[1100] Highway To Hell

This is the third time I've tried to write in the last week. The first time, I deleted everything, maybe 8 paragraphs of bitching. The second time, I restarted my computer without saving (turns out it autosaved, but if I was that forgetful of it, was it really worth saving?). Now, I'm going to use some new echoing sentiments and see if they can bring the feeling home.

A first-class mage, out of mana, all-but totally defeated in battle, would continue to fight until the end.

I also saw Tony Robbins tell Theo Von to look around the room for every brown object, and then asked him to report on how many red things he saw. He then challenged Theo on how many things he instinctively tried to make fit into the "red" category that might have been close, but not quite right. It was a quick illustration to demonstrate how we filter in and out information based on what we want to see and reflexively justify or make excuses to help "win" in our perception of how much we noticed.

Writing helped teach me at more of an instinct level that my perception was infinitely incomplete. I write to express the "drama" or pain and negativity and catastrophic consequences of inattention and inaction. And then after each sentence, I'm presented with the choice to double down or refute. I draw relative conclusions based on how I'm choosing to express myself on the topic. I'm not convinced. I'm never all bad or all good. My motivations are often equally greedy and selfish as they are kind and patient. I think to be a wise or real human you have to be aware of that duality in as many moments as you can.

My life, or at least the narrative that feels most appropriate to try and capture it, changed in a fundamental way a few days ago. For the first time, I'm able to "simply" do my job without qualification. There's still messy bits that I'm working to stabilize, but I'm not at the mercy of the forces I've been complaining about for years. I have breathing room to see if people I've hired raise even more funds or successfully net me grant money. I have enough to keep the credit card companies at bay. I just have to do what I do best, talk, and get in front of as many people as I can.

I've had big portions of my life where I've felt relatively "free." Drug study money time where I was functionally retired for my 20s I wasn't anchored by anything but my "friends'" ambivalence and too much reading about the world. I woke up and slept when I pleased. I had thousands in the bank. It obviously wasn't what I aspired to be or have or I wouldn't have taken on the thousand headaches related to building a more permanent living situation. This isn't the first time I've ever been able to breathe, but it's a new kind of air.

One of the things I mentioned in those previous writing attempts was my aptitude for games like StarCraft. You start with the resources on the map. At different points in my life, I've made manifest what I wanted/needed when the resources were in place. Bills covered while in school? I built the next-level party environment. Cash upon graduating? Oh look, a coffee shop. Money saved from drug studies and/or working several jobs at once? I genuinely forget "the struggle" it's been to get here typing this from my fort staring down the barrel of an endless list of projects or upgrades to make. You give me the instrument, or tool, or video game and I learn how to play it, if not better than you, better than most.

I'm a first-class mage. I keep fighting, even when I feel, acutely and constantly, at some proverbial end of my rope, existentially dreadful, and full of hatred for this, that, and the other thing. A condescending conversation can set me on something of a roller coaster, and then a surprise, like the donated money to get back to work, quickens the process to shuffle that one asshole into the gigantic pile of assholes making the same predictable mistakes that have set me off my whole life. My emotional response is routinely violated and proven wrong, so, I learn not to trust it. It goes both ways though, and you have to adjust your sense of "happiness," which I think is miscalibrated in a lot of people.

I'm not unhappy. I'm also not particularly enthused or engaged by most things. I can watch most TV sped up because they aren't saying anything interesting or new. I'm not "shocked" by the horrors reported in the news. I'm not so sheltered or impoverished to be brought to tears in some Dobby-esc way over what anyone treated appropriately could be initially excused for taking for granted. I know, just as an animal, I'm predisposed to sense the bad and danger. I know we're negatively biased. Being aware of and incorporating that feels like the project of any conversation about addiction, mental health, or whether or not we find a place for ourselves in the world.

Part of the miscalibration in our sense of "happiness" or "belonging" I think stems from bad incentives, bad expectations, and inexhaustible wells of denial and excuse making. I can identify literally dozens of "failure" points that would have prevented me from breathing this new air regarding my company. Some of them still currently exist and are being worked out. But what is "failure" to me? It's a state that can change. It's a point of learning. It's the chance to ask new questions. It's growth if you incorporate it. I need failure. I want to know what's going to fail early and often, so I can fix it or work around it.

I look for failure points. I look for the pain and drama and inexcusable injustice. Then I see if there's something I can personally do in how I orient myself towards that thing. I can't "fix" every problem in the world, and am thousands of degrees away from practically influencing almost anything. I can always control how or whether I talk about it. I can't fix inflation or "the economy," but I can occupy a space that softens the blow of prices rising and greedy landlords. There's gonna be one Dan Price for every 10,000 "normal" capitalist monsters, so I can pursue working conditions that attempt to bypass the machine, even while I'm working for it.

It's hard. But it's no harder than the stories I hear, by the hundreds, related to what people are struggling with as it pertains to their health, families, or finances. I'm in debt too. Not relative to my total assets or even half of what I tend to make every year, but my debt is servicing fun and growth. My debt is investing in crating a means to sustain my life and grow in my otherwise capacities if purely financial is off the table. I get more time. I get more chances to share with people ready to receive. I get to find the "happy" balance between what I'm working on, when I'm having fun, and when I'm navigating a fresh horror. It's hard no matter what you're doing in life. It feels orders of magnitude harder when you don't know why you're suffering whatever it is you are or can't find a matching fulfilling sense of order and meaning to press right up against the chaos.

It means something to me to be my brand of mouthy cunt. It means something to me to reflect on everything I've built, chaotically and constantly incomplete as they may be. It means something to me to go down swinging and find the "neutral" or "happy" blog after I've bitched and moaned for hours. I'm a loser and a failure and then whatever comes next, all at once, every day, all the time. I don't want to wildly swing in any direction and register the feeling as "true" in some too-compelling way.

This, and the spirit of those two unpublished blogs, is my 1,100th attempt to square my thoughts. What's the last thing you've done 1,100 times? That's how many times I've checked in on my worst impulses. It's thousands of hours of breathing and patience in spite of a headache, racing heart, or impulse to self-destruct. It's cheerleading for myself to maintain or succeed when I can't find anyone to share my perspective enough to offer anything I find practically useful. In the 20 years I've been practicing, I've met a literal handful of people practically implicated and interested in the potential consequences of that practice. No matter the examples that get set. No matter the explanations offered. Most of us, most of the time, find our rut, and look for anything to keep us there.

I know how far and exotic my thoughts get with regard to what I wish to create. I know no incomplete fantasy snapshot is going to capture the work and pain and sacrifices. So, I always bring myself back here. How do I feel right now? Do I recognize the potential? Am I cautiously optimistic? Am I doing other things to celebrate my interests and values while "the main thing(s)" still sit in a more hazy or indeterminate state?

I haven't slowed down going to shows. I'm still practicing my instruments, reading, playing video games, and planning or spending time with friends. I've got lines in the water for grants and fundraising. I just got off the phone with one of three potential someones to fix our licensed therapist hole. I've reached out and told my personal contacts we're in business. I'm forging ahead, in literally every moment I can, to continue to craft an environment that doesn't piss me off or confuse the fuck out of me in how negligently unaware it can manage to operate.

You can call it good or bad, but I realize it as working. Working for its own sake because the values contained can't be better expressed or felt any other way. I literally feel better as I work to figure out what's going on in my head. I cannot deny what I've created as I sit within my series of achieved goals. When I reflect on what I've written or overcome, that's the new imprint on my mind. It transforms a story of venting or failure into a processing guidestone on the way to the next thing. My brain does not have that habit "naturally." I am incomplete and begging to begin spiraling into hell if I made a determined effort to stop writing to just "see how things go."

I already know that story. It happens in every moment I need to write, but haven't yet. It's how I felt before I engaged the tool and did the work. It's what I hear from others who are, to be sure, no more or less confused about life or their place in it than I am, but refuse to even attempt to organize it. Or they'll try once or twice, "Doing what I told them," when what I told them is that I've done it 1,100 times for 20 years. They heard what they wanted to hear to keep them exactly where they are.

I don't want to be right here, and I want to be exactly here at the same time. I want a slightly warmer house with dedicated cord-managed rooms and high-end equipment. I want a sustainable nonprofit or business expressing my values that requires less of my presence over time. I want to be doing fun things, with friends, in any moment either of us choose, not thinking about the costs. I want to be telling other people's stories of success and values through the work they've done that shame and humble the empty "help" and "passion" blind cunts profess from their entitled perches and insecure bubbles. I want so many things, in unashamed ways, and I know what must die in order to get them.

Until then, the ever-precarious story of inflaming and infusing incidents remains a work in progress.

[956] Get Back To Where You Once Belonged

It was a small shift, but it happened and it didn’t feel good. For most of the day, I’ve been pretty content to shift things about in my house, clean up a bit, and think about how I will go about my work day tomorrow. My shows have been running for the last few hours. I’m full. I’m not precisely sleepy. It’s not terribly late. As the next show, Atlanta, began, I immediately did not want to go to work tomorrow. My heart of hearts sprang its “ugly” head.

I’ve also been thinking about my new friend/ex-coworker who I got to hang out with last night. She’s been in the process of unpacking her previous relationships and how they mirror things about her current (seemingly former as of today) situation. He’s about as cliché an insecure controlling hypocrite as any entitled 15-year-old who happens to be 45 and married. She has spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out why he has had the impact on her life and feelings as he had. The logic for having nothing to do with him was in perpetual conflict with how she felt, and how she felt was a complicated series of layers developed over years.

According to her, I’ve been instrumental in helping coax along the decision to finally break things off with him. She said she owed me, to which I assured her all I need is for her to keep being her and stay safe, as she was echoing so many sentiments I’ve heard from the battered-wives-club even if he kept the battering to the emotional type thus far. She’s a great example of someone who has every capacity to do the harrowing work of digging through their mind and building that complicated puzzle, but can astutely also testify to the difficulty and sometimes unwillingness or lack of desire to do so.

I think about my role in the conversations. Unconditional positive regard comes to mind. I don’t talk shit about nor feel negatively towards her for making what might seem like incredibly short-sided or exacerbating moves. I just kept asking questions and for her to define down the rationale behind those moves. I show up when asked to hang out and respond to texts. I played out vocally what my process would be were I writing the blog given the information at hand if it was my life. I apparently frequently echoed her therapist or other people she’s chosen to share with.

I do want to think I’m good at helping coax that process along, but I overwhelmingly believe in people doing their own work. Part of my willingness to buy-in to her process is that I recognized it. I trusted she had one, and I wouldn’t just be spinning my wheels with someone motivated to waste time and self-destruct wish as many people as she could bring down with her. What about people not like that? Is there a way to turn people out who discover a process in spite of themselves? What if the whole notion of “fixing” something about how you speak or think is as foreign to you as another language and cultural norms?

What does this have to do with not wanting to go to work? I’m running a constant informal experiment where I’m seeking a qualitative answer to the questions above while under extreme duress or limitations. I tell my guys all the time, if they learn a coping skill or get into a reflective meditative or writing habit in prison, they learned that shit on “hard mode,” so getting out things should be much easier. If you can meditate in prison, you can do it in a shed or in your car. If you can contend with the cultural norms and keep yourself out of conduct-threatening situations, you can walk away from a fight or difficult person on the street.

But, just like for them, prison is not necessarily the environment to thrive. You can do good things. You can be a genuine help and example. You’re still a cog in several complicated layers of entrenched systematic injustice and norms that, I don’t care how common the cliché is, you don’t fix from the inside. I practice the pieces of what I wish to be in my culture-shaping or culture-attacking system while I’m embedded in them, but I’m not naïve to the extent that they get knee-capped by business as usual and norms I’m financially obligated to uphold.

So with the weight of the world questions about what kind of challenges I need to be taking on swirling in my subconscious, praise for (the acknowledgement alone feels good) a capacity for helping organize the fog of disordered relationship thoughts, and fresh memories of the kind of “freedom” and fun I like to engage in as though they are removed from otherwise responsibilities and contexts, boom, a “fuck work” pang of doubt about the purpose and utility of my being there.

I’m almost certain I’m about to start going door-to-door advertising “consulting” and counseling for $20/hour. It’s less than I make at the prison, but if I just took this - ICK - “gift,” so-named by the neighbor who’s dog we helped retrieve and went on the road like the unlicensed Dr. Phil, Tony Robbins, or these “facilitators” constantly advertised to me on Instagram, maybe I cut out my own little "influencer" space. I have no desire to pretend to be a therapist, but I do want to reach as many people as possible with the tools that have helped me. I’m like a fucking infomercial for the scatter-brained notion of compiling philosophy and lectures into writing with a sprinkle of addiction counseling and hard-won life experience at some of the highest levels of power. Cops can shoot you, but DCS can destroy your family for generations.

I have a kind of psychological habit, I like think it’s wisdom, of downplaying what I might have. If I don’t respect the test to get the certification, why should I be proud of the certification? I consider both my degree and my CADAC II kind-of jokes. I’m not good at talking to people because I know how to answer test questions or memorize a series of facts. I share a title with a messy bitch who thinks I need to write an essay to tell her, “Fuck you.” And the higher up the ladder you go with the letters after your name, you find people in ever-increasing silos of pretension and strange relationships to power and control.

What do I really want? I want to stay up late and binge the 30-odd hours of TV I’ve stockpiled over the last couple weeks. I want considerably more money for doing what I keep seeming to discover I’m good at, but can’t capitalize on in “official” or “respectable” ways to the extent I would like. Do I need a contract or partnership with someone “established” to talk to people? No. I need to nut up and introduce myself to my clientele who don’t yet know I exist. I need to personalize a practice of behavior that I can scale and partner with those who are willing to do the work.

This feels like classic overthinking arresting my otherwise usual gung-ho to jump into the roundabout means by which I get what I want. At the same time, I do worry, given the nature of the industry and task, that I’ll end up running afoul of some of the same powers that have locked me out of certain spaces already. There’s a bit of an awkward conversation in walking the “traveling counselor” line who ensures he reminds you he is not a therapist. The easiest out I have for that discomfort I don’t even want to use. I have my degree, I am state certified, I am an official counselor. I have more than enough “regular” status or power indicators to move in considerably more directions than I feel like I am currently.

I guess I kind of want both. I don’t respect Dr. Phil, I got bored with Tony Robbins in my teens, and whatever you want to say about these Instagram people, I’ve never felt a desire to watch their whole commercial. I like school and knowing shit. I wouldn’t be against getting more licenses and degrees, I just won’t do so if it means debt. I don’t want to come off as someone lazy or cheap providing the back-alley abortion version of a private practice or poor-man’s Tony Robbins. But I really, really want more money and I do seem to help people.

I don’t things to get out of hand. Maybe I find enough vulnerable, but paying, people, and the floor starts to shift on me. I technically have independent accountability at the prison, but in practical terms, you have to maintain your own standards. Maybe that’s where the conflict arises. I’ve psychologically rooted in a “standard” above my current “official” station. I respect doctors and therapists for as many as I can’t stand and absolutely don’t trust. I didn’t start typing in my credentials on my reports until the CADAC II was official. It matters to people reading it. I worry about all of the other things they’ll be reading in me going about my business differently.

I think a lot of it boils down to me not wanting to look or feel foolish and desperate. I’ll talk to a friend indefinitely until they reach a better place, but you’re high if you don’t think I’d love to be paid for it by people I’m not friendly with. I spent a lot of time getting good at DCS. That shit is valuable information that no one is sharing. Is it “dirty” to capitalize on people who are otherwise desperate to understand how to navigate that system? I want to do it for free, but, I don’t. I want the whole system to be under my attack, and I need money and the information I have getting out there in order for that to happen.

Can I say I’m living my values if I’m not experimenting more and iterating upon reaching sudden doubts and pauses when I think about how I’m occupying my time? I’m a “Do everything, do it now, do it anyway” kind of mother fucker. Who am I waiting for? Who’s going to give me permission? Am I just going to all of a sudden start giving too much a fuck what people think? Now? ::tongue deeply entrenched in cheek:: On the precipice of greatness!?

I’m not trying hard enough. The stakes are considerably higher in people’s lives than my vague and remote embarrassment about the lack of letters after my name. A socially-imposed embarrassment that no less conflicts with my very real respect for smart and motivated people who manage to achieve them. I think you can do both. I think you can be useful in the realms generally set aside for egg-heads pretending their capacity for doing homework is tantamount to competence in people engagement. I think I can stay in my lane, and will be talking about what that lane looks like well before some dramatic clash or decline.

I need to stop waiting for something to happen. I start the party, mingle, put the pieces together, build and refine. I create and do shit. That’s all my pitch needs to be for people struggling to do the same.

[714] I Believe

As far back as I can remember writing, what provokes me, what’s an ever-present theme is the idea of “belief.”

It’s tied closely to “faith” and “hope.” It’s what provokes “I feel.” It’s got at least one book by Michael Shermer which I can’t remember if I’ve read. It’s the basis of a basically functioning brain. You have to believe the bed isn’t going to disappear when you jump into it. You have to believe in your relationships so you can make long term goals. You have to believe in yourself and that the things you care about hold value. You mess with belief at your great peril. 

In thinking the god I don’t believe in is every ounce of ironic and laughing as Al Pacino might suggest, I’ve not only had my mind flooded with Jesus Christ Superstar for weeks (having watched every commercially version available), watched a documentary on Tony Robbins constantly pushing love and general ethereality so-named “God,” but have started training with a company that is deeply rooted in religious ideals - meaning prayer before meetings, offers of “what scripture says about that,” and ninja gorilla training on how to maybe-ever-oh-so-subtly sneak a little Jesus into a life that’s recently had a child taken away. 

While I said I wouldn’t criticize what I’m a part of until the end of this week, I can still talk and reflect on what I’m hearing. And what I’m hearing more than anything is, “I believe. I truly believe. I believe with all my heart. I believe in our mission. I believe I was called. I believe you can change the world. I believe every conversation I ever get into has a purpose and a meaning and that we all have something to teach each other. I believe we’re going to grow and grow and that it’s not for us to explore the details behind why our reach is increasing, and we should be able to do such a good job, we’ll work ourselves out of business!"

I’ve known what religious-minded people believe for a long time. It’s why, barring severe brain damage, I’m going to die without adopting a sky daddy. I don’t “believe” I’ll never believe in God. I speak in a way that always allows for brain damage. 

But then it begs the question, what do I actually believe? We can leave aside that I don’t behave as if my car runs on milk or that the bed will jump out of the window before I jump in it. Maybe it’s first better to think about what I used to believe. I know I’ve talked about that before with regards to what I believed growing up as a kid about my family or school. I don’t know how much to just lump those in with general childish naivety or if they had a special hold on me that really fucked with me when they were broken. Wouldn’t they everybody? Aren’t we actively watching the consequences of people’s broken homes and expectations play out in real time? 

But right now, what do I believe? I believe in myself. I believe I can lie, and play along, and make money. I believe that, if nothing else, I will at least find myself alone, in my field, with too much saved up and too much time to read, watch TV, and play music. That’s so true to me, when I use my third eye, so to speak, I see myself there, just being okay, doing whatever. It’s a kind of baseline belief because I have immediate access to my thought process at all times. I don’t have to convince myself I’m as good as I’ve already done. I try incredibly hard to thrust lies from my life, so even the delusions I have left retain a contentious bibliography. 

I believe there’s little I could do that would make my dad leave my corner. He’s nothing but an anchor for what I believe as his ardent stance in service to family. In the same vein, but very different, I believe my best friend will always behave in the ways I might anticipate for myself. Stated differently, I believe me at my worst and best, and I know how to navigate either. 

I believe we’re not going to make it. I think “something” could survive over an extended period of time, but “we,” as a species, as capitalist selfish befuddled apes, not for anything but a cosmic second. But I also believe it’s the best thing you can do to fight against that anyway. 

What would I have liked to believe? What do I think would have made my picture of the world, not so reflexively “negative,” a word and view I still vehemently disagree with, but one where I’m able to constantly like and share and offer “good vibes” that don’t rub people so raw? I would have liked to believe any time I was arrested by love, that those feelings suggested more than biology. Of course it’s grand to think of security or a partnership or a way to express trust and intimacy. Is it the reality I felt was built to last? You don’t tell a girl who’s mad about you, that you know is wifey material, that she’s going to be the one to leave you on day 2 of you guys ever spending a considerable amount of time together. And certainly, not believing it’s going to work doesn’t make the time together bad or register as a relief when it’s over. 

I’d like to believe that I don’t have to carry whatever angry water I have for my mom. I’d like to believe a phone call and “deep appreciation” for the pain that’s been caused could get us talking towards some kind of, at least basic courtesy, of a place. Do I believe that can happen? Well, sure, anything can, but I don’t just not believe it, I don’t even want to believe it. I don’t want us to be reconciled to people who don’t have a capacity to hold themselves to account. I don’t want people who believe in themselves, in their own innocence or lack of responsibility, at the expense of the whole world. I’m not okay with pretending that’s okay. I don’t want that to be a statement about me as an example I set for anyone else. 

I’d like to believe that “things are just around the corner.” I used to. I thought I’d be 5 years down the line of a moderately successful coffee endeavor that kinda sorta ran itself. I’d like to think I’m one person who isn’t abject shit and a waste of time away from seeing my appeals online who wants to join up and get started. I want to believe that even in this new job, I’ll hit it as hard as I’ve hit everything, and maybe next month I’ll be wildly surprised at the “ease” I could have been working to get twice as much. But I believe it’s always in the romanticized past. I believe that’s where most of my friends are. I believe it would take nothing short of a lottery-adjacent offer to get anyone to come play for longer than lunch or a weekend.

If you’re a believer, you think all of this is just God speaking through me. You caught this blog at the EXACT right time, and try as you might to fight, certain lines just stuck with you today or came up as relevant like a proverb. I don’t get credit for thinking or sharing. I don’t get to differentiate my thoughts and language. I don’t get to take responsibility for my actions when they seem to contradict. I don’t get agency. I don’t have ideas, let alone ideals. If you believe, I don’t exist, and thus am absolved of my sins. So why not you as well? You as my witness, you who would condemn me with every sweetest profession, you who speaks without saying anything. This is the word of My God! So sayeth, Me.

[405] Deliver Me

History can be a little too illuminating. 

Perhaps the utility of “remaining in the present” allows you the fresh naivety to remain energetic and motivated to pursue the future. Once you learn how your context has been created, you’re faced with a decision. Either you can readdress who you are, what your goals were, and to what degree this information will inform your decisions, or you can ignore it can carry on with your day. This is one of my constant well-worn “battles.”

You can’t blame the idea. For any school of thought, playing on a kind of feigned humility can allow you to introduce a new idea with a trivial amount of scrutiny. Maybe you’re in a field that no one around you knows about. Maybe you’ve been proven right about something in the past and have already greased accepting wheels. But often in the abstract and ever-more-room for ambiguity of ideas, for the longest time you may never conceive of it as good or bad.

This is how you easily and quickly control ignorance. Take any hard line ideological thinking, impose it in an area that has no idea what you’re talking about, and analogize what you’re selling to all forms of righteousness and prosperity. Inevitably, you’ll sow seeds of doubt against any system currently in place. You can polish your authority with Institutions who not only garner donations, but develop a lore and reputation. You can make deep pocketed friends who would pay you to keep saying what you’re saying even if you didn’t believe it fundamentally.

When I learn what my country has done around the world, I just feel stuck. The same ignorance that we played, and continue to play on, we’re somehow blind to the irony as a population. It’s not just a short memory, it’s a non-existing one. The things that I learn at 26 should have been cannon in any history class I took. They should have been drilled into me, perhaps even as they were happening, so I could really know the implications of laissez-faire beyond the point it would earn me on a definitions list. I should know about leaders who created socialist dreamscapes where economies grew and people were provided for. It’s beyond words to think a sounding chamber on Fox could pollute a word like “socialism” and an exceedingly large portion of the population would follow.

Do I want to end up on a kill list? Do I want to be detained and stripped of my rights because of on-the-spot made up rules? I already recognize what we have in place as servitude to multi-national corporations. I already call my leaders terrorists and war criminals. I consider the bars of my cage made from the softest velvet. Why does it often feel like forgetting what I know through some blow to the head feel more realistic and rewarding than fighting?

My spirit is broken. I have all the time in the world. Resources people couldn’t even dream of a few years ago. Even with the world as shitty as I could describe it I’m fed, typing this on an extraneous computer, and plan to sleep through most of the day tomorrow. I lose my will when I think about what’s happened to other people; when they’ve been tortured, when they’ve been slaughtered en masse, when they’re written off as collateral damage in our pursuit of profit and terror. These are horrible things in and of themselves. Now grasp that it’s national policy! Now watch how it’s evolved for 30 years.

The “good guys” aren’t winning. Every successful model I see seems to be rooted in something terrible first or is on such a small scale that the rest of world isn’t going to bother to listen. It’s little leaps in technology here and there, a win for food or human rights there, a spattering of conflict resolution that at least stifled bombs for another year or so. It feels like there’s an underlying failure that is perpetually winning. A human characteristic or habit that refuses to let sense and accountability in. It’s certainly some amalgam of greed, fear, and ignorance I’m sure.

But those aren’t deep enough. It’s deliberately advocating for the free-market for 70 years after you’ve watched it implode entire countries, like Milton Friedman. It’s speaking proudly of overthrowing democratically elected governments like ex CIA from the 60’s and 70’s. It’s pompously asking me for proof of climate change while you chant “build it” and “drill baby drill.” It’s not just ignorance. It’s pride.

It’s just an idea, after all, to be proud of yourself. How do you manage to do anything if you don’t take pride in your work? Am I not proud of my vitriol for the dumb and destructive? Is my high horse well groomed and polished so I can attract my own acolytes and we can start our own NEW SCHOOL and show these backwater killers who’s boss?

But I don’t feel it. I’m not proud to be human. I’m not happy to discuss most things with most people. I’m disgusted and sad. And not in a needing Tony Robbins to tell me to believe in myself kind of way. It’s like I don’t deserve the kingdom I already have. Why do I get to be healthy when my country pretends it’s okay “for the market to decide” who lives and dies? Why do I get to lament my “I’m cutting out sugar” diet when slaves are eating bread crumbs and gruel-adjacent foods? Why do I get to feel hopeless when I’ve never wanted to jump off of an Iphone factory roof?

I’m mostly disgusted that people don’t express ideas like this every day. I’ve said for years, when you can’t do anything, you can talk. And we don’t. We don’t hold ourselves accountable. It’s an uncomfortable silence if someone says something “too real.” If I have 9 hours to power through a book every day that you can’t find in a month’s worth of a 9-5, you can still talk on your lunch breaks. You can still pause and reflect. You can share the news article that made you sad because it’s a sadness that needs to be felt. It’s a guilt that needs to be imposed.

I think one of the stupidest things I’ve ever been told is that we’re not supposed to look out for each other. It came from reddit. This person was emphatic that as long as they carried on well-enough that it wasn’t their responsibility nor concern all the terrible shit that goes on around them. As if consequences don’t carry. As if they’re not likely a living embodiment of a kind of victim. Because to me, to be that kind of person is to have felt the kind of abuse that has crushed my spirit. Only now talking has become a fate worse than writing off the death of your fellow man.

[73] Just Give In

I just got done re-watching Tony Robbins talk at TED and it helped to remind me of something important. Why happy people can stay happy and sad people sad centers around one thing. Giving.  When you have nothing to offer, nothing to give, and no place that cares or needs to learn from you consequently you feel like shit. I know that personally this sentiment makes sense especially when I think I have something to offer that isn't being utilized. I think many people don't realize what they are in fact giving in the first place. This would account for why it is so easy to drink, smoke, and randomly hook up as "cures" to the (sub)conscious ailment.  Hell, come to think of it, this probably does make sense for why people are in shitty relationships and pretend they are puppets of their religions.

    When someone doesn't give anything to themselves it is easy to see where an emotional giving crutch mechanism can take hold of their minds. "I'm too fat, stupid, lonely.. ect." Translates into "he/she needs me, I can excuse that, at least here's something, anything, to do." Robbins used the example of violence and guns to make a street punk go from nothing to significant in the blink of an eye. What do we use in college. The trinity; alcohol, drugs, and sex. Maybe you don't have a personality, anyone to coach in class, or athletic skills, but you can hook up anybody to anything if they want it. Parents riding you about grades and your future, mine too, puff puff give. Its only about fun though right? Let's just kill the monotony of everyday life and forget. We're social animals and this is the most common way to just blend in and associate. 

    It's really hard for me to understand that reasoning because 1. I can't imagine how fun it is to balance between walking straight, losing clothes, and maybe throwing up (Which, if we're being honest is usually along the road of foreseeable futures if you like to party) 2. People perpetuate their own situations, if you think life is boring, your making boring choices, 3. I don't want to forget. I can barely remember things that should hold significance as it is let alone justify actively retarding my brain that much more, 4. I fit in with people who fit themselves. If you have an identity then there is no need for a pathetic excuse like alcohol to keep any sort of relationship we have in tact or worth it. By offering booze and drugs your offering nothing and then to feel confused about why I don't take it is to remain baffled by your own lack of self fulfillment. Nothing that even hints on a border of the aforementioned is remotely close to being a good excuse to drink.

    How does this then play into the religious mindset? Well they're giving the Word of God. They are giving love, truth, and hope. They are giving the secrets of the universe. Is there anything more empowering? When one hears these claims and then watches that same person stay constantly depressed or self defeatist and yell  "God damn it!" as they stub their toe on the way out of church, is it that hard to see just how little it is that's being given? I have this one friend Tapper who's definition of God is love. Tapper's a pretty loving guy so go figure the religious mindset or lifestyle works exceedingly well for him. I have other friends who are in the habit of making a bunch of the claims above in one hand, living and feeling another way in the other hand.  The way religions work are the same way drugs work in that they provide an "escape" from yourself and "work" to make you forget about the down pour of negativity. It doesn't matter if it's true, it doesn't matter if it kills your body, it is just a means for an end you can't reach.

Connect with yourself, connect with people, go do shit. It's a seemingly simple enough formula.

Tony Robbins talk Here