[351] Free For All

In a world of extremes, I think I crave a middle ground. The problem is, I'm not certain there's a solid definition of that middle ground.

I preoccupy my thoughts with ideas about evil. Whether I'm watching what we've done in the Middle East or reading a history on the Holocaust or in having just seen a documentary on old school gangsters bragging and re-enacting their methods, the same banality arises from the people talking about it. It's never a secret that what they've done or witnessed is “bad” or at least makes them feel bad. It's that no amount of witnessing or engaging really provokes the intention of doing anything differently.

Sure, after the fact, you might get a soldier or warlord to eek out a modest admission regarding some sliver of responsibility they hold to the situation. You might get a glimpse at the emotions they haven't dealt with etched into their face for a moment. But then you learn of the ones who claim to be proud of what they've done. The conveniently, in time and place, born psychopaths. You get to hear the infinite justifications and watch the grueling dance.

To pause and think seems to mean nothing. If anything it only fuels, what one gangster referred to as his “conscience.” It also seems like helplessness fueling helplessness. Whether you feel obligated to follow orders or are simply trapped under the violent regime. The banal, bored, and boring edicts from the top cause incalculable death and destruction for money and control. For nothing. Daily horrors don't really register with us. We're busy getting educated and watching TV. Is that a form of extreme indifference? Is it us patting ourselves on the back, assured that we could never and will always try to do better? Or are we just helplessly compelled to our own kind of cages as well?

There are violent protests all over as social safety nets and ideas regarding democracy erode. It's no longer possible to conceive of yourself on an “adult” path with a secure job where you'll be able to respectably enjoy the luxuries you've worked hard to earn. People are finally outraged about the exploitation of labor and the impacts of greed and inequality. It'd be at their front door if they could afford a house. They'd want to teach their kids about it, if there was an adequate school to send them to.

When it takes such a degree of mass suffering, and not even just that, mass personal suffering to evoke change you really have to step back and marvel at the world. Law? Oversight? Data? HA! LET'S TAKE IT TO THE FUCKING STREETS! God knows drum circles and Molotov cocktails worked just as well then as we need them to now. But what should we ask of protesters, of ourselves? Be aware? Just learn more? Step back and let my take on power do the heavy lifting? As far as they know, this is the worthy fight, this is where they need to be, not the jungle protesting machetes. You have your tragedy, I have mine.

If you can't put a mark on someone, it won't feel like their responsibility. They explicitly don't feel it. It doesn't become real. And people are rarely willing to mark themselves. I'd bet there are a number of mass deaths I've never heard of that are just as terrible and impact worthy as the ones I have. Plenty of personal tragedies have turned victims into heroes and voices. Are they better than you? Is there a difference in their will, their intention, that trumps whatever you've devoted your time to? Are they any happier or better-off than you would be snug as a bug behind any kind of Western tradition?

Calling Gweneth Paltrow "evil" for spending each day indulging in non-essential rich cliches equates to saying the same about a murder squad leader in only a singular way. It's someone behaving with reckless abandon to the consequences of their actions. We go to war under the auspices of spreading democracy and saving lives, but we do it in the human tradition that ignores what it means to our psyches and credibility when we murder civilians indiscriminately. We find it in us to “respect” some peoples' ridiculous cultures and barbaric behaviors because we instinctively know we've already cut off our own legs. Shoot up a school as a mental patient, your name may live in infamy. Blow up a school or wedding party with a drone, it's another day at the office.

How do you persuade that what they say and do really matters? It's not enough to be a millionaire and claim you've won. It's not enough to jump into a fight and say "well we thought it was the right thing" or "we were just following orders." The ones who try to argue a ton of historical and environmental context at this point only seem to obscure the real point. We've, maybe irreparably, scarred ourselves.

For the ones who care. For the ones who are stuck trying regardless. I want to believe they'll “win,” but I don't. I don't think the reasonable, empathetic, and desperate-to-change-our-paths people will ever be loud enough. And if they ever do, what of our human natures has shown we can do it without, if only eventually, a return to violence?

[350] Bad Title For A Bad Blog

I wish it didn't, but age matters. Not the mere fact of the number, but the total amount of experiences that have rounded out your character. As a lover of house parties, I'm still aware that a scene where the median age is 20 is not really where I'm trying to be. You just get people who are at different places. They want to force conversation or, much like a child, say “hi” even when they don't know or care who it's to. It's not the same thing as nodding to a person you walk past at the park, it's like a cry out for acknowledgment. It's...unsettling.

It's worse when you go into a setting where everyone is supposed to “fend for themselves.” Sure, I can strike up a few random conversations. But it's with 20 year olds. When you tell me that you're into reading about human rights and are going into journalism to report on said issues, when I reference Nelson Mandela and apartheid, particularly now, that shouldn't confuse you. It's not their fault, but it's hard not to hear the superficiality a million miles away.

My problem is having a sense of feeling “above it all” even before I got into it. When offered a shot of Kamchatka, I laugh at your paltry disposition. I remember the first time I drank that shit as a shot. Not coincidentally, it was the last time I drank that shit as a shot. Fitting in isn't worth a hard fought lesson like that. I just go back to, how can kids who are spending $800 a month to live in, frankly shit, apartments, not afford better than horribly cliched and terrible alcohols? Technically, I don't have a job, but I find that common decency does not allow for Hamms to even enter my house.

It's kind of fun to talk like a pretentious rich person. I think it has more to do with how you conceive of yourself than you do other people. Like, it's painful to drink shitty alcohol. I wake up in pain and regretting my life. It's not uppity to acknowledge that message. It'd be great to be like an ambassador, and when they rudely assume you'll go out and buy alcohol for them, maybe there's a moment where they sincerely look at you and hope they can trust you not to undermine their stomachs. But they never do and that's why they pay the "fuck you" tax.

I think my biggest problem is trying to relate. I can't think of a time when I was gung ho about fucking my night up and getting incredibly drunk before 11:30. I can't recall being a “dumb freshman” who pounded whatever was put in front of me and was desperately telling people how cool they were so they wouldn't overly judge my dance moves on the fledgling floor. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely happy to have missed that boat. It's just, I feel even more judgmental being even a couple years older and a few degrees removed from seeing people do it at any party I've thrown in the last few years.

The old cliché is that they're just kids. They'll get better. They'll learn. See, but they won't. That's what bugs me. I've known plenty of super seniors who are willing to shake your hand and pat you on the back because you brought Hamms to a party. That's just bad research which I can't respect. Maybe you have a stupid tongue who likes that shit, okay, hard to blame you for genetics, but it's truly hard to classify it as beer based on their own labeling of alcohol content.

Maybe I should stick to kind of dumb “kids and their stupid party”-esc blogs for while. I haven't done anything of merit in a minute, so this is what I get at the forefront of my mind. I'm sorry if you thought it as stupid as I kind of do.

[349] Giggity God Damn

Let's talk a little more about my god complex.

I act out of utility. This even more so that I gave up on letting people play their lives out like they saw fit. In order to behave as such, I need to see that things follow. Whether you're following a pattern of thought, or I'm carrying out a pattern of behavior that you behave in a certain way towards. Playing “god” is about evidence. Ego is weak. I don't merely believe anything about myself I can't bring to fruition. It's one of my favorite things about me.

It's why conversations need to be said, and re-said, and re-said again and again. I only make sense in the ongoing movement. The moment I lean towards a definition, I know I need to move past it and change something. This isn't a familiar ground for most people, as far as I can tell. This makes me sound at best petty, at worst, completely fucking insane.

I've stated before that I don't want praise for that which is simple. The “biggest most significant” things I think I'll achieve in life will speak to what I conceive of as simple. The world as it is let's the banal, meaningless, and empty look like triumphs of the human spirit and ingenuity. If no one else is willing to shit on these hopeless conceptions, I'm happy to shit upon myself. My world does not make sense from anything less than that which trumps a conceited plain.

At bottom, I wish it seemed as simple to most people as it does me. I've said that the more I talk to people, the more I give up. The harder it is to believe in anything. I, somehow, came out of this life thing with the ability to choose things people are unable to conceive of themselves as capable of. And all I'm left with is confusion. I'm left to roost on the idea that the whole of humanity could be crippled by the sheer inability to recognize the difference between two things. Sometimes it feels so absurd that to try and put words to it only seems to denigrate what one could conceive of injustice, but worse.

I think you reach a point past circumstance. As far as I can tell, being a tall white male who doesn't look like Shrek has it's advantages, but I know plenty of people with the same things that I would put down like rabid dogs. I thought that the whole “becoming an adult” thing was about handling business and making decisions that, theoretically, made sense for the continuation of this whole working world thing. I just don't believe it. I literally think everyone is shit. And now I just feel bad.

In a way, I love that talking, or bitching, here is selfish. I like to feel better shitting on everything and crossing my fingers that someone, somewhere, might change or enact some big thing based on my words, while realistically thinking I'm a screaming into the ether. I don't have faith. I don't hope. I just do. I know that as long as I'm doing, very little else seems to matter. Let's trust that what I choose to do actually matters, right?

[348] Whao Oh Ohho Mona Lisa

The difference between effort and effortless can't be overstated. What I find most intriguing is that I know when I'm trying too hard. I can hear every syllable being “too much.” I can immediately run to the questions of “was that appropriate? Did it make them laugh?” You're not immune to doing the shit you rally against just because you point out it's a clear failing of your personality.

Tonight was a vibe night. I danced harder than I should have. I talked to however many random people. I very much made it look like I'm verily the most interesting person you should be engaging with at the bar. Really, truly, I'm not fucking bragging. I'm ever and endlessly struck by how “easy” it is to do these things. It's like being called “nice” for paying for a meal. Like, seriously, fuck you, who the fuck else would I pay for? You won, stop trying to congratulate me because you're not a fucking asshole.

I wish I wasn't an anomaly. Don't get me wrong, as an egomaniac, it's really great to consider myself something special, if only from the feedback of people I'm surely to judge beyond what they're due. But damn. It doesn't feel like work. It's just sort of, upholding an ideal. It's living what I think everyone knows, but for reasons I legitimately don't understand, aren't behaving like. Can someone please explain this to me? Fear just feels like a cop-out.

I cringe sometimes when I look at old blogs. Like, I don't think I was terribly clear when I said my friends were “bitch nigga ass pussies.” All that really meant was that I don't get any sort of public feedback when what I'm saying should be considered full of shit. I assumed there was likely something to be said, and nobody said it, thus rendering said inability as “bitch nigga ass pussy” status. I know I follow things up with “don't take it personally” but I'm not terribly confident that it always gets through as I meant...so, there, I fixed it.

I think we're a weird generation. Everything is fast forwarded. Our parents maybe had to take 30 years before they learned something we get on Buzzfeed (what a horrible fucking website) and the irony only gets to sting that much more. You'll get to make stupid marriage decisions and job decisions that, even if you follow for 5 years will feel like a fucking eternity compared to our parents. I think that's why a lot of the shit I rail about is only a glancing blow. You're stuck in the mindset I am; things move quick, even if I'm wrong, I'll flip a switch and BAM it's different.

I still think there's something to be said for not fucking up what you don't need to. The more I look at my life and time goes by, I'm really doing exactly as I think I should. It'd be such a waste to be on whatever pedestal I consider myself and have to sacrifice what it could represent for the ideals of the norm. Seriously, how the fuck do you say “I'm smarter than you” without being a dick? I want to know. I want things to be constructive, not pretentious. I literally can't avoid it. I'm committed to not being a cliched idiot, that doesn't mean I'm not an idiot or won't do idiotic things, but god fucking damn I'm really trying to not be cliché, and I don't know how to convey the message. I'm stuck just doing me and waiting for people to follow along. It fucking sucks. This isn't fun.

It's not hard. That's what gets me. Did you pick milk over orange juice this morning? That's the extent of effort you need to not be a fucking idiot. I really hate when people will fight tooth and nail as if they were born without the capacity for choice that I somehow inherited. I just wonder, what the fuck is it you think you'll learn? Do you need to have some really stupid decision vibrate in your bones before you give the lessons of hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of people before you any respect? Yes, it's at this point I feel very comfortable as a loner pretending that people are worth connecting with beyond fleeting cursory needs.

I'd like it go to away. I wish feeling like a broken record wasn't the default but god forsaken endlessly correct analogy. I want to exist in a world where I have to work to be special. I don't want to have to persuade pretty girls they're pretty, or smart people they're smart, or anybody who should take some solace in whatever they were born with for semi-granted. But that's the playing field. And it's pathetic and it's gut dropping and the only truth is change so I'll shut the fuck up and wait, I guess.

Work, you fuckers.

[347] Brittle Bones And Base Tones

I’d like to talk about fragility.

We’re builders. Whether it’s looking up at a sky scraper and getting chills or crying upon looking at a beautiful piece of art, there’s almost something spiritual in creating and then reflecting. I can’t say if there’s much a difference if you’re looking at your own work verses someone else’s, because it’s not just about pride. There’s an innate itch towards doing something that once scratched seems to fulfill everything.

As easily as we build, we destroy. I had to stop and kill a perfectly innocent bug in the middle of the last paragraph because I’m conditioned to feel uncomfortable by the amount of legs it has. I can’t even kill bugs without imagining an alien super race swinging an oversized telephone book at me. That organism was just as complex and lucky, well not so much lucky, to be alive as I am. In an instant and in fact every instant, some form of existence disappears.

Clearly, I seek to immortalize this bug. I should make its death mean something. Maybe I can use what happened to better explain how my thoughts on aliens don’t so much humble me as they do paralyze. Maybe I’ll be able to explain that’s what happens when you try to instantly evaluate everything you’ve created, everything you’ve invested in for your continued existence, and then poof it out of existence. It could help to explain that you can’t help it but to run such thought experiments. It could help relate your propensity to overstep or move quickly.

When a tornado rips through a neighborhood and leaves more than one house intact, no one’s following up with the lucky few who won’t do battle with an insurance company. The story is about the lost pet that was found under the rubble and returned home. Even with everything you own gone, the bond created between an owner and his pet makes it go down easier. Part of you always knew moving to “tornado alley” would beget something like this, but looking at your house in matchstick form is a different kind of loss. Even if all your neighbors’ pets are dead, and maybe they are too, there’s something we want to hear about, we want to believe in, which defies a, certainly impartial, wind storm.

I’ve certainly experienced the shock of something unexpected or completely new jamming up the works. It’s a rather haunting paralysis. You’d like to believe even in the worst of situations, it should be possible to “keep it together” or whatever that’s supposed to mean. But I think there’s a power in identifying and owning how easily you can be blown away. I think you step more carefully and maybe care more deeply.

You hear stories of the slow burn. The scientist who thought the systematic killing of elephants would re-enrich desert land only to have that shocking moment 20 years later that everything he’d been doing was dead wrong. The bad relationship where something finally snaps and you find yourself saying or doing things best represented in what were previously considered overly dramatic movies. Rarely are you next to the roadside bomb or getting railed by the Mack truck, the next moments only confirming you still have light receptors and tinnitus.

The best you can do is try and form a solid foundation. It’s something of an oxymoron, but I’ll take troops who’ve been through boot camp before the overzealous neighborhood watch militia any day. You want the best kind of friendships? Try and be the best of what you expect out of your friends. When things go wrong, you’ll be able to recognize if/when they’re doing the work as well. You want to be an authority on something? Make sure you’ve incorporated the lessons of those who’ve earned the right to own that authority before you.

We’re a memory. You’re basically “kind of cool” or “kind of not cool” to everyone you meet. The amount of time and circumstance it can take before someone gets a real sense of what you’re about, generally, is exhausting and often not worth it. (amIrite!?) Once people start to see themselves in you or see themselves depending on you for something is when stupid words like love come into the equation. The memory converts from merely remembering things about you to now provoking how they’ve made you feel. Add this to the list of reasons feelings shouldn’t be overstated.

Think of the Christian pride of those who are excited to knock on your door. They think they have something to share! But generally awake and thinking people see it as annoying, hollow, naïve, and kind of take pity that you can’t be happy with real things. They telegraph their bad motivation. Ironically, they think they’re trying to save you from something they’re running from. I look for people who give off the impression they think. I invest when the message is about the struggle, not necessarily the answers. After all, the answers are generally obvious once you ask why or get details.

How do they keep the faith? Ignorance and denial. They are as solid a foundation as anything, in that you can build the exact same walls as high as you like regardless of the materials. How do you maintain confidence in your relationships, your likes and dislikes, your motivation? It’s really easy to confidently masquerade as if you have a plan when no one’s asking to see it and you’ve no intention of offering it up freely. Then the truth of how little it’s built on might come to light. Then you might get stuck, having never been forced to deal with what you’re doing and what it really means. You might have to wonder how it matters, HOW ANYTHING MATTERS!? And then carry on like your mind wasn’t blown by a category 5 tornado.

It’s in doing the work that you have any real kind of foundation. A completed building just sits there. All ideas either linger or get lost forever. But when you’re in the thick of it, things get clearer. When your feet move down the path you laid out, for better or worse, but you really did everything you could to make it your path and not “a path,” things start to border on making sense. It’s when you allow yourself to create exactly what you needed to see.

Whether this helps tackle problems or not, you at least start to see the role you’re suited for. That way, if you die before the play hits the stage, at least you’ll know it was yours.

[346] Chip Off The Old Block

I need to feel better about leaving for a week. I think I'll get there by the end.

So much of myself seems to exist in contradiction. I'm dead inside, then I'm overly elated with a trend or mood. I'm the nicest guy who even blacked out says sweet endearing things, then I'm the meanest person I know. The confusing part is that they all feel as “real” or as “me” equally. There never feels like an appropriate place to be one over the other, I just sort of take it in stride and come up with probably too many words to justify.

It's extremely hard to be vulnerable, for example. However you conceive of vulnerability, I guess. It's one thing to wear an aspect of your life on your sleeve, entirely another when you feel like someone you respect or care about is checking out your style. The tension of trying to figure out if your personalities are “compatible” can be palpable. It's been an investment in your sense of self, after all. To what degree should this person be allowed to tinker with it?

One of my biggest issues is that I genuinely don't like hope. I've been reminded that I've made such a sentiment in the past, but it feels louder at the moment. I don't want to believe people like me. I don't want to look too forward into hanging out or getting into a good conversation. And it's not like it's because “things won't live up to the dream” type of bullshit. It's just that it inevitably seems to change for spectacularly bad reasons.

That's where you learn detachment. That's how you forget best friends. It's why I feel myself ever compelled toward perfect moments or vibes and similar personalities, and have practically zero patience for those not on board. It almost feels like you've stolen something when it goes right. Like you're caught up in something so infinitely fleeting, trying to call it “special” feels cheap. And if/when you can create those moments, you've maybe done something that matters.

I find it damn near impossible to keep at it in the world as it stands. So I need to create my own and send out invitations. It'll presumably be easier to do that “losing” 6 days now.

[344] Fork Me Running

Sometimes I think people can only count to one. As if every moment exists in a vacuum. It's one thing to know nothing about history in general and stumble through to the future. It's entirely another to ignore the fingers on your own hands.

One thing I'm perpetually confused about is when someone tells me “I don't believe that” when I say something true. More so, when I qualify it and say “which has been my experience thus far” or “what I've consistently heard across any number of instances.” My thought is that they don't believe me because they think I'm trying to sell them something they think can be obtained for free. Surely, there are as many ways to happiness or contentment as there are people, but it doesn't make what seems to make sense, most of the time, any less true. Not what you remember most, not what “feels the most,” just what adds up to the most.

Like, the easiest example I could talk about would be my crazy ass mother. There's a distinctive way that I go about “handling” her that my brother doesn't. After years of not talking, actively degrading her, and finally provoking a restraining order, I no longer have the stress and drama of dealing with my mother. It's 100/1 easy negative to positive things I could say or reflect upon thinking about her. Please save cliches about “but it's your mother!” for someone who's planning to blame their children for existing.

My brother is different. He kept going back for Christmas. He kept calling her and letting her into his life. He tried to stay with her when he had an internship in Indy. Throughout it all, he's lost money, been actively degraded and judged, come back time and time again to what seems like the brink of disassociating. He's, in my view, arguably causing more harm than good because he can't count.

Now what if we counted all the bad feelings, of everyone everywhere, who've done something we're about to do? There might even be statistics on the matter! Exciting. The idea isn't that you should live your life according what seems likely, but perhaps better appreciate why the numbers look the way they do. I have nothing to gain in trying to persuade you of anything you hold so dear, but the chance to converse more eloquently. My argument centers on honesty, very little stress, and an arguably more positive thought pattern. Where's the kick to regard these as terribly wrong guidelines come from? Cliches should make you stop and think, not bust out the polish for a comfort zone bubble.

What if we counted and listed and categorized everyone we knew? Pro tip, I'd argue that we already do, facebook just doesn't have enough data for a pretty algorithm. But what if it was more concrete, like a scoring system on a big white board that everyone you interacted with could check in with daily to see how they rank in your life. How much of your dialogue would you have to change to accurately reflect what someone means to your life? How many pleasantries and excuses and abuses could you no longer pursue? What if the best people, with the best advice, netted you cash? What if your life depended on them?

It's the devilish details. It's not “3 years” it's 1 month of nothing but crying, 2 months of arguing. 3 weeks of “pleasant” talks,  400 hours of excuses and very reasonable doubts if you ran them end to end. Or maybe it's a handful of wonderful nights, many months of “well-enough,” and 3 years of pseudo safety because no one feels like risking their relationship with you over criticizing. Because at that point, you're “just being mean” right? Or jealous maybe. You certainly wouldn't understand, I can tell you that much.

1 time has a close friend violated trust against hundreds of act of utility over years. Potentially violent Nick P. came very close to throwing that away until I let the numbers speak. 99% of conversations I have with Kristen aren't louder than a TV show perhaps running in the background, and the other 1% she's probably at the other end of a Frisbee field. I could count on one hand how many times we “argue.” The number of times I make people laugh instead of cry helps dictate how often jokes get made. The number of shitty, or absences, of thoughts verses smiles helps filter facebook friends and me to forget to send out a text or invite.

People are good for you for different things at different times, in deeply personal ways, and for ever evolving reasons. Just let them be that person. Don't reduce to a label or something laboriously physical. If it's supposed to go there, why does it feel like you're forcing it?

I make pains to not point too sharp a finger so when I slip I don't cut myself and bleed out. But being passive aggressive here is different than the kind of screwball dream worlds we help maintain around people we claim to care about. That doesn't mean come in like a wrecking ball, but you shouldn't offer to cradle the balls of the dick forced into your mouth.

[345] YOU, You Got What I Neeed

I think one of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to reading my utterly scattered thoughts is to think I'm coming from a place of finality.

If you choose, once I put it all together, to read where my mind has been from front to back up to this blog, you should readily believe that I don't know shit! That I've never known shit. That I will continue to strive to even believe I have a grasp on what shit even smells like. It's sort of the nature of the game.

I believe in the ongoing conversation. I think you are allowed to show your most belligerent ridiculous point and then move right along to refining how and why you got there. I think if you settle on one idea, you're really missing the point of putting yourself out there for new ideas. How many times have I said I seek to be challenged? I can't help it if my closest friends are still bitch nigga pussies. I suppose that's just part of the game as well, you bitch nigga pussies.

It really is mind blowing to read old thoughts. It's amazing to feel so on point with something that happened years ago and I may as well have written it yesterday. I love seeing something that I haven't worked out and realizing that I did it better the next time. I'd like to say it's humbling, but it's more like work that's paid off. It's more like looking like a fucking retard for long enough that you finally get to net something positive after endlessly spewing bullshit about where you previously came from.

I think it's interesting how dramatic I've sounded. To relegate what's seemingly the most intense feeling to words in the abyss of facebook has to be a practice in humility, right? I never expect people to get it most of the time. I don't expect fans. I smile for days when someone decides to reveal they're crazy about what I write. I secretly think the people who may follow my shit the most will never reveal themselves. Who wants to say “I was that fucking crazy too!” or “holy shit, you wouldn't believe the irrational lengths I went to justifying that stupid ass position as well!

I've run the gauntlet. It's amazing to me to think about the myriad topics I've hit. It's hard to believe that somehow I haven't considered “x” with relation to “y” at least when it comes to relationships or how we conduct ourselves in life. It's hard to believe there will be more to say, but I think it's pretty obvious there will be.

I just hope it does things for you as it has for me. Sometimes, what I put out or how I phrase something is so...embarrassing. Like, who in their right mind says shit like that? That I simply must believe in the capacity for empathy over my ability to start giving a fuck what you think. That sounds harsh, but I'd be doing a really bad job of explaining anything if I capitulated to your bastardized conceptions of where I was coming from. Never take it personally.

I guess I just want to help. I wouldn't mind people being “like me,” but more so I'd like them to really get where they're coming from. I think whatever ridiculous stupid shit I go through, the best thing I can do is relate it as honestly as it seems to cut. Why would I take any pride or purpose in “ranting” if not to hijack your brain for a second and make you realize that to one degree or another I'm likely right there with you?

I'll keep talking if you're listening. As it goes with everything else, I rely on you to explain when I've over-stayed my welcome. In one vein, who am I to offer even the remotest advice? I've certainly said before you likely have to live somethings for yourself and figure it out the hard way. In the other vein, please just don't be fucking retarded. It really makes the struggle and words feel futile. It wholly reduces intent and perspective to naïve speculation. It just becomes sad.

[343] Trust Me

You know what's kind of the worst thing ever? It's not just feeling alone, but preparing yourself for what's seemingly inevitable loneliness.

I go on and on about manipulation. You'd think that was the paramount achievement of my personality. I can't escape it even if I tried. So what prompts me to try?

My feelings are fleeting...at best. Whether I'm angry or sad or orgasmically elated, if you don't consider it fleeting, you've really missed the point. So I made the mistake of relating my “sadness” feeling to someone I care about, and it kinda went to shit. The take away is that I don't blame her. It really stands to reason where she's coming from. But it doesn't speak any less to the proverbial amount of shit I feel shat upon.

It's hard to explain exhaustion without anger. I don't blame. I don't want her to change. I just want to believe in communication. And, realistically, I'd be willing to capitulate to all sorts of shit I didn't find that true in order to keep her happy. Call that being a pussy ass bitch, but whatever. It's really less important than maintaining a dynamic I love and respect.

Of course you could argue that being able to discuss any and all issues is why I've been able to develop such a dynamic, then I have to go, “fuck you asshole, making me have to explain shit in detail and shit, fucker.”

I've overwhelmingly downplayed emotionality. I think you can feel something, and behave otherwise. It's the key component to combating people who would otherwise manipulate you. If you can assume someone's got an agenda, but yours is louder, it doesn't matter, therefore we get along. This does not mean I denigrate emotionality. It simply means there's an opportunity to make a choice.

I'm really good at making it bad. I'm perhaps too comfortable with being prepared for everything to go to shit. It's a bias. I can't really think it's terribly helpful, but it's a sort of professional nihilism.

See, I want it to be easy. I know how to make it easy. I'm really good at creating a world in which the decisions flow and your place makes sense. I just don't have it right now. And that's frustrating. If there's one area in which I'd like to take pride in social manipulation, it'd be this.

I can't win. The game I'm playing means that I will always end up with the short end of the stick. I'll try. I'll be a wordy mother fucker. I'll subtly tweek this or that for years on end and wake up practically where I starter. This I don't find disheartening. It's when I explain this to people I trust who in turn think I'm applying it to them that I get kicked in the balls. Shit. Really, fucking shit.

You can say “oh well” or you can persist and cross your fingers. I think it would be an unnecessary indictment of people I decide to care about to write them off and throw my hands up. So then you get to struggle with their skepticism and perpetual doubt whilst maintaining “hey nigga, you're a real friend” dialogue. It's ever so fun. (No the fuck it isn't)

I don't want you to believe in in a moment. I want you to look at my overall behavior. Moments lie even when you don't want them to. It's so easy to take a compelling reaction from someone and paint their personality. It's hard to remember everything they've been or purported to be for you. I'm lost if you take a snapshot.

I'm always going to get fucked by my propensity to take chances. You can't not give a fuck and also be afraid of letting it all lay out. I'd rather do that. I literally want you to feel how bottom my stomach goes. I want you as empty as I care about what you think. But fuck me if I don't want you to appreciate you as much as I do in all the things I don't think or do when I think about you. It's too easy for me to write people off. It's too easy for you not to matter for a fucking second. Like, fuck you if you make me play that game with our relationship.

[342] Part Deux

There's something I find very troublesome about being human. It's worse than troublesome, but I'm hoping to keep a more jovial tone. It's not something I think can be helped, nor is it necessarily malicious. It's opportunistic. And I'm hard-pressed to not avoid using the word naïve. I've gone with the word “selfish” in the past, which has had a double meaning depending on context. But I think this is more nuanced. This isn't a bratty child nor being objectively involved in your long term well-being, as I would ascribe selfish. This thing is a word I hope to find by the end.

Perhaps it's a form of self-indulgence. There's a certain amount of pleasure one gains from dictating their next move. Being arbiter of your own fate, so to speak, even if that fate is just leading you towards the refrigerator. Granting yourself a delicious reward for exercising your legs and putting your idea in motion. You understood yourself to be hungry, now revel in the ability to so quickly and effectively meet your need. Good show.

Perhaps it's a form of empathy. It can be awesome to be illuminated by the light of someone else. Follow sports? None of your players are even from the city you cheer for, sometimes neither are you, but dammed if you don't all feel good under the same banner if they win a championship. So far, you've indulged in an opportunistic chance to empathize with a sense of purpose or pride that, by all accounts, isn't really yours to have but for your ability to feel in spite of your circumstances. Lucky you.

Perhaps you couldn't possibly help yourself. Without these systems for reward and happiness, where would we find the strength to continue on? If I'm not after a fix, what's my guide? Surely I feel this way for a reason, no less! And why would you sound like you're trying to make my good feelings bad? What shame or guilt lies in my investment of sport or comfort food? Quite the chore trying to adequately surmise what either means particularly to you, I'd say.

Perhaps it's flatly ignorant. You get nowhere thinking about the people who can't eat while you're eating, so of course remain ignorant to the real extent of the plight. You don't want to worry about commercialism, waste, or exploitation when the next game comes on or all-star player's history is depicted in such a compelling way you're getting his name tattooed next to your heart. The world gets easier with a singular focus and many would argue you're quite happy and healthy “doing whatever it is the thing you do.”

Perhaps it's kind of embarrassing. You know how you said that thing, but you didn't really feel that thing, but you didn't quite have the words to clarify and your phone was off and you couldn't respond in time so you just figured that it would work itself out until you got that one text from so and so and you realize that shit, you probably should have paid more attention to your phone and told so and so that you were actually going to do that and actually meant that you were feeling like 20% this and 80% that, but it would have been totally cool were it not for if things went a different way. My bad.

Perhaps it's an excuse. Maybe you know full well, but can't admit it. Maybe you understand perfectly, but can't be bothered. Maybe it's so easy to form protracted prose in defense of oneself that the consequences of doing so have become so normalized as to become invisible.

I guess I'll just call it kinda sad.

There's something I find disturbingly reassuring in “bad” people. They have a purpose. They have a drive. You can rely on them, albeit to do that wrong thing, but dammit if you can't rely on them. Rely on their character. Rely on their motivation. Rely on their insubordination, immaturity, greed, treachery, or propensity to make your life a hassle in a few fairly predictable ways. You couldn't ask for more structure. What's the worst you have to look forward to? Them becoming good people? Well fuck, now you have to find another fuck-up and learn their ticks. Annoying, but manageable.

“Good people” are the problem. Good people take for granted. They're plagued by all the nuance and weirdness of the stuff above. Good people rely on their environment to keep a familiar structure in place that informs them that they are still, in fact, good...enough...people. You hear constantly that “most of the world is good.” Most people aren't killing each other or stealing or raping. Most people don't really give a shit these things are happening! Provided it's not to them. To me, it simply misses the point.

Statistics on murder rates or declines in violence don't speak to what it means to be human intrinsically. It's accounting for a kind of environment we're attempting to cultivate, half-assedly or accidentally, that tends to reflect in less murder, stealing, and rape as long as certain conditions are met. It's superficial. When shit hits the fan, everyone's a hoarder, potential murderer, or looking to get in one last score. The handful of angels that would rather die than adapt will surely be sitting at the right hand of the Father.

We're not guided by anything but a messy landscape of vague “morals” and behaviors that generally tend to not piss people off and generally satisfy our needs or at the very least keep us alive under whatever paradigm we're born into.

Breaking Bad anyone? How slowly can you blur the line until we're comfortable with being bad? This is why, for me, it's easier to just conceive that people “are.” I don't read into their motivation or speculate what they're getting out of what they're doing, so I'm not hats off and applause when things seem to go well nor terribly surprised or let down when they don't. At least not professionally.

This changes with a conception of friendship or family. You tend to believe these people have your well-being at heart. You don't think they're out to get you. You've been able to trust them with information or tasks that when left to their own devices still work in your benefit. And dammit! You would theirs as well. It's why you have to be careful about who you're letting into that family, as they may cause you to subtly change your perspective enough to blind you to what you've become or are justifying.

But I've had to carry on for so long as if we don't have a choice. When I believe we have a choice, my day is basically ruined. If everyone is actively doing and saying the things they do, in their most earnest, and this is the best we get, I don't think I can spend another night in this hotel. If we're meant to fly by the seat of our pants through this blob of ever-morphing concepts of self that seem to contradict and shit on everything around us...just ugh. It would be interesting, but that's provided you were actually trying to get somewhere.

I wear the badge of “bad person” as a kind of honor. I know when I can call upon the worst demons, of all of our nature, to get what I want, or at the very least, get done what seems necessary. I tend to do. I tend to mean what I say. I tend to feel it, and think it, and spend much time defending it. I choose. And I usually feel like I know why I'm choosing. It's why I feel like I know why I'm choosing to quit.

You may not even recognize a change, but for the discernible future, I'm done. I don't get depressed or anxious or suicidal, I detach. I can feel the pull of, whatever it is about other people that just seems “kinda sad.” It looks like selfish, it feels like dumb, IF ONLY it was explicitly either. I think I can see the end game. I think I understand that even when it's good, I just haven't finished reading the story. I can't take the headache of worrying about it. At least not right now. It's not an indictment, I'm not angry, it's just a choice.

[341] Because You're Kinda Cool, I Guess

The burden of being extroverted. After coming from another baller night of hanging out and having fun I have nothing but a reeling mind. This is what they mean by gaining energy from social situations to a T.

So I've been scheduling a ton of events, granted maybe a week or so in between or small get-togethers that may have happened anyway by virtue of people being bored, but scheduling them nonetheless. This is part of my insidious plan to make sure no one ever feels grown up to overburdened by life or work. If in the past it was everyone getting completely wasted, which don't get me wrong I'm not against, these seem to be just opportunities to take your mind of things in general.

Now, there's a second part of my insidious planning. You well know that I never shut up. Whether it's talking into the blissful abyss of facebook, or just being loud in a gathering, apparently I have some form of vocal or mouth disorder that just keeps it coming. You heard it too, now think of visuals.

What I love is in the aftermath of the big loud gathering is the sidebar conversations. Probing why it may or may not be acceptable to qualify me as an asshole or discussing your relationship or why someone got particularly bitchy for seemingly no reason.

I LOVE, and I hate that word, these conversations. It's where, for me, you get a chance to strip away a ton of pretext, even in the potential feigning of energy for a social situation, and just get to further know each other. For as interconnected as we allegedly are via facebook or our phones, I can always and still find myself exploring new ground with friends.

It's a double edged sword sometimes. I get like really into those conversations and get, at least in my mind, super cool with people, and then maybe they just get bored with me. Maybe they move or just decide I'm not quite the right person for their life anymore. Haha, could I sound more lost puppy? This is where you learn to practice a kind of detachment. This is where it can take years of scattered get-togethers and interactions before it sort of clicks completely.

But I'm certainly no less excited for meeting and making new friends. I hope that whatever vibe it is people have managed to find it doesn't fall off dramatically. I constantly remind myself that the only truth is change, so when it seemed borderline that it may be worth sort of going radio silent and scouting out new opportunities, this just comes at a genuinely opportune time.

I understand that I'll likely always have significantly more time and energy to do things than most people. I hope that the making of a ton of events doesn't have the opposite effect and like alienate people for not “getting on my level.” Part of the idea is that not everyone's going to make it to everything and I want opportunities to chill with mixed up crowds or have someone who's got nothing to do aware that I'm at least trying.

I'm just really happy right now and don't want to talk myself out of it. This vibe feels like the “distant past,” oh those 2-3 years ago, you know, when we were young.

[340] And Keep Your Feet On The Ground

I'm always going to be a bad human being. I'll act in spite of. I'll make examples that you thought never needed be made. I'll burden myself with the responsibility of reminding you of the kind of reality I see. Some people appreciate this. I think most wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.

I can't forget. I'm unable to escape. “Just be happy” is not on my menu. “That's life” isn't either. I merely like to be an expression. I want to show the opposite of what you took for granted. Just because. People don't operate like this. This I'm highly convinced is a weird corner I've managed to back myself into. I'm never content. I'm never accepting. I'm not me if I'm not showing you why you got it the fuck wrong.

It's a good thing I have fun with it. I'm flabbergasted I have friends sometimes though. I know I can reign in comments and play nice enough. But fuck me if I don't feel like you're doing me a favor in putting up with the coyly codified “cynicism” I thank you. And I think it's wrong to think it comes from a place of anger. It's more provocation. I've learned how to be baited, now I play with what might get you on the hook.

I try to settle on “why I do things” with an answer that screams “because it makes sense!” Whether it's “for good or for bad” I think that there's something to be, at the very least discussed in my particular form of reaction. Maybe you're not interested in what I think I'm trying to say. That's never been the point.

I feel like I'm constantly hinting at my personality. You think you have a good enough idea and it only so vaguely potentially influences what you think from time to time, sure. I don't think I'll have an opportunity to actualize without a veritable Herculean effort over the course of many years. It's frustrating on one end, but absolutely necessary and appropriate on the other.

I want more people on my side. I feel like for all my “lofty” ideas and even loftier ideals, it's all good in theory, or at the very least not concerning those who would “fundamentally morally stand in opposition” of some edict in particular. I can scream into a crowd and not turn a head. That's kind of terrifying to me.

Resolving yourself to be alone is a weird thing. You let the pragmatism take over. You make caveats for people who proport to be with you. But at the end of the day, much as the schizophrenic is better at diagnosing the person claiming to suffer from schizophrenia, you're alone until you get called out or related to in a particular way. I really hope I'm able to tell a compelling story before it's all over. That's really all I want.

[338] Superficial Head Wound

I might be diving into an empty pool, so here's to breaking your neck.

By now, you probably know I don't qualify any sort of overall purpose to life. This leaves many with a void filled with fairy tales and excuses. This creates a dialogue designed to evade and defend. And as long as it's personal nobody bats an eye. They don't care what your hobbies are, how you make your money, what you really think about some topic or generally whether you're even qualified to engage with said topic.

People are “polite.” If you're fat, maybe you can't control it. If you smell, they'll just stand up wind. The word “offense” takes the form of a divining rod used to beat away that which makes you uncomfortable or assaults your moral sensibilities. People can argue sometimes to the point of breaking years long friendships or until their families lie in the wake. This, for what seems to be a general idea of Almighty Me.

I think I see and engage with this politeness because there's an idea that no one should step on my toes and I won't theirs. No real definition of what that stepping would look like. No real appreciation for whether or not struggling with a topic could breed new insight. Just a common sense that it's none of your business, nor any of mine, let's carry on well-enough until we die.

Given my inability to do magic and utter hatred for excuses, I dictate a purpose. Why value the system I would put in place? Because I want to be “scientific” about it. I want my toes stepped on. I rank, I judge, I get bored of people who pretend they don't. All you doctors, volunteers, teachers, or general “when I give a fuck, my job contributes to human well being” you're the best! You win, at least in that area in life, and provided you're actually helping and not “just doing a job.” I'm not saying you have to care, I'm saying you can't take your position for granted and get lazy. I think society owes you for this.

I then wonder what gives people that charge. Why doctor, or educator, or well digger. Surely some people do it because of familial or society pressure, or maybe they could just afford to do so and then why not. Hopefully most do it because they feel a genuine sense of reward or accomplishment. I have to think, a fair amount go into because of Almighty Me. “I”m a doctor!” You can shout because every test you took and all the money you'll eventually make speaks to who you are as a person, right? Because we need things to speak to who we are as people.

I certainly do. My preferred method has been to primarily treat people I think are examples of something to the kinds of luxuries I believe my dad has afforded me. No, I don't treat people like my kids, but I come from a privileged place. I want you to feel as if you do to. YOU, not people. You could take every worst day of my life and them combined wouldn't stand to the kinds of horrible shit that happens all around the world daily. In mostly spite of all that, the kind of, freedom, I feel to be me and pursue, or not, whatever I want in life is something I'd like to share. It's a lifestyle I think has important consequences.

It's indulgent. Every self-serving blog speaks to it. In doing so though, it becomes reflective. At least I generally know why I'm doing something. And it extends beyond trivialities like “the bills need to be paid.” It also, for better or worse, and this is from my small perspective, seems to put me somewhere different. Whatever my Almighty Me is, it's something that seems to stick out to people. With the capacity to refer to myself as nothing special, this discrepancy with my opinion I think is noteworthy.

I don't feel there's anything to defend, so to speak. I'm prepared to explain or change. Or explain then change. Or just not be so attached to what my world looks like right here and now. And I hold with the highest regard people of the same capacity.

I think I sometimes want to see the same capacity in other people. I think I may often give them too much credit. One way I seem to recognize this is in how someone's pattern plays out. Usually, it's not just theirs, but how it compares to what I've heard from other people. Do you know why I can't develop a drug habit? I don't think I could sound out the words people with drug habits state without punching myself in the balls. I mean, I hit myself in the face the last time I heard someone say “well you have your opinion and I have mine.”

The problem is, I can't tell if I want to see something in people, or if I need to. I can't tell if there's a part of my psychology or potential for happiness that is directly tied to the amount of “real people” I get to engage with. Sure, I want people to be thoughtful and indulge and do really whatever they want to do to their heart's content. But is everyone responsible enough? Is everyone capable of the kind of appreciation and respect it takes to do more than merely “get away with” living the lives they lead? Of this I'm not so sure.

I generally talk about the negative consequences of having such views about people. They're always pushing a rock up a hill only for me to find a reason to kick it back down. But it's not really like that. The rocks I leave alone seem to miss something at a fundamental level. There's a lack of affirmation, not so much a crazy fallout. It's something I usually don't care to challenge for the sake of having friends. It's a reminder that “awareness” is not a blanket term or capacity of those who claim they have it. While I'm hoping to have new things, especially dicks, thrust in front of my face to think about, I feel like I'm playing with fire every time I think about putting something new in front of someone else.

As someone who could likely find good reason to hate most people, it's why I'm stuck having to be about people. I have to find room to care, ways to relate, reasons to believe. It's too easy to write everyone off and get under an Almighty Bubble where my categorizing makes more sense. I take it seriously what you think, and why you think, because it's going to potentially affect long term consequences in my behavior and how I treat people down the line. I just wish they'd take more care in figuring out their whys. Especially why they'd allow themselves to look like something that can be summed up so easily. As if they'd even know or that it's my place to pretend.

It's sad, it truly is, to think of myself as even remotely the best or better at caring about something as “obvious” as a relationship; Who you are, who I am, what that means to us. It's sad because I'm a horrible person who likes making an example of people who can't handle a kind of back-and-forth open dialogue, navigate around the cuss words dynamic. It's sad because I genuinely forget people who've been friends. If it isn't just me. If everyone's like me, but just...more conservative? Less precise? Then the only real problems are the giant lies I'm offered about conduct or respect. Then, I can't even write things off as “it's just stupid people.” At that point it's what? Some kind of ironic war with myself?

[337] On Being Drunk

I like being drunk. Let me tell you why.

Drunk affords opportunities. For me, it makes me feel like a kid. Let me elaborate. When I'm sober, things are “meh.” They happen. You feel good or bad about something, I hear about it, all I can do is go, yep, that in fact happened, let's see if you'll do something smart to follow. I beat into the ground terms like “relative sociopath” for this reason. I will likely never find the amount of words to describe just how little a shit I care about most things. Like, it's probably problematic because it presents a giant empathy-devoid wall between me and most of how people operate. It will likely be a theme I run with in future blogs. Just get it now, it matters.

But it all changes with alcohol! It's lighter. It's the kind of feeling laden honesty that you expect from a “normal human being.” I feel like a kid again. It's valid when I tell you you're cute. My “hatred” stems from a more real place. Things matter. All that I'm concerned with is that you understand what's brewing in my gut because god dammit, IT'S BREWING IN MY GUT!

And I like this. I like it a lot! I don't want to get bogged down in pretext in games and odd agendas with marginally stated goals. It's important to me to have some kind of beacon, in whatever form it takes shape, and express the sort of “ground floor” of where I'm coming from. A person with this many ideas of manipulating and carrying on with reckless abandon to many kinds consequences treats this level of pure base expression as a drug.

The thing that will forever continue to kill me is the reactions from other people. It's easy to use the language of someone with a problem without being a stupid fuck with a problem. Not many seem to understand this. I have no genuine urge to drink just because I see other people doing it. I know full well how to have a pretty insane amount of fun without drinking. It's just not the same. It's so infinitely selfish. The one and a half times I might be able to get drunk a month usually translate into a blog haha. Not even speaking remotely to the kinds of fun we used to have at my old house.

It just feels like an opportunity. As long as I'm able to think myself left or right, I'm not going to be able to act “fundamentally.” And it's everything I want to see in people as well. If you black out and turn violent, I think that's an important thing to know about yourself. I don't like the idea of being afraid of yourself. If I manage to not remember something, it's usually some heartfelt diatribe about how much fun I'm having with who's ever in the room. I'm not scared to do or say something stupid because it seems as if there's a fairly clear line between “who you are” and “what the fuck alcohol had to do with your personality.” I think people are general pussies when it comes to playing this game.

I don't think being drunk invalidates a position. When you feel something at your peak earnest, how you got there is frankly irrelevant to me. There always seems to be this underlying world that people are afraid to access. It's the only world I care about. I'd rather try to relate at that level and have everything go to shit than pretend like I care about anything else. And this is what I'm after in other people.

I don't mind feeling. I don't think it's bad or wrong or in and of itself a bad thing. And being a few beers in, just before I'm racist or sexist for no reason, it's like a reminder of how normal people behave. I get to just be someone who's experiencing instead of dictating. I want you to say that thing you'd never say. I want you to contemplate why you fell face first down that level of stairs. For me, it unlocks a kind of potential and perspective that I cherish. I think at the very least it can provoke a level of introspection that being a whiny “intellectual” can't afford you.

It can be fun. It can be an opportunity. I don't want to spend my time justifying that which seems simple and obvious.

There's a whole "why can't you just be/feel/think yada yada while your're sober" discussion that if I had the right answers to I would have already written about so preempt something or go fuck yourself ;).

[336] It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing

I've been inside a kind of deadness lately. It's not sad or dramatic. It's flat. Maybe it's just a special kind of tired. I'm not sure, but all I know is that it's a special kind of non-feeling. To generally run rather tepid when it comes to things, then to get excited, is very much a high. It's not a terribly lasting high, but the contrast is noteworthy. But when nothing seems to register, even if it's for a short time, it becomes noteworthy as well.

A few examples. While everyone is naming their new babies after a fictional pair of meth dealers, I can call it a pretty good episode. While I'm assuming there's an invigorating passion to spend the next several months flying new machines and blowing people up, I'm reminded I have 2 video games I haven't opened and a 3rd I've been playing for months and might be half way through. I think about how quick, although I know it's not that quick, friends seem to pass through your life and really really want to press people to figure out why or why not I should be someone in their life. I see more people getting shot up and think “of course...onto more pressing concerns like dick cutting pictures.” I'm getting back into business and realize that whether it does or doesn't work, I'll know what to do.

It's all just stuff that's happening.

To the point on friends, I don't like to feel as if I'm treating them as passing acquaintances. It influences very much what I do or don't and how I engage with them. I can believe that it can be viewed as a kind of insecurity. Like, just act natural Nick P! It's your friends after all. But I understand relationships as work. Me, natural, doesn't treat people as people. So I need to dial back natural for better things like respect. I deliberately hinder my mind of thinking of friends as “marginally intentional beings with fleeting pithy feelings I need to deliberately navigate in order to achieve x, y, and z.”

In that instance, I'd rather be misunderstood as a bumbling idiot killing the mood or deliberately awkward, instead of understood as someone who would treat you that way.

I'm certain this is hard to understand, mostly because it has everything to do with me and nothing really to do with you. It's the odd ways I can be made to think or feel and the work my rules do or don't help with that. To say I take my friendships personally is to say I have as much invested in the story I can tell about myself as I can about our relationship. It's an ever-present conversation during a high stakes game.

I don't think winning belongs to the smart, or loud. Sincerity wins. They believe you when you believe you. It's less what you say than it is they believe you. Feeling this deep in your gut and knowing what it means is what necessitates my “anti-behavior.” If I can't make you aware of a path I see, I might find myself on it and not terribly comfortable, nor necessarily convinced against, what it means if I keep following it. So help me keep dialogue open. The more I can fumble over words and persistently go nowhere, probably dunk, in person, the less I can recede so far into my head that I can't hear anything.

I want to feel normal, but not at your expense.

[335] Put One Foot In Front Of The Other One

Now, I believe myself to be at the perfect level of drunken introspectiveness, thus making everything I'm about to write simply magic.

You know how I like read about world affairs and post the “best” links I find to summarize how basically shit a lot of things are? I know like ex military people and my “old” friends are into that shit, but does it click with anyone under 30? I can't really tell. It seems like minimum wage jobs and shitty papers will always take precedent to (just tried to drink a beer without taking the cap off) what's actually happening in life. I wouldn't mind a “I follow current affairs!” comment either, because I need to better gauge my overall people may give a shit meter.

I went to ballroom dance call-outs today. I will always be amazed and intrigued by the people who just sit down next to you and want to start a conversation. It's not that I can't, it's just that I'm bad at pretending I care right now. You may be super cool. I just don't know why yet and that's why my body language would suggest you're shit. You're probably not shit, but fuck me, I'm bad at pretending I care. Gimme a minute. But I think what we did at ballroom dancing is part of the epitome of what you're supposed to be able to do in life. Meet random cute people and shake your ass for no reason. It's kind of the best you can hope for and it's totally awesome.

So by the rules of obvious and duh mother fucker, why is it hard to figure out “global action plans” that don't involve killing everything? Like I said before, it's always present in my mind. Having fun and doing nothing and “wasting” money all exist with the backdrop of how I conceive of our species treating itself. Sure, I got to dance with a tiny hot girl (amongst other hot girls) and could turn on the flirting if I wasn't sweating like a goddamn fountain. But in what real world does any of that shit matter?

I wonder, and frankly hope it doesn't happen, if I'll ever start to take “myself” too seriously. I see what happens to public intellectuals that spend so much time researching and writing and putting their moral foot on top of all the bullshit. I can't say I see the kinds of change they're likely hoping for. I can't see their personal understanding doing much of anything like moving big chess pieces of culture that need to change. I suppose I'm trying to justify my apathy. If someone who gives a shit doesn't care....hahahaha just keep laughing.

Be real! That's the goal right? Be that like jaded voice that doesn't get blamed for being jaded. Just say those things. Be the constant stream of shit that everyone can get a whiff of when they feel themselves taking too much for granted. It's tough dude. How do you practice an innate wanting attachment to things when you are infinitely prepared to let them go? The word genuine takes a very long walk. You can't justify laziness anymore than you can in achieving dweeb status about “some issue in particular.”

I guess you just get used to making excuses, UNBEARABLY IRONICALLY. Because we all just tryin' to live n shit, right?

[334] Windows Into Our Minds

It's infinitely humbling to read old rants. I hesitate to even dignify them as “blogs” as if that has a modicum of associated respect. I'm also starkly reminded that there's always something more to say. Every person that enters the conversation, every random interaction or some fight gives you an opportunity to be challenged and reflect. Probably the most amazing thing is how many times I read the words “I hate” or “fuck this or that” without feeling the kind of crippling emotions, at least persistently, that I might not be incorrect in saying, most of my friends seem to deal with.

That's what I wanted to tackle head on a few days ago. A drunk conversation that didn't really start because agreements were made to not have those kinds of conversations drunk, needed to end up somewhere. I don't think I'll ever do the talk about other peoples' sadness or stress well. I can listen or offer my perspective, but I feel like for all my cynicism and hatred, very little if none of it is self-directed. Yes, you can rest assured that if I say I hate you, I do just in fact, hate you for all the big and little shitty things you are. I didn't see something I didn't like in the mirror and say “someone needs to be told what a worthless fuck they are today.”

As with most genuine, large, institutional or intimately personal problems, I'm irrationally concerned about how little I think I can do to help. Literally, all I have is my “good will” towards the people I like. I know there are several feel good books out there that would suggest that just “being there” or some similar sentiment is all you may have to do to have the biggest impact on someone's life. If you'd like to believe this, then you have to start making decisions about how many people and to what extent you're going to be there. If you think this is kind of bullshit, then you just try to keep the happy times going with your friends and cross your fingers all the shit doesn't hit the fan at once.

Like, I've already written a blog pondering why everyone in my life, 4-5 years ago seemed angry, depressed, or anxious. For those of you not tracking my groups of friends, rest assured there's been a fairly large changeover, and I find myself again under a similar contemplation. Now you may congratulate me on my capacity for cynicism and despotic outlooks and finding such well-equipped crowds to indulge me, but that's incorrect and dickish. I'd rather see this as more confirmation that there's something larger going on psychologically and socially that isn't addressed or understood enough. I feel somewhat desperate to grasp this “large fucked up thing with our heads.”

I can only hope people aren't insulted or put-off in how I try to talk about it as well. I'm acquainted with the word depression, but I've only been able to engage with the darkest places it can take my friends fairly recently. My pop-sci answers or advice from high school “worked” in that no one I've engaged with ended up dead, which is hardly a reliable metric of success. I'm anxious because sometimes I genuinely don't know if I'm going to blurt out an obviously inappropriate epithet. That has nothing to do with the anxiety that makes you question every single social interaction you have and measure it against whether you should bother to continue to exist.

So then maybe I can finally offer my speculation on the ways and why's these pervasive and debilitating emotional states exist, and if any of them ring true, it could click with that one person who doesn't think I'm ridiculing them, calling them a liar, trying to undermine what they feel or have been through, or think I'm offering some definitive answer to what seems like some kind of evolving social virus only the blissfully naïve seem to be able to avoid.

Let's start wide then move specific. Overall, I think there's a huge familial and social institutional problem. I think modern conceptions or aftermaths of families left a lot of scars on people from my experience. I'm sure they only learned how to scar their children from the ways their parents scarred them. They of course were hurt by a turtle, and then it's turtles all the way down. There are cliches about not ending up like parents abound and who can't find a movie where someone is “shocked” they just did exactly what they swore would never happen to them. I took divorce as an opportunity for two Christmases. I've had people explain to me they'll never believe in love after their parents split.

Clearly, “looking back” and only feeling the pain of the relationships that have gone bad in your developmental years might be a predictor for how and whether you are close to people in the future.

I think we fail dramatically in the social institutional realm as well. I can't go a day without hearing what the “right” or “best” kind of ANYTHING to do or buy is. This goes doubly for relationships. The perfect boy or girlfriend does this for you, buys that for you, feels only these things and despite all odds love will conquer all. Also, before you get to deal with your relationship, you have to look a certain way, feel a certain way, be into the cool new things of the day, and sit at the bar society has raised for you. Every corner is a chance to not be good enough, smart enough, or acne-free enough.

I don't think it's a very conscious thing, but by the rule of “practice makes permanent,” I have to think reinforcing shitty ideas about yourself or the world you live in doesn't beget positive feelings or insight into wellness. But that's the thing, it's always reinforced. Your friends will tell you you're doing well because they don't “feel they have the right” to speak about something “they don't know enough about.” Yes, things like a shitty relationship. But who told you that friends can't “obtain rights to more information about people willing to share with you?” It took years of my “prying” into peoples' lives before I just became “that guy” and people opened up presumably because I didn't shatter the world with their information.

So fuck our shitty families and fuck the people telling us things with their fucking agendas and consequence blindness. Great.

Another wide view institutional failure is how we react when we clearly recognize things are wrong. Just take meds! Of course in the modern age you can play with your brain chemicals and all will be well in a few weeks. Just keep taking your meds of course, or we might have to face the real significance and nature of the problem. For those who can't or won't take meds, I don't blame you, there's your not-a-doctor friends doing everything they can to remind you of why you should be happy or not anxious. Or worse, they don't believe there's even a problem and carry on like it's a phase or like a bad cough. And what is the afflicted person do then? I bet they don't feel motivated to “bring down their friends” with their problems.

Some people can talk things out. Some people can run for miles and find clarity or at least distraction. Sometimes the medicine actually works. None of these kinds of “solutions” explain or speak to why so many suffer to begin with.

As always, the best I can do with my opinionated, angry toned rants is try to start a conversation. I need as many inputs, as are relevant, to paint a picture that hopefully people can learn from. When I look at the angry or immature things I've written, I still think there's no substitute for just laying it all out there. You don't want citations and rationality when you're explaining how shitty the fights are with your ex-girlfriend, but if you describe the situation in the same words years later, you might not have learned anything. When peoples' pain is expressed today, it's glamorized and commercialized; equated with an exhaustive list of pseudo-real problems. You're expected to “frame” yourself. Make what you feel and do presentable. Ludicrous.

When you get specific, you've got every variation of the big problems as you have personalities. The happiest and saddest person you know could be the same person. People who are merely stressed or going through a tough time hijack the language and blur the lines between “sometimes I want to die” and “all the time, sometimes I want to die.” Sometimes you just really like to smoke weed, sometimes you don't know how you'd function “dealing with it all” without it. I wish I could recite the laundry list of things I've known people to self-medicate with, but I imagine you have a fair idea already. Can you blame them? When and why is it worth bumping the pot-head up to problem smoker?

For me, I just see them as bandages. But who's cursing a bandage for not giving the body a chance to fix itself? I certainly can't pretend to know someone else's mind, but if my concern was for more than myself, I'd want to talk about the big problems and whether there's potential for big solutions, not just go numb to it all. No, I am not trying to equate depression or anxiety medication with drugs. Nor do I necessarily expect people to look beyond themselves if what they're suffering from makes them unable to do so. I just want to separate lazy entitled bitching and indulgence from genuine pain.

And, as always, for me the best thing to counteract the waves of self-loathing and drama is to get out in front of it all. I still don't know if it doesn't work for other people because of different personality types or for lack of effort. Before I get too involved in hating or criticizing myself, it just seems easier and worthwhile to point the finger at as many obvious targets or responsible parties as possible. But mostly, I don't want you to suffer. I don't want you to feel like there's no one to talk to or no one willing to spend the time. While I'm not in your head, here's me prying open mine, take anything you like.

[333] Fools Rush In

I want to run with a more positive idea. I often refer to how people behave and what they engage in as circle-jerking. Their avoidance of fact and reality perpetuating a mental stability and happiness that throws caution to the wind and whose goal is the bad kind of selfish. Surely, from a big picture, this is all we can expect as there is no grand determined right and wrong and the idea of “holding on for dear life” is as effective as anything else. I want this to stop ringing as such a bad thing for me.

I don't so much have a problem with what people do. I don't care if you are the best heart surgeon or video game developer. I find an “equal” kind of happiness in thinking I can get my heart repaired as enjoyment from a compelling story. I would take this a step further and say that maybe finding any form of artistic expression, specialized hard fought experience that gives you a rare and valuable opinion, is one of the noblest forms of purpose.

What's really bugged me is the lack of consciousness and awareness. When you say something without the opposite of, or what would make it wrong, ringing in your mind at the same time. When you pursue things “because.” When you judge and blame, and feel everything while forgetting your responsibility or role.

It speaks to my personality. Why do I keep making the same kinds of jokes with the same “inappropriate” themes? If it gets a rise out of you, you may not be aware of the role it plays in your life. If you feel bad before you wonder why I said something, it's an opportunity. You can either learn something about me, or yourself in the context of me, or I can learn I don't necessarily want to be around you. Win win. But even when it's just delving into a person's life, it's the same search.

I don't have something deeply invested in anyone else's relationships. Maybe I want to fuck around with your girlfriend, but that plays significantly less a role in how I talk to them or what about than you'd care to believe. And don't let me pigeon hole the word relationships because I mean it to be about any and every one you choose to have. Sometimes it's a happy accident that you had the best parents or grew up with the best friend. But it doesn't have to be that way and I think it's downright destructive when you try to force something to work beyond all evidence to the contrary.

It's never been enough for me to “just do it.” I can't just have a girlfriend or just get a degree, or just own a business. It's genuinely more satisfying to rot if I don't understand my motivation. I don't quite understand the point is all. I don't understand getting invested if you don't believe in something and if you're going to believe in something, you damn well better make sure you know why. “Why” is the privilege. Why is the only thing we do that nothing else does, as far as we know. Knowing why seems to hold a special kind of dignity. This would explain why so many people claim they really do in fact know why!

You can set yourself up to do better. Musicians who just pump out albums because they can or there is some unreasonable expectation from their label surely feel the criticism from betrayed fans. Look at a Youtube channel that was brilliant in it's first 100 episodes when the 16 year old had nothing but time and creativity until they got a sponsor and had a quota. When you know why you're doing it, you know why or when you should stop. The example you leave won't be a brand, it will be your intention. You can say “because I'm an entertainer” not “because I had no choice.”

“Why” opens up the world of choice. It makes you contemplate any moment. It makes you constantly have to justify and reinforce that what you're doing is in line with who you are or how you actually think. It can obviously be a paralyzing force as well, which may not be a bad thing. Maybe you do more than hesitate to do something stupid and just decide to appreciate why you shouldn't do it. Or, of course, knowing explicitly why you did something stupid is just as satisfying.

I think a lot of people don't like the word or find an easy way to answer it because they constantly arrive at “I don't know.” As if that's a terrible thing. To not know something and at least be aware of that fact is better than charging head first into the darkness. It also can be a great place to start gathering more information so you can start knowing. I think the defensiveness kicks in about here. If you start to not really know why you believe in god, or love your partner, or pursued a career, BY GOD! WHAT ELSE DON'T YOU KNOW!? It's easy to claim something makes you happy when you haven't defined happiness or bother yourself with justifying that definition.

In this way I'm slightly worried about creativity and mass produced entertainment. I'd like to believe that you had to be “good” to start garnering an audience or leave a lasting impression. Anymore, as long as you can be talked about, it seems to suffice. You don't have the new take, the fresh look, the next big thing, or even make a fair point. Things just are or aren't “marketable.” They mesh well with this eras buzzwords. They have a look that resembles that big thing, oh you know from a month ago, but with bigger tits.

I think the more whys you answer, the more you can flesh out your personality. You can do more things that speak to your subconscious, your feels as translated through your thoughts. One of the ways I avoid staying in a perpetual state of distress and hatred is to remind myself of how little I yet know. That's frustrating in and of itself for sure, but as much as I'd love to point a million fingers, I always sink back into my gut knowing it's not the whole story. And if I can't know the whole story, what theme should it carry that makes it one worth learning from or telling?

And it's this “Human Story” that I want to contribute towards and have people take away from. I'd love to inflate the theme with air only I can blow. If I'm even remotely different, let alone different in an “important” way, whether you catch one thing I do or read everything I've ever done, I'm nothing if I'm not speaking towards why. If I'm a process it's a fools game to consider yourself with the beginning and end. I'd rather be an example than left up to interpretation. Spilling paint on a canvas isn't art. I would hope that why they did it was compelling.

[332] Cynics, Save The World

There’s utility in being a cynic. You don’t have to waste time playing pretend with the other children. When you’re government is fucked, it’s easy to recognize that it’s not in fact a democracy and there is little hope. When you see how we handle foreign relationships, you don’t have to guess that the impacts will be many and lingering. Before we get too far, it may help to have George Carlin in your head as much of this is written after a morning spent contemplating his prescriptions.

There is little I disagree with when it comes to Carlin. I don’t think we’re going to last. I think we’re addicted to things we don’t need that don’t work and don’t matter. I think this is a circus where the “happiest” amongst us look on in sheer wonder and awe at the kind of display you couldn’t ask for if you tried. He observes and reports, much of his act is memorization feats essentially word for word the astounding dialogue of our times. I think we’re infinitely selfish, in the bad way, and it’s all about squeezing whatever little satisfaction we can out of everything and everyone, consequences be damned. I think it’s every bit as bad as he states if not worse and we are in the throes of our inevitable demise.

Yet, I’m unable to detach. Maybe it’s because of my age or my wide-eyed naïve ideals. Maybe my definition of “hope” is so small and penetrated that a goal becomes so modest it’s barely a goal worth having. Sure, I want to let go and ride it out and watch, but I think in particular with me, it would have dramatically destructive consequences. Carlin can let go and feel like he needs to talk. I’d let go and start saying “I don’t see a reason not to.” But we’ve known for some time how and why I keep myself in check.

I want to believe there is a not so hidden genius in his method and advice to just detach. There’s still some level of irony in not caring about anything “but.” It’s a psychological necessity sometimes, sure, but it’s not the only, or necessarily the best means by which people are happy or found some level of contentedness. I think he knew that and that’s why he kept getting on stage. I also think he knows that when you reach rock bottom you start to figure things out in a different way. Whether you need to drop off and not care or vehemently disagree with him, you’re still going to end up in a more thoughtful and attentive place, exercising that brain he believed we’ve all taken for granted.

But let’s go back to being cynical. Only when you cut out the bullshit are you capable of identifying and addressing a situation for what it is. If you call it a problem, you’ll know better how to fix it. If you call it a shit show, you’ll know better where you want to sit. You’ll never catch me seriously wondering what a god thinks about my sex habits or the Reese’s I stole from Wal-Mart. I think you can easily assume that, but more-so, I’d be completely useless to you. I wouldn’t even accidentally come across something “new” or insightful or ever make an awesome metaphor again. You didn’t come here for bullshit…usually.

Because I haven’t just sat on my rose-colored glasses and effectively threw them into a wood chipper, I feel a sense of overall clarity even when attempting to explain my confusion. At the very least, I’m not making it up. I’m not sad or pissed off for no reason and likewise for when something feels genuinely hopeful. Carlin talked of a phrase “when you scratch a cynic you see a jaded idealist.” I think an intrinsic property of being an idealist is an inability to let go of the ideas you think will actually work. No real idealist gives up because they are painfully stuck with a brain full of ideals. It’s a burden and work. When it gets to be too much it seems to be a passive aggressive taking of the reigns to describe how you’re going to just sit back and watch it burn.

Carlin stated that he doesn’t even know if he’d be the same kind of person if he started his career today. With the kinds of technology and rapidly changing environment, who’s to say his perspective wouldn’t have been carried a little farther. When you saw something as a 20 year old in 1960 is not how I saw something as a 20 year old because I got to see what you saw when I was 15, plus 50 more examples and how and whether potential solutions played out all over the world. I can’t so easily set into “this is how it works” when I know how to change it and change it quickly.

I think it’s the cynic that knows how people think. They know what to say to make people think. They know what you feel when your thoughts take you places, and they know how you avoid them and what it would take to make you unable to avoid them. I think people recognize that they need to be saved and can’t do it themselves because they don’t have the correct language or attitude. They’re too stressed, they’re too afraid, they’re at the end of not just one horrible decision that has created a hole where adopting an “I don’t give a fuck” attitude isn’t enough. I think people say save me and the cynic says you aren’t worthy. You are the problem. You are what you’re afraid of. And who’s admitting that? Not without a smile and laugh, that is.

We will live and die by our superstitions, our allegiances to branding and the status quo. And we’ll do it slowly using soft language and remaining “decent enough” until our time runs out. This is convention and it’s why I hate convention. It’s why I’m always asking why and asking YOU why and wanting to know more. You may not care about the consequences or want the short term fix, but I’m compelled to call-out a junkie.

The nicest way I can put it is that I want the species to last for me and mine. It’s sheer ego. I want my kids happy and healthy. I want my friends recognized and admired for what they are. I want the big human middle finger staring in the empty abyss of space for as long as I can, and I want to know that it’s mine. As far as I know, I’m the only kind of thing on this planet that can appreciate what it’s flipping off. Anyone else along for the ride is just circumstance. “They” can’t be fixed, nor is “the world” broken. It’s every intention, good or bad, and if you want yours to last, that's what needs to be accounted for.