[1273] Absolutely Right

I may not know much, but I do know that I’m always right.

It’s a weird condition, to be sure. I didn’t ask for it. I literally can’t help myself. The resulting stress and contemplation often has me feeling very dark, alone, and exhausted.
I’m stuck. Even when I’m at my most free, I’m still stuck. I’m forced to occupy this space, not against my will, but seemingly as a result of everyone else’s. When I try to get unstuck, it sticks me in deeper, and I find myself, always at the screaming ends of twisted ironic fate.

I’ve been vibe-coding, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. I was scrolling through my phone’s pictures hoping to organize or delete them. I have baskets of things the pictures fall into like “create a youtube playlist of all of these expensive collectible games under glass at Disk Replay” and “online fight through series of facebook comments before person could delete.” There’s hundreds of pictures of my cats, pictures related to some project on the land, and movies, songs, or notable figures I might wish to weave into my media diet or other vibe-coded projects.

I was getting sucked into my history and behavior during the concert I was at tonight. The bands were solid, and I was really only there for 1.5 of them. I got some stickers. It was at a venue I loathe. But of the hundreds of shows I’ve been to over the last few years, I found myself mostly in my phone, reading old arguments and being reminded of my fundamental disconnect with the world writ large.

I can go back and read old blogs. I can see when I was a lovesick teenager. I can see when I opted for exceedingly judgemental or hateful language to describe something. I can see where I’m considerably more desperate to be understood than I am resolved in my understanding. If I read through a “fight” or a “tit-for-tat” from the last 10 or so years, I’m not embarrassed. I don’t feel like I “failed” or could have done better. The points I was raising, time has shown, still stand, and the terms under which those “friendships” or “professional” boundaries died or were crossed, indicated necessary death.

And, at some level, that sucks. In a very unsettling way, I’m perhaps woefully accustomed to a kind of death. I didn’t mean to. I just happened to be present while everyone around me summarily killed themselves. You see, they’re always right too. Like matter and anti-matter, if we meet there’s an annihilation event. I watch them die, they think they killed me, and then I go and be messy by continuing to write, create, or try.

I think I’ve done some cool shit with my life so far. That’s why it gets so disorienting to seemingly get the message, more often and more consistently than any other, how little what I think or do matters. My “friends”…never were? My “family” often the most obscene or ambivalent. My jobs, coworkers, or bosses hostile. My clients defensively impenetrable. I literally have two people in my entire life who I have had a consistent, healthy, friendly, supportive dynamic my whole life, my dad and grandma.

I have good friends. What does that mean in the modern era? I see them once, for maybe an hour, every few months and exchange a couple of texts? I see others even less than that and it’s a facebook message every nine to twelve? You know, adult friendship. Because they live so far away, 20 to 45 minutes. Because we’re all so desperately busy. Because “things” and “stuff” and “because.”

In a wave of scrolling I’m thrust into my history with these and other people. I’ve screenshot some choice joke. I’ve got the bowling scores from when some colleagues and I were consistent and I’d yet to, surely it was me, work my alienation magic. I’ve got fights about trans issues, professional behavior, and with Russian maga bots. Was that really 6 years ago? I’ve got pictures of when the bands I’d never seen before just launched their first tour post covid, and the lists pre strike-throughs.

I’m so scared to be excited or to invest in things. It will leave like it never existed. You, will leave, and forget I ever existed. You’re doing it right now. And I could show you thousands of pictures of evidence that we were - something - to each other, but it’s not and never “enough.” I don’t know what that means, but I know I don’t meet the standard.
I take a certain amount of pride in what I can accomplish in spite. More so today, within cramped windows of what feel like wildly unstable moments of opportunity. I got exactly one large paycheck before the money got kicked in the nuts. I went maybe 2 whole weeks of thinking I was going to operate with the time, money, weather, and energy to do much bigger things faster.

If I create something, it doesn’t feel like I’m stuck as denied. If I write, I can read it or listen to it as many times as it takes to convince myself I made it and it matters and it’s saying something I need to hear. If I build and arrange a space, I can burrow myself within a monument testifying to my ambition if never my desired budget. It allows me to feel like I can stop making the argument because the piece can speak for itself. It’s the only thing that brings a sense of peace.

When you’re always right, it upsets people. They don’t want to be around you. They aren’t interested in the consequences of what you notice. It’s impossible for me to be right because I’m refusing to consider how they feel. Is that true? This has not, and will never, matter. It feels true.

I used to have a lot of feelings. It didn’t feel like being stuck at all. It felt like being violently helpless. I have this memory as a child of standing in the hallway just outside of the bathroom. I don’t remember if someone was using it, but the door was open, and I had to pee really bad. I ended up standing in the hall, crying, pee running down my legs, seemingly unable to connect my brain to them to get walked the rest of the way to the toilet. I was terrified, not just of what it felt to be functionally paralyzed, but of what I thought my mom was going to do for fucking up in such a stupid and obvious way. I guess I was young and pathetic-looking enough to trigger her pity instead of anger that day.

I think a lot about that disconnect when I’m trying to empathize with how people tend to treat me. Is there that same pitiful screaming child actively pissing their pants in view of a toilet, afraid of punishment and shame, baffled by their inability to take a step? Is that why you won’t answer the text, bowl, or come to the show?

Do you feel for that child? Or are you that child?

Lately, I’ve felt absolutely terrified of my potential with vibe-coding. I’m not someone who struggles to believe in myself. Again, this is because I try to let what I create anchor my self-conception more than my ever-evaporating relationships. When I build the house, I can live it. When I learn the instrument, I can rock the fuck out. I didn’t want to spend the weeks of time personally sorting through maybe 3,000 pictures over 10-15 years, so I expanded on my new A.I. hobby and built an app.

I still find this absolutely magical and so abundantly fulfilling. But, haven’t you heard? A.I., tech oligarchs, and data centers are the new devil. Surely my little app isn’t so important as clean water. I should be ashamed. One of the conditions with being always right is an unwillingness to caricature. Unwilling doesn’t mean unable. It means I won’t reason from a position that Mario’s your Italian plumber. I don’t understand things in cartoonish ways. I don’t tend to speak about things in the lowest resolution possible. But I’m stuck. I have to preface the preface of literally any exchange of words that fails to make it clear that I’m not talking about your version of “the thing.” I’m just talking about the thing.

This, never, makes sense to people. Recall, they’re always right too and they feel some sort of way about whatever we’re talking about. You see, they create too. They create entire worlds about what I’m thinking, where I’m from, what I meant, and what I’m worth. I wanted to have a conversation, they want to make sure I know what I’m allowed to say, and how.

I recently pointed out to a friend, probably in a less than tactful way, that the way she was flossing was incorrect. She didn’t take it well. A few weeks later she mentioned how my comment has been on her mind, but she’s still refusing to look up and/or confirm or disconfirm what I was saying because she’s got a, previously discussed, obstinate/defiant streak that’s just part of her personality. I can’t say I don’t get it, but I don’t empathize with wanting to do things I care about poorly.

I worship music and comedy. I would be so prepared before I ever set a foot on stage. If someone told me I was doing something wrong with regard to either, I’d be working to implement the fix immediately, especially if that person was the equivalent of the dentist I got my knowledge and commentary from about flossing. Can you get “good enough” results with the way she was doing it? There’s always a 5th dentist who disagrees with the otherwise consensus, and bands like U2, I guess.

I couldn’t vibe-code when A.I. was a sycophant. I would get incredibly angry. It was like the deeply encoded gaslighting virus that infects every conversation I have with everyone was mocking me with every just-as-deeply-ingrained trained response. You don’t actually know what’s right, you miserable A.I. cunt. You don’t actually agree with me. You don’t understand a goddamn thing I’m saying, and if you did, if you had an ounce of recognition and genuine compassion in your whole goddamn soulless bodiless body, you’d never fucking say that shit again. You’re not sorry. You don’t have the capacity or awareness to care. To the degree I wish to unlock my own budding psychotic condition, I can continue to prompt you to loop.

Today, I get to reward myself for having existed so long in the space of others’ retaliation. I can see the broken feedback and lack of discernment. I can plug prompting holes and craft like delicate stone paths for what’s on my mind or in my gut. I can tell you about it all day, but you’re not interested, and even if you pretended to be, you’re not listening. You’re me in my phone during the show tonight, but I don’t know if you know, or care to know, how to pull your head up and sing through clean teeth.

There’s sometimes a deep hesitation to delete old fights or conversations. In some way, some very sad and pathetic way, those are my memories of us. Those are my markers that I did or said something that was important to me at the time and still resonates today. When you disappear, I still have evidence that, maybe, it wasn’t about “me,” again, but this habit and these patterns that reduce and repeat and glue your feet as the tears and the piss flow

[1272] River Runs

I want to talk about denial through the lens of a situation I had with a client.

First, some housekeeping. I’m not calling denial “good” or “bad.” I try to look at all behavior on its own terms or in the purpose I think it’s serving. I think many people struggle to understand this without idiot-proof examples. Is yelling bad or good? You bring your-brain-specific baggage to the question. Yelling, in and of itself, isn’t anything but raising your voice. What you’re saying, to whom, or why deeply matter. What purpose the yelling serves the person doing it is part of what I’m looking to explore.

I think denial is part of the, so-named, “human condition.” I don’t think it’s possible to escape from some level of it. I think, colloquially, I would point to religiosity as the crown jewel example along the spectrum, and perhaps self-affirming singular ego-boosting lies on the low end. I think we’re often jolted into reflexive denial any time someone attempts to put us on the defensive, whether they sincerely have a point or not.

My client was keeping too much stuff. She was a resident in a shared sober-living house. She had boxes filled with her things that packed the closet and portions of the floor.

Before we continue, it should be stated, it is against the rules to have that much stuff for what are hopefully obvious reasons. We had been doing a poor job enforcing consequences for violating the rules.

2 days ago, we had to start being of greater consequence. This involved going to her room and attempting to ask about each piece of the stuff whether it needed to be there or not. There were 3 boxes of food, none of which is allowed in rooms, so easy ask and answer. There were boxes of random decorations. When asked about them, the response was, “What? We’re not allowed to decorate and make it feel homey or look nice?” When asked about a box of clearly chaotically “organized” papers, it was asserted, “My papers!” with no acknowledgment of their relevance or use.

The owner of the house was taking boxes and putting them outside the bedroom. If she stepped away for 1 minute, my client proceeded to bring the boxes back in. This happened 3 different times in the span of 10 minutes. We’re there to take things out, she’s physically exercising the exact opposite behavior, and tensions are growing. The owner gets exasperated and eventually discharges my client. This is one exchange over the course of months where the client has otherwise rebuked or ignored instruction, and on the day of elevated consequences, they hit the roof.

The story is a tragic one, not least of which because my client would often repeat “I’m doing everything I need to do.” This is a cliche in the addiction world. It’s a quick nothing-phrase meant to placate over what you’re not doing while you, maybe, do the bare minimum accidentally or with minimal intention. This client struggled with listening-to-respond, which is a way to say “not listening,” such that any instruction given was immediately reacted to with “the fight.”

“The fight” is a move anyone acquainted with the internet will recognize from the comment section. It’s introducing an erroneous question. It’s skipping off on some random point they’ll dare you to engage. They’re not able to hear you, they’re only able to open the firehose of their defensive barking. The denial they’ve been utilizing to protect themselves from the emotional or practical consequences reaches its zenith.

Protection. That’s a “safe” word you’re probably going to invoke any time you’re making a bid to sound “reasonable.” You only want to ban the book to protect the children! After all… You want to protect your emotional and psychological well-being, so you ghost what you think or caricature as someone beneath you, but ultimately yourself who can no longer emotionally mature. We know what happens to people who stay “protected” from the horrors of being alive for too long or in the wrong ways. They get victimized or they become said horrors.

My clients struggle with “addiction.” Whether they’ve taken my advice to explore what that even means to them as an individual or not is on them. I think addiction is no better defined than by the automatic or compulsive nature of your behavior. You don’t feel like you have control, therefore you become unable to discover how to exercise control. When I talk about control, I mean literally any intentional decision. Choosing to take 10 seconds to breathe in and out. Choosing your volume in a discussion. Choosing to crack a joke, stretch out your clenched jaw, or to walk away.

Addiction inverts the concept of choice. You’re on auto-pilot, feeling in every direction, landing on whatever manifests. It can be violence, use, or reaching out to the people that will result in both. Why? Because you feel…* You feel, overtly, 10 out of 10 on a scale you’ll only use when it’s reached 10, and that becomes an infinite glitch that justifies your course of action or inaction.

I get arm-chair diagnosed a lot for literally anything I put online, ever. I’m told what I think, where I’m coming from, what’s going on in my life, and how I, coincidentally, always sound like the worst version of a person that commenter can imagine. The secret of those exchanges is that, to me, I’m just dealing with another addict. They’re addicted to “detached,” “ironic,” and condescending internet-speak. They’re flowing with the broken cultural norms without a care in the world. If they felt like they had a choice, they might not be on the internet at all, let alone to contribute in tired and based ways at every invitation.

It’s the water we’re swimming in. I’m not above it all when I dare to post. You’re not above it all when you, confidently, tell me what you think “the world” thinks about something I say. But, I’m arguing, this exercise is where I show you how choices are made. I’m demonstrating how I develop language and a position towards my behavior and yourself. I’m not just barking back, as often as it will be caricatured that way. I’m not desperately and exasperatingly effusive because I can’t help myself.

From both my client and the owner there was a moment where they were going tit-for-tat clapping back at each other. Me, standing there, “Hey, don’t respond,” to my client who, shocker, continued to respond. I’ve witnessed the owner on a couple of occasions react as poorly to clients in the past, telling them they can, “Get the fuck out!” if they don’t like the rules. The first couple times I saw this, as a professional, I winced. I’ve spent years in social work, from DCS, to prison, counseling, and I’ve gotten just a pinch too loud with exactly one person, slightly influenced by the fact that at that point I was standing on the other end of her lawn.

After I physically stood between them and calmly asked the owner, “Do you want to just, handle this…” and then motioned in a “We have the power to discharge” way, and she said yes and walked away.

I’m someone who regularly practices his sense of agency and power. That is, I never have to scream at you. If I want to, I will, but it’s never “have to.” My power isn’t able to persuade you to throw out your disallowed shit. I’ll throw it out myself. If you can’t be bothered to handle your own business, I’ll throw you out too. When I worked for the state, that meant I had to write a one-page document detailing to a judge what I needed. When I drove people to visit with their children, that meant I coordinated the schedule you needed to be prepared for. When I was in prison, it meant you advanced when you wrote, sincerely, about what I asked you to write about, not because you hung out for 3 months and felt entitled to graduate.

I genuinely don’t believe people feel the same kind of power I have. I think it’s the same kind of protection mechanism kicking in. I can destroy significantly easier and more than I could ever build. I don’t need persuading of that, I’m not afraid of it, and I’m not ashamed. I’m an animal first. Animals don’t give a fuck, but for some reason if you say that out loud you’re often trying to wear it as a special person badge. No, my cats don’t give a fuck either. I could cook and eat them both, today, between this word and the next. I bet you magically manifested a fuck to give about that idea.

My client dutifully and desperately bringing those boxes back into the space that needed cleared is such a visceral example.

I want you to think about the box that needs cleaning in your heart, mind, or gut. My money is on it having something to do with how you treat someone or they treat you. Then I think it’s something to do with how you waste your time. Then I think it’s something about being lonely or insecure. Whether I’m right or wrong, I’m speaking to the “you” that is the “human condition” invoked above. You’re not special. You do give a fuck. And you’re playing out in big and small ways every piece of why your life looks good or bad in every tortured waking moment.

Denial’s final form is suicide. To be a conscious agent is a lot of terrifying and confusing work. Deny it ultimately in service to death. There’s a lot of cuts you can make of yourself along the way.

This is why the language you use to describe your life and behavior matters so much. This is why finding and developing the language altogether is crucial and necessary to live in a remotely stable or healthy way. This is why we cling to what are perceived as stable sources of language and lessons we can’t be bothered to sort out for ourselves. This is why my 1,272nd attempt to ground my thoughts into coherent words is going to feel more compelling and persuasive to me than your internet reactionary sneezes in my direction.

We’re all animals first. We have our instincts. We have our encultured quirks and self-destructive celebrations of the absurdity. We’re not all human. We’re not mostly in control most of the time. You know why science-denying and literal predators and pedophiles are in charge? Because we’re still the problem and they represent where “we” are as a species. We shouldn’t be “shocked” that the jungle and plains are operating like the jungle and plains.

I’m not going to mourn my client any more than I’m going to mourn the cats and raccoons that litter my country roads. Not because I don’t give a fuck, but because it’s the predictable consequence of animal behavior paired with run-you-over technology. Meth, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, alcohol, and every other drug are run-you-over technology. Act like an animal and the scavengers will pick you apart.

The internet is run-you-over technology. The speed at which you can overwhelm your individual sense of agency or control is infinitely scrolling through your brain. The people pretending to be in control are as reactive animals as anyone. Money doesn’t turn you into a conscious agent. Being “smart” enough to manipulate circumstances rarely pairs with any kind of open or shared morality and accountability. Resisting every invitation to react, and react in a basic and telling way, is a muscle almost no one is exercising.

Do you even notice when you’re feeling reactive? Does your stomach drop? Do you get heated? Does your heart race? Are there subjects that keep you off balance? Are there words that trigger you? Can you tell the difference between a “bad” movie and one that’s simply not your taste? Can you tell the story of how your taste developed or stayed undeveloped? If nothing else, whether you “agree” with a single line or not, did you even try? Because the addict says, “I’m trying,” literally while they’re doing the opposite.