[729] Always Leave

You ever have just that exceedingly average day that sort of sours at the end for seemingly random and innocuous reasons?

Today is one of those days where you feel like death will be a gift. Not in a romantic way. Not in a desperate way. Not even in a way that would have you push it or test something. Just...a sigh of relief.

I thought I might start this with a few different sentences. I'll just write them all in no specific order.

As a kid, I was frequently confused. White trash is such a distinguished and important qualifier. I'm almost too tired to write this, but I'm more worried about losing whatever this feeling is. It's still not off the table that I might do something rash.

Let's just go in order. As a kid, I was frequently confused. I didn't know why my uncle was allowed to beat my aunt. I didn't know why my different uncle was allowed to talk to my grandma the way he did. I didn't understand why when all I wanted to do was read or play video games I was treated like a budding convict. I didn't understand much of anything to be sure, but the fact that certain things still stick as confusing to this day means something to me.

Lifeline has put me in contact with a “work coach” of sorts. He made a statement today about how evil finds ways to work its way in and negate or subvert the good. I told him I have a giant back tattoo symbolizing the inherent evil in us all and the naivety and/or deliberateness in which it takes to unleash it. What are you when you allow your family to be treated like shit? Naive, or deliberate?

The white trash I see almost every day are almost certainly naive. Something like 10% of the population are literally too dumb to do much beyond be a general blight on existence, and it's hard to say I meet people who are incidentally caught for a one-off mistake. Is it evil I document in 15 minute intervals? When every other conversation is about who's going to prison or who's about to get out? When it's what boy is next in line to fuck and what 15 year old is getting knocked up? When the meth-man-monkey with a teardrop tattoo snaps at you for asking not to smoke for 2 hours? What do you call that? It's not simple “neglect.” Neglect is a kind of catch-all term DCS uses to understand almost willful extremes of poverty and inattention. It's something more complicated. Something probably worse.

What are you when you haven't been taught to say thank you? My worst and most indignant day, I'm reflexively saying thank you to the person holding the door or the person doing a favor. What depraved lack of class slinks from one interaction to the next with a total blindness for the capacity to appreciate what's there? Or, what greater evidence do you need that humanity is but an empty mathematical function flitting about and interacting with itself like a state of indifferent matter?

I suppose I'm tired of being the enemy. Kinda ever. I'm tired of feeling nothing and thought of as if I'm full of hatred. I'm tired of playing along to the best of my direction and regarded as something of a fool. I'm tired of trying for the best and it only registering as a kind of desperate grab for a youthful manic dream. I don't know if tomorrow I wake up and just politely and plainly say, “I don't want this job, I never wanted it, I don't want to string you along anymore.” I don't know what I'm going to do until I'm doing it, because nothing I do feels of much or any consequence. Indeed, every day, I get a lesson that I could do meth, beat the shit out of people, lie, take advantage, and there will be dozens of “services” beating down my door with a chance to “help” and “save” me. Deep state profiteers couching their efforts in the language of that all-encompassing scapegoat word “love.”

If I'm too smart not to adopt a level of pragmatism in how I make my money, that method should at least register as a kind of back-seat concern. I shouldn't have to keep contending with the inane drama of no one just giving me the answers to their stupid non-questions. It's not like anything is at stake, at least, for me. I don't just not care, I can't be persuaded to care. I've unyielding faith that the vast majority of my actions have registered as bullshit and/or harmful to the directionless human endeavor. I do not think any particular corporate parlance is going to impart timeless skills I utilize the rest of my eagerly drying life. But every day, every week, it's that 8 AM email. It's the “let's sit down and do more training.” It's “Hey, I think you're smart, just not the kind of smart that can play pretend like we're trying to.” Shocker. It's almost like I knew this would be a bad idea.

I'm still almost too tired to write this. But, what would my feelings be if not for an opportunity for the oblivious idiot I room with to enter the kitchen, kick on a light, and slam every fucking door and drawer available to him? Naive, or deliberate? Like when he fed the dog rocks. It's scarier to think that level of stupid is by accident.

I want a plan again. I want more to think about than how much I increasingly hate more and more. I want to stop being coddled like I'm a bigger problem than pretending, for millions of dollars a year, that sending anyone who can sit through 5 days of compulsory church is qualified to coach you through multi-generational abuse and drug addiction. I was told, “I was sometimes shocked and overwhelmed with the responsibility that they gave to me” when I brought up how irrelevant I was to someone who clearly needed deep and long term therapy. Um, truth here, IT WASN'T THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO GIVE! Throwing well-wishing good cheer at real issues is compoundingly stupid and hurts people. Think preaching the bible instead of condoms and praying the AIDS away. I am not a drug counselor, or should be asking about your history of sexual abuse, or can talk you down from beating the shit out of the same people I'm not positive I wouldn't beat the shit out of as well.

If we have to pick our lies, why can't they at least be better? Why can't the lie of my eco-Amazon-Tesla co-op be worth shooting for instead of “the grind” associated with the tasks of this kind of job? Why can't we live in a world where we shun the lazy and delinquent, or at least cordon them off in a way to prevent them from doing damage, and carry on like the world is allowed to make sense for even 5 fucking seconds every day? Why is it always on the back of some shady deal or cut corner? Why is it always with a creepily large smile and wave after wave of some form of gospel, familiar or cult-like? What's so bad about just picking and doing better? We recognize it every day, the one or ten things that could be better, and we don't just do them?

I want to continue to try to shape the world. I don't want to become a Lifeline tendril. I don't want to be resolved to the drinking after work and growing waste line. I don't want the forced humor and eggshell conversations. Is it “better” if I just say that tomorrow? Bow out? Take my final paycheck, move another inch on the land, and move on to the next fucking disastrous waste of my fucking life? How long is it gonna take? Who else do I have to disappoint? How many more memories do I need of caving roofs, cigarette smoke, clothes that don't fit, and bugs who can't discern the shit in the yard from the shit on the couch?

I need a way out.

[499] Color Me Blue

I feel like I’ve been something of a tragic little headcase lately.

Waaah! I’m angry at my friends. Waaaah! Fake and broke social scenes have broken down. Boo-hoo it’s one problem and satirical comment after the next. Of course I’m writing this in the wake of the depressed and foreboding feelings that follow a hangover. Of the various powers of alcohol, it really is the drug that grants me the capacity to feel.

I used to blackout and be told that all I could do was foist lovey-dovey heartfelt sentiments about everyone in the room. Anymore I seem driven by a desire to bring up terrible shit to say that apparently seeks to degrade and remove me from any obligations I might feel towards friendship. What a tired cliche…

I think maybe I have a growing fear for the speculation and skepticism I’ve built in my life. I don’t allow myself the “naivety” to think the new people in the bar cared about our conversation. I don’t expect the majority of people I know to come through for anything I didn’t like actively prime and coax out of them. I’ve had to stifle a solid amount of the pretense that fueled much of my behavior. My identity has been in limbo.

I know once this feeling wears off I’ll go back to normal. I know that while ideas can always haunt me, I’m never a slave to a particular regret or drunk text. I just don’t know what to think about my normal anymore. If I was an impassioned dramatic free-spirit, I might barrel into some kind of expressive medium. I’d put aside all my criticism for there being too many competing and lackluster voices and try something new.

And at least in the moment of feelings like this, it would feel worthwhile. It’s why I write. The need to speak or connect. Blogging is coping more than something I’ve sought anything more than incidental attention for. I’m beholden to throw all my sad sack of shit feelings in a place like this so the damage control aspects of my life can actually be controlled.

It’s that I feel like I’m constantly lying. I’m better at being the friend who picks up where we left off after not talking to you for years than I am the check in and see how you’re doing type. I feel like I stopped paying attention to a lot of potential social cues and qualifiers because they get in the way of me steamrolling through some desperate stab towards more and deeper connections. Or, if I get them right, I’m not convinced on the regular days I’ll find it in me to keep caring.

I’m jealous of when it was easy. Of course it was gross and superficial, but it was easy. You just got together and all got drunk. You just started some random project or group activity. You just did a little flirting and body language cues before disappearing somewhere. And then maybe it wasn’t even that superficial; at least for a little while.

I’ve been grasping in the dark at lines that would hopefully unlock the sentiment behind how I’ve been feeling. My brother the other day said “I never thought I’d be 25 with a master’s degree living at home with my parents.” I had that concern my freshman year with all I’d been reading about kids doing that exact same thing. And so what? What did it get me? What does my knowledge and foresight ever really amount to? You still have to get fucked. You still have to keep falling uphill. I still have to cross my fingers that I’ll finagle a way to build the kind of future I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid.

I’m too hard on everything. I don’t know the happy middle ground. I packed so many expectations into myself I’m choking. Every year that goes by with me being a discontented basement dweller railing about the system and bolstering his capacity for media trivia suggests the larger reality is even heavier and even more fucked than I could possibly have the capacity to ridicule. It makes me feel dead before, during, and after I’ve tried. It makes the anxiety of hope unbearable.

I’ve never wanted to be the cynic. I’ve never considered myself as such. I don’t want to believe it, but it feels like it, that the honor is foisted upon me. Like I could cope with feeling downtrodden and guilty anymore than you can. Like I get some kind of enjoyment when things are actually that bad. Yes, once the hangover subsides, I’ll stop sounding so pathetic and I’ll genuinely be more implacable husk uncontrollably scoffing. But until then, hopefully I’ve been able to peek into what’s been contorting my guts. I’m rather lost.