As I "accidentally" stayed up all night completing the campaign for One Piece Pirate Warriors, I was listening to episodes of The Why Files. Any marathoning of media makes it easier to recognize patterns, and this was no different. The host talks about different conspiracies or cultural mythologies, relaying the story as you're likely to hear it from someone who believes what is being said. Most often, the answers to a conspiracy question land on aliens or government disinformation.
He asks in each episode, "Is this true?" and the reports on any debunking information or explains the criterion that would lead him to sympathize or trust what's being said. Maybe it's a trusted impressively careered professional being consistent and composed, not looking to profit, relaying their story and it corroborating with information from FOIA requests.
Today, I got another "basic" response to one of my blogs saying I was either an AI bot, or need psychiatric intervention. The thought that sprung up as I reflected on this comment, predicted in the post itself, was, "The fight is the point."
We want to hear ourselves talk. We want an adversarial identity. We want the noise of exchange. That means something in and of itself. That's why we maintain or viciously fight for our unhealthy relationships. A body - to fuck, to drive around, to talk at, is what we "need" first. If they can be bothered to share our interests, listen, "love" us , or refrain from causing undue harm, that's a bonus.
I think I underestimate this at my peril. It's framework that explains the fakeness in polite exchanges about hopes and wishes and excitement. It's even a thing you could use to understand animals fighting or playing with each other. You don't ask "why" the cat bit the dog's tail. You know. You know you bite tails all day, and you love it. I think this sentiment helps inform why there's so much moral fogginess and unnecessary "grey" on things that are pretty well figured out. It's the standing predilection to "two-sides" issues.
It's more insidious and deeper than just our brain trying to take shortcuts for the sake of condensing information. It's an animating force. How many times can I describe myself as a "spite engine" and not see myself deriving motivation from fighting for the sake of fighting? How much do I "really care" versus how much do I wish to be understood as someone who will fuck you back, harder, and well past any grasp or memory you have as to why?
Our platforms are default uninformed, hateful, combative, judgmental, and addictively exhausting. They're also overt tools of propaganda and control. That's the point. The point is algorithmically defined engagement. The point is if Trump pisses you off, he gets all of the attention points, packaged in any way that predicts that much more.
The point is explicitly not to make peace, get smarter, get connected, or share anything in earnest. It's to consume and be consumed by a level of emotion that keeps you clicking, arguing, or scrolling. The Why Files points out that NASA or "the government" doesn't even need to "disprove" its knowledge of aliens or "impossible" technology, they just have to keep you confused and arguing about it.
There's only so much room in your head. This is especially the case if you make no habit of attending to what gets in there, how long it stays, and what it's turning you into. I had to slowly recognize and make peace with the fact that my brain was going to operate in a "nag me with a blog a day at least" kind of way. I recognize that my baseline operating condition is overwhelming and exhausting to most people by default. There's a certain "fight" I'm in with my ideas and my next course of action that I'm actively navigating from almost the moment I wake up. Every day. I can't turn it off.
I also refuse to pretend like I'm not thinking. I can't smoke or drink my problem away. I can "flow," sometimes, a few beers or mixed drinks in, a little easier, but the brain doesn't stop swinging. My underlying animating force needs direction, explanation, and attention. It needs A LOT of it. I'm never convinced any moment I occupy, good or bad, is "enough" or "the truth" of what I "should" be or be doing. Unless it's this.
I think we'd rather have a diffuse, unsolvable and undefined, problem, than none at all. Not having a problem betrays conditioned "common sense." You still don't have enough money, right? You're not in perfect health. Your body in the next room has something to say about your attitude recently. You're still a laborer and can't exude the excruciating values of the leisure class. With the point being to keep the fight going, the invitation to reframe and consider "problems" as more "opportunities" or "evidence of your awareness or potential" feels empty or like it's missing something vital.
Actors might ask, "What's my motivation?" to learn how to fuel an embodied act. What's yours? What motivates you to maintain your "deepest" convictions? What are you really really acting like? What do you want your audience to believe about you? Or, what does your audience expect?
I'm driven by a great deal of hatred and sense of powerlessness. I resent how hard it is to look or sound "respectable" in what I find to be exhausting and insincere exchanges. I start more sentences with "I fucking hate," at least in my head, than I do any other way. I hate the idea of ever getting so tired and complacent that I wouldn't find the words, or take the time, or do the work to avoid acting like all the things I hate.
I'm not a man of "conviction" insofar as, if you have the better argument, I'll change what I think and work to alter the behavior. I'm committed to asking questions. I'm committed to practicing patience, with myself, and with the vast majority of people I'm prepared to bite their head off in an instant. For me, the point isn't to fight. It's to search. It's to account. I'm invited to fight by default. Fight for my attention. Fight to not be afraid to say or try something. Fight for the ability to exist in a standing state of qualified evolution.
I can't say what I'm "really acting" like because I don't feel like I'm acting. An actor is pretending, maybe tapping into an old real memory to evoke "more real" expression, I'm not pretending. I'm literally taking action when and where I can. I'm not "more hateful" than I profess to be, nor "more stressed" than the height of whatever needs to be written about next. I want my audience to throw "beliefs" about that, or me in general, out the window and see or contribute to what I'm working on.
Unfortunately, I don't think I have much of an audience, nor that if I did they'd have any real expectations of me. The 4 people who might consistently read me likely expect I'll continue to write, hang out with them, work with them, and beat my head against walls of indifference and confusion, but I'm happy to let them speak for themselves. My "secret" audience certainly doesn't.
I think you have an incredible amount of work to do on yourself, that won't be done, if you can read a digression like this (or pretend to read it,) tell me you "skimmed it," and the proceed to dole out nonsense "advice" about my "needs." But that's your point, to keep the "fight" going. It's to say your piece, because everything exists for you to engage with it in an inflaming way, not a sincere way, or patient way, or with a eye and ear towards meaningful exchange. Is there any real way to escape? Would you even want to?
Showing posts with label One Piece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label One Piece. Show all posts
Monday, February 26, 2024
Sunday, May 7, 2023
[1036] I Hate You, You Hate Me
I've been listless. You wouldn't think to notice were I not saying it. I'm still "busy." I still work full time. I still see, or attempt to see, clients in service to my own business. I'm tending to my bills and house chores, though apparently not close enough to have enough replacement litter after meeting the scent of my house when I opened the door this evening.
Let's just start there. I came home after seeing Hussain and him showing me how my car needs an alignment after the work he's done. He's predictably frustrated with our therapist who can't be bothered to communicate with us why a 20 minute task is going on 3 weeks to complete. The car has needed $150 or so in parts, he doesn't charge me labor, but it also needs tires, which I just bought for $270. Add in the cat litter, air fresheners, toilet cleaner, and some other "house supplies" things, almost $400 of crap, not fun crap, not wholly-unnecessary crap, just crap to live, drive, and clean, is on the way. Also, all the bills email me at once. $106.50 for the internet, and finally a nice surprise a radically reduced $150 for my electricity as the weather has improved. $8 for my seedbox. and $800 to my home insurance company because I figured, why not keep the spending ball rolling and avoid installment fees? I've been home for approximately an hour, and it only took me 20 minutes to spend $1400, $1600 on the day if you add the IMAX movie, gas and food I bought earlier. I also discovered a leak in my roof, and the rubber tape I suspect I'll need to fix it, $50.
I didn't buy truck tires. I don't have kids. I didn't have to pay my insurance for the year all at once. I didn't have to spend an obscene $17 on a bacon, egg, and sausage sandwich and large vanilla latte. I didn't have to see a movie. I could cross my fingers and pray for a few more months regarding my tires or just replace the worst ones. Do I absolutely have to have $5 air freshener? Of course not. It's not that any one piece of my day can't be sacrificed, or excused for, or defended in the spirit of living once and simple pleasures. It's that the whole premise and project that I'm working within, in my view, is irreparably broken, so it all feels futile and arbitrary fundamentally.
I'm smart and did well in school, and it doesn't matter. I've worked myself near to death across various industries, and it doesn't matter. I've attempted to start my own business several times, and it doesn't matter. I've lived as broke and hermit-like as you could reasonably expect a person to live, and it hasn't mattered. I'm as honest as a person can get without it becoming pathological, and it doesn't matter. I can get all the praise and positive feedback in the world, and it doesn't matter. I can be as giving and forgiving as you'll ever find in life, and it doesn't matter. I can live without things like running water, working toilets, air conditioning, or a bed, and it doesn't matter. I can create as open and freely accessible environment to live easier, play, experiment, save, or create, and it doesn't matter.
Nothing I do fucking matters. I'm not going to get paid enough, I'm not going to get recognized. There is no reward at the top of the hill. I'm not maintaining my access to heaven. I'm not winning friends and influencing people. I'm just telling a story of a wretchedly ironic caricature of the hero's journey. Perhaps in an anime you'll see them training. Each session they level up, or after they nearly die fighting a bad guy, they unlock new powers and potential. In One Piece the truly destined get a conqueror's aura that can paralyze or incapacitate through sheer will. Everything they do matters. Everything contributes towards them building strength, a reputation, a team, and a story that will transcend any given life or death struggle.
When I say "it doesn't matter" I don't mean "there's no consequences." I'd rather be in my paradigm than my paradigm but a little dumber, a little poorer, a little sicker, a little less well-connected, or a little more psychologically at the behest of my mother. I mean for you to think that the answer to "Everything happens for a reason" is "Yeah, shitty, shitty reasons." My schooling was a joke designed to extract money. My job(s) over the years the same thing. The business environments I've attempted to work in keep the tradition going. I could blame a most-encapsulating notion of capitalism, but I prefer to not obscure the simple greed at bottom. It's the greed of "convenience fees" and "transfer fees" and "processing fees" and "installment fees" and creeping ever higher interest rates. It's the greed drawn from an infinite well of insecurity that what you've created and how isn't actually good for anyone, fulfilling, or a worthwhile expenditure of time.
We were watching Kitchen Nightmares. The failing kitchens were all filled with greedy people. Their lost loved one needed never be dealt with as "their heart was no longer in" keeping the business alive. Gordon Ramsay comes in, points out the obvious, but then also magically resolves years of trauma and resentments in neatly packaged 40 minute episodes. 21 out of 105 kitchens are still open. That is a 20% success rate. If you're on Suboxone, there's a 90% chance you will still relapse. 10% of 21 million addicts actually seek treatment. I can't tell you how 1-to-1 the parallels in the worst kitchens matched the language of many of my clients. You're only twice as likely to save your kitchen as you are to "beat" your addiction, which is resting comfortably at 10%.
It's the behavior. It's your behavior that's fucked up, that sets the conditions for indefinite failure. Whether you want on-the-nose examples like millions of votes for fascism, or the, somehow, "abstract" fallout of your perpetual silence about things that matter, no one can succeed under these conditions without heavily sacrificing things none of us should think are acceptable. Did I describe such an extravagant and wasteful existence above? It's the first time I've claimed to spend money on anything that wasn't concerts or comedy shows in a while. Would I, could I, should I have the money if I dialed back trips around the Midwest and $50-$200 ticket prices? Sure. I could also die tomorrow. I'm on the road a lot, and that's where a lot of people die.
Specifically, the bad, wrong, always-fucking-me behavior is the lies. It's the pleasantries, the pageantry, the omissions, the red tape, the "good luck," the "I've just," the positive feedback backed by no more money, access, freedom, or power. I'm lied to constantly. It's the thing I hear most often every week. It's every sentiment offered to pretend "things" are "better" than they are. It's hopes and wishes and dreams side-stepping even acknowledging there's a problem, let alone exchanging ways on how to fix it, let even more alone fix it in perpetuity. We don't know what we're aiming at, why, what it could feel like once we got there, or what we're to draw on as we project its impact into the future. We have children we don't want and then somehow don't viciously punish the ones who would rather they go neglected or hungry than aborted. We take jobs we don't want and buy shit we don't need because slavery has been rebranded and taken us out of the sun if we're not a beleaguered minority. We pretend your human rights should pair with your access to capital; yours, or what's been mostly subsidized by everyone else.
We're addicted to these bullshit fucking stories, and the kitchen-owners among us, with some professional celebrity help, have a 1 in 5 shot of keeping the miserably misplaced dream alive. The addicts have a reliable and predictable A- shot of keeping us collectively spiraling down the bowl of our fragile ego. You're depressed. You're anxious. You're angry. You're alone. You've given up your creative and motivated vision of who you imagined you'd be right now. You're tired. You're fat. You're every word is to be taken as fluff. You don't answer the call. You don't listen to the voice that nags you. You don't own anything, especially not even the very fucking fact that you don't own anything! It's all gone as quickly as you, or the people after you, can click submit.
I've wondered if I should go back to school, or learn a trade, or double-down on my debt and approach my business and potential from some creative angles. I've wondered if I should commit to retightening the purse strings and see if I can actually get within a paycheck of being out of debt verses cling to the story of the "few months away" that isn't true-enough to adequately describe the ambivalence and forlorn frustration undergirding my behavior. I'm enjoying my shows, TV, comedy, and music. The drives can be a literal pain in the ass, but..."What else would I be doing?" I'm not a real person in the environments I'm forced to adapt to or die. Nothing about me or my idea or my potential means a goddamn thing. So I'm going to laugh as often as I can, disappear into as many fantasies about family or friendship that will have me, and shake my fucking hair hard enough that my neck is sore for a week. I'm going to eat the food I like, spend obscene amounts of money on band T-shirts, and tinker on professional-level instruments.
I'm just as selfish as the next person, but I don't have to lie about it. In fact, I'm more selfish. I won't just let you have the story of yourself or your behavior. I won't just let you keep the peace. I won't be like an episode of Frasier where I step into the room and immediately continue to run with the lie. An 11 season 264 episode show ran through the 90s into the early 2000s built on insufferable caricatures habitually lying to themselves and others, and yet they're rich! And love finds a way! And the memories serve to remind them. And it can all be diagnosed and addressed as neatly as Gordan can turn around a kitchen. This is the kind of thing our brains have trained on our entire lives. This is why you're looking for a Disney prince or princess instead of a partner to work with. This is why we can get so lost in our own assholes we can turn ideas about being accepting or "woke" into compelling parodies.
You're still confused after reading this. You think I'm under some illusion that I'm more "real" than you or have some special insight into the nature of your pain and reasoning that I don't. You think I'm performing and am looking for sympathy or attention. You don't understand what the work of attempting to cope with a suicidal environment looks like. You don't actually access the depths of how hopeless and lost and fucking angry I am pretty much all the time. You will literally discuss your own issues through a series of fucking pictures and emojis or ensure your mental health struggle PSA has the best pictures of your tits and meta-data-ready hashtags. You don't fucking get it because I'm not lying to you, so none of this translates. It never has. It never will. It doesn't matter to you or the environment we're plugged into. It's for me, so I don't kill you or myself. You would never! you exclaim as your murder porn drones in the background. You can't imagine? You have a "quirky" fascination? Drawn to glamorized depictions of death is as ironically Freudian as it gets. You don't have the time or inclination to learn what I mean by that, so let your brain insert a belabored caricature. Freud is as real to you as he is to Frasier.
You believe your version of events. I don't believe what I'm saying right now, it's just what I feel and think. Show me something more. I have this version of events combined with the 1030 I've written already and the ones still to come. What do you think? Sorry. Can you think? What do you feel? Considerably more hopeful and joyous and connected and appreciative of our environment than me? I'll never know, because you'll never say it. You'll perform it. You'll Snap-it and Insta-it. You won't have a so-so time. You won't recall how you regret not missing someone more you designated as "best." You won't weigh the evidence of your satisfaction or direction of your existence; you'll filter what you're even willing to count as evidence, and reiterate it over and over again for the internal judge already on the take.
What can I control in all of this? I can keep typing until I'm done. I can keep going to work, running up the credit card, limping through my next business goals, filling up the tank, eating what I want, and beating the shit out of the infinitely abstract "you" for all of your silence, indifference, lies, and pain you cause in ignoring any word, let alone line, that might speak as whispered echoes of what was your capacity for honesty. Dumb or smart, you can choose to lie. Rich or poor, the story of either is a magnificent tapestry of bigotry or prejudice, or a holistic accounting and presenting of opportunities to act in service to discrepancies. Tax the rich and pay for literally everything we could ever need, or don't. Differentiate "poor" from "entitled," or rage-watch talking heads debate either abstraction indefinitely. I'm not pointing my finger at anything or anyone, because nothing is there. You're not there. You don't exist. You don't matter. You just won't admit it like me.
Let's just start there. I came home after seeing Hussain and him showing me how my car needs an alignment after the work he's done. He's predictably frustrated with our therapist who can't be bothered to communicate with us why a 20 minute task is going on 3 weeks to complete. The car has needed $150 or so in parts, he doesn't charge me labor, but it also needs tires, which I just bought for $270. Add in the cat litter, air fresheners, toilet cleaner, and some other "house supplies" things, almost $400 of crap, not fun crap, not wholly-unnecessary crap, just crap to live, drive, and clean, is on the way. Also, all the bills email me at once. $106.50 for the internet, and finally a nice surprise a radically reduced $150 for my electricity as the weather has improved. $8 for my seedbox. and $800 to my home insurance company because I figured, why not keep the spending ball rolling and avoid installment fees? I've been home for approximately an hour, and it only took me 20 minutes to spend $1400, $1600 on the day if you add the IMAX movie, gas and food I bought earlier. I also discovered a leak in my roof, and the rubber tape I suspect I'll need to fix it, $50.
I didn't buy truck tires. I don't have kids. I didn't have to pay my insurance for the year all at once. I didn't have to spend an obscene $17 on a bacon, egg, and sausage sandwich and large vanilla latte. I didn't have to see a movie. I could cross my fingers and pray for a few more months regarding my tires or just replace the worst ones. Do I absolutely have to have $5 air freshener? Of course not. It's not that any one piece of my day can't be sacrificed, or excused for, or defended in the spirit of living once and simple pleasures. It's that the whole premise and project that I'm working within, in my view, is irreparably broken, so it all feels futile and arbitrary fundamentally.
I'm smart and did well in school, and it doesn't matter. I've worked myself near to death across various industries, and it doesn't matter. I've attempted to start my own business several times, and it doesn't matter. I've lived as broke and hermit-like as you could reasonably expect a person to live, and it hasn't mattered. I'm as honest as a person can get without it becoming pathological, and it doesn't matter. I can get all the praise and positive feedback in the world, and it doesn't matter. I can be as giving and forgiving as you'll ever find in life, and it doesn't matter. I can live without things like running water, working toilets, air conditioning, or a bed, and it doesn't matter. I can create as open and freely accessible environment to live easier, play, experiment, save, or create, and it doesn't matter.
Nothing I do fucking matters. I'm not going to get paid enough, I'm not going to get recognized. There is no reward at the top of the hill. I'm not maintaining my access to heaven. I'm not winning friends and influencing people. I'm just telling a story of a wretchedly ironic caricature of the hero's journey. Perhaps in an anime you'll see them training. Each session they level up, or after they nearly die fighting a bad guy, they unlock new powers and potential. In One Piece the truly destined get a conqueror's aura that can paralyze or incapacitate through sheer will. Everything they do matters. Everything contributes towards them building strength, a reputation, a team, and a story that will transcend any given life or death struggle.
When I say "it doesn't matter" I don't mean "there's no consequences." I'd rather be in my paradigm than my paradigm but a little dumber, a little poorer, a little sicker, a little less well-connected, or a little more psychologically at the behest of my mother. I mean for you to think that the answer to "Everything happens for a reason" is "Yeah, shitty, shitty reasons." My schooling was a joke designed to extract money. My job(s) over the years the same thing. The business environments I've attempted to work in keep the tradition going. I could blame a most-encapsulating notion of capitalism, but I prefer to not obscure the simple greed at bottom. It's the greed of "convenience fees" and "transfer fees" and "processing fees" and "installment fees" and creeping ever higher interest rates. It's the greed drawn from an infinite well of insecurity that what you've created and how isn't actually good for anyone, fulfilling, or a worthwhile expenditure of time.
We were watching Kitchen Nightmares. The failing kitchens were all filled with greedy people. Their lost loved one needed never be dealt with as "their heart was no longer in" keeping the business alive. Gordon Ramsay comes in, points out the obvious, but then also magically resolves years of trauma and resentments in neatly packaged 40 minute episodes. 21 out of 105 kitchens are still open. That is a 20% success rate. If you're on Suboxone, there's a 90% chance you will still relapse. 10% of 21 million addicts actually seek treatment. I can't tell you how 1-to-1 the parallels in the worst kitchens matched the language of many of my clients. You're only twice as likely to save your kitchen as you are to "beat" your addiction, which is resting comfortably at 10%.
It's the behavior. It's your behavior that's fucked up, that sets the conditions for indefinite failure. Whether you want on-the-nose examples like millions of votes for fascism, or the, somehow, "abstract" fallout of your perpetual silence about things that matter, no one can succeed under these conditions without heavily sacrificing things none of us should think are acceptable. Did I describe such an extravagant and wasteful existence above? It's the first time I've claimed to spend money on anything that wasn't concerts or comedy shows in a while. Would I, could I, should I have the money if I dialed back trips around the Midwest and $50-$200 ticket prices? Sure. I could also die tomorrow. I'm on the road a lot, and that's where a lot of people die.
Specifically, the bad, wrong, always-fucking-me behavior is the lies. It's the pleasantries, the pageantry, the omissions, the red tape, the "good luck," the "I've just," the positive feedback backed by no more money, access, freedom, or power. I'm lied to constantly. It's the thing I hear most often every week. It's every sentiment offered to pretend "things" are "better" than they are. It's hopes and wishes and dreams side-stepping even acknowledging there's a problem, let alone exchanging ways on how to fix it, let even more alone fix it in perpetuity. We don't know what we're aiming at, why, what it could feel like once we got there, or what we're to draw on as we project its impact into the future. We have children we don't want and then somehow don't viciously punish the ones who would rather they go neglected or hungry than aborted. We take jobs we don't want and buy shit we don't need because slavery has been rebranded and taken us out of the sun if we're not a beleaguered minority. We pretend your human rights should pair with your access to capital; yours, or what's been mostly subsidized by everyone else.
We just lie, all the time. We pretend to be mentally stable as we shower the internet in stupid fucking memes. We pretend to be financially stable provided we never get too sick or downplay our cortisol levels that pay for must-have insurance. I am the absolute last person who should ever be in debt for really any reason. I live alone, in a shed, in one of the most affordable states, with a job paying considerably more than you'll find nearly anywhere. Even before I made the decision to go to all of these shows, my year-to-year trending spending was showing getting ever-indebted. All I was doing was driving and eating and working and I was losing. Could I have made more meals for myself? Sure. Could I have invested in a more fuel-efficient vehicle or diligently searched for a job closer to home? Maybe. Should I be expected to, every waking minute of my fucking life contemplate what I could do without so I can tend to basic fucking necessities to feel like a normal fucking person?
We're addicted to these bullshit fucking stories, and the kitchen-owners among us, with some professional celebrity help, have a 1 in 5 shot of keeping the miserably misplaced dream alive. The addicts have a reliable and predictable A- shot of keeping us collectively spiraling down the bowl of our fragile ego. You're depressed. You're anxious. You're angry. You're alone. You've given up your creative and motivated vision of who you imagined you'd be right now. You're tired. You're fat. You're every word is to be taken as fluff. You don't answer the call. You don't listen to the voice that nags you. You don't own anything, especially not even the very fucking fact that you don't own anything! It's all gone as quickly as you, or the people after you, can click submit.
I've wondered if I should go back to school, or learn a trade, or double-down on my debt and approach my business and potential from some creative angles. I've wondered if I should commit to retightening the purse strings and see if I can actually get within a paycheck of being out of debt verses cling to the story of the "few months away" that isn't true-enough to adequately describe the ambivalence and forlorn frustration undergirding my behavior. I'm enjoying my shows, TV, comedy, and music. The drives can be a literal pain in the ass, but..."What else would I be doing?" I'm not a real person in the environments I'm forced to adapt to or die. Nothing about me or my idea or my potential means a goddamn thing. So I'm going to laugh as often as I can, disappear into as many fantasies about family or friendship that will have me, and shake my fucking hair hard enough that my neck is sore for a week. I'm going to eat the food I like, spend obscene amounts of money on band T-shirts, and tinker on professional-level instruments.
I'm just as selfish as the next person, but I don't have to lie about it. In fact, I'm more selfish. I won't just let you have the story of yourself or your behavior. I won't just let you keep the peace. I won't be like an episode of Frasier where I step into the room and immediately continue to run with the lie. An 11 season 264 episode show ran through the 90s into the early 2000s built on insufferable caricatures habitually lying to themselves and others, and yet they're rich! And love finds a way! And the memories serve to remind them. And it can all be diagnosed and addressed as neatly as Gordan can turn around a kitchen. This is the kind of thing our brains have trained on our entire lives. This is why you're looking for a Disney prince or princess instead of a partner to work with. This is why we can get so lost in our own assholes we can turn ideas about being accepting or "woke" into compelling parodies.
You're still confused after reading this. You think I'm under some illusion that I'm more "real" than you or have some special insight into the nature of your pain and reasoning that I don't. You think I'm performing and am looking for sympathy or attention. You don't understand what the work of attempting to cope with a suicidal environment looks like. You don't actually access the depths of how hopeless and lost and fucking angry I am pretty much all the time. You will literally discuss your own issues through a series of fucking pictures and emojis or ensure your mental health struggle PSA has the best pictures of your tits and meta-data-ready hashtags. You don't fucking get it because I'm not lying to you, so none of this translates. It never has. It never will. It doesn't matter to you or the environment we're plugged into. It's for me, so I don't kill you or myself. You would never! you exclaim as your murder porn drones in the background. You can't imagine? You have a "quirky" fascination? Drawn to glamorized depictions of death is as ironically Freudian as it gets. You don't have the time or inclination to learn what I mean by that, so let your brain insert a belabored caricature. Freud is as real to you as he is to Frasier.
You believe your version of events. I don't believe what I'm saying right now, it's just what I feel and think. Show me something more. I have this version of events combined with the 1030 I've written already and the ones still to come. What do you think? Sorry. Can you think? What do you feel? Considerably more hopeful and joyous and connected and appreciative of our environment than me? I'll never know, because you'll never say it. You'll perform it. You'll Snap-it and Insta-it. You won't have a so-so time. You won't recall how you regret not missing someone more you designated as "best." You won't weigh the evidence of your satisfaction or direction of your existence; you'll filter what you're even willing to count as evidence, and reiterate it over and over again for the internal judge already on the take.
What can I control in all of this? I can keep typing until I'm done. I can keep going to work, running up the credit card, limping through my next business goals, filling up the tank, eating what I want, and beating the shit out of the infinitely abstract "you" for all of your silence, indifference, lies, and pain you cause in ignoring any word, let alone line, that might speak as whispered echoes of what was your capacity for honesty. Dumb or smart, you can choose to lie. Rich or poor, the story of either is a magnificent tapestry of bigotry or prejudice, or a holistic accounting and presenting of opportunities to act in service to discrepancies. Tax the rich and pay for literally everything we could ever need, or don't. Differentiate "poor" from "entitled," or rage-watch talking heads debate either abstraction indefinitely. I'm not pointing my finger at anything or anyone, because nothing is there. You're not there. You don't exist. You don't matter. You just won't admit it like me.
Saturday, February 20, 2021
[897] Gomu Ningen
I'm on the verge of being caught up on One Piece. It's been a 2 or 3 year saga, serious periods of not watching at all, and nearly every episode sped to twice normal speed. It's not an accomplishment. It's not something to be proud of. It's not even a show for which I've watched the most episodes. It's just another show in a lengthy perspective-informing bender on what I'm to understand from my seat observing culture, even if Luffy is my spirit animal.
Regular watchers of anime will know this one falls into the same category of many others. There's an underlying thread of constantly improving, training, or getting stronger as the chaos of a world full of enemies ups the stakes every arc. A previously perceived unbeatable foe is actually the key to unlocking new abilities and an awareness of your own power. Enemies become friends. Characters you may not enjoy end up getting normalized for their look or play some integral part you wouldn't guess upon first meeting them. It's got jokes, it's got fan service, and like most things that I've spent a lot of time with as I near the end, I don't want it to end. At least with this series, it's likely got several more years, and I've never read the manga.
I vibe with the thesis of normalizing a certain kind of struggle or exercise of power. I think I've felt what might have been my ultimate knock-out blows become warm-ups, both in periods of actual physical activity, but also psychologically, and as it pertains to coping skills. I don't know if you've heard, but I hate everything and am super negative, so the fact I've managed to keep anything together or going at all is nearly miraculous. (You wanna talk about comments that have stuck with me, I genuinely have yet to fully understand or digest being called “negative” as assertively as I heard it however many years ago, so, good one, Chelsea.)
Right now, as it pertains to my cartoonish conception of my ever-growing power, I think about the cold. Our heat has been out nearly all winter. Space heaters weren't cutting it. I've got make-shift insulation in the form of blankets draped from the ceiling. I could, in theory, help the situation marginally by filling in certain gaps and holes in the room addition. (Which, I'll remind you, is arguably more extended garage than proper room.) But as inconvenient and shitty as being cold can be, it hasn't risen psychologically to the point that it's required an immediate fix. We've made quasi-stabs at it, watched the Youtube videos, sourced the illegal-for-us-to-buy and expensive refrigerant, and found a guy who might even be able to help but for the sudden onslaught of snow preventing his travel.
I've been colder. I've spent nights out here without power, under a mountain of blankets, and without several layers of appropriately warm clothes. I've worked and carried heavy things through the pre-paved unmowed hellscape of my yard. It doesn't mean I don't want to be cozy and warm no matter what, but the drama and pain and degree of being annoyed is dampened. I don't regard the cold as something happening to me, more a problem on an infinite list of problems I haven't prioritized. That shift in perspective lends itself to all of my ongoing efforts on what I'd like to create.
Luffy doesn't stop. He's impulsive and kind of dumb. He never gets more amped or focused than when he's trying to save or defend his friends. He takes people at their word. He says the quiet part out loud and is almost certain to force an alteration of the plan. He's perpetually looking to learn and explore. He renames people to fit his understanding or memory. He's always hungry.
Me, human, takes enough time out of his days and nights to watch a ton of TV. I still make moves. I look for righteous fights. I maintain focus on how I need to feel during the ride more than what I expect from the future. I'm doing things like leveraging my ability and awareness in aggressive ways to attempt to make a wage that's kept up with inflation. I'm politely, but curtly, snapping back at dumb bitches telling us “we know what we signed up for” in response to someone talking about needing the money to survive and model habits our families require. I'm adopting the headache of insane and inane facebook messages in attempting to sell things.
Right now, on the ride, I'm warm, I'm full, my adopted outdoor cat just came home and jumped in my lap, and I've got the time and inclination to pause my show and reflect. Again, I recognize how many ways in which I've peaked. Again, I can describe the future as the series of doors left to open and peacefully acknowledge and accept the heaters that need fixed. They can be fixed, and I intend to fix them. What else do you need if you're living the truth of your intention and ability?
One of the reasons I enjoy anime is how nakedly *them* they are. The weird ones are comfortable in their weirdness, and then they don't register as weird anymore. If you looked at a random still from a scene of One Piece, your first impression might be that it's one of the goofiest things you've ever seen. How much snot needs to come out of a character's nose? Why is that guy's head in a hippo? It's a test of whether you can pull the substance from what your eyes may be telling you. How good of a story is it in its ability to wrap you up and immediately cut through the garishness while also letting you appreciate the creativity?
As with every show I've wanted or not wanted to end, it will. I'm often suspicious of people who stay too psychologically attached to one show or idea. I've gotten to be a super-fan about Firefly and certain video games, and the reasons for doing so were often about deficits in my real life. I wanted a kind of family or dramatic saga that my often boring or depressed and resentful environment was not offering. Over time, I've watched that depression and resentment grow, and the chasm between me and my “negativity” in what Allie and I have put together out here and whatever you want to make of how others are navigating their subversion, isolation, or poverty is on full display. Anyone feel like we've been diligently hammering away at the issues we railed about in college? Don't you feel the energy and hope in your intentioned and sustainable community?
I don't have a crew, and I'm not the captain. I'd love one, but I'd want everyone on it to be like the Straw Hats; their own powerhouse with their own stories and reasons and vital roles to play. Still, the dumbest, most naive, and childish part of me is trying to create something large enough to carry a crew through the unforgiving seas of fascism and almost certain death. That death is played with constantly in anime. The bullets are sliced or kicked. The Earth shatters in every direction after a fierce blow before a few deep breaths, and the hero stands back up. Certainly the stakes don't feel that high in our day-to-day lives.
The different crews are after a mythical treasure left by the last Pirate King. I suspect a future episode in which Luffy becomes the Pirate King and/or when he finds One Piece will not be the most memorable. They're something of forgone conclusions like in Game of Thrones when Jon Snow sits on the throne. It's the drops from the peaks that make your stomach wrench. It's when you're actually invested and are mitigating the consequences of loss in real time, keeping death close. You felt the dramatic deaths in Game of Thrones, and you feel them in One Piece, even if most are incredibly hard to kill.
One of the familiar criticisms of an anime like One Piece are the amount of filler-episodes and extended intro reminder redundancies. Boss battles can run for 20+ episodes, story arcs over the course of a 100. Part of what makes watching so many episodes so quick is that of 23:50 minutes, only 9 is new information. You're going to keep watching, just like you're going to continue to live every boring or miserable day of your life. Tension needs to build, right? Every episode of a series can't be a perfect 10 with surprising revelations and an end that leaves you silently struck.
I appreciate the kind of sleepiness of snow days and a binge, but equally enjoy being busy, sweaty, and putting together large creative pieces on how to go about this life game. It's a practice-turned-quasi compulsion. I can't rot. I can't slowly die a martyr for some stated ideal or conception of myself. I dare myself to contradict the forces that try to fuck with the example I wish to set, practical-filler-training-malevolent days be damned. I find the next wall or corner to be backed against, and fight through the idea I should settle down or die there. After all, I'm pretty much powerful or comfortable enough, and we all know how the battle is going to end.
Regular watchers of anime will know this one falls into the same category of many others. There's an underlying thread of constantly improving, training, or getting stronger as the chaos of a world full of enemies ups the stakes every arc. A previously perceived unbeatable foe is actually the key to unlocking new abilities and an awareness of your own power. Enemies become friends. Characters you may not enjoy end up getting normalized for their look or play some integral part you wouldn't guess upon first meeting them. It's got jokes, it's got fan service, and like most things that I've spent a lot of time with as I near the end, I don't want it to end. At least with this series, it's likely got several more years, and I've never read the manga.
I vibe with the thesis of normalizing a certain kind of struggle or exercise of power. I think I've felt what might have been my ultimate knock-out blows become warm-ups, both in periods of actual physical activity, but also psychologically, and as it pertains to coping skills. I don't know if you've heard, but I hate everything and am super negative, so the fact I've managed to keep anything together or going at all is nearly miraculous. (You wanna talk about comments that have stuck with me, I genuinely have yet to fully understand or digest being called “negative” as assertively as I heard it however many years ago, so, good one, Chelsea.)
Right now, as it pertains to my cartoonish conception of my ever-growing power, I think about the cold. Our heat has been out nearly all winter. Space heaters weren't cutting it. I've got make-shift insulation in the form of blankets draped from the ceiling. I could, in theory, help the situation marginally by filling in certain gaps and holes in the room addition. (Which, I'll remind you, is arguably more extended garage than proper room.) But as inconvenient and shitty as being cold can be, it hasn't risen psychologically to the point that it's required an immediate fix. We've made quasi-stabs at it, watched the Youtube videos, sourced the illegal-for-us-to-buy and expensive refrigerant, and found a guy who might even be able to help but for the sudden onslaught of snow preventing his travel.
I've been colder. I've spent nights out here without power, under a mountain of blankets, and without several layers of appropriately warm clothes. I've worked and carried heavy things through the pre-paved unmowed hellscape of my yard. It doesn't mean I don't want to be cozy and warm no matter what, but the drama and pain and degree of being annoyed is dampened. I don't regard the cold as something happening to me, more a problem on an infinite list of problems I haven't prioritized. That shift in perspective lends itself to all of my ongoing efforts on what I'd like to create.
Luffy doesn't stop. He's impulsive and kind of dumb. He never gets more amped or focused than when he's trying to save or defend his friends. He takes people at their word. He says the quiet part out loud and is almost certain to force an alteration of the plan. He's perpetually looking to learn and explore. He renames people to fit his understanding or memory. He's always hungry.
Me, human, takes enough time out of his days and nights to watch a ton of TV. I still make moves. I look for righteous fights. I maintain focus on how I need to feel during the ride more than what I expect from the future. I'm doing things like leveraging my ability and awareness in aggressive ways to attempt to make a wage that's kept up with inflation. I'm politely, but curtly, snapping back at dumb bitches telling us “we know what we signed up for” in response to someone talking about needing the money to survive and model habits our families require. I'm adopting the headache of insane and inane facebook messages in attempting to sell things.
Right now, on the ride, I'm warm, I'm full, my adopted outdoor cat just came home and jumped in my lap, and I've got the time and inclination to pause my show and reflect. Again, I recognize how many ways in which I've peaked. Again, I can describe the future as the series of doors left to open and peacefully acknowledge and accept the heaters that need fixed. They can be fixed, and I intend to fix them. What else do you need if you're living the truth of your intention and ability?
One of the reasons I enjoy anime is how nakedly *them* they are. The weird ones are comfortable in their weirdness, and then they don't register as weird anymore. If you looked at a random still from a scene of One Piece, your first impression might be that it's one of the goofiest things you've ever seen. How much snot needs to come out of a character's nose? Why is that guy's head in a hippo? It's a test of whether you can pull the substance from what your eyes may be telling you. How good of a story is it in its ability to wrap you up and immediately cut through the garishness while also letting you appreciate the creativity?
As with every show I've wanted or not wanted to end, it will. I'm often suspicious of people who stay too psychologically attached to one show or idea. I've gotten to be a super-fan about Firefly and certain video games, and the reasons for doing so were often about deficits in my real life. I wanted a kind of family or dramatic saga that my often boring or depressed and resentful environment was not offering. Over time, I've watched that depression and resentment grow, and the chasm between me and my “negativity” in what Allie and I have put together out here and whatever you want to make of how others are navigating their subversion, isolation, or poverty is on full display. Anyone feel like we've been diligently hammering away at the issues we railed about in college? Don't you feel the energy and hope in your intentioned and sustainable community?
I don't have a crew, and I'm not the captain. I'd love one, but I'd want everyone on it to be like the Straw Hats; their own powerhouse with their own stories and reasons and vital roles to play. Still, the dumbest, most naive, and childish part of me is trying to create something large enough to carry a crew through the unforgiving seas of fascism and almost certain death. That death is played with constantly in anime. The bullets are sliced or kicked. The Earth shatters in every direction after a fierce blow before a few deep breaths, and the hero stands back up. Certainly the stakes don't feel that high in our day-to-day lives.
The different crews are after a mythical treasure left by the last Pirate King. I suspect a future episode in which Luffy becomes the Pirate King and/or when he finds One Piece will not be the most memorable. They're something of forgone conclusions like in Game of Thrones when Jon Snow sits on the throne. It's the drops from the peaks that make your stomach wrench. It's when you're actually invested and are mitigating the consequences of loss in real time, keeping death close. You felt the dramatic deaths in Game of Thrones, and you feel them in One Piece, even if most are incredibly hard to kill.
One of the familiar criticisms of an anime like One Piece are the amount of filler-episodes and extended intro reminder redundancies. Boss battles can run for 20+ episodes, story arcs over the course of a 100. Part of what makes watching so many episodes so quick is that of 23:50 minutes, only 9 is new information. You're going to keep watching, just like you're going to continue to live every boring or miserable day of your life. Tension needs to build, right? Every episode of a series can't be a perfect 10 with surprising revelations and an end that leaves you silently struck.
I appreciate the kind of sleepiness of snow days and a binge, but equally enjoy being busy, sweaty, and putting together large creative pieces on how to go about this life game. It's a practice-turned-quasi compulsion. I can't rot. I can't slowly die a martyr for some stated ideal or conception of myself. I dare myself to contradict the forces that try to fuck with the example I wish to set, practical-filler-training-malevolent days be damned. I find the next wall or corner to be backed against, and fight through the idea I should settle down or die there. After all, I'm pretty much powerful or comfortable enough, and we all know how the battle is going to end.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
[816] On Complex Thought and Layered Meaning
I've written several versions and limbs of this blog before. I might link to them as the mood finds me, but for now, I want to see how much has been lost in the time I've waited to begin writing.
I get both mildly flattered and a touch uncomfortable when I'm told I'm smart. I'm not embarrassed about understanding things, and I certainly lord myself over the things and people I think I get better than they get themselves. It doesn't mean everything boils down to manipulation, but it's been hard to get into a flow of my social work job without receding into a kind of character I've long since stripped of its playful novelty. Whether you think there's different veins of intelligence or not, I think you need a kind of baseline.
What are things people have considered smart? We'll use the term "genius-level athlete." We like to find scientists who, by virtue of their field, are genius for even being able to pronounce certain terms, let alone manipulate them. Brilliant writers wrap us up in stories and capture imaginations of millions well-independent of personal taste or general familiarity of literature. Hell, if you thought my writing was awesome, Grammarly would punch us both in the dick and dare us to pay a premium to get rid of "incorrect" passive voice.
Across the potential domains of intelligence, there's a degree of complexity. Can you figure out the mind-games the quarterback is playing with the defense? No? He's brilliant! Can you fluently swing between keys and read the mixolydian pattern as the improviser wails? Fuck no? "I could never do that!" If you don't speak the language, and you regard the potential gibberish to translate as respect and admiration, extreme consequences can follow. This is as true for those bent on hero-worship as it is for those who believe everything they tell themselves.
We also make a distinction between being smart and being wise. Wisdom can learn from someone else's mistake, and it's merely smart to learn from your own. Wisdom watches. Often, we have a solemn respect for the person remaining calm in the storm, letting things play out, or maybe only feigning a degree of disinterest. The reactive hothead gets put in their place. The mad scientist doesn't bet on the unified heart of the world who'd revolt. The tale of ego or pride destroying in very foreseeable ways is persistent lore for a reason.
I like to say several things at once. I like to be in the middle of a dozen things. My best blog titles, to me, are when they stand for at least 4 or 5 things. Maybe a song title comes to mind that seems to capture the essence, and then happens to have killer relevant lines if you know the words. Maybe it ties itself in a nice bow to the last line. My brain automatically tends to run in different directions at once, and it gives zero shits if I'm comfortable picking one road or another. Try as I might, I'm often reacting. I'm feeling something turn or drop in my stomach. I'm persuading myself the dread is something less significant, and it's my burden, nay, “mature duty,” to combat it until the next practical reality can roll around.
Today provided some insight into that. I was getting my job done. I was making my rounds. I had a plan to write up some loose ends. I was going to be done early. I started getting afraid. It was too easy. I was playing along. I knew the tasks and just did them in a line. When I got to the end of the line, then what? So I sabotaged it. I let the last hour of my day go to some bullshitting and tying up one loose end instead of 5 or 6. What are we supposed to say about this?
I don't like the band Tool. I find their music boring, and every time I try, I just can't. Their “complexity” is often cited. Complexity for complexity's sake I've never considered compelling. Me telling you of the dozen things I'm doing half-assed isn't compelling either. It doesn't make me move on them any faster, nor does it make me proud to tell you how far I haven't gotten. I could write the 12 minute song that spends the first 4 minutes adding an extra note, instrument, or flourish. I could also attempt to write a 4 minute song that says more than “because I can.” Is there a degree of “smart” or “wisdom” in doing either? Is my inability to be brought to tears by Tool, as one reviewer I read, simply my inability to appreciate the beautiful and brilliant language?
This all would matter less to me if we didn't make terrible judgements based on our impressions of these tastes and capacities to understand. I'll never quite swallow that Trump is president. For my brain, attempting to run in every direction, the reaction to that news and fact is to so many suicidal and dark places, it's genuinely hard to spend any time reflecting without wanting to give up. What do you say to the absence of organized thought? What do you say to burned nuggets of wisdom? What's the exercise of existing when survival is predicated on both strangling as damming a selfish conception of yourself in the world as it is denying anything beyond you exists?
There's a way to describe the insanity of a chaotic mind as “it's own kind of intelligence.” I'd call this disingenuous, but we do it all the time. We don't want to believe the people we associate with don't have their niche. We prefer the polite language of “accepting differences” where the language of cutting dead weight would be better suited. This especially when it's “family.” This proclivity when we feel ashamed or are reminded of when we've slipped. To my mind, insanity comes in equal doses as opportunities to create a little order. Then we make the “wise” move to incorporate it into our language, even if in practice we have no idea if we're keeping a balance or managing to grasp the concepts of “order” or “chaos” altogether.
Order feels very tired. I got my house in order, and the loudest indicator of how to spend most of my time has been to mostly watch TV. I wish I felt worse about that. It's not like before, where that's all I really could do. Now, I'm doing it after I spend my whole day utterly subsumed by order. I don't make the rules. I barely rattle the cages for a little leeway here and there. I'm tired after work, not because it's hard, but because it's easy. Watching TV makes me tired. Doing the grunt work of scanning and organizing books does the same thing. Trying, and failing, half a dozen times to uproot a stubborn tree makes it one more.
The individual daily acts that eat up your time and disengage you are what we add up at the end to claim a form of “meaningful life.” How many rallies did you go to for your designation as “long-time activist?” How many classes do you teach before you're a cherished educator? How many times do I get to be told the work I'm doing is important before I start to believe it? Does it matter if I don't know where August went as long as a few dozen families got a slightly milder impression about the imposing nature of DCS? What if I was pretty-much dead inside the whole time they were thanking me? What if every sacrifice I made for them made me resentful for not recognizing similar ones made in service to me?
How quick and easy it would be at this point to resolve to the complex nature of being. “Everything is everything!” “It's just a ride!” “Karma, bro!” Why acknowledge and work with your own experience, especially if you can't trust it, especially when there's an infinite justification to keep it playfully light and confusing?
I continue to return to the idea that it has to be by you and for you, but to the extent that you even bother to describe yourself, and to the ability to orient and depict accurately. Trump voters have the 3-10 ego lines, and that's their existence, so burn everything else down. Radical leftists have the religious idealism that serves the same purpose. The idiot merely needs to speak and dance. The intelligent can hide behind their complex-sounding narratives or philosophies that amount to “I'm scared too, and can't be bothered.”
If you get a thousand bad reviews for your deeply personal work (and, lo, what isn't deeply personal?) should you care? Should you care if it sells like Oprah? Should you care if you're prepared to recant and be forgiven before you die? The ego-driven YouTube “celebrities” and charging bulls of housewife fables aren't slowing down. The entertainment sits ass-to-face with the news for thousands of scrolls. Where do you exist in it all? Watching? Reporting? Capitalizing? Fighting as hard as an immigrant kid with all the pizazz of a pyramid scheme pitchman? Do you know the difference between your story and struggle, and the words laid before you? Do I? Can I?
You know what I want before I'm exhausted doing whatever it is I want to do? Someone to do it with. And more than that, real individuals with their own thoughts and fights and words that when mixed with mine create a better narrative and we discover the working wisdom. I want my best conception of my friends to hold true and to believe there's more than just biding my time until the list of tasks is inevitably done, and the paycheck hits, and the options for dinner are within driving distance. Who's qualified to review you besides those who know you? And who knows you but the ones who are paying attention for your sake and for theirs? Who am I trying to impress? For how long has it been the abstraction of what I take to be people's conception of me to live up to the hype? You know who never asks me what I'm doing? Almost everyone.
So is it time to wisely move on from another mild mental crisis and get back to organizing books and reinforcing shelves? I'm certainly going to finish the last 3 episodes before I get to 450 in One Piece. Should I approach my next 3 days off of training-vacation with renewed vigor at the prospect of learning how to forensically interview children? Should I sleep a little sounder knowing I got more confusing, laughably “wise” or “smart” words out for me to read a thousand times looking for what I really said later? Does it matter? Do you care? Do I? I've watched myself over the last few weeks, months, and years, and keep seeing it manifest as words. I don't know what to make of them, or myself. I don't know that I want anymore access or luxury than I have now, as I'm almost positive I'd have so little occasion to share it. If only because I'm perfectly ignorant about what I can provide, or what it is that's really needed.
I get both mildly flattered and a touch uncomfortable when I'm told I'm smart. I'm not embarrassed about understanding things, and I certainly lord myself over the things and people I think I get better than they get themselves. It doesn't mean everything boils down to manipulation, but it's been hard to get into a flow of my social work job without receding into a kind of character I've long since stripped of its playful novelty. Whether you think there's different veins of intelligence or not, I think you need a kind of baseline.
What are things people have considered smart? We'll use the term "genius-level athlete." We like to find scientists who, by virtue of their field, are genius for even being able to pronounce certain terms, let alone manipulate them. Brilliant writers wrap us up in stories and capture imaginations of millions well-independent of personal taste or general familiarity of literature. Hell, if you thought my writing was awesome, Grammarly would punch us both in the dick and dare us to pay a premium to get rid of "incorrect" passive voice.
Across the potential domains of intelligence, there's a degree of complexity. Can you figure out the mind-games the quarterback is playing with the defense? No? He's brilliant! Can you fluently swing between keys and read the mixolydian pattern as the improviser wails? Fuck no? "I could never do that!" If you don't speak the language, and you regard the potential gibberish to translate as respect and admiration, extreme consequences can follow. This is as true for those bent on hero-worship as it is for those who believe everything they tell themselves.
We also make a distinction between being smart and being wise. Wisdom can learn from someone else's mistake, and it's merely smart to learn from your own. Wisdom watches. Often, we have a solemn respect for the person remaining calm in the storm, letting things play out, or maybe only feigning a degree of disinterest. The reactive hothead gets put in their place. The mad scientist doesn't bet on the unified heart of the world who'd revolt. The tale of ego or pride destroying in very foreseeable ways is persistent lore for a reason.
I like to say several things at once. I like to be in the middle of a dozen things. My best blog titles, to me, are when they stand for at least 4 or 5 things. Maybe a song title comes to mind that seems to capture the essence, and then happens to have killer relevant lines if you know the words. Maybe it ties itself in a nice bow to the last line. My brain automatically tends to run in different directions at once, and it gives zero shits if I'm comfortable picking one road or another. Try as I might, I'm often reacting. I'm feeling something turn or drop in my stomach. I'm persuading myself the dread is something less significant, and it's my burden, nay, “mature duty,” to combat it until the next practical reality can roll around.
Today provided some insight into that. I was getting my job done. I was making my rounds. I had a plan to write up some loose ends. I was going to be done early. I started getting afraid. It was too easy. I was playing along. I knew the tasks and just did them in a line. When I got to the end of the line, then what? So I sabotaged it. I let the last hour of my day go to some bullshitting and tying up one loose end instead of 5 or 6. What are we supposed to say about this?
I don't like the band Tool. I find their music boring, and every time I try, I just can't. Their “complexity” is often cited. Complexity for complexity's sake I've never considered compelling. Me telling you of the dozen things I'm doing half-assed isn't compelling either. It doesn't make me move on them any faster, nor does it make me proud to tell you how far I haven't gotten. I could write the 12 minute song that spends the first 4 minutes adding an extra note, instrument, or flourish. I could also attempt to write a 4 minute song that says more than “because I can.” Is there a degree of “smart” or “wisdom” in doing either? Is my inability to be brought to tears by Tool, as one reviewer I read, simply my inability to appreciate the beautiful and brilliant language?
This all would matter less to me if we didn't make terrible judgements based on our impressions of these tastes and capacities to understand. I'll never quite swallow that Trump is president. For my brain, attempting to run in every direction, the reaction to that news and fact is to so many suicidal and dark places, it's genuinely hard to spend any time reflecting without wanting to give up. What do you say to the absence of organized thought? What do you say to burned nuggets of wisdom? What's the exercise of existing when survival is predicated on both strangling as damming a selfish conception of yourself in the world as it is denying anything beyond you exists?
There's a way to describe the insanity of a chaotic mind as “it's own kind of intelligence.” I'd call this disingenuous, but we do it all the time. We don't want to believe the people we associate with don't have their niche. We prefer the polite language of “accepting differences” where the language of cutting dead weight would be better suited. This especially when it's “family.” This proclivity when we feel ashamed or are reminded of when we've slipped. To my mind, insanity comes in equal doses as opportunities to create a little order. Then we make the “wise” move to incorporate it into our language, even if in practice we have no idea if we're keeping a balance or managing to grasp the concepts of “order” or “chaos” altogether.
Order feels very tired. I got my house in order, and the loudest indicator of how to spend most of my time has been to mostly watch TV. I wish I felt worse about that. It's not like before, where that's all I really could do. Now, I'm doing it after I spend my whole day utterly subsumed by order. I don't make the rules. I barely rattle the cages for a little leeway here and there. I'm tired after work, not because it's hard, but because it's easy. Watching TV makes me tired. Doing the grunt work of scanning and organizing books does the same thing. Trying, and failing, half a dozen times to uproot a stubborn tree makes it one more.
The individual daily acts that eat up your time and disengage you are what we add up at the end to claim a form of “meaningful life.” How many rallies did you go to for your designation as “long-time activist?” How many classes do you teach before you're a cherished educator? How many times do I get to be told the work I'm doing is important before I start to believe it? Does it matter if I don't know where August went as long as a few dozen families got a slightly milder impression about the imposing nature of DCS? What if I was pretty-much dead inside the whole time they were thanking me? What if every sacrifice I made for them made me resentful for not recognizing similar ones made in service to me?
How quick and easy it would be at this point to resolve to the complex nature of being. “Everything is everything!” “It's just a ride!” “Karma, bro!” Why acknowledge and work with your own experience, especially if you can't trust it, especially when there's an infinite justification to keep it playfully light and confusing?
I continue to return to the idea that it has to be by you and for you, but to the extent that you even bother to describe yourself, and to the ability to orient and depict accurately. Trump voters have the 3-10 ego lines, and that's their existence, so burn everything else down. Radical leftists have the religious idealism that serves the same purpose. The idiot merely needs to speak and dance. The intelligent can hide behind their complex-sounding narratives or philosophies that amount to “I'm scared too, and can't be bothered.”
If you get a thousand bad reviews for your deeply personal work (and, lo, what isn't deeply personal?) should you care? Should you care if it sells like Oprah? Should you care if you're prepared to recant and be forgiven before you die? The ego-driven YouTube “celebrities” and charging bulls of housewife fables aren't slowing down. The entertainment sits ass-to-face with the news for thousands of scrolls. Where do you exist in it all? Watching? Reporting? Capitalizing? Fighting as hard as an immigrant kid with all the pizazz of a pyramid scheme pitchman? Do you know the difference between your story and struggle, and the words laid before you? Do I? Can I?
You know what I want before I'm exhausted doing whatever it is I want to do? Someone to do it with. And more than that, real individuals with their own thoughts and fights and words that when mixed with mine create a better narrative and we discover the working wisdom. I want my best conception of my friends to hold true and to believe there's more than just biding my time until the list of tasks is inevitably done, and the paycheck hits, and the options for dinner are within driving distance. Who's qualified to review you besides those who know you? And who knows you but the ones who are paying attention for your sake and for theirs? Who am I trying to impress? For how long has it been the abstraction of what I take to be people's conception of me to live up to the hype? You know who never asks me what I'm doing? Almost everyone.
So is it time to wisely move on from another mild mental crisis and get back to organizing books and reinforcing shelves? I'm certainly going to finish the last 3 episodes before I get to 450 in One Piece. Should I approach my next 3 days off of training-vacation with renewed vigor at the prospect of learning how to forensically interview children? Should I sleep a little sounder knowing I got more confusing, laughably “wise” or “smart” words out for me to read a thousand times looking for what I really said later? Does it matter? Do you care? Do I? I've watched myself over the last few weeks, months, and years, and keep seeing it manifest as words. I don't know what to make of them, or myself. I don't know that I want anymore access or luxury than I have now, as I'm almost positive I'd have so little occasion to share it. If only because I'm perfectly ignorant about what I can provide, or what it is that's really needed.
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