[1008] Big Gulp

I feel like a tea time chat. It happened again, as it often does. I’m “technically” on the clock and at work. I’ve had one group today, and my next is at 5. This “in between time,” is often an anxiety-inducing affair. What, exactly, am I doing? Today, as the first rumbles of stomach-dropping started, I had the thought that I was “experiencing the reality of my full potential.” It immediately calmed my gut. Wait, what? I felt all of my possible choices and like I could perfectly well engage in any of them. It was excitement at the prospect of experiencing the reality of any number of consequences, and knowing it wouldn’t matter.

Say, for example, I up and quit my job. I know exactly what I’d be doing with my time. I know how full I would feel diving into the layers of what it takes to get this counseling operation running. I can go eat, or watch TV, or pretend I have enough tasks to eat up my time with spreadsheets and outreach. All of it, ultimately, doesn’t matter, at least it won’t impede me moving forward in the ways I would argue I prefer. I can’t move any faster or slower than I’ve been. Each time I’ve been presented with an opportunity to make a meaningful step forward, I’ve taken it. I have no reason to worry outside of the general random tragedy of life and how it may impact me at all times.

I can’t get that insight or phrasing unless I experience the anxiety first. An incorrect goal would be to say something like “I never want to feel like this again.” I think we haphazardly set ourselves up for failure with ill-conceived sentiments like that. If only, it was imagined, I wasn’t depressed or anxious. If only all of these variables weren’t. When you do that, you can’t weaponize your feeling into a viscerally felt and actionable stability. My so-named “anxiety” is the consequence of my training myself not to just be excruciatingly angry all the time. That mild “tickle” about competing courses of action is power. I’m aware first, then it can be a blog or cold call, or follow-up.

I really do want to quit. It’s for all the reasons I state often. It’s not mine, it’s not on my timeline, it’s not the kind of challenge that will beget growth or a sense of pride and dignity. It doesn’t pay enough for my ambition. It’s building more immoral behavior into its base of operations regularly. If I quit today I’ll owe my hostage-taking company two grand. I haven’t actually received any money from submitted claims yet. The practical reality of a paycheck continues to overtake many disgruntled lists. But I could quit, and that power is anxiety-inducing. When I get moments where I entertain how to navigate the consequences of doing so, I’m anxious about the credible confidence I have in my capacity to pull it off.

I feel like that sentiment harks all the way back to when and why I first started writing. In turning over how people engaged in shitty relationships, I inevitably shined upon how I could manipulate and under what circumstances it would feel more or less appropriate to do so. My awareness and ability to do so lends itself to being aberrantly good at things like DCS assessment and counseling. I know what makes me tick, so I know what makes you tick, even if you never quite land on language you would espouse as confidently. I also continue to learn that the moment I lay too far off a manipulation, you tend to use that room to hang both myself and you.

We could look at my business partnership. I don’t have to talk Hussain into working himself to death. He had that complex before I ever met him. I do have to be a cheerleader. I have a certain confidence that in his world might feel more like a desperate need. No matter how good a job he does or how hard he works, he has a gaping hole that needs to be filled with his effort and definitely not his father’s money. I trust his capacity to work even harder than me. I have to persistently counsel that he take time for himself and feel good about each tangible step we move in the positive direction. He knows we’ll get there because he’ll cut it out of your chest if necessary (or, his own, he’s a nice guy.) I know we’ll get there because we both weaponize our different types of pathological working behavior into tangible results.

Is it malicious or bad to recognize how he works? No. Were I to task him with “doing everything” because I know he would drive himself insane in order to do so would be. Is it manipulative to lean into my strengths when it comes to logistics or paperwork or contract formation? The moment I use that power to cheat him out of money or engage in some kind of hostile takeover it would be. We have our lanes, and they are both necessary for a successful operation. It doesn’t help either of us for me to be naïve about what I am or am not good at, nor downplay what power I do or don’t have. That’s why the design and distribution of power needs to be an exchange, not a grab, or a lust, or a desperate stumbling into.

I have the power to keep the peace, redirect the conversation, and hijack your brain. It’s literally my job. I prove to myself how much I can throw you into a place of self-reflection regularly. I can walk you down the road of questions you haven’t asked yourself in a specific order to draw a specific conclusion. I’m asking myself the same things, and humanity has been asking them since the beginning of the capacity to do so. If and when you experience the same kind of anxiety, accurately described or not, what happens? You use? You deny? You cut? You get distracted? You otherwise engage in some automatic addictive behavior to suppress?

I remember some moments of my life for their outsized capacity to speak so loudly. I remember when I literally, bodily, couldn’t be persuaded to be as “down” or “depressed” as I had been in high school. In the middle of The Will to Power, I just stopped reading, like Forrest stopped running, and stopped conceiving of myself in the way that was driving my desire to wind up reading things like The Will to Power. I remember consciously deciding that problems did not need to include yelling. I remember when that started feeling like a choice. I remember when it stopped feeling like “someone” or “something” “out there” was going to “fix” literally anything and my trust eroded. A sense of agency and intention are trained skills, not divinely bestowed nor an entitlement of any vague semblance of consciousness.

Almost every day I hear a story from someone describing “what happened to them.” It’s incredibly rare that the story identifies more than one place where the person might have intervened beyond at the end, and rarer that the intervention is necessarily healthy. We’re always picking up the pieces. We’re describing after-the-fact our later impression of what happened, instead of waking up to the moment and choosing a path. “My mom yelled at me for an hour!” What? Why not in second 5 did you not say “I won’t be yelled at,” and leave? Why did you “fix” that situation by cutting yourself, inducing a calm, so you could sit back down to be yelled at for another hour? This, and more, are the literal realities people share about their experience of time and decision making. What’s your personal analogue?

I’m not blind to the fact that I don’t just “want” to find more people to hang out with, it’s a necessary mitigation of my awareness. I don’t want to be corrupted by my power or singular window. I see it happen in bits and spurts whether it’s in some indulgent spending or conversational liberties towards the pliable. I need exchange. I need shaping as much as I can shape. I know people “adjust” themselves around me, just like I tailor my engagement professionally. But that’s what I hoped to avoid in donning the “friend” moniker to people and letting them run wild. That’s my persistent appeals to hang out with my otherwise preoccupied crowd that doesn’t so much conduct themselves like the college people. That’s my striving to create big and powerful entities that can operate by principles that no individual can tend to be trusted with indefinitely.

It's voting season. I can’t trust everyone I know to do so. I can’t trust my neighbors, the people I counsel, or those currently at any level of power, to not be literal fascists. My “power” in the context of any given crazed and irrational individual is immediately humbled and reduced if not for a shared exchange of an awareness of the problem and institutionalized accountable ongoing mitigation of the consequences. Whether that “institution” is the company I try to create or the relationships we build, it’s not a mere discardable artifact of an otherwise meaningful and purpose-driven existence. It’s a necessary component that needs nourishment and defended. It’s an awareness of what matters and why so we’re not driven by marketing, trauma, and blind fearful ignorance.

Each stomach drop is conceiving of “the whole world,” mine, yours, and the one we can occupy tomorrow, depending on my next keystroke, phone call, or deliberate pause. It’s not a power you should ever get too comfortable using, and it’s not a power I want kept to myself. I also can’t pretend that everyone is entitled to it or can use it responsibly. Most lottery winners blow through the funds in a few years. We’ve hit the historical lottery, country of origin lottery, monetary lottery, and often genetic lottery, and we’re teetering on indefinite self-destruction. What’s missing from our awareness? What’s your move when you feel that anxiety-inducing sense of power and obligation?

[781] He Is Dangerous

I have the “interesting” conundrum of wanting to do “social” things, but having no real desire to connect with any of the people involved. I've said about a million times I don't care for small talk, even if I'm well aware that it's the safest and most polite way to feel people out before you get to anything interesting. I'm not terribly interested in the details of my own background, what I do, where I'm from, and knowing you're from Pittsburgh when I won't remember your name until maybe month 3 or 4 I'm sure just dislodges something else I'd rather remember. It's not like something insidious where I dislike the people either. I'm just not interested in them.

Now, I know why this happens. I'm always in observation mode. When I'm “getting along,” without pathologizing it, I'm always in some kind of “manipulation.” For the sake of civility or getting you to move on to someone more interested, of course I remain polite. But, for me, there is no “test.” I'm not trying to find out if you're normal. I want to know immediately why you're weird. I want to know how you don't fit. I want you to be kind of off-putting and aware of it.

I think about this when I meet new “nice” people. The dedicated nerd, perhaps. They have a proper thing to study, and they're proud of their geeky hobbies. The several I have in mind are from my town's community band. They'll bond over fun facts about town or that function they played in together. I barely get, “Hello, nice to meet you” right. I kind of pause and smile and wait until they retreat when they realize I've no follow-up questions for them and didn't really want to answer whatever it is they asked.

I want to be in some kind of band though. I don't want to lose my chops forever. I want to see myself improve on counting or sight-reading. I don't need a 20 minute snack break, and I don't want to buy anyone else snacks. Of course, my only option is to roll with what's available, or pretend I could start my own thing. Just like I want to be “green” and learn all kinds of garden stuff, but damned if the hippies aren't a group of bizarre and high-strung disorganized ickiness.

It's always important to remember, it's not like I don't try! I don't judge. I don't make comments. I don't pick at or make jokes. I play along. I help out with whatever tasks I'm assigned. I play the...2^nd...part. My day job is to bullshit people into compliance. I can offer a stupid factoid about myself here and there. I can look you in the eye and smile as you tell me how long it took you to get back into playing music. But, as with most things, I'm there for incredibly selfish reasons, not so much to make friends. Any association that somehow bubbles to the top alongside my reasons for being there has to be an accident and afterthought.

I thought this would be a nice lead in to another thought I've been kicking around lately. I think I'm deathly afraid of “success.” There's 2 kinds of success. There's winning other people's games, and winning your own. I think a huge component to why I'm no longer in drug studies is that I was panicking about beating my own game. I genuinely felt that I was going to just start making money, doing my thing, and there was nothing else but to finally feel good about it. Psychologically conditioned me who always has to find something to push against couldn't handle that. Options? Real freedom? Bad tasting smug status updates? That shit is overwhelming in its very conception.

I don't know if I'll ever feel like I deserve to not be panicking. It's not that I have an ever-growing list of demands and “things” that will keep me thirsty. I just know when certain bricks are in place, I'm going to walk like my shoes aren't covered in mud. “Panic” doesn't describe the thought of becoming friends with someone new, as that's an old and boring pattern. But I do freak out that I could have something I'm so earnestly proud of I can't help but pour that enthusiasm onto anyone dumb enough to ask.

If I do make the “nice” people think I'm nice too, I do get a little...bendy. What could I make them do? What could I ask them for? I've played years-long games with people convincing them I'm one way over another. Not even insidiously, but omission is omission. That's who I am. I either need to be unable to mold you, or to stay away from you. When you tell me, with every micro movement of your face and body, that you're looking for me to signal in the ways “normal” signals, I've not only lost the respect for you that would keep me from trying to play with you, but I'm tempted to see how easy that shell is to crack. You know what kind of story people love? The redemption of yourself from their first impression. You know, I was just shy, or something.

I'd love to see what my face does throughout the day when I'm talking to people. I've been told enough times that I wear every thing I'm thinking on it immediately. I want to know if people are responding to an innate boredom face or measure of contempt that I've been cornered or made to play off a bad joke. I wonder if they feel bad by how I look at them because they can see how little they're registering in my eyes. Part of me would consider this unfortunate, another part says it's just a consequence of my built-in filter which I cherish.

The problem is that I don't meet people like me to tell me about me. I wow drunk kids at the bar occasionally by picking them and their friends apart based on the looks on their faces or how they talk. I never get the same courtesy. Or, I get the two-by-four to the face “style” that says something like, “YOU LIKE TO ARGUE!” Well, no, but I gather you've recognized I'm quick to the contrary or offer another explanation. Often, it's something akin to, “YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN EVERYONE.” To which the only response is, “Of course, because I'm honest about how much I actually hate myself.” So much so, that the hate dissipates and I actually don't, and that ironic conflicting confidence is hard to grapple with. It's a story told in my smirk, shifty eyes, and other ticks. Your move, Ekman.

There's some important things to be said about this condition. One, I don't think it's a bad thing. I don't, nor have ever wanted to be, friends with everyone. Two, as with most things I'm forever in my head about, as long as I don't actively try to hurt someone with my perspective and despite my temptations, I think it's perfectly acceptable to let people just deal with their internal conflicts, or disregarding, of your presence. It's not so simple as to say “I don't want to fit in.” It's that I've never fit in, no matter how good I am at playing along when I have to. The only other person properly off in their own world during our 20 minute interlude was the autistic kid staring at something on the bookshelf from the floor. Game recognize game.

I'm five questions away from turning someone around on me any moment. “How long have you been with the band? I envy how you seem to get those solos down so quick, what's your secret? I've got like 7 other instruments I'd like to learn back home, do you play anything else? If I made copies, would you want some? Tell me literally the 20 minute version of anything I could possibly ask you about because you're 50+ and are default interesting enough with a wealth of life experience.”

I've heard the phrase a lot lately, “peel back the onion.” That's more my kind of long con. I pock the conversation with certain identifiers in the jokes I make. I see who laughs the loudest. They start approaching me to be their buddy. I find out their kind of insecurity. If I wanted to take a social angle, I'd meet them out for too many drinks, and goad a kind of boldness about an incorrigible position or aid in breaking down some barrier. To stave off the resentment you put in distance as their sober and hungover heart reflects on what I MADE them do or say. So you ingratiate yourself towards the people they admire or get along with, and they begrudgingly accept that they'll have to play along because the evidence of your treachery took so long and made them feel so bad, it's easier to forget, and they'd never find the words to explain it if they tried to press the issue. It'll be enough to ride a rumor or nitpick the signifiers of the kind of person I am I was throwing out from the beginning that you no longer laugh so hard at.

All the while I won't know if I'm having fun, feeling nothing, or supposed to be playing this role as nothing else seems more proper or worthwhile. The world is run by people like me with higher-order delusions about their command of their perspective. That is, they command an audience, as do I, but I wish everyone to be in on the joke. I know what patterns I can repeat or how to break down different types after my cold read. To the degree I use their unwillingness to recognize and rebuke against them is something of a measure of my morality. That I'm so blatant a force for amoral destruction coming strains my sympathy.

Maybe I'm just scared of returning to the past. Making it fluid again. Convincing myself the “best” version of me is to not think so much and just pursue as earnestly as I did to whatever ends I demanded. Saying it out loud makes me certain that's probably wrong to do, but then, I've been stranded in the deep end alone for a while and don't know how much longer I'll keep kicking. At least you'll have all the facts if you bear witness to my trial.

[718] Just Fucking Tears, Man

Well, if you're going to write a “crazy” blog, I suppose it makes sense to talk about what you went through to provoke it, no?

I was my usual charming self. I sat down at table, offered a beer, and found myself embedded in a friend group who's dynamic was happy to host my randomness.

Would you know it? I got along particularly well with one of them. We did the graze our fingertips on each other and quasi-hold hand thing that says “we're all but fucking tonight.” Her friends were on board too. All I had to do was shut the fuck up.

Can you guess what I didn't do?

Whatever you think about me, I'm still not about dishonesty. I don't “seem.” I just don't. If you're under that illusion, I take no responsibility. Basically, I said something that contradicted my “cool” persona, and the girl left my hand and the bar. And you know what? No harm, no foul. I'm charming. I get it. I'm much more disappointed we didn't talk about your immediate turn regarding my comment than I am at the prospect of not getting laid.

Here I think is the time to talk about “fucking weird” blog type shit. Mind you, I don't find it weird, but my perspective rarely registers otherwise, so I have to deal with all of your consequences.

Like, let's be real, I was, and am probably still, all about my ex. I'm not the stalker creepy type. I'm not lost in some naive Indian conception of “love.” I'm not even of the opinion that I'm necessarily right or the “best” for her. What I am is understood in what I want and don't want in people. So to the extent you want to blame “love” on me, you don't get better than my ex. That's going to just be a truth I die with. It's dramatic if you want it to be, but as a person who hates everyone, I just can't figure out how she's less than anyone should aspire to be with. Call me retarded, that's your right. What matters is I get to die alone writing, with all due respect, and not blowing up her phone like a crazy person.

This girl tonight wanted to make out. She wanted to fuck around. If I played it “cool,” I wouldn't be writing this. I'd be at her house fucking around, for some reason, because I know how to play the game. What happened instead, I was me. I talked honestly. I said some “trigger” idea about my ideas about sex that turned her off in a hurry. And you know what? I couldn't give less a fuck. I miss feeling connected with someone. I miss craving the “sacrifice” of trying to behave in ways they would appreciate. I didn't need to fuck this bitch tonight. And I couldn't give less a fuck that I said something that was “too much” that steered her towards the inevitable quicker.

I think this is kind of lost on people while I struggle and bitch about my relationship to friends. Remember, I'm not a person who respects and conceives of “love.” By the time we get along, it's a veritable spell. Most of my life I've wanted nothing to do with you. “Friends” was as big a joke as anything. Seriously, you fuckers, do you not get that? Am I just tooting my own faggy fucking horn thinking I have a bead on you and how you work? You're the 50 fucks I'm giving more credit than that.

I hate how much I care. I hate that I made friends. It's fucking terrible. It's fucked. I barely have a grasp how to approach it. Mostly, it's complicated because you don't get it. Sure, I have a responsibility to how I respond to you. But, more sure, you're not a piece of shit. Why do you act like you are?

This is my flirtations with “sociopathy” when it comes to clear and present danger fuck opportunities that I cannot find myself invested in. Are you some feeble bitch who's been looking for any excuse to draw her hand back? You're better than that, no? You see it coming. You see it for what it is?

I miss believing. I miss thinking the people in my life mattered for more than they were worth. I'm not lonely in some esoteric conception of the word. I'm not “too smart” or “introspective” eschewing the caution of some philosopher's warning.

“First things first, I'm the realist.”

I'll eat all the humble pie when you can show otherwise. I wanna fuck, but not when you're scared of who I really am. I don't believe in love, but if I were to throw together a shitty contradictory idea of how I conceived of my ex, okay you got me. I don't have even an ounce of hope that my ability and perspective is going to save or fix anything, but it's my literal reason to keep living to pretend otherwise. I was told today that, “you're afraid of life.” The only way that's even a little bit true is in respecting the shitty road I could take to ingratiate myself. Fuck you all, I have way too much power. I need you pretending, like me, that it can be used and accounted for responsibly.

I didn't go out tonight trying to get laid. I can't remember the last time that was the case. I just went out “open.” I've lost my agenda. My violent and voracious craving for the “real” transcends cumming on your tits. That's what it is. I'm violent. I'm going to rip what I want out of you. “Real” is forever an abstraction. My role seems to be immensely particular as an example of it being less so. Of course we have choices, but god forbid I don't choose this.

I'm always going to trust, when it seems due, to my detriment. I'm going to have “faith” in the people I do and scenarios I pretend to understand. I'm going to die trying. I'm going to fail believing. I'm going to get as close to “faith” as a nonbeliever is allowed, because I don't really get why you bother to exist otherwise. I believe in what I felt towards my ex. I believe in the fragments of the example my grandparents set. I believe in ever failed hook-ups at my most charming. The reality, that shitty “feel” fuck-all realm is real. I fucking hate it. I want to differentiate. But fuck me for fucking trying, it's just what doesn't seem to go away.

I'm glad that girl didn't fuck around with me tonight. I had it in the bag. But I still want people. I want connection. I want reality. The world is better off my not being a cynical pervert playing nice enough to play things out.

And that's always the rub. We got along. We could probably be fairly good friends. But, naw. How I “seem” won't comport with who I am. Like, whatever you want to say about me and my ex, I'm not under the impression she was confused about who I was. It's why I wrote a handful of blogs espousing feeling understood for who I really was. Naive or not, writing is supposed to capture the moment, right?

I miss sincerity. It's what I think my “friend” group in college persuaded me of. I miss believing. I'm fucking teary-eyed at the idea that it's just me and whatever I might imagine. How do you blame “friends” when you really miss the ideal that you were something more?

I always trust me. I will respond in what works. My ardent suspicion is that my concept of responsible is going to shit all over every remote conception of humanity. I'm going to fuel it with ego. I'm going to justify the merit in my “wise” perspective. I'm going to be “tired” and “matter-of-fact.” I'm going to adopt a posture of take instead of give. I really just want to cry. If I could ever lean how to do so without being immensely and beyond drunk, I would be.

This is the first moment I ever thought I might do something significantly “bad.” Like, on the real and fuck you, you know I'm smart. I just got an idea. I feel like I might be persuaded. I'm fucking crying right now because I don't want to do that.

Fuck man dude, I just miss believing in things. I don't want to be what I know I can.

[398] Merciful Masters

I suppose I'm cheating a bit in that it's really easy to start thinking about a lot of things once you've been engaged by a conspiracy “it's all about mind control, maaaan” documentary. Nonetheless, I feel an itch and I think it'll tie to other things I hope to unravel.

First, it seems very obvious if not preferred that someone's in control. Whether it's in a war and you're finding the pride to charge the battle field and take the first bullets so your brothers behind you can live on, or if you're looking for something to aspire to from mass marketing of the ideal living and family situation. We're a top down society in that sense. Something seems better than nothing. Being controlled or even enjoying in giving up control don't seem that bad in and of itself. Think about how elated religious people must feel...

Think of the idea of “herding cats” which is often a description about a group of atheists. You don't have to spend years of your life debunking myths and arguing with people online, finally overwhelmed with your knowledge and unable to escape it's conclusions. You can just be a random asshole who says “I don't believe in god.” Depending on where either of those two examples grew up, they could still find solace at an atheist convention, as if, because of sheer disbelief, that's how they'll form a friendship.

But they're still their own kind of cat. They still need a Dawkins or a feeling of fear or oppression that guides them to a place of common footing. They want their minds to be controlled as well, but by thoughts that can be characterized as "objective." These are people that wouldn't mind being told to go to school or get a job, but they're not going to trust the promises of a world unseen and without evidence.

In documentaries, especially like this one, I can't help but marvel at how sure of themselves each interviewee is. It doesn't matter if they're talking about a particular period in history, some influential character, or just from the pulpit of whatever board they sat on or place of insider knowledge. They give a presentation as if they're the authority. This isn't to say they know nothing or that their information isn't valuable or, genuinely, a form of expertise.

But it goes wrong. Take a random doctor from Harvard and let him say something about neuroscience. Now juxtapose that with Alex Jones explaining how the Bilderberg Group has been engineering schools to control your mind. You may want to forgo the grain and just swallow the salt shaker. But if you're informed enough about how schools have been funded, neuroscience, Alex Jones in general, and the people in charge of creating these groups and foundations who have a say in what gets taught, you can still begin to say something flirting with reasonable.

You're still stuck with fairly general ideas though. Should people who have an economic stake in how much you know be in charge of what you're taught? Probably not. Should leaders, who, as it basically comes with the territory are self-absorbed, egotistical, and often prone to sociopathy and psychopathy, be trusted to keep “everyone's” best interests at heart? Surely it happens, I doubt it's the norm. Do I want Alex Jones' perspective on ancient Greece or Plato? He's not my first choice.

The big secret that no one seems to want to say is that nobody trusts nearly anything they do. The ones who do are bred to. The rich kids or the spoiled kids who think and talk like Ayn Rand yet leech and never touch the kind of accomplishments her characters were shooting for. (The irony of Republicans touting her book and example is...staggering.) Though they have basically stopped the motor of government so here's a great example of leaders and the consequences of their interpretations.

Anyway, these mind control cautioners never seem to theorize about a world in which everyone's a raving lunatic with a megaphone explaining how you're not being controlled by the right parts of the machine. They rarely argue on behalf of awareness or changing some policy that sells people short. They just sort of lament this mongoloid hive mind that crashes into every layer of society. Mark their words, if we don't save ourselves, well, man, we're just never gonna save ourselves and that will be bad, bad news.

Drop out. If you're willing to ride your notoriety or your degree and claim a kind of authority on a topic, you have to bow and respect what your merciful masters set you up to have. If not, drop out. If you rely on ad revenue or a handful of rich fanatics to keep your voice afloat, you damn well expect their minds to be controlled by your outrage. Your institution gives you tenure and a platform, but for all your words of wisdom, you're being stamped out? You need Alex Jones to help you mold young minds or report on abuses of money and influence? If not, then who's being controlled where and what can we do to save them? It's the media? Okay, well, we'll leave that can of worms for another day.

I drop out to the best of my ability. I still get pulled over when my registration's expired. My master that day let me off with a warning. He was doing a pretty terrible job of reinforcing the idea of a police state I'd say. I don't even think he pulled his gun on me! But to listen to the news or to watch things like this, you'd think that it's even possible to exert such an exacting level of control and influence from the top. That for all the social upheavals and wars and even weather, it just takes billions of dollars to finally work out the science of controlling this world system.

I'd rather plead ignorance before fear. Fear shows a kind of precise naivety and heightened self-assuredness that seems to get us nowhere in conversation. Just onto the next blip from the next conspirator to fuel our anxieties.

And it's stupid to watch these things and say something like “Well, what they say does raise a lot of good points! Just ruminate on the overall idea but forget everything they're saying in service to it.” Um, okay, so we should probably drop acid or get really high and produce our own version that keeps the heart but drops the lies? Ya man, I don't like mind control and money is evil. Righteous. This sounds like a caricature, but I honestly don't know what else it would reduce to.

I could use a little more mind control. I actively try to avoid having a job. I've watched too many movies and read too many books to be too smitten by even the coolest or most novel ideas. I'd surrender to the machine if I saw any evidence that I could trust it. It can get pretty demoralizing to be a stray cat.

[228] Where The Hell Was This Going?

It’s nice when things are simple. Simple to understand. Simple to explain. I try fairly hard to take the litany of issues I can have with any particular subject and break them down into simple rules of how to deal with or fix something.

Take one of my biggest problems; how to deal with people. I find it almost too easy to disregard people. Yet, the conflicting thoughts of “wow, this is an awesomely fun time and I really appreciate or dig whatever this person said or did” pound away in defiance of my…habit. I had a really good time tonight where this is what happened.

I think realizing your potential can be a terrifying thing. Apparently, when I can’t remember the things I’m saying, my drunk mind speaking a sober heart has all the faith in the world as to my mental capacity for doing things. Having to always play the devil’s advocate to myself, it’s easy to dissuade myself from the seemingly outlandish implications of how I would choose to conduct myself. I think if I broaden my definition of what it means to be an acceptable human, I can get away with hitting the inevitable pitfalls of a broadening responsibility.

Explanation by example. I want to run the world. In a weird quasi philosophical notion-ish sense, I already do. The problem of trying for that kind of level of responsibility or understanding is knowing too much. When problems aren’t problems, just annoying temporary bumps on the road to the inevitable. When your relationships are practically impossible to maintain via mutual respect and understanding and always “degrade” into what you are or aren’t getting from them. The more you understand, or at least tout that you understand, the more you feel jaded. You get irresponsible, you test waters, you deliberately piss people off because what do they matter. This is a clear problem.

Simple equation. Food + music + alcohol + conversation. It’s an equation that I have had a ridiculously large amount of fun with. Does it last when you get to “serious” topics? When your friends start to think of themselves as too old or too responsible to act like the kids they were in college. I have this utter dread that the outlets in which I get some of the most fun I’ve ever had are going to continually dry up as people find the comfy spot they want to conform to. Then I become some kind of junkie looking to establish “new and exciting” relationships that will fall to the wayside like all the others.

It’s almost the same story when it comes to business. Yes, I want to own my shit. I can’t find the motivation to do it for myself. If I’m not enabling, if I’m not showing people how easy it can be when you have even one person who gives a shit, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I hate wanting to be that kind of person amidst a world designed to tear my ideals apart. We play political games instead of rewarding and protecting talent and innovation. What happens when I get the world? The exact same human things that make it the place it is will fuck something up. How do you justify fighting a battle that never ends? Because it perks you up? Gives you a sense of purpose? Maybe you can’t be about the “overall battle” and just have to bring it down to specifics. Fight for the people you choose. Fuck the world, I’ll just try to be an example for my friends. If only it was easier to ignore the world.

This feels all over the place. I don’t handle happiness well. I don’t know what to do with a ton of positive thoughts and a positive outlook. As if one day the impending cloud of “oh that’s why I stopped caring” will disappear. I wish I was more naïve and could just bask in it. This might be why I like dreaming so much. Stupid friends, making me want to grab them and never let them go, fuckers.  

[214.6] Not Good Enough

I’m going to run with the premise that most people are “good.” In order for me to do so I will state a few conditions that must be true in order for someone to be considered “good.” A good person does not kill unjustly nor steal things of consequence. A good person is disposed to helping others or at least a feeling to want to help others even when they don’t. Honestly, at this point I already can’t think of anything else that could make someone qualify as anything more than merely “good” or maybe even better stated “not necessarily bad.”

I figure there is a sliding scale of what it means to be good, but nonetheless most people would consider themselves at the very least good if not so much as moral and decent. I suppose I want to explore these ideas in the context of our current life situation and how things will or won’t change. I recently had a discussion with Jake George about what can compel change and both of us, unfortunately, can’t see much of a point beyond mass extinction or extermination, so I would like to see if that relative conclusion is justified.

Often, when we describe something as good we see little reason to make it better. Good can plant pleasant feelings of accomplishment and worth. Good is encouraging. Of those who find themselves trying to make things better, many times they can find themselves trapped in a world of “never getting good enough.” I’m positive there is some cliché about not over cleaning or eating that I’m missing that speaks to the point that something will never be perfect and you should leave well enough alone. There is something that the people who may tend to over analyze have that those who strive for “good” don’t. They have motivation.

Motivation precedes change. A good person or a good system will rarely and slowly change, and not necessarily in any specified or positive direction. Our criminal justice system is “good” at catching and convicting, but it lacks any motivation to guard against wrongful or pointless convictions. A motivated system concerned with money and/or human well-being would collectively fight to stop racking up drug convictions for example. A good system/person will follow the rules just enough to get whomever is next in rank off their back.

Both Jake and I think there is another motivator besides mass death though, and that is self-actualization. It is finding something that intrigues you, challenges you, makes you endlessly passionate, and enabling you to do as you will with it. Currently, we have a system that attempts to “mass actualize.” We prod children through school like cattle, and proclaim we are getting better educated because we have a tried and true educational system. The glaring inadequacies and decades old complaints about school are too well known to be gone into here, but how little they tend to actually motivate is why I think they will always fail at actually teaching something.

This means I do believe people will convince themselves the classes they are taking are relevant or interesting. When enough time, money, and mental effort is spent on something, you will find some if not many ways to justify taking 4 months to learn something 2 days on Wikipedia and Google would have taught you.

Not to stray too far from an initial point I guess I was making, what are the implications of a bunch of good people inhabiting the earth? It means nothing. If you are a simply a good person you are almost certainly willing to watch as life happens, refrain from delving too far outside your moral scheme, and can die contented with the rules you’ve set up within the rules of a good system. When injustice happens you do not believe it falls on your shoulders because you do not take the responsibility of motivated action. The reason starving African children commercials don’t bother you is because you’ve never wished them ill will and can convince yourself any effort you put forth would get polluted by some corrupted motivation that’s asking for your money. Neither thought necessarily incorrect or unconvincing.

The problem comes in demonizing motivation. There’s an inherent problem in truly realizing and being responsible for a free and powerful will. The easy story I constantly hear is from my fellow dreamer and starter friends. They explain to someone a big idea and it’s met with hostility, doubt, and often fear or ridicule. There seems to be a deep-seeded distrust, anger, and fear towards the doers or arbiters of change. I think these feelings arise in people who have never been taught, nor found the will, to understand how, why, and when things need to change. Because to live in our society means it is good to get angry at those who would threaten your “moral foundation” and distrust people with “different agendas.”

When you realize the implications and power of enacting your will, you automatically take on how far you want to push it. Who you’re willing to work with, what you’re willing to sacrifice, and how you’ll defend what is essentially the expression of your being. This is not a light responsibility and it is not hard to see why most don’t bother to venture such roads. I would argue that in order to have a lasting species, you simply have to get over it. An ignorance of oneself is going to debase and confuse more than any amount of ignorance of another subject.

Motivation doesn’t die, and part of the good news is that it is contagious. I think this is the only reason we’ve managed to get as “far” as a species as we have. On the backs of a few who are motivated towards good, civilizations can thrive. The problem comes from how and why people are motivated. It seems to be a harsh reality that you have to go through some amount of bullshit that compels you to want to react and behave differently. The ones best at regulating their emotions had to deal with years of parental fighting perhaps. Hopefully, after said life experience it generates that “I don’t want to be like them” response and pains are taken to be better. Of course, there are going to be those who take that example and run with it. “If it ‘works’ to illicit this response, I can do it too.” It would be hard to imagine someone that can’t empathize with that thought or see how things play out. And thus we have the inherent distrust of people's motivations.

People are easily manipulated if only because they’re motivations can be known. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing for someone to know how you tick when getting the best out of you means getting the best for themselves. A sure way to avoid being or fostering a leech is to have your own goals and general means of obtaining them. To me, this is impeded when the majority of people just want to live “the good life.” I suppose what I would like to see instead is people living a passionate life. I would love to hear people stand up for virtues and literally fight to preserve the dignity of what they respect and admire. Another problem seems to just be a numbers game. Surely thousands of letters and emails were mailed to our government or BP or Goldman Sachs executives. Protests and rallies sprang up, endless articles written etc. But nothing really changed. Those CEOs and companies still making millions, our leaders still holding seats.

I don’t want you to be good. I want you to be excited. I don’t want you to hate, but motivated to fix or responsible and capable enough to avoid and/or punish justly. The worst kinds of people are those who deliberately and frequently distort the truth to breed anger and fear. These people are motivated no doubt, but are not even remotely hard to identify (I’m looking at you FOX). Therefore, the best kinds of people are the ones who fight to preserve and teach the information we have. The people who read the famous quotes, business guide books, and trends of their era and know, explicitly know, there is an endless array of potential and influence they can exert and are willing to be responsible for.

Teaching and enabling are more than handing something about and saying “here it is.” You have to put it to work. You have to weave whatever you’re teaching into your life and show and explain how you wouldn’t be you without it. You have to express the passion that your knowledge and your life brings you and make people want it so badly they can’t help but feel the same way. It’s not being someone people want to be, it’s being someone that they have to be. Because they know if they aren’t, they aren’t really living. They know that by not holding themselves to that standard they won’t be able to do anything but get by and remain good enough. It’s the absolute hardest form of manipulation, but I have to believe the only honorable form there is.

[214.2] Grandpa Syndrome

There’s a special kind of safety in numbers.

I think there is a sort of duality in how we look at ourselves. Some of the freakiest moments and thoughts I have are on nights like these. Nights where I’ve stayed up, done nothing but think, catch myself staring in the mirror as if my reflection is going to get away with something I won’t notice. Everyone asleep, vulnerable. Certain truths about people’s behavior and our positions in life really set in deep. I’m sure watching a cop show where death and tragedy are routine and displayed almost as callously as people feel in real life doesn’t help. But not to lose focus.

The idea of people taking things for granted is weighing incredibly heavily on my thoughts. You don’t have to merely believe that I remind myself everyday of what I have and what I’m willing and capable of working towards. At the same time, I feel as if something is dying in me. My insatiable perception keeps my eyes working and my ears tuned. Moments tick by. I feel there are times when I’d have to fight to persuade people they ever existed.

People are a double edged sword. I’ve been reciting the line “no man is an island” endlessly in my head for the last few hours. When you’re alone, you face your endless potential. You have a looming and impending freedom caged only by your mind. What can you convince yourself of? The simple fact being, anything. Is that where you have to be to realize you can’t trust anyone? Is that where you have to be to stoke fires of sociopathy? Or perhaps it’s less dramatic. Maybe it’s just the place where you finally understand how entitled to life you are. It could be where you go secure the validity of your manic feelings. But then, why would you put in any work to sort through that mess? Just get a friend.

The power lies. The power lies in you getting to believe that you’ve mastered and understood yourself. Every mirror you employ qualifies you. Every outlet clearly labeled for how much it can take. Your thoughts, yourself: Terms that you no longer have to take responsibility for because they can be shared. They can be corroborated, changed, or forgotten. It doesn’t really matter, as long as they just don’t have to be yours. How terrifying it would be to face a reality where you’re responsible. Why try to survive in a world where you take the blunt of every broken relationship and every unanswered yell into the darkness.

I’ve been trying to understand why I carried on the way I did the first few months of living here. I’ve deemed it “grandpa syndrome.” I don’t need five couches to sit on. I don’t have to wash your dishes or clean up after stoners, take out your trash, dance around your feelings, or even pretend you’re worthy of making eye contact. I hardly think that someone of my strapping caliber to make rape and spousal abuse jokes about birthmarks and rape victims, while they’re sitting next to me, is trying to respect and preserve a sense of “common courtesy” or “social norm.” Yet nonetheless, I’ve spent money, time, maybe even credibility when it came towards sticking up for people who weren’t worth it, paradoxically, towards even more people who aren’t worth it.

I’ve had someone tell me, “give them time” and “not everyone can deal with it or think on those levels.” In my mind, time isn’t slowing down. To my knowledge, I wasn’t born a genius, nor were the people who I generally consult with, and somehow they manage. This leads me to conclude something from a point of desperation. Gifts, favors, time and effort, concessions, and silence are the yearning for there to be some example of how I wish everyone would behave when it’s appropriate. It’s a metaphorical hole. The more I dig towards a magic treasure chest of understanding and genuine appreciation, the easier it becomes to forget I’m in a huge fucking hole. I find it rather sad I would even characterize this treasure chest as magic, given that I know everything in it can and does exist.

“They didn’t ask for anything.” Another thing I heard. You have to wait until someone completely breaks down, bottoms out, and comes crawling to you before they’ll be able to conjure some long lasting personal reason to appreciate your help. Bullshit. These are the people who ask for everything, endlessly. They cry out for validation, they’ll bum a few hundred smokes, fries, or rides without even realizing they got something. Most importantly, they ask to be perceived in a very specific way without putting in any real work. And what way is that?

Not dysfunctional. Damn any hard fought, truly personal pursuit or cause that speaks to your very core. As long as you can check the box labeled assimilate, the test is over. Now deemed a “working” gear in some bastardized semblance of a machine, you’ve found your purpose, meaning, and understanding. I should stop and make something clear. You know it’s a lie. You absolutely and completely understand it’s a lie and how you make it work. But as long as you have your machine you get to do all sorts of new and exciting things to distract you from the lie. Plug her in and all of a sudden the food you eat is the most amazing thing you’ve ever tasted. The same ten dollar bill can be used to pay the bills and a shoe shine man. Your time, your ever fleeting time spent resenting and building walls, is always validated and reinforced by your other spinning gears. Just don’t try to turn too fast.

I’ve been drawn to the yin yang symbol since I first saw it. Not because of the philosophies or ideas behind it, I just really liked the symbol. The more I think on why, I keep returning to the word balance. I don’t regard balance as juggling school, work, and a girlfriend. Balance isn’t leveraging friends, nor is it exploiting others in the wake of how exploited you’ve felt. To me, balance is understanding you feel exploited, and that you can exploit, and then deciding to do neither. It’s knowing that if and when you lie, if done with poor judgment, you should expect to see, and own the feelings, of its ugly consequences.

In a way, I’ve acted with poor judgment. I took equality for granted. I believed that I could bring happiness (that hurt so much to type) to people who might not even be fit to spell the word let alone understand it. I thought work, risk, and honesty would create an environment that people would be begging for, not dying to escape from. When you put your values out there, the things that keep you centered, hopeful, and sane, and they are thrown in your face, you feel something want to die. It’s not even that you just want to give up, it’s that you want to not care. Your desire becomes the antithesis of your mangled reality and failed (at least in that moment) dreams.

At the end of the day though, I’m still able go: I’m mutha fuckin Nick P. I see where and when what I do matters. I respect and appreciate the people who understand and love the same values I do. I know who and what to trust. Nothing about your fucked up buddy system machine or depressed, lazy, and scared bullshit will be what does me in. I’m not going to ask when you’ll get it or why you don’t care. I’ve wasted enough time with that bullshit. I’m setting the mandate. You own yourself, or I do.