[1231] Add It Up

I think a lot about when I might believe I’ve “made it.”

I read an interview with a musician who explained that for many bands who don’t define success, it can feel hopeless or antagonizing that they aren’t getting a certain level of attention, money, or opportunities. If and when they are comparing themselves to The Beatles no amount of what they put in or get out is going to feel like “enough”.  This insight, of course, applies to many domains in life outside of music, and I think one of the reasons that explanation has stuck with me is because I’ve tried to apply the lesson to my day-to-day experience.

Is today “enough” for me? I woke up whenever I woke up after going to bed whenever I fell asleep. I was watching what I wanted to watch. I was playing with AI, or stated differently, creatively engaging with a tool I’m interested in and learning about. I’m going to another comedy show tonight after attending one yesterday. I’m digesting an apple fritter I got as a gift yesterday. I’m wearing a new band T. I’m on the verge of again-maximizing my base level of Last War. Food is cooking. I have enough money in the bank for a few beers and my debt consolidation payment coming up.

So far, even with the first few snippets of what I might say about today, yes.

Most of the days of my life look something like this. Even when I have a job, my days circle around the story of my otherwise fair-to-well operating environment. This is in spite of the negligence and fascism of my state and country. Even if, in general, I have a fairly precarious relationship to long-term employment. Even when it starts raining, and you can tell a compelling story about the different insurances I can’t afford.

The concept of “making it” feels all the more on the nose. I have to make a story of my context. I’d go a step further and call it something of an obligation of consciousness. Because my experience exists within some deep and perhaps unanswerable questions about what is “mine” or it means to “experience,” the narrative mechanism of my brain literally needs something constructed to anchor to.

When you’re poor, or poor enough, that constructed story ties intimately with your need to survive. A proud declaration of your “work ethic” might hide that if you didn’t, you’d starve. The hundreds, if not thousands, of times I’ve heard, “It is what it is,” from people in bureaucracies and social work environments. When your nose is pressed right up against the ever-failing human condition, you “accept” all of a sudden deeply “wise” and “obvious” things about what is or isn’t possible.

It works the opposite direction with every rich megalomaniac. You breach the bounds of “average” human activity? Now, all of a sudden, literally anything is possible! Including you being the one to lead us into your imagined future. The same trick is being played on your psyche though.  Your brain is under the impression it’s about “you.”

Many people have intuited ways out of this trap by finding themselves working “in service” to others. The difference between actually doing so and paying lip service to it could not be more clear. At DCS, I saw the people who got off on the power of what they could do to your family. Same in the prison. You can tell the people who are being led by the insecurities or inadequacies and laziness, dragging that posture over the struggling people they purport to serve.  Add to that, and I consider it a plague upon the modern condition, where your otherwise good deeds or service can turn into viral capital.

They say most kids want to be “influencers.” They want the money, prestige, and attention, superficially, like any musician might imagine about the lives of the biggest stars. The story of the work to get there will remain just as obscure. How many hours a day do you want to practice your instrument? How many posts do you want to feel obligated to every day? I question the desire to influence if you can’t wrap your head around the nature of what’s influencing you.

One of the ways I think I’ve found a degree of stability and quelled anxiety was to tell the story of what happened at each moment I got “the thing.” Did my life fundamentally change? Did my energy levels and time get utilized exactly as I imagined they would? Literally, never. I moved to the middle of nowhere, and I do play around with random projects and blast my music in the middle of the night, but it’s not my main preoccupation of time. I bought all the fancy woodworking tools, and have made a handful of things, but I’m not churning out an Etsy store. My “friends” and my friends don’t have any more or less time to spend with me. I’m still lightly concerned about my next unfulfilling job and how much it’s not gonna pay me to keep my head just above water.

One of “the things” I got was the ability to start going to a large number of shows. I’ve clung to that as a thing I both wanted, still want, and sacrifice other things in service towards. It was in making graphs with my show attendance data that informed my feelings about “making it.” It was my hundredth “fun thing” event last night this year. It was 109 last year, 143 the year before that. I’ve been playing catch-up and taking an active role in shaping my story by the things that I enjoy, like music and comedy, and the rituals around getting to where they are on display. You can ask me where to eat, drink, navigate parking, or best place to stand at dozens of venues across the Midwest. I can say, “I saw them open for” dozens of bands who are getting big or who I’m betting will.

I’m working on “more.” Because I want to not just attend these shows, I want to attend them on any day, in any location, they might happen. I want to get to them in a car that’s even more reliable than the ones I’ve been driving. I want a T shirt for every band I’ve even wanted to support a little. Is it a selfish or greedy goal when there’s so much going on in the world? It could be.

I’ve learned that the nature of my wants isn’t about “instead of.” I want it all in concert. Derek Thompson of Plain English and the book about Abundance fame, talks about how he can’t stay locked into one domain of interest. His brain begs the question of the broader metrics and narratives that explain something. I resonated with that idea. I’m not a “woodworker” or “musician” or “political junkie.” I’m not a “counselor” or “landlord” or “fan.” I’m just generally interested in the interplay of things and how we manage to react or work with them. I don’t want anything beyond feeling meaningfully engaged in that interplay. Because I accept that meaning derives from the narrative, I’m interested in continuing to write said narrative.

For me, it’s important that narrative is true. I mean true. I don’t mean “my truth.” I don’t mean arguing the weeds of subjective experience. I mean, for any English speaker, you can read these words. That’s a true statement. I mean, I’m a dude. I mean, I just ate meat, and regardless of how much suffering or intelligence I can attribute to the pig, it was delicious. I feel “intellectually” bad about it, and would eat pig cells grown in a lab and seasoned the same way if it were an affordable and reasonable option. I don’t feel bad enough to stop eating meat today.  It’s not telling a simple story of my righteous vegan posture or ambivalent negligence towards other conscious beings. It’s a true sliver of “me” and what I think it would take to change my behavior.

My relationships to things are always in flux. That’s not about making room for moral relativism. That’s about the exercise of accountability. Those who are innocently confused and those who are motivated to bad-faith reasoning will operate functionally the same way in the face of this idea. I’d call it a simple and easy truth, but for whom there’s an eternal mystical reality, one imagines it’s too disorienting for them to grapple with.  God can be their Rock. I’ll take Chris.

It’s true I want to get lost for weeks arguing with AI until I find it more useful than for torrenting and efficiently organizing my media. It’s true I want to be involved politically creating grassroots infrastructure to combat the rot I perceive at the base of our ability to collectively survive. It’s true I want to watch nearly anything that’s been turned into a TV show that was actually trying to say something. It’s true I want to learn how to produce music, and create worthy-of-sale woodworking things, and have the kind of “fuck you” money that doesn’t blink about empowering my cartoon soldiers on a gambling-adjacent phone game.

There are, easily, a dozen things I could rifle off about genuine desires I have that exist in each moment. Sometimes my presumed ADHD gets a chance to demonstrate that when I’m juggling 6 at once. A couple days ago, I undressed, turned on the shower, noticed something about my bathroom mirrors, and proceeded down a rabbit hole, naked, which included, cooking, power tools, a shattered bowl cleanup, and grime cleaning, before I found my way into the actual shower. Did I want to shower? Or clean? Or cook? Or adjust the mirror? Or not cut myself? Or ensure my tools were organized so I could find one easier next time? Or get that spot addressed while I’m down here? Yes.

I don’t want it all. I don’t want it now. I want to feel like I can do any of it in the moment I really want to do it. I want to celebrate the freedom of ambiguity more than feel trapped by obligations. I want you to feel as freely chosen as I was to choose otherwise. I want the power of my awareness and capacity to build as much as destroy. I want the conversation to start from that mutually shared place and routinely surprise and delight with where it goes. Given that I don’t really know where to begin in that endeavor, I guess I’ll go back to dinner, my shows, and keep my ears open for what the next story is that hits me.

[1230] You Only Meant Well

I think there’s a moment to capture.

The last few days I’ve been feeling viscerally aware of how good I have it. To be sure, I practice active appreciation for my circumstances, but I think a lightly drunk conversation with my dad, when I haven’t drank that much recently, helped nail the point in deeper. We talk a lot of politics. I often return to the idea that no matter how crazy things have gotten in the budding-fascism landscape, we’re more Huxley than Orwell in why we might be slow to react or as forcefully as required. Do I really want to die for anything on any given day? Not as much as I want to be entertained, eat, or hang out.

I feel like the story for a long portion of my life is one that was tempted to complain. I could have a lot of amazing things happening to me, and I would default to what I could criticize, fear, or be angry at. I think this was an extension of how helpless I felt, in spite of any, and often, demonstrated capacity. It’s still there, both an incredible capacity to complain and do great things. The difference in my old-enough adult mind between how they operated in the past to now is how I feel about them. The feeling informs, it doesn’t steer.

I’m what I consider to be an extremely judgemental person. Exercising judgment is a different game than weaponizing it. When you’re not in control, it’s a defensive weapon by default. You’re trying to distance yourself from all of the things to be fearful and angry about. When you are in control, you can say something like, “I find this scary, but” or “I’m filled with rage, yet.” Sentences structured like that are often red flags for diminished accountability. “I love you, but” “I know I said that, except.” When you’re stuck in your feelings, you can’t hear the contradiction. You don’t understand the disconnect between your words and actions.

I’ve gone well over the cliff of trapping myself in an environment that tries to pair my words and actions. As a result, there are literally hundreds of things I’ve written about that I’ve claimed to want, fix, or work on that are a living record/dare to test me about what I “seem” like or “what I mean.” As often as I can squeeze, it’s precisely what I do. This is also a prerequisite for getting credit for what you don’t do. How else could you determine laziness and neglect from a real choice? How big is your basket of evidence that you mean what you say? What confidence can you have in yourself that something is reasonable or “realistic?”

My extreme judgment is always going to target myself first. It’s why patience and grace are also practices. I, mostly, know about me in any given moment. Can I dig up every hidden thought and instinct? I certainly try, but no. Do I know an exacting percentage of diseased or complicated cells itching to kill me? Of course not, but I don’t feel sick. We’re invited, in what feels I suspect to most people like an endless nag, to be constantly observing ourselves. Could you ask for a better environment for creating anxiety and depression if you didn’t grasp the nature of your control? Your feelings defensively picking you apart indefinitely?

I find myself returning to the idea of “I can’t.” It’s just this persistent echo. It’s a response to the idea of complaining about “my life.” I have it so fucking good. Poor, I’m good. just-enough money, I’m good. Practicing or building something everyday or sitting around watching TV, I’m good. I’ve never been genuinely hungry a day in my life. I’ve survived every brush with death so far. I have so much stuff, and stuff that reflects my values and privilege. I don’t feel arbitrary and predatory impulses that weaponize my judgment or intelligence. I know that I want my castle built on the same foundation from which I built my shed.

Do you feel it? Do you feel like you’re in a place of perpetual potential, or surrender? Are you waiting until you hit 40, or 50, for the license? How much more do you need? Who’s going to be your sugar daddy or are you already hysterical by what has been granted from  your Orange Alpha? So much of what I choose to spend my time on has been a direct repudiation of what I’m told I should feel or do, starting as reactionary spite, and then molded into deliberate practice. I had to learn what I actually preferred. I had to clock my actual energy and enthusiasm for what types of engagement and towards what things. A perspective wasn’t bestowed upon me, it had to be excavated and shaped.

And it’s ongoing work. I’m sensing an analogy when it comes to working with A.I. I’m building me-centric software to manipulate and organize media files numbering in the hundreds of thousands. I have to think methodically, notice when it’s drifting, and learn things about how I can accidentally break or undo what was working. It’s taken me 20 hours on a piece of vibes-coding software to get, maybe 20% of where I’d like to be in quickening what I’ve previously been doing manually for hours/days. It’s personally gratifying/exciting to see what I can create. When I describe my media habits to most people, you can tell I sound “weird” or “crazy” or “just why?”

I’m not otherwise distracted, so I get to drift and linger in spaces that aren’t about merely surviving into the next miserable day. I get to gamble in ways that aren’t frivolous. I get to form opinions of things I’m not immediately inclined to give a shit about. And I get to do that quasi-indefinitely, even in the midst of when practical things come calling. The way to tear my appreciation for all of that down is to think about what I don’t have, or designate an “ideal” that feels, currently, unreachable.

A couple days ago I thought about writing a “here’s everything that’s awesome about me” piece. As I thought about the awesome thing, I immediately wanted to counter it with all of the negative examples or incidents from my life. That I can or want to do either, but most importantly both at once I think is one of the most important things to protect about myself. I’m prepared to give credit where it’s due. I’m not dispositionally avoidant of what else a story or framing could mean. I’m not letting how I feel about any version of my life be the dominating factor in how I consider myself or what I choose to do next. I’m everything good, and everything bad, about me. I’m every word I’ve typed, and everything I’ve yet to access, or never will.

All things being true, at once, I chose these words. I’m choosing my coffee. I’m choosing to return to my A.I. software project soon, then it will probably be food and to play my media. I’m healthy. I’m close to the right temperature. I’m surrounded by what I’ve actualized and what remains as my potential. I’m actively contemplating and discussing other goals and collaborative projects. I’m in the recent memory wake of attending the movie theater yesterday, as well as a comedy show, and 14 concerts/performances across 3 cities over the last 3 weeks. I went to my favorite bars with my favorite people. I ate and drank heartily. I made $1,300 selling some of my Pokemon cards. I’ve cuddled with 5 cats.

I think it’s okay to want things and “more.” I don’t think you actually want those things or something more if you can’t feel as deeply the wild and improbable nature of what you’re already within. If you can’t access the creative/destructive power of literally any given moment, it’s unclear to me you can qualify as “conscious” or approach some idealized version of “human.” If that sounds judgmental, consider it’s not actually saying anything about you.

[1229] Hard Mode

This will be an exercise in perspective keeping related to a recent saga/drama involving the sober-living house I’m attempting to establish.

Let’s start with math. There are 8 beds we’re charging $150 a week for. There are 4 partners. If things go perfectly, I stand to make roughly $12,400 from this house a year. My yearly bills are sitting around $11,000 if I’m including things like home and car insurance (still not health insurance), have SNAP (ha!), and don’t drive much (basically impossible).

I start that way so you know whatever you hear about other ways I’m spending money, or problems I’m trying to solve, it’s not coming from an explicitly greedy, entitled, or that kind of privileged place. I’m not shuffling other people’s money around like a literal lord. I’m not so far removed from our program participants’ needs that I’m ambivalent about when things blow up or what it would take to have  a long-term stable and sober environment.

All 4 partners worked at an IOP program together. 3 are therapists, I’m a CADAC II, and have all my DCS/social work experience. We all have to agree on who is admitted. We talk at least every week and throughout the group chat about our clients and what to look out for. We had at least 4 months of regular interactions with the people we selected to move in at the start 2 months ago.

Our clients are still in “early recovery,” which means there are often a host of emotional, psychological, social, etc. problems that are still pretty hot. 3, 6, or 10 to 12 months of sobriety does not mean you’ve straightened out your core issues even if you’ve hit a personal best or it was a struggle the entire time. These issues can be compounded by negligent programs, but all on their own they often cause the lion’s share of any horror story you hear when things break down interpersonally.

Remember how much I said I’d make if things went perfectly? We’ve had 5 people move in. 3 of them have been, or will soon be, discharged. Off to a great start. Of those 5, 2 are looking like a relapse combined with fraternization. It’s a bad idea to get into any kind of romantic relationship in recovery for dozens of reasons that most should be able to intuit. How many sober relationships do you know are going that well?

Both of our recent discharge situations have involved me ending up at the house in the middle of the night. I’ve had to get packed up and moved out way too many things that shouldn’t have been allowed in the house in the first place. I’ll have to part ways with someone I was hoping to train in more of a leadership capacity. I’ll be saying goodbye to a client who was as good as you can ask for in IOP.  If you don’t keep sane and emotionally stable, it’s the endlessly gut-wrenching nature of this world where your literal hand-picked evidence-based examples of people who “should” be able to do better will surprise you. Your expertise and experience, combined, does not matter.

Or, that’s what it looks and feels like initially. What it means to be human is infinitely iterative in its ways to find methods for creative destruction or construction. There’s literally no way to predict what someone will do around any given individual or with the opportunities you try to create. You always have to return to the things you can control. I can provide a bed, a warm house, people with an observed, even limited, history of doing the work and dispositions that have coped well. I don’t know what tomorrow brings. I don’t know a micro shift might topple the psychological building.

As it stands, I have 2 people missing. One male, one female, and it appears the male is impersonating the female, perhaps stealing her phone days ago. She’s got an unexplained gash on her arm. I’ve heard a story where a stranger intervened when he was allegedly talking aggressively towards her, knocking him out. I’ve got reports from other housemates just as confused about the major atypical shifts in mood and word choices in brief interactions. Missing person’s reports are getting filed. Family states away are worried. 3 days ago, these were 2 of the highest performing and accountable people we’d invited to the house.

While writing the last paragraph one of my partners texted that she’s currently speaking with the female.

As things have played out, I got screenshots of conversations about their budding relationship, a relapse from him, and a “don’t tell!” message from her about what they’ve been doing for at least a week and a half.

For anyone not familiar with the world of addiction, there’s about 10 absolute “no” things that must be accounted for if you’re going to be successful in recovery or in your relationship to a client as a counselor or case manager. Lying? Hell no. Vague/cagey and cryptic texts? Nope. Relationship that’s even remotely flirty? No no no. A reluctance to relay problems like a missing phone, house disagreement, or needs? That’s a form of lying in concealing. Being unable/unwilling to screen? No one in your circle of contacts can get a hold of you? Finding time to be “bored” when you’re not working nor apparently job searching?

You will always always always think to yourself as a responsible and accountable person that “more” could or should be done. You are not ultimately responsible for anyone else’s actions.

As the hours have ticked by, and I’ve added more verbiage to our program contract, this increasingly looks like an isolated, mildly-elevated, wildly aberrant yet at once cliche story of the chaos and contradictions of addiction. It’s certainly not the first “crisis” I’ve navigated, and all of the tools I teach I also employed. I wrote as it happened. I patiently worked with relevant supports. I acted in the best way I could for any given moment. I’m not blaming myself for introducing the two individuals to each other anymore than I’m taking credit for the couples still together who met at my college parties.

I can rely on me to identify and execute a course of action. I can’t know what’s in anyone’s heart. I can’t predict the future. I can say, “It’s time to go” and look for the next person to make the offer to. If there’s anything truer than how quickly circumstances can change when you’re in any form of social work, I don’t know what it is. Lives come and go in many forms in an instant. Do you know where you exist in that infinite transition? I do.