they can’t implement something they’re currently doing for ”parties“ and to raise funds. I’ve just tried to assess both the staffs’ and kids’ response to a 15-minute change. The only staff member to engage the change actively loved it and saw the utility immediately, telling me plainly, and we discussed how to evolve it further by getting the older kids involved and in how we select what to read or talk about.

Recall, the staff member that got most incensed by my inarticulate phrasing sent over our ”blunt“ staff member to relay her concerns 2 days later. In the course of laying out the case, several other grievances came tumbling out. In particular, the phrase, ”Kids need structure! I’ve never seen it more chaotic!“ This staff member didn’t agree with delaying the snack because thee kindergartners haven’t eaten since 10:30 AM (we eat snack around 3:30 PM) and her grandson, who is in the program, eats a lot when he gets home so she knows they must all be functionally starving by the end of the school day, or something.

Let’s take a moment and compile a few more of the grievances relayed to me haphazardly, if at all, over the course of my time there. I’ll provide the context for each one. Remember, I’ve been doing this job 4 weeks, the first 2 working only 2 or 3 days a week.

1. I thought you were anti-paperwork!

 We have kids who are probably not appropriate for our program. Some of them have behavior plans we’re expected to follow. Literally no staff member was following any directives or guidance from those plans. This means if we’re trying to make the case that a kid isn’t appropriate, and we’re not even following our own rules, we’re going to stay stuck with a disruptive child when we go to the parents and try to describe the efforts we’ve made to accommodate. My desire was to not look like we’re prejudiced and targeting kids with higher needs, so I was looking for guidance both from my boss and existing site practice as to what circumstances they actually chose write-ups. I was also in ongoing discussions with the star site director, who almost never employs write-ups, because after all, we’re talking about children who do children things. I, also, literally created a form to better track and account for the behaviors and my staff’s responses to those problem children.

All of this was interpreted as though I have no desire to punish, do paperwork, or appropriately respond to kids who I believed would “just figure it out.” That’s an actual quote from someone about what they thought I thought.

2. The kids need structure!

 I’ve asked, both in print and in person, for my staff to start discussing and picking topics they’d like to employ as part of our programming. Exactly 1 has responded to that request. We got our story time and chat because of her effort and response. I created a list of a year’s worth of programs that might inspire their choices. They’ve either refused to read it, or are continuing to pretend they don’t understand the expectation. They’ve been perfectly unable to structure the children's day on their own, and then want to come to be exasperated about how much the kids need it. One example, letting their popcorn and hot chocolate days extend snack time indefinitely until you’ve got messy tables and kids pulling out things from their backpacks because no one has told them it’s time to clean up or engaged them with the agenda for that day.

3. I’ve been walking on eggshells not knowing how to punish.

 I’ve explained in writing that I am not a yeller. I come from an abusive upbringing, and know the difference my crazy trauma-passing-on mom had on me versus my understanding and patient dad. I try to model this. I’ve never told a single staff member not to yell. I’ve never talked to them after the school day and said, “That was wrong.” I’ve never not supported them after they yell and the kids get quiet. I’ve said, “That’s not my style.” If you believe that’s the most effective way of correcting for a child’s behavior or wish to have a program that signals that’s the nature of your control, more power to you. Except, I believe my model and observed compliance from the children, makes you feel insecure and unsure about yours. That wasn’t something you were able or willing to discuss, so it became an indictment as to my level of permissiveness for chaos.

I’ve heard from a dozen people at all levels of my organization about the “problem child” nature of my site. Everyone has something gossipy and negative to say. At the same time, the people on site are getting reassured that what they’re doing is great or okay. You know, because you hire someone to direct something that already runs perfectly. Me, a professional skeptic, takes it all in and attempts to include people in the dialogue and decision-making about how we’re going to fit a more specific time-frame and nature of engagement. We’re not a daycare center, but my staff have been operating as a quasi one for years and don’t like the idea that they’ll be expected to do more than hang out and get paid.

There’s been little to no time to get everyone together to try and get on the same page. Watching children means I’ve had one uninterrupted conversation lasting 7 minutes in 4 weeks. When I called a meeting, of the 6 people hired to handle the afternoon care, 3 showed up. This is a staff that has also been not showing up on their scheduled shifts, not showing up on time, not staying their full shift, and not communicating with me when they will or won’t be there. 1 of the 3 at the meeting refused to even look at me as I described a plan for scheduling the 3 hours we have to engage the kids each day. I began proposing ways to continue to offer their hot chocolate and popcorn concurrent to snack time. She looked straight ahead, mouth agape, shrugged and under-her-breath said, “Sure, I guess” to things like, “Would it help to heat up the water earlier and collect their money before they enter the cafeteria so we can move things along?“ Her mother, the blunt one, who asked her the questions, was dutifully taking notes and copying the schedule I wrote down.

Like all jobs, this one doesn’t pay enough, has too many layers of middle-people who don’t do much beyond send too many emails and offer too many opinions, and regularly talks out of both sides of it’s mouth about its values and means of achieving its goals. They’re too broke, but are a globally recognized non-profit with giant state-of-the-art buildings in the heart of the city. They’re about honesty, respect, caring, and responsibility, just not if it means carrying out the necessary consequences and incentives. Also, the nature of the work isn’t back-breaking, complicated, nor one most people would feel comfortable asking inflation and productivity adjusted minimum-wage for.

For me, very much more important than all of that, as with most social-worky jobs, you have a deeper obligation to yourself and humanity. We’re talking about child-development. We should be broadly enthused by the prospect that we could inform and infuse their lives with something that might stick. When I ask you to pick programs you’d like to teach to them, some of you as literal teachers on my staff, should be excited and engaged, no? Instead, because I’m asking for more than the bear minimum of showing up and keeping everyone alive, I, and every previous director, is the enemy on their way to being foiled by gossip and lazy intransigence.

Eventually, my most-incensed staff member and I had a 45 minute conversation, before the official meeting, and worked out that it was a wholly insane misunderstanding and have been, and would continue to be, on the same page as every conversation we’ve had before that day. I literally told her week 2 that I would love to just put her in charge and disappear towards a role more suited to my skills and interests. We ended in chuckling and on high-fives.

The success or failure of my effort will not entirely be predicated on my ability to dictate a 3-hour schedule. I’ll need staff buy-in. I’ll need to be able to follow-through with consequences approved by my and her boss. I’ll need the space and time to tweak things as we observe whether or not the times I’ve approximated work for time for going to the bathroom or on whatever the program will be for that day. I’ll need to see how we navigate audibles when a room isn’t available or when a staff member in charge of a certain thing isn’t there that day. But, ultimately, this is the smallest of potatoes that is simultaneously people-at-this-level’s entire world that I need to tweak and align.

Exactly here we open up the conversation on what will probably be the next blog. The myopic places we come from that inform how or whether we engage a problem or conceptualize a goal inform this playing field as much or more than any individual’s disposition. My responsibility is to never personalize it. I’m not haunted by the scared and angry rants I got from parents at DCS. I know, viscerally, intimately, what it’s like to live as a source of perpetual misunderstanding. I’m still not going to yell, even if that’s what you continue to prefer. I’m going to invite you to conversation, even if you stare the other direction with your mouth open but silent. I’m going to box my goals into something I can measure, and base my assessment of their success or failure on whether or not you’re even doing the first things required first, if at all.

“I’ve never seen so much chaos!” Consider, you’ve never had someone consistent and present enough to hold the mirror long enough up to the nature of yours.

[1177] Fingerguns

To be sure, "emotionally," I'm not really feeling anything, but a road rage incident I was just involved in is clearly occupying my thoughts.

I'm in Indianapolis, notable for its statistically aberrantly high amount of road rage shootings both lately and over the last few years. I was coming off 465 headed to my newly taken up spot for killing time while school is in session. I had the light, but noticed a white Chevrolet truck speeding through, running a red light. The driver already had his middle finger up before crossing the intersection, positioned for me to see it as he goes by. I honk.

He drives a bit further up the road, stops in the middle and waits for me to catch up. I drive past, but towards a line of cars stacked enough that he can pull up next to me. Skinny white trash mouthing, "I'll fucking kill you, say anything, I'll fucking pop you, I fucking dare you." He points at me with his fingers mimicking a gun. The light turns green, I wait a moment to see if he will start driving. He sits there and I begin to move. He starts driving, continuing to keep pace and mouthing and motioning gun-finger threats. He pulls behind me and proceeds to follow. He does so long enough that I have time to call the police, describe the vehicle and point out several streets we're passing over. I see him continuing to mouth and threaten in my rear view before he cuts over 3 lanes, U-turns, and begins going the other direction.  

This morning, I was playing basketball with kids. I'm planning a drive home to spend time with my dad and friend and see another concert. Were I a different or less-aware person in how to de-escalate or prepare for evasive maneuvers, or he read something I mouthed extra-aggressively, or he was just unduly moved by the tone of my car horn, I might be shot at or dead.

It's hard not to think the general incivility and insanity of "the world" isn't encapsulated in moments like these. Earlier, I'm listening to podcasts where rich people are justifying their support of Trump. I'm scrolling and seeing my state senator praising the explicitly fascist governor-elect. Indiana has relaxed its gun laws. I've spent the last several weeks navigating and looking for places to spend time in the greater Indianapolis area, more than once, I've entered a place and been spoken to in Spanish. I'm not anti-immigrant and pass for half a dozen different races, but if I were poor white trash, I could see the path to anti-immigrant sentiments. Our healthcare is the bare minimum, exploitative, and diminishing. Our pay is in the dirt. Our education is embarrassing. Gun-finger guy is the model citizen of a society designed like this one.

I don't know what it says about me that, once I turned back around and noticed several white trucks that might have been his in some of the parking lots, I made a detour and cruised by. I had no intention of stopping or escalating, but it would have been pretty sweet to get a license plate and call the police back. None of the trucks were his. I also reject the insane and perpetual psychosis of this cultural moment that's supposed to wilt and silently suffer the brazen and irresponsible threats and violence of those too weak and stupid to own their baggage.

I don't go out of my way to find or create drama, but I am a fundamentally angry and violent person. I fantasize, regularly, about being in a justifiable situation where I inflict pain or consequences. The fact that I work in an elementary school and can dream about encountering a gunman should make my point indefinitely about the degree of our sickness. The fact that this area is at a point where I could reference recent shootings in my active response to a potential one of my own should too.   

I don't consider myself the kind of person who needs humbling reminders of how fucked up things are. When they occur, I start to intellectualize my potential response and ask questions like whether or not I should own a gun. I don't want a gun for a dozen reasons. I also don't want to live in a world where you're gambling with your life because too many people are proud of how reckless and antagonistically violent they are, looking for justification in every moment. I think it makes sense to wonder if, given your environment, do you have a choice not to protect yourself?  

I have ideals, but I'm not keen to deny my reality. Reality comes crashing through the window like a deer on cocaine with untreated mental health concerns. People who behave like that guy, and the people who pretend like that guy's behavior is just a story of rightfully entitled rugged individualism, need our attention in a way I don't think society has the bandwidth or spiritual and intellectual depth to deal with. In a remotely sane place, I wouldn't be writing this right now, I'd be back to taking notes and looking towards the future of my day and weekend. I suspect there's something of a metaphorical white-trash gunman cussing at us and pointing their fingers at all of our heads.

I'm finding it increasingly impossible to ignore the temperature, score, and suggestion that no matter how prepared or zen I might choose to be while the fire rages, I could stand to incorporate more water.

[1176] Sure, Enough

How often do you feel like the student versus the teacher? For several days I've been trying to figure out a way to speak to a recurring scene. I don't know how much of it might be as an extension of my hobbies and interests. I don't know if it's a cultural thing. I do know there's an incredibly myopic and condescending meme about it that goes something like, "All of your negative experiences or negative people in your life are there to service your growth and wisdom." 

Whether I mean to or not, I find myself reflexively in a "solutions focused" mindset. Those familiar with counseling or psychology will recognize this as a therapeutic approach to intervening on a problem that, more than likely, won't take more than 10 sessions to fix. It's not what you try to apply to someone who is swimming in childhood trauma and can barely form the sentences of how they're experiencing pain. It's not carrying a presumption of ongoing maintenance, say, in recognizing that you can be 30 years into sobriety and still experience a trigger. It's an attempt to be practical, fairly quick, and more deliberately accountable to whatever the situation is. 

As a listener, people are frequently taking up the hint that they can get into the weeds of their various problems with me. I'll learn from new coworkers everything from the extent of their various health concerns, to psychological issues, to history of patterns that preclude their ability to do anything but whatever they currently are. Once you get someone talking, probably a little too fast, you'll hear them reflexively say things like, "I just can't" and "Yes, but..." as they explain why they haven't advanced along some metric like school or professionally. People, intimately and confidently, know why they can't do something.

So, I'm also finding myself responding to the immediate and obvious holes in what they're saying. This morning I was given a story about why a person was unable to complete college because of dropping a public speaking course. Within about 2 minutes I learned that it's not so much about public speaking, it's concerns with getting picked on as a child that tie to, reasonable, concerns over self-confidence. She's not too stupid or mentally broken. She's too afraid to tackle the degree of work it's going to take to look in the mirror and see the positive things and practice the little bits in a manner that trumps what's mostly superficially wrong with her. If you think you're a fat/ugly/misspeaking reject it's easy to make fun of, you don't see the value in rehearsing your speech assignment so you don't stutter because the embarrassment would just kill you. Of course, it won't, you just haven't wrestled with how much you kinda wanna kill yourself...and that should, reasonably, concern you, but also is as explicit an arrow as you're ever gonna get as to what you really need to work on. You have a shitty therapist if they just want to write you a script and see you next week and haven't told you that. 

Back to that meme. As the person dolling out the advice, but also showing up to actually organize or manage something that's been neglected, I'm almost never feeling like the student unless I'm, also leading, that charge to learn something new. I've been using my time between shifts to read and take notes on day-trading. I don't have a teacher. I'm almost certain I won't find anyone excited about the prospect of teaching me without a fee. So, even if I'll be infinitely ignorant of most things until the day I die, practically never is someone attempting to help or guide me with something save whatever you want to make of specifics related to a new work environment recently.

It doesn't follow that my nascent interest in day-trading means no one wants to teach me. I have many interests and am constantly listening or watching. TV? If I literally watch 625 shows, you're watching the 626th I haven't yet. Music? Sometimes can get a little back and forth, but ultimately even if we're close in genre preferences, if I read an article about the artist, it's a bridge too far in your level of interest. Work culture? If I frame potential and plans, you pat me on the back and stare into the distance because your experience was formed for gossip and kvetching. Podcasts? You're not very political or don't really care about history. You can't remember the last book you read that wasn't about vampires or magic. I don't know if we're just so consumption-based that no one feels like they have anything to say, or if there's genuinely no interest or capacity to have more than a superficial relationship to literally everything. 

In a solipsistic sense then, I feel like I'm frequently the center of the story. To be clear, I know this isn't remotely true, and it's a confluence sensibility that comes from humanity's otherwise proclivities to eschew responsibility and be lazy. Another way of saying this is that no one is showing up in my life and encouraging me to keep trying or doing my best. No one is angling to round out and inform my perspective. No one is taking and rearranging my words to show me how much I'm talking out of my ass. No one is, reasonably, patiently, and insistently, trying to keep me and what I do on a particular path that, from an outsider's perspective, would serve me better than the conversation I'm having instead. I don't feel particularly confident at that point, just deeply alone and suspicious.

My interactions are most often either with someone being silent or short because they're mostly checked-out by habit. Occasionally, I'll get a reactive response, yet almost never actually towards me as the gossip makes its way round. Other leader-esc or manager-adjacent types will offer a kind of nodding along pretend-agreement where, on some level I make a certain kind of sense, but the underlying belief from the other person isn't there, so I'm being more or less entertained but not taken seriously. This is where I garner condescending chains of, "Good luck!" because obviously I'm just a dreamer who doesn't think hard enough about the how and why or practical realities. 

We arrive back at why I remain solution-focused. I can't remember the last thing I've offered advice or a process to that was genuinely intractable. I'm not heedlessly proclaiming to "destroy capitalism" or broadly "fix people." I'm saying things like, "If the gym is closed, can we move the tables and allow them to run in the cafeteria?" I'm saying, "If we have too many people not uniformly carrying out this criteria, can we send them somewhere else?" Or maybe it's as crazy as, "Let's do the math and spend more money on this useful, consistent, and efficient thing instead of that." 

I know fuck-all about day trading. I'm far enough into this book that certain scenarios or sentences are of the kind that I could read it 10 times and have no idea what it's getting at. I start with, "What's that word mean?" Then I google it, and move on down the line until I can conceptualize the broader message. Then I write out the next question I have about who, where, or what seems relevant in assessing what I just learned about. There's funds I can play with that are literally practice and play money. There's funds that require less money and low fees so that even if I lost it all, I'd barely feel it. There's explicit things you can guard against that, because it's very human not to, get belabored. I've never been a gambler, so I don't by disposition and definition worry I'll magically start desiring financial ruin the more I begin to grasp. I already acknowledge, accept, and contain the nature of my greed. 

What I can't tell from the people eager to splay their stories to me is whether or not they're as interested in acknowledging, accepting, and containing the forces that present as though they are, at least crppling, or eating them alive. It also becomes so normal and matter-of-fact, like the compulsive-eating diabetic who plans to have their foot removed. It's not fate until you're comfortable and convinced it is. 

What's crazy to me as well is that I feel a certain craving for wisdom, insight, or novel ways to approach things. I'm constantly looking for the next actual secret that I haven't begun taking for granted as a learned habit. Whenever someone remarks how well I've stated something, I point to this. I've been thinking about it for days/weeks, wrote about it, re-read it, and by the time I go to say it, it comes out short-enough and digestible. I shop those little bites around my life and into different scenarios that would otherwise test my best conceptions of myself. I wouldn't have them had I not done all of this work before some shit hit a fan. 

I suppose I work to not get exhausted by how often I hear, "I can't." When you're primed to hear it, you notice it fucking constantly. I don't exist in many worlds where anything feels remotely possible. It does, of course, to me, because fuck you I do what I want kind of thing. I'm thankful I have Brandy who might feel "I can't" but shows up literally every time. I'm thankful Hussain is still able to demonstrate how much shit you can get done under impossibly fucked circumstances with his wife, work, and broader culture. My dad stays reassuring when I dip into that, "How fucking stupid am I?" space of car-crashing or debt. I try to constantly remind these people that that shit isn't normal, and the world fucking needs it. 

I see where it comes from in watching these kids now day in and out. The amount of, "I know! BUT!" and "Well SHE did..." after you ask them about what they did. The move to perform tears is another constant. I don't coddle, preferring to either ignore or investigate. Yesterday, I literally had a kid go, "You know, I'm not even hurt," and ran back to playground after I asked him, specifically, where on his head he got hit with a ball. After pointing to his eye, then chin, then forehead, he gave up, smiled, and ran away. We have parents that you can see in the minute between arrival and taking them away feed the worst impulses. Too many adults keep those habits, looking for the license to lie, perform, and blame when a second of personal honesty would get them back in the game. 

You're not the victim. You're not actually hurt. I'm not on my way to the poor house. My pink eye and cold were not killing me. I'm not getting paid enough, but I'm also getting paid to do, in my own words, almost nothing, and certainly nothing particularly hard. You certainly can, always, be doing "more" in service to whatever it is that just popped into your head. Do you actually give a fuck? Does it mean anything real to you? Are your reasons actually your reasons, or were they given to you, like lines to perform, so you can once again conform, excuse, and pretend? You're not even asking the questions, so of course everything feels impossible.

[1175] Boss Baby

Oh, shit! You ready? I haven’t written in almost 3 weeks. In that time I’ve started a new job, gotten sick, my car shit the bed, I experienced what felt like a Craigslist “missed connection” at a comedy show in Chicago (Phil Hanley late Saturday show if you’re reading this, Sam!), and have already begun plotting on how to morph my new job role into something that isn’t tantamount to babysitting+.

Let’s start local. I got pink eye. I don’t think I’ve had pink eye since I was 4 years old. I’m a site director now for the YMCA. I’m around, by definition dirty, kids and the things they touch for at least 5 1/2 hours a day. No matter how much wood I’ve knocked in recalling how infrequently I get sick, they got me. This happened at the tail end of getting over a mild cold that decided to get worse just as I thought I had efficiently beat it. I wear contacts and don’t have backup glasses. My eye’s aren’t terrible, but driving has been extra.*

While sick, I’m getting a handle on the true nature of my role and responsibilities. As with most organizations, they have a “mission” and “ethos” and “goals” which are on thousands of pages of wasted paper and policy, but no less inform how some of the most true-believers operate. I’m at a poorer school that no less has figured out how to raise enough funds to consistently engage its kids. I’ve found some people to click with, and found some people who it’s clearly not in their nature to click. Underneath that is the fundamental problem all companies seem to have with basic demonstrations of competence and communication.

I can’t pretend that my job is that complicated, especially given my experience just in my hobbies, let alone at DCS or in counseling. I try not to say it in a condescending way, but I have said it dozens of ways, that I’m a glorified babysitter. At least, that’s how the role was translating my first few days when it sunk in that the difference between a YMCA program and an actual daycare is, drum roll, the programming of activities. If you don’t have anyone concerned with implementing and consistently executing programs, you’re just babysitting. Hence, in spite of 9 people currently hired to oversee 30-ish kids at my site, they hired me to, you know, actually direct something.

At first, naive me was asking things like, “Why can’t the 9 adults do what I’m told needs to be done here?” Several more days of watching people respond to my questions with deer-in-the-headlights faces and pensive toe digs while trying to explain how they’re getting paid to essentially hang out, I got my answer. Also, everyone before me is to blame, as well as the broader chaos of the YMCA leadership.

I’ve done that thing where I have immediately found common ground with the most adult and introspective person and we’ve had quasi-therapy sessions in the mornings about how things are ran or what informs our perspectives. She will be vital in helping me get on committees and pushing reforms that hopefully flesh out that identity and values the YMCA professes. The takeaway is the same as elsewhere, you need to be the adult.

I’ve got some experience with children, but I’ve never been interested in raising them, am bored to tears after too much of doing whatever it is they want to do, and am generally ambivalent about people which informs how I engage with them professionally. A key thing about this is that I don’t seek to control or dominate. I don’t yell at kids. I don’t condescend. I, viscerally, remember what it was to be a child, and actively attempt to mitigate unconscious cultural norms that aren’t helpful in cultivating what you want.

Thus, I have to be the adult for both the kids and the adults I’m now responsible for directing who might feel licensed to get loud and lecture-y and disingenuous in their approach to a kindergartner. For me, who does not profess to be an expert in child-rearing, but who is informed by his experiences, developmental science, and in watching how others operate, I maintain a certain degree of confidence my kids will figure out how to operate along more structured and accountable lines. I’ll suggest something like, don’t reward and entertain the kid who is being performative in their crying. I’m pliable, but keep a decently strong opinion about the efficacy of certain types of intervention, for what age, and under what circumstances.

Some people deeply appreciate this approach, others get petty, aggrieved, and gossipy. You will, under every circumstances, become “the enemy” in one form or another by virtue of any whiff of change altogether, but more accountable change in particular. That’s baked into any leadership role. To me, this means even more not to try to be a dictator more than demonstrator. I speak to the kids like I want you to speak to them. I credit them when they do something right. I trade in time, so when they waste ours, they get theirs wasted while they’re itching for the gym or playground. It’s literally only been 3 days of mild implementation of “my” way, and I’m already seeing positive results.

It’s hard for me to not think about what my day-to-day looks like at scale. We’re now tasked with hoping and praying our way through the next Trump catastrophe, but that’s only to frame it as though we aren’t the fuck ups. That’s to again distance ourselves from our impact and ignorance and hate that dictates the ship. I’ve no less been listening to all my podcasts and reading about how people attempt to digest the zeitgeist. I can’t recommend enough listening to someone like Anthony Scaramucci and then the 5 vs 4 crowd back-t0-back. Or the guests of Michael Moynihan and Bari Weiss and then up-in-arms Leftist academics on Michael Shermer. The nature of wanting/needing a story to supplement or replace personal responsibility beams brightly.

I don’t think there’s a room with or interaction between any two people that exists where there isn’t both an obligation and potential. The obligation would be to something like an imagined universal human value. You treat people a certain way or expect something even as simple as holding the door open for all of space and time. The potential is for that interaction to be dictated or mitigated by personal folly and ambivalence. “It is what it is” as though you have no conscious choice. As though “reason” doesn’t exist or isn’t defined by how it’s executed in good or bad ways.

Monday this week, at 4:45 AM when I tried to leave for work, I discovered my tire was flat. I live in the countriest of country. It’s pitch black, freezing, and recall, my job isn’t that hard or needing of me to actually be there in order for the kids to be kept basically safe and supervised. It’s already extremely wasteful the hour drive I make there and back every day. I’ve been sick. I’ve got the excuse to stay home and sleep in playing out brilliantly. My truck is at my friend’s house. I’m not sure if the new-old car has the equipment to change the tire, further complicated by being on a gravel driveway. I could have left it at that.

I informed my boss of what happened. I sat briefly with my coffee, and proceeded to get to work navigating the problem. The tire wasn’t just flat, but the car I’m driving is very old and 2 windows are taped to try and hold them up. The tape failed, so the car froze on the inside too. Gotta get that fixed. After 3 hand-cranked failed attempts to get the jack to balance, I get the boot on. I drive straight to a tire shop up the road from my job. It takes hours, I overdraft my account paying more for needed tires than the car cost, and navigate from the lobby trying to get money from an account I almost never use, forgetting the pin. In the waiting hours, I cross the highway to mail a package, get food, and make some other errand calls. I was at work for the after school shift.

That night, a flash frozen rain descended upon the area. Parents were over an hour late to pick up kids. Wrecks blocked traffic. I’m perpetually tired the last 3 weeks adjusting to my schedule, sick, and am trying not to ruminate on the irony of being more in debt after getting a job and in needing to get there than by just being broke and at home. I’m staring down the hour and a half minimum drive. I, too, have to navigate remote country roads at 5 mph so I don’t end up like the SUV I stopped for just before I reached home. A “let’s drag this day out even more” cherry on top.

This is either a story of one massive bitch-fest meant to draw sympathy or a basic story of adult accountability employing the tools and skills of perspective and resilience to meet obligations. Some people will view it defensively and try to engage in a pissing match about who has it worse. Some will be ambivalent because...yeah it’s just life and we all get flat tires and deal with the cold. It’s vitally important to me that we all understand most the moments of inflection and choice. I could have sat out the entire day, blamed circumstances, and lied about my ability to address any part of it. I think that’s precisely what we’re doing at less viscerally obvious moments every single day.

You are accountable to you first or you cannot claim to be accountable for anyone else. I would not deserve a leadership position if I were the type of person to pretend I don’t know how to begrudgingly change a tire in the dark, freezing, and on my gravel driveway. I do, I did, and I’m sure I’ll have to do it again some day. I’m sick, so even if it’s more debt and I can’t “really” afford it, I have my medicated $150 eye drops and Urgent Care bill, and began reflexively disinfecting everything I touched at work. I need to continue to watch myself not being an excuse-ridden piece of shit in the world in spite of my very real, very reasonably felt grievances for things I suffer each day.

I unironically bring up unionizing in every job I take. I get zero enthusiasm, feedback, or curiosity about it. Everyone is keen to complain about the pay, disorganization, conflicting feedback, etc., no one, ever, will even entertain the conversation about how to do it better. They also know that, on balance, they’re probably getting away with a certain kind of murder in how they’re making their money or conducting their role. A union is an attempt at a more formal accountability. We, as a species, instinctively and reflexively do not want that.

Don’t be a screaming ape or in denial about your inner insecure kindergartner. We live and die by what we are bringing into or seek to take away from how we engage with one another. I want patience. I want beat by beat reasoned understanding and reflection. I want an earnest investment towards positive changes and values that aren’t empty abstracted truisms eking out of ambivalent cliches masquerading as adults and leaders. Getting by or through each day on some egocentric story of your rights, victimization, or entitlements is not the same thing as demonstrating your understanding and embodiment of your value system. You might profess to be the boss of your own life, but you should be acting as a avatar of what the best version of that life could look like.