[461] Lessons In "Fuck It"

Every day I feel a little dumber. The sentiment usually goes the other way. “You learn something new everyday!” The idea is that someone should always be curious and striving to learn, even if it’s from something like a word-a-day calendar. The world, an endless mystery with evolving technologies, myriad cultures, and new opportunities every day imbues the power to motivate and help you self-determine. Or so the sentiment at least hints.

So why do I feel dumber? With every new piece of knowledge you have a responsibility to recognize its sides. That doesn’t mean there’s always good with bad or vice versa. It just means that nothing is self-contained and you can run yourself ragged in pursuing the implications and influences. An easy analogy is to think of comic book arcs. You can read a single series that alludes to 6 different series that in turn each point to 6 more, all leaving a small but particular mark for those in the know.

When I learn, I pick up on the thousand ways I’m going to fail. I probably overuse the word “naive.” I think it’s the quintessential attitude, a sort of dispositional lifeblood if you will, underpinning most peoples’ motivations. Because in order to be naive, you only have to feel as if you’ve acknowledged dissent and then carry on. It’s where you get terms like “haters” and “naysayers.” Haters tyin’ to keep you down because they can’t appreciate the higher plain your actions and perspective exists on. People who don’t believe in you because they don’t share, or more likely aren’t capable of, your capacity for a vision for the future.

Essentially, it points to a difference in “acknowledgment” verses “internalizing.” Say you lash out in anger over some political point during a debate. Your opponent can quietly nod and say “I understand” as they move right into their point of view. They don’t feel your anger. You want them to feel your anger, because presumably then they’ll understand just how you got there, but they don’t. Like a practically neglected child, a random pat on the head or reaction to crying doesn’t in turn automatically manifest loving feelings.

I can acknowledge, for example, the many barriers to success in the political realm. From gerrymandering, rampant corruption, general voter ignorance, too many moving parts, historical perspectives lost to time, the cost of “doing business,” the grand timescales movements and revolutions rest on, what’s happened to the “best attempts”...the list could go on for a while. But until recently, maybe the last couple weeks, it hasn’t struck me as a kind of “existential lost cause.” I didn’t really feel it.

Notably, I feel it when I listen to my political heroes. When my leaders paint the world as a dramatic borderline chaos factory with little to no advice on how we get better barring an unforeseen miracle or catastrophe, everything I think to do in spite or to help feels very dumb, small, and pointless. It’s not a nutjob Tea Party member that scares me when they bang the war pots and pans together. I lose hope when Chomsky details perspectives and decisions over years from the people closest to the flames. I’d love to believe in Bernie Sanders, until Nader and Hedges lay out his position in larger contexts that laugh off capacity stadium attendance.

And yet, I don’t necessarily feel the desire to turn into a straight cynic. My understanding of a cynic is someone like Ben Carson. A person who can fluidly and perpetually lie about literally everything defines the kind of absurdity of our times. The fact that he’s a brain surgeon again shows God to have a sense of humor. A cynic would seek the attention for the sake of it. The cynic would seek to capitalize on the bluster and ignorance. I, on the other hand, want to just be left alone.

Who wants to fight for a lost cause? When you can feel so profoundly how screwed up the world around you is, how do you go anywhere but away? “The World” isn’t ready for and doesn’t deserve the kind of luxury and opportunity that’s on offer. We take it for granted. We assume things will work themselves out. We’re too “smart” for our own good.

I throw out the idea of being a kind of “sociopath” so often it’s lost all its luster for me. Another way of relating to how I feel might be characterized as an “overflowing empath.” I started in life feeling too much and just got paired with a crazy person long enough to learn when to shut it off. If I feel too much, and I just feel dumber, maybe the direction “in general” has won out. Maybe in my heart of hearts I know that whatever experiments I run, whatever resources I create, and whomever I meet or work with, will only be drops unable to quell a spectacular sea of fire.

It’s that I don’t believe in us, even a little. I don’t know if that’s being dumb, or self-preservation. I believe in me. I believe I can survive and ride out the times, provided I generally stay away from large cities. But the world from my corner has been shrinking for so long, I think this is a point where I say it’s swallowed me up. Bernie isn’t my savior. My heroes are old and detailed. The momentum is such that fighting all but provokes martyrdom. Revolution? We’re not evolved.

[428] Do Or Do Not

I think there's an important distinction between types of people that isn't often talked about. When attempts are made to talk about it we tend to regard people as “optimists” who contrast with the “pessimists.” I think the distinction has less to do with your positive or negative outlook on life. I think the distinction lies in how you are socialized to think about your circumstances. That is, it's the difference between people who “want to live” and those who are “waiting to die.”

I get hung up on old movies, shows, and documentaries about bands and political theater. You get the impression that there is a genuine underlying cultural sensibility and understanding. Regardless of what you can say about misogynistic and civil rights failures, people seemed to “get it” in a way that I absolutely cannot find today. This is surely part media bias and rose colored glasses, but at the same time, I think it's the same reason I tend to get along with older people in general if not old women in particular.

Old women seemed to be socialized to “take care of the family.” A very life affirming, always on the go, navigate a million moving parts including your children's needs, husband's emotional distance, and whatever the neighborhood gossip or family secrets. Men were just expected to work and provide. Being tired at the end of the day and teaching a few life skills was tantamount to good parenting. While I was antiquing the other day, a couple of older women lamented that you can't just get into a fight now-a-days without getting sued or put in jail and, no exaggeration said, “in my day things were different.”

It's often talked about “the simpler times.” When what you knew you knew and what you didn't you didn't. Information wasn't being uploaded to the cloud to be checked and debated endlessly every minute. You didn't have a million TV channels and competing sources for your attention like the 1000 people you follow on twitter or the hundreds of friends and their meme pictures and statuses. I genuinely think from a psychological standpoint, this was a better circumstance than what we have today.

I think this because I consider myself an educated person without a fucking clue as to what I should be doing. I spend so much time “doing everything” and absolutely none of it has felt like the “right” thing to do in anything but philosophical or health terms. That is, I don't want to be a wage slave if I don't have to, and I respect my time to a greater degree than my money. I feel a genuine sense of responsibility towards the world because I chose to adopt a stake in it. How I got to a point of adopting that stake is a long and complicated picture that I don't think the modern era makes clear.

Today, if you can even define “friend,” when you don't like them you click an "x" and add a new one. We'll have more jobs by the time we're 25 than our parents had their entire lives. What does that do for your conception of a relationship? A relationship to your job, your town, neighbors, coworkers, or how you conceive of your work? I used to think the words “union” and “collective bargaining” went hand in hand, but with union membership at like...7? 8? percent, and if you poll people, you'd think 1900-1935ish didn't exist in this country. We've destroyed respect for your effort, time, and health.

I was listening to a Jack White song where he says something like “we're not entitled to a single damn thing.” If that's true, does that mean we don't owe anybody anything? Because surely someone is entitled to my basic respect for their being. Perhaps you only get the idea of entitlement when you subscribe to wanting to be alive in the first place. But what is it to entitle something? You are held in trust. You should be living up to said title or taking responsibility for claiming ownership of something. Do we just overwhelmingly abdicate responsibility and therefore feel like we don't deserve things?

I've been wanting to shit on myself for trying. And I feel like that has way more to do with the overall culture than with me. It's that no matter what you're doing, you're being punished. I got the degree, for an exorbitant amount of money. I'll let you talk to my fellow graduate and friend what it feels like to apply for 100+ jobs, in the same field, and get nothing for it because I skipped that headache and went for opening my own business. There again, punished for not being able to afford a lawyer with better advice, or a lawyer to sue when you were lied to and sunk costs, also by “the terrorists,” often mislabeled as Islamic extremists, who gouge you on insurance, rent, and of any scraps of self-respect you might have left. You're certainly being punished in a minimum wage anything. And now, I'm finding a way to punish myself in the stress of trying to rely on my blood pressure and drug studies to even begin something resembling savings or investment.

And I'm still supposed to remember that by not being in debt and having my bills paid for a year, I'm doing better than nearly everyone on the planet. At such point I'm supposed to what? Bend the knee and thank the gods? It isn't about me.

It's concordantly hard to deal with having, barely, examples of people who “represent me” in the public eye. As far as the political realm there's maybe 4; Warren, Sanders, the Seattle Green chick, and Nader. With celebrities, Michael Moore on a good day and I suppose Russell Brand is a little batty, but he speaks true shit and gets his hands dirty.(edit 2024. Oh, how people change.) Writers like Naomi Klein, Chomsky, Hedges (most of the time), and Taibbi. I can give as much shit about Bill Maher as your fundie uncle, but when he's lucid I can nod along. Mostly, I prefer Jon Stewart or Colbert, and increasingly Oliver if we have to leave real reporting up to comedians. Thankfully, albeit very recently, Vice's HBO show is filling such a massive void their facebook editorials should feel ashamed of sharing the same name.

But each name or organization I could point to feels like a pebble. They belong to the old women, and me, who have the time to read their books and “educated liberals” who can laugh more than cry about what's being reported. It's for the people who can afford HBO or aren't so baffled by technology they can figure out torrenting is easier than Yahoo Mail.

My world feels so small. It's why when I like my friends, I really like my friends, drunk “fuck everything” blogs aside. It's why I'm really sad when one of them gives up or becomes too busy or writes off my genuine concern as “just what Nick P. does or thinks.” I'm pushing a full stop when it comes to existential exploration and the exhaustion that comes with putting yourself out there so often to ill or non-defined ends. I don't want to be Nader publishing a book about all my letters that didn't get answered and call that not giving up.

Literally all I can do is wait and learn more. But even if I figure out something new to try, I feel like I'm going to be doing it alone, and setting myself up for a new punishment. Still none of those personal wins or promises to yourself are gonna matter. If I don't consider it about me, I can't endorse you making it about you. But, I want to choose life. That includes how our culture helps or hurts, even and especially for those who feel like they're stuck waiting around to die.

[382] On Disillusionment

I'm interested in how quick the pendulum swings, and for what reasons. Of course I mean between when you're motivated, and when you couldn't possibly care less. I'm interested in this because of how I feel myself respond to something affirmative. How things that are in line with my perception genuinely motivate me to talk a little nicer, work a little faster, and excited to get on the path to learning more.

I just watched this documentary on Ralph Nader. Peeks into history that account for so many things that make our lives better today are invigorating. From the countless hours that a single man put into advocating, training, and campaigning, your life today has been altered in incalculable ways. It's a reminder of your obligations, ability, and potential impact.

I think about the people my age who've become disillusioned. They aren't getting the jobs they want. They're always at risk of getting sick or becoming a burden to their parents. They're bored as shit. Frequently lamenting that they didn't go into a different field or alluding to the external problems that keep them stuck. They feel as if they're in impossible circumstances after a few years of not getting the dream, and primarily for themselves.

Then I think of the people who lined up behind Nader. I think of the teams of people and the amount of legislation that was passed in order to protect human well-being. Years spent researching, writing books, advocating, door knocking, and testifying. And it gets railroaded and degraded piece by piece. Imagine not only having to work hard to get “common sense” things to happen, but then seeing your hard work deliberately targeted and torn down by monied interests. Imagine watching old friends turn their back on you and what you are fighting for because they no longer believe and blame you. Imagine people physically turning their backs to you and shutting you out because you won't play their political pandering game.

Would you keep going? Would you find resolve in some adage amounting to “if I can only help 1 person, then it will all have been worth it!” How many people have figured out or discussed their motivation before they lamented the paycheck or lack thereof? How much of your motivation to change something is tied to how comfortable you make yourself first? You don't need to be rich to read, to advocate, to organize. And that's the brunt of what's striking me so hard.

Nader shied away from the limelight and offers to run for president for a long time. He wanted to drive home the idea that people should be “professional citizens.” He didn't betray trust. He had people sending him all sorts of problems and help me letters, well outside of his purview, but it spoke to the kind of trust he could illicit from his fellow man. I feel like a kindred spirit; even if it only starts in my endless advocacy of people beginning to actually talk about things.

I catch the documentary while I'm in the middle of “The World As It Is” by Chris Hedges. One of the pleasures of writing is that you perk up and get to recognize when something you said is being echoed in different examples and tweaked words, but no-less your point. The idea that “how do we fix it if we don't know how to talk about it” is prevalent. Hedges consistently praises Chomsky for his attention to detail and pages of digressions into the minutia of some conflict. Chomsky's not writing to be relevant 100 years from now. He's testifying to the truth that wins debates. He's giving you tools where and when they're needed that the other side is too lazy to find or determined to avoid.

There's an idea of scholarship speaking to genuine emotional outrage for your circumstances. It's not just storming the street with a pitchfork. You're armed with the knowledge that you're right, the details matter, the consequences carry, and your obligation to the world and future are worth the struggle. That's another reason I want people to speak up. I want to feel that you're obligated to anything. Even if it's just a call for an answer to a question about something important. I want us to find more room to be each others' keepers, and not squander the opportunities to connect or brainstorm. The right ideas are always there, but do you feel them. The people who are crazy sure feel them, and that's why they move into positions of influence.

The day where we're all just comfortable enough to start on our high-minded liberalism's idea of how to change things is not going to happen. I'll never catch up to the intellectual dedication and rigor of people like Hedges, Chomsky, and Nader, but that doesn't mean my voice doesn't matter. It doesn't mean there isn't an uphill battle that is always worth the fight. Your testimony matters. Your voice gives someone else license. Exercise it.

It can't be done alone. You can be isolated, you can be demeaned and painted in various lights. But that only becomes a problem when you make society's problems yours and yours alone. When they need a champion who isn't given a loud enough voice to remind people that they're the champions. Our biggest, baddest, business as usual corruption factories are made out of individuals. They're “truth” is in morally bankrupt greed and corporate culture. We need to speak more truth to power. We need to hold ourselves accountable to the system that has fucked us, but a system that we help stay that way.

Just talk. Just start telling me what you see or what you'd want to do. Or what you're doing. Or why you think there's nothing to be done. Talk.

"I don't care about what they say about my legacy. What are they going to do? Rip airbags and seat belts out of cars?" - Nader.