paralysis.

I met a girl last night, a new server.  After a few passing words, we recognized a bit of sameness, although, to the eye, we could not be more different.  

It's funny how touching on a few topics can spark a friendship where, too often, there would be only thinly veiled distaste.  

I felt lucky.  So, it turns out, did she.

Our common ground?  Philosophy.  Eastern religions.  A general distaste for people who assume they know.  An extreme discomfort with an all-too-common insistence upon rendering greys in black and white.

It got me thinking about how many people in 'menial' or 'low' jobs are actual quite smart.  And how surprised we are when we find out that the dishwasher has a degree in environmental engineering, that the barista is a nearly flawless opera singer, that the cook is a philosopher.  

Of course, then I go upstairs and find that a former classmate just landed a tenure track professorship, and I get all fucked up because I'm wasting my life.  

I need to undo this knot in my head that has deemed certain careers 'worthy' and others, somehow, not. I never thought I had that in me, but as I move in this odd side-step, I find that I have this fear of not doing enough--whatever that may mean.  

 The academic track doesn't come easily to me.  It's quite tortuous.  In part, this is because I'm a perfectionist, but more, because I'm always afraid of offending and, simultaneously, of being misunderstood.  I'm also afraid because so much of higher level education is based on indoctrination.  I'm spending so much effort trying to figure out how I think....the thought of doing that at the same time as I try to figure out how a whole field functions seems impossible.  I couldn't imagine doing the work to become a bona fide philosopher, because how could I weed out the theories and philosophies that seem valid and those that don't?  I can't even pin down the tenets of my own ideas about the world and how it works yet.  I think it's why I'm caught in this frenetic non-movement, this paradoxical paralysis, where I'm spinning...spinning...trying to catch a glimpse of what I believe so that I can take the next step, but ultimately, I'm not moving at all. 

Aaannnnddd....back to angry.

L likes to watch talent shows.  Likes seeing the weird acts, cringes at the bad ones, sort of revels in it, in her way.

I hate them.

I've never been able to really express why, but they always end up making me kind of upset, vaguely.

Today, we watched America's Got Talent.  Lots of actually really incredible pieces--unique, somewhat inspiring, even.  Impressive.

The last two acts were singers, and it reminded me, or perhaps...got me a bit closer to those things that make me feel squishly and gross about talent shows.

It's a trite, petty thing to complain about, but as a former performer, I'm just going to say it.   Why the fuck are male singers strong, forceful, and brilliant, while female singers are beautiful, angels, and ethereal?  Do you know what that does to those of us who do not fit into this mold?

I never sang to be beautiful.  I never played music to be angelic.  I did it because it communicated something I could not in any other way.  It was meant to be raw, human, strong, authentic.  But it seems that not falling into the beautiful/ethereal category is an automatic out.

I suppose....music to me is so pure, the visual aesthetic shouldn't matter.  If the song touches you, that's what matters.  Not the visual aesthetic of the person putting it out there.

Grrrrrr.  I'm going to stare off the deck now, and get back to my happy place.

::something profound::

So it's been awhile, again.  I moved.  I tried to start another blog, this one in response to a friend of mine who turned out to be....not so much a friend.   

There doesn't seem much of a point to finishing it.

The move I made...the physical one, that is...is making me....still.  Quiet.   I keep listening to the trees, marveling at the thunderstorm's we've had over the past few days, watching more birds and butterflies than I've ever seen before.

Everything I've been so angry about seems so far away.  And so very, very, petty.

I run, I have run, on anger for so long that I sometimes forget there's another way to function.  I forget that cynicism doesn't make you smarter, it just kills you faster.  I forgot, wholly, that my quest for knowledge begins with accepting that there are things you don't know.  It was just attack attack attack all the time.

There's nothing to fight here, and I think that's why I like it.  We're still working on catching up, financially, but by the end of the month, we'll be in surplus.  Virtually debtless.  Able to save.   Able to give.  

I'm unsure of what to do with myself in the absence of financial struggle.  In much the same way, I'm trying to figure out who to be in the absence of social drama. 

Quiet.  

I'm finding joy in cooking for people, something I always had, but now is actually appreciated on a larger level.  I'm finding that the thought of beginning the struggle of putting words to "paper"(or whatever), might not be worth it after all.  Honestly, do I really have anything more profound to say than anything that's been said before?  Is anything I think going to change the world?

I'm not so sure anymore.  The trappings of that academic world simply aren't as enticing from up here.  Perhaps I'm not so much the intellectual as everyone thought I was.  Perhaps I'm not as brave, either; I'd rather step down than step up.  I don't want my life to be a fight, and the things I want to say seem to either cause confusion or anger.  It seems a pity to spend a life only to elicit that kind of reaction.  Instead, I can make a beautiful, decadent plate of food for someone, and they walk away feeling cared for.  

Which is the higher calling?

In so many ways, the kitchen is a step down, unless one aspires to be the next Bobby Flay.

I have no such aspirations, and so perhaps I should do as my former friend suggested and give up the academic work and do something humble.  

His argument was that my thinking was childish, an embarrassment.  But maybe he was on to something else that he can't even see.  Maybe the whole conversation is childish and embarrassing, and maybe it's time we devoted ourselves to the business of nurturing.  Maybe the sociopolitical dialogue is what's wrong, and the lack of time spent together lingering over a good bottle of wine or fine desert (sans diet or guilt talk, of course) is what we should be devoted to?

I'm not sure anything wholly good came out of a good old fashioned debate about racism, but I know if you took those same folks and sat them around a table with some killer food, a lot more connection would happen.  

And if that's not the point, please...what is?

Trayvon.

My facebook is blowing up with feelings about this trial.  Mostly disgust, peppered with some "woohoos!" and "See, there? Not guilty!!"    I was refraining from comment, mostly because I think the whole thing's bullshit.  I eventually caved and wrote this in response to a friend's post.

Am I horribly naive in thinking that there needed to be something *other* than a trial here? That this should've somehow opened up a lot of things for serious discussion--*outside* of currently accepted forums--to re-evaluate some things we take for granted, possibly without even know that we do so? That maybe, in the same way that Boston shut down after the marathon bombings, we all needed a minute to do the same--to shut down, to cease movement, to examine what really lay at the heart of this? 

A conservative friend posted that Zimmerman said something to the effect of "There are no winners here; this is still a tragedy." Part of me bristles at this; for someone thrilled at the outcome, that's a hollow concession. But a part of me wants to scream that that's exactly right. That putting this through a justice system that we already *know* is corrupt is missing the point: that the event, in itself, is telling enough. That nothing new will come from filtering it through a biased system. That at some point, we're going to need to address the why and not just the outcomes.

I don't know. I suppose I'm just disheartened by seeing the same thing go down with the same responses...over and over and over again. I guess I thought it was time for something....else. Something honest. Something even *remotely* self reflective.

Then:

The thing that the sixties did was allow us (The general "us", the country of "us") to believe that equality is something that can be legislated, that once it's 'on the books', there's no further need for discussion. But the experiences of individuals is what creates any 'ism', and you simply can't legislate that. 

So yeah, for what....40 years? There's been a story, a myth, that because of the 60s, racism does not operate in America. Even when literally thousands of stories can be found to contradict this. We put so much energy into these myths that all the things that add up to disprove them cannot be seen....it's too scary to think that we have so far to go, especially after so much went into something that appeared to be a solution.

I honestly think that all of these issues that have been coming up lately: the apparent war on women's reproductive health, queer rights, and racism, of course--they all deserve some serious sit-down time. Which will never happen. The people who believe in the system do so whole-heartedly, and in my experience, react to any request for discussion that threaten to dismantle by completely shutting down, by reverting to the adult equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting "I can't hear you!" And we on the other side do the same, unfortunately, when our rage reaches a point where we can't see how we demonize and "one-dimensionalize" those we disagree with. 

I've been trying to figure out how to instigate real conversation between people who use not only completely different language, but are working with completely different sets of concepts around these issues with no luck. Hannah, this seems like what you do....any thoughts? I'm so close to just deeming it impossible and trying to find a nice, cool place to hang out with Liz and my dog and let my writing be found posthumously.

It just seems pointless to continue pretending that any of this is doing any good.  All of the commentary, all of the debate....it doesn't get us anywhere because it's all avoidant of the issues that lie at the heart of all this, which is something like....I don't know.  Our fear of differences? The ease of stereotyping?  (Dare I say, the neurobiological predisposition to do so?) The refusal to allow ourselves to live in complexity?

This was not a simple "racial" case--so much was at work here.  Much of it, yes, stems from racial beliefs, but where do those come from?  And can we honestly believe that we can simply ignore those roots?

Too frustrated and too sick to write more.  Time to cuddle with Dog.

Risk

For the longest time, I kept my mouth shut about the things that I thought.  When I realized that there was only like....one thing....that I could honestly see doing with my life, I also realized that, unfortunately, I'd have to stop doing that.  This thing....these questions I've been asking for more than half my life now, they don't go away.  They stay with me, and when I think I've found some diversion, some project that might take the place of them, they come back harder, louder, more impossible to ignore.

When I think about pursuing an advanced degree in philosophy, the thing that scares me the most is that  I'll have to defend this position, these beliefs I have, that are so damned unpopular.  I never feel smart enough, fast enough.  I don't want to be famous, I don't want notoriety.  I just want to figure this damned thing out.

But I know that that requires a certain degree of challenge.  It requires discussion, rebuttal. As much as it scares me, it requires discourse.

So I tried.  

Not in the best way, I'll admit, but I tried to point out some of the logical inconsistencies I saw in  groups that I would otherwise agree with.  Anarchists, say, who call for the banning of teaching creationism.  

I dared to say that possibly, there was a problem with simply banning an idea because you disagree with it.  And I lost a friend because of it.

And you know?

It wasn't as bad as I thought.

I was hurt, yes. Confused.  But instead of making me stop, it made me want to go further, to clarify this position so that the next time, maybe I can get through before the door gets slammed in my face.

I don't care if you don't agree with me, I just want to be able to have the discussion, because we have so fucking much to learn from each other.

hey, jealousy...

So I was at work today, pissed-offedly trying to play catch up from the shitshow of last week, and I started thinking about people who I used to work with, who I used to go to school with.  I tried to fight it; this is never a good topic for the ol' brain to land on.

Everyone I know, seemingly, is doing fucking amazing shit.  Going to med school, already pediatric RNs saving babies with cancer, lawyers, getting their Ph.d in education, their MA in education, in sustainable agriculture, in social work, in whatever....

And I know I should be proud of them, but damn.  I just get angry.  Jealous.  Angry and jealous...what the hell is that about?  My life has not been a smooth ride.  I thought I had it figured out...I had been reading psychology texts since I was 11...it only made sense that that's where I would end up, right?

Yeah.

I learned this lesson that it seems like no one else learned in college.  I learned that success was about toeing a philosophical/political line.  I learned that psychology, as a field, was about falling into lockstep with theories and treatments that were sanctioned by those on high, and much less about helping people actually overcome these mental issues that paralyzed them.

It all seemed like bullshit.

And so I dropped out.  At first, it was more of a mental checkout.  I let myself get distracted by music, by lovers, by social crap.  And then, of course, I was "asked to leave" because my grades were so bad. One year left, and I just couldn't do it.

So I left.  I worked shit jobs, found and lost a career, worked more crap jobs.  And in all of this, where it seems that everyone else found answers, I found more questions.

I don't know how people land on careers.  How do you accept all the crap?  How do you wade through the politics, the obvious compromising of your own values, to find success?  I can't do it.

And so I'm jealous.  I want to feel fucking successful.  I want to be comfortable, financially.  I wish I could just...fucking do it.  I just can't seem to get out of my own way, and I suppose, that's the worst part of this mind-numbing jealousy.  It's jealousy, but then it's also self-loathing, frustration.  Blah blah blah.

I'm sorry.   It seems that everything I write here is so depressing.  I'm working on turning it around.  I need to figure out a way to see my path more clearly, there's just so much crap in the way that I have to clear out first.   How did you find yours?   How did you know?  How do you stay on it?

::sigh::

I haven't been around much lately.   (She said aloud to no one in particular.)

All sorts of opportunities have presented themselves and shown themselves to be...well...bullshit.  One opportunity was taken and has proven to be of the utmost level of bullshit, to the point where mere survival is threatened.  Which makes other opportunities very appealing in a desperate kind of way.  Which leads to a much greater danger of poor decision making.

Ughhhhh.

I dunno, man.  I keep trying to hold on to this idea that something good is going to happen any day now, and I keep having this feeling that that's true.  But the stress of it is honestly killing me.  I'm exhausted.  I can't concentrate.  I've had so much to write about for weeks now, and I sit down to write and the ideas just disappear.  I fall back into that desperate, wordless, back brain frustration.  Here, there is no cognition.  There is no logic.  There's just this frenetic, impossible to direct energy.

So much doesn't make sense.  

I never really bought into the idea that somehow attaining a degree would open some magical door to success or at least security....at least...I thought I didn't buy into it.  But apparently...apparently some part of me did expect some change, some opportunity that hadn't previously been attainable.    The past year has been so anticlimactic in that way.  After the years of being hounded by my family, of feeling like a disappointment to myself and to everyone else, after finally getting that damned piece of paper (which is now a $300K piece of paper on my wall)...there's just....nothing.  There are still no jobs.  There is still nothing I can do, seemingly, to improve my life.

We're looking at a somewhat big move to the city....somewhere that might afford both of us some more opportunities.   We're not asking for a lot.  Just enough to pay the bills and save some....maybe enough so that we could take a vacation once in awhile.  Maybe  just enough that there's something to look forward to a few times a year.  Maybe just enough to feel like we're living, not just surviving.   Maybe.

Apparently....

Apparently, this new attempt at proactivity is making me want to write tiny little blurbs with no real point to them. I suppose this is a stepping stone to the more substantial stuff I have burbling around in there...without putting these out there, I'll have to weed through these snippets of crap to get at any kind of real idea.

Since about three people read this on a good day, I'll ask for your kind indulgence.

I'm struggling with the power of belief and the instability of knowledge.  I'm reading some philosophy that I haven't touched in awhile, and I'd forgotten that one of my biggest issues with the field of philosophy is the tendency is this reliance on the concept of a deity as a foundation for justified belief.

Seriously?  You're going to tell me that I can't trust my senses about the couch I'm sitting on, but I'm supposed to absolutely  trust that there is a Supreme Being that enables all things to exist?

Ok, it's fine in the context of a philosophical discussion about a table, but the problem is that this kind of thinking permeates very real conversations about very real issues that have a very...real...effects on very...real...people.  That it's an accepted form of philosophical argument is troubling because I honestly think it lends intellectual weight to using the Deity concept as a fundamental argument. (Hell, if Descartes could do it....)  It allows us, in a way, to dissociate ourselves from our beliefs, placing their basis on some unseen Other instead of really picking apart all of the experiences and thoughts and information that has actually gone into our embracing of one concept over another.

I suppose that, in a way, this somewhat more analytical approach leaves us more vulnerable to more compelling arguments, but then...why is that a bad thing?  Why do we feel that we have to be married to one idea or set of ideas for a life time?  Is it better to stubbornly hold onto beliefs with no real foundation, simply because we can take comfort in them?

I don't know.

This is somehow an integral part of what will hopefully become a masters/doctoral thesis, but I can't figure out quite what it is. Is it philosophy?  Psychology?  Sociology?  Cog Sci?  Something completely different?  And if so...what the hell is it?  And how do I put it together so it's a) something that people will want to read and b) that they will be able to use it to make this shitshow of a world better?

Oh, Alexis de Tocqueville. How I love thee.

"There is no class, then, in America, in which the taste for intellectual pleasures is transmitted with hereditary fortune and leisure, and by which the labors of the intellect are held in honor. Accordingly, there is an equal want of the desire and the power of application to these objects. A middling standard is fixed in America for human knowledge. All approach as near to it as they can; some as they rise, others as they descend." AdT

"There is , in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which incites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. this passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." AdT

Quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.   


Why don't people talk like this anymore?  Why isn't there this level of critical thought, and why, oh why, is it so damned NOT acceptable to critique a culture without coming across as hating that culture?  AdT (yeah, I'm on that level with him)  was intrigued by democracy, and so he too his aristocratic ass on a big ol' trip to see what all the hubub was about, and the wrote a phenomenal piece looking at the system of democracy, as it unfolded, and then identified the probably issues that might arise in such a system.  

He was not wrong.  

And yet, most of us are not required to read this amazing piece.  Many of us have never heard of it.  Are we that afraid to look at critiques of ourselves, short of the now all-too-common self hatred that the PC movement of the last turn of the century has so firmly foisted upon us?   

 There will be more on this as I reread.  In the meantime, grab yourself a copy.  They're on Amazon for like, two bucks.  Read it.  Don't get reactionary.  Just...read it.  And then look around.  And then think about how we can turn this shit around.  

Lately, I've been feeling like my life lives me, rather than the other way around.  I feel, overwhelmingly, like I'm the proverbial cork on a turbulent sea, battered by massive, roiling waves, completely lacking control over which way I'm tossed and thrown.  

I don't love it.

I look at the people I envy, the people I wish I could be like.  I admire their self possession, how it transmits through every aspect of themselves.  Every piece of clothing is absolutely them, their food, the books they read, the music the like...it has all been selected and considered.  Even their paths, if they're meandering and completely bizarre, there is always this element of intention which lends an air of meaning to even the most frivolous behavior. 

There's an element of laziness that prevents me from acquiring this apparent intent.  I used to, for example, comb through the music stores on payday, flipping through CDs, looking for that one Aerosmith album I hadn't found yet (I know, I know...but it was like, seventh grade.  Gimme a break).   I used to do things in my free time.  Now, I come home, muster up some energy to take the dog for a walk, and pass out until bed time.  It's like I spend so much time merely surviving that I can't spare the energy to live.  

What an awful thing, and how many of us are there?  

So I'm trying, starting this week, to devote time to the things I used to love to do. No more plopping down in front of the toob for umpteen hours a day, allowing the last bit of creativity and passion to be slowly sucked out through my eyeballs.  I'm going to find another job by the end of the summer that will pay me to at least kind of  do something I care about, even if it's writing ridiculous medical pamphlets.   At the very least, I'll have enough money to only work one job so I can have the time to start putting stuff together for grad school. 

It's an odd thing, remolding yourself at thirty.  But it's kind of exciting, at the same time.  This is not about living up to some model of What I'm Supposed To Be--there's no groupthink to dictate my behavior or my look, there's no reading list.  It's just, up until now, remembering the things that make me happy, that make me feel empowered, that give me energy instead of use it up.  These are things that I've found, and some of them are fine with other people, some of them piss them off, but the point is it doesn't matter.  I've wasted too much time already, and it's time to go.  

Things that happen when I watch too much Anthony Bourdain.

Sometimes there's just too much fucking pain.

I don't mean my own.  I don't even necessarily mean physical.  Just...in the world, right now, in this moment, there is so much suffering that goes unnoticed.  There are so many stories that will go  untold.  There is so much injustice that will never be granted a voice, or even the righteous indignation in response to its passing.

It's overwhelming.

In my quieter moments, when I sit and try to hold that pain in my mind--even just for a second, even just the barest hint of it--I shut down.  It's too overwhelming.

It becomes even more unbearable when I realize that it's juxtaposed with extravagance and luxury to the same level, and that in so many cases, the existence of one is impossible without the other.

I can't imagine a greater purpose than to do everything in my power to alleviate the tiny bit of this that I can, and yet, in my day-to-day, I am far more moved by the slaughter of a goat than I am the daily hurts of most of my coworkers.  (So often it's the opposite, that people cannot accept the suffering of an animal as true suffering, as compared to that of their fellow man; I suppose I'm a bit too misanthropic for that these days.)

And it just seems so...impossible.  They call it samsara, the endless cycle of suffering, and that's exactly what it is.  It is incomprehensibly ironic that a part of this suffering should be the mere awareness of that suffering, and that it will continue.

There's a part of me that wants to run to the mountains, take a vow of silence for a decade or two, and attempt to remove myself, as much is as possible, from all of this--just to give myself a moment of peace, where I can see the totality of my life and its effects because it is just that small.  But then, of course, there would be the pain of those I left behind, always pushing that periphery a bit further.

At a certain point, I just say fuck it and go to bed, pushing the guilt aside with the blessed oblivion of sleep.

Accident.

There was a horrific accident down the street from my house.  I went out to the drugstore, randomly, kind of on a whim (sometimes you just need to bleach the shit outta your hair, you know?) and...

Yeah.

I'm still processing.  I'm pretty sure I saw someone die.

As I was coming out of the store, a woman told me what happened, confirmed that someone was, yes, probably dead.  I looked over to the SUV she gestured at with a nod of her head.  There was an imprint of a body on the driver's side door.  The place where the head would be was a perfect, head-sized hole in the window.

The worst part....

There was a guy sitting in the driver's seat.  Alone.  And I wanted, more than anything, to go over and just make sure that he was ok.

And I didn't.

Why the hell didn't I?  And what does it say about our culture that I could come up with way more reasons why I shouldn't go over, in spite of all the reasons why I should?

It's the perfect (well...my kind of perfect) kind of weather here in the so-called happy valley.  The morning came cool, not cold, a bit drizzly, overcast.  It's a saturday, I am...for once...NOT working.  Instead, I'm sitting in the waiting room while GF gets her oral surgery on.

The past weeks have been so hellish that after our 16/18 hour days, we've come home, sat with Dog for a moment and longed for today, laughing about how we could be so looking forward to all that comes with recovering from surgery--simply because it would be the only time we've had in months to just relax.  Because we'd have no choice.  To have no choice but what crappy TV or movies to watch, which easy food to make.  When to sleep.  Easy.

I'm not going to lie.  I'm kind of pumped.

But for now, I'm actually really ok to be sitting in the uncomfy chairs in the waiting room, listening to weird medical sounds from behind the somewhat perfunctorily closed door.

There's been so much going on, I'm grateful for the opportunity to get some of it out of my head.

I suppose the biggest thing is that I'm coming into some stillness, the midst of all this chaos.  Which is, to say the least, fucking weird.  I'd been, probably, depressed for a year or two, and suddenly, there's something else happening.  I'm still absolutely hating my jobs, but there's this sense of purpose starting to bubble up around the edges of that dissatisfaction.  I keep thinking about what, exactly, I'm hating, and it's becoming clearer and clearer.  I can't keep doing the routine. I can't keep being a drone, acquiescing because I have no other choice, because I need this job.  Yes, I need to pay my bills, but I also need stimulation, I need to be challenged, I need to feel like at the end of the day, I had to use my brain to come up with solutions to problems,  and that to do it, I worked with people with whom I share a mutual respect.  

That's the basics.  The bottom of my Maslow-ian pyramid.

The next level is a little more difficult to explain.  I don't want to facilitate or enable behaviors that are contrary to my moral and ethical beliefs.  Too many times I've found myself working in jobs where there is a general atmosphere of...oh, taking employees for granted, for treating them as less than human.  Sometimes there's a profound lack of pride in the product, a "who gives a fuck" attitude.  Sometimes there's been flat-out abuse, pitting employees against each other, demeaning, belittling, rampant sexism.

(FYI, that door is absolutely perfunctory.  I can hear everything going on.  Drills and sucky things and oh my GOD, I am far less appreciative now.  ::shudder::)

Where was I?  Oh yes.  So I find myself swallowing a lot of commentary about this because employers don't want to be told, "Hey, you're kind of being a fuckhead here.  I know that's probably not your intention, but that's how it feels to those of us that depend on being here for 40 hours a week to pay our bills."  And, I realized lately, my staying is a way of enabling that kind of behavior.

Which is a pretty shitty realization, honestly.  But it came out of GF leaving a job where we've both worked, where most of our friends work.  It's bad. And there's a lot of guilt that comes out of leaving, as has been the case for every single one of us who has left.  The guilt, we couch as abandoning our coworkers because they need our help, but in reality, I think it's because we can't take them with us, because we know that it's just going to get worse...and worse...and worse.  We've had lots of talks in the past few weeks about how leaving is, sometimes, the only option.  When I was working at this particular establishment...let's call it Hell...when I was working in Hell, I worked in the front.  I was a pretty killer barista.  And when shit started to get really bad, one of my regulars and I began having little therapy sessions.  I one day told her that I simply didn't know what to do because I saw, so clearly, what the problems were and how to fix them, but I couldn't get through to the owner (a tiny prick with a napoleon complex, exacting out revenge on his employees because he was, apparently, a bit of a loser in high school. "Look at me now! I own a successful restaurant that I have no idea how to run!"  ::sigh::)  Anyway.  This woman knew that I'd recently started studying Buddhist philosophy, an attempt to find some coping mechanisms in this shithole.  She asked me what I thought the Buddha would do in such a situation.  I faltered. I've never been good at trying to figure out what amazing people would do in shitty situations.  I tried to think....well....he'd show people what they were doing wrong, right?  Show them how they were hurting people, how they were hurting themselves, by their actions, help them to see the negative karma they were accruing?  My knowledgeable customer nodded, and then asked the clinching question:  What would he do if he tried that, but the person refused to acknowledge the effects their behavior was having?  Stumped, I shook my head.  I have no idea.  She put her hand out to take her latte and said, simply....He would leave.

Well.  All this time I thought that I had to stay to protect, stay to help, stay to kill myself trying to show someone a different, better way that would make people feel good, and that would ultimately make their business more sustainable, their employees more committed.....blah blah blah.

What I was actually doing was saying, Yep. It's totally ok that you're doing this.  I'll even help you!  See, I'll continue to work my ass off for you, making you money, accepting the abuse you dish out to me and my coworkers.  Totally cool with that.

 No, only by leaving could I register my discontent, my anger, and my refusal to participate in those kinds of behaviors. And you know? Hell is still there, still doing its thing, but after GF leaves (and she was the one person who would even slightly stand up to Ownerman), a lot of people have one foot out the door.  It's about to hit critical mass, this dissenting action, this last stand against a pretty constant onslaught of insults.  And it's a shame that it had to get this bad for it to register, and honestly, doubt that there's going to be any kind of real reflection on why so many of us have left, and left for less money, less convenience, just....less.  But if the message doesn't get through in normal human interaction, sometimes walking away is just the only thing left to do, as shitty as it can feel to leave it all behind.  I won't do it anymore.  I might not be able to just walk away from a job, ever, but I can certainly be more discerning in the positions I take, and I can certainly keep looking for better options when I am somewhere that even approximates Hell.

(Sounds from behind impossibly ineffective pine door are getting SO uncool right now.  Kind of want to run away screaming in terror.  Having increasingly difficult time concentrating on writing anything but DEAR JESUS GOD DID SOMEONE JUST SCREAM??)

Anyway.  Upon realizing that remaining in situations is pretty much agreeing with or enabling them to continue, I stumbled upon what appears to be the next level in my revamped Maslow structure, which is that I choose to surround myself with people who are nurturing, challenging (in the good kinda way), and who share the fundamental principles in which I believe.

I know that last sentence can sound a little bit like I only want people who agree with me around, so let me clarify with an example.  I don't believe in hurting animals.  I ran outside in a downpour because a fricken terrifying wasp was drowning on top of the AC unit.  I can't deal with preventable suffering.  So I'm pretty much a vegetarian.  I used to eat fish, but pictures of what happens in those nets fucked me up for a few weeks, and I realized that I was a big ol' hypocrite if I pretended that fish were 'not suffering'.  Right.  Now.  Most of my friends love meat.  LOVE.  Like...hunting, butchering, shoving ground up dead animals and spices into casing kind of love.  And I'm totally cool with that, because most of them choose to a)kill the animal, in the wild, while dressed in ridiculous shaggy suits or b) buy from local, humanely raised kinda farms.   Fundamentally, we don't believe that animals should suffer.  We just draw the line in different places.   And have lively conversations about it while they eat delicious, drippy cheeseburgers, and I sadly masticate my dry assed veggie burger, wishing that I could just turn off that part of my brain that envisions a spike driving into a cow's forebrain.

I'm hearing scary shit go down in that other room, so the rest of this will have to wait until GF is sleeping.  Which, from the sounds of it, will be never, ever, again.   Jesus.

I've been away.  Work has been insane, Dog has some weird skin rash...I feel like if I get fifteen minutes to sit between work and work and four hours of sleep I'm doing really well.  There's so much in my head that I need to get out...I need the time to write so badly, but survival is taking all of my time, all of my energy, all of my thought.  

This has been a week of figuring out what's important.  Not like...saving the world kind of stuff, but rather...saving my life, kind of stuff.  What's important for me.  What are the ideals that I want to live with, that I want to embody?  How do I make my actions match up with those ideals, and how do I make choice that don't put me in a situation where I have to compromise those ideals (too much)?

Honestly, the first thing I need to do is get a better job situation going so I have time to do this kind of bullshit...even if no one is actually reading this, the act of writing it is important for me, so screw it.  I'm skilled enough and smart enough that I should be able to find one...futhermucking...job...that will pay enough to  live so that I can plan my next step.

I need a next step.  Whether it's grad school, or starting the farm/bnb thing (more on this later, I'm so sure...)...I need to be doing something because this shit's killing me.

(Un)fortunately, the GF has some pretty intensive dental work, and I'll be off for three days (in a row!) so she doesn't have to worry about taking care of Dog, &c.  In between walks and making jello, I should have some time to put some stuff out there.  Thank god.    

And now, time for work again.

Tear up your goddamned lawn and grow some food.

I haven't written in awhile because I'm fricken exhausted.  My partner has finally found a way out of her evil, evil job, and while that's completely amazing, it's stressful.

I suck at change.

A lot.

But a friend of mine convinced me to do some gardening with her this spring.  Basic stuff, some veggies to eat and can.

So.  This tiny, baby post to say:

GET THE FUCK OUT IN THE DIRT.

I have never felt so goddamned good in my life.  Barefoot, sore, sunburnt, growing food for myself and the people I love.  No one benefited from my hard work but my own people.  I didn't make anyone a little bit richer but myself.  The contact with the soil released some serious serotonin, as did the endorphins released from a bit of hard labor (even though my job is hard labor anyway...it's tempered by the sheer drudgery).  And yeah, I was exhausted, but you know?  It was one day of hard work.  One day.

ONE FUCKING DAY.

And then a little watering, a little weeding, and bam.  Food.  GOOD food.

What an amazingly easy way to reclaim just a little bit of your own damned power, a little bit of your own self-reliance.

I know this is a particularly crappy post, but I needed to say it.

At the end of my first year of college, the president of the college left to head up another school.  At her farewell banquet, flanked by the Texas state and American flags, after a feast of BBQ and fixins', she looked over her adoring students and said (and I'm paraphrasing, as this was...many...years ago....), "I consider all of you my daughters.  You are strong, compassionate, intelligent...and I have to tell you...I am so...disappointed...in you."  She went on to describe the cutthroat, backstabbing, hateful way she saw us all behaving, and ended by saying something to the effect of, "You are all better than this. Make me proud."  

Today, I was driving between works and I flipped the station and caught the beginning of a particular DJ who begins his show with a montage of funny clips.  Today, he played a man singing the Star Spangled Banner before a baseball game...except that a line or two in, the microphones seemed to be turned toward the crowd...and it was just...thousands of people singing.  

And all of a sudden, I was crying.   

I didn't mean to, I didn't even realize it was happening until I let out a full-on sob.  

I don't consider myself a patriot.  I've spent almost the entirety of this blog bitching about the systems of this country, and how they are so detrimental to so many of us.  But you know? I fucking love this country.  I love this country because it's the kind of place that has been so blessed to not have to deal with bombings every fucking day, that when they happen, the entire country puts its shit away and is just supportive.  Because we've been so lucky to not have war on our doorsteps, to not have had to rebuild entire cities.  

And, like my college president, although I love this country, I'm so....very....disappointed in us.

I'm disappointed that we are not, collectively, absolutely humbled by the people reaching out to Boston from places that suffer deadly bombings on a regular basis.  I'm disappointed that we, as such a young country, have the audacity to make decisions without listening to the lessons taught by those with older histories than us.  I'm disappointed that we continue to ignore the lessons taught by events in our own history, and continue to be surprised that they happen again...and again....and again....

We are an amazing country, founded on amazing principles.  We have tremendous resources, incredible innovation.  We are better than this.  And I so want to be proud of us.

There will be more here, as soon as I can get enough fucking sleep to form sentences, but let me say this:  If I hear one more goddamned person demonizing these suspects, I'm going to flip my shit.

One of them, the one that's, at least as of now, still alive, had a picture and below it, a caption about how he has no American friends, about how he "doesn't understand them."  Meaning us.

Everyone I know is "monstering" this kid, but what did he say??  Once afuckingain, he told us EXACTLY why this shit went down, and once afuckingain, we're going to ignore it.

No, what they did (if they, in fact, did it, which it does kind of look like is the case) was terrible.  There are no words in me to capture how....unthinkable, cruel, malicious...this bombing was.  The time, the place, the day...it's all so calculated and cold.

But if his quotation is accurate, that's how he experienced his time here.

At a certain point, we--all of us--need to look at our own behavior, our own assumptions.  We need to look at how we treat other people, we need to examine our motivations, our xenophobia, our exclusivity.  

Now I get to go to work, part two, for the day.  Hopefully this mess will be over when I'm done.
Peace.

Anything I could possibly say about what happened today will come across as trivial or cliche, but here I am.  So I suppose I should say something.

There are aspects of human nature that I will never, seemingly, understand.

There has been so much speculation since this afternoon, just as there is after every event like this.  Those that jump to the middle east, those that say in this hopeful, smug tone, "I pray that this was not an American.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was, but I hope it wasn't...", those that blame the anarchists, the North Koreans, &c, &c, &c...

I'm not an expert on other cultures, so I won't even attempt to explore, for example, suicide bombings or religiously motivated killings.  But because there is a distinct possibility that whoever did this was from here....

There are so many pat answers: "too many guns, too many knives, too many True Believers...." All of which allow us to dissociate ourselves from the so-called 'monsters' who committed these acts, to deny the capability within ourselves, to go about our lives, no matter how they might have contributed to the creation of a mentality that would allow someone to place a bomb on a crowded street.

This is not to say that there aren't too many guns, knives, and true believers; the real question we need to address is why so many are drawn to those options to solve their problems,  what those problems are, and how we, as a global community, can begin to address and (at least attempt) to eradicate them.

Monsters and crazies do not arise from the aether.  They are of us and among us.

The motivations that lie beneath this (and, I could argue, all) acts of terror are far more complicated and insidious. The factors that make these actions possible build up like stones at the bottom of a well--at some point, they will inevitably break the placid surface, disrupting the illusion of order that allows us to continue on our oblivious, merry way.

I can imagine that these bombings, like most bombings in the past, were not perpetrated by individuals; that they were, instead, a coordinated movement facilitated by a larger group, because how could one single individual do this? Isn't it a far more probable scenario that a type of groupthink was at play here?  Where people of a somewhat common view came together and became blind to the individual harm that they might cause in an attempt to right some greater wrong, whether real or imagined?

And then I think of Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kacinzsky, and I know how individuals can snap, broken by the same perceived injustices.

No, here, in America, by Americans, bombs are detonated out of anguish.  Out of a desperate attempt to be visible.  Out of a deep desire to be heard.  What other feeling could validate these kinds of actions but the pain of losing ones sense of self?  The pain of invisibility?  The gut-wrenching powerlessness?

And with every attempt to place it on a Them or a They (read, someone so completely unlike us), we drive one more person to the same kind of action.  It keeps happening because we keep ignoring why it happens, and it will continue so long as we continue to do so.

Addressing the real underlying causes of these attacks is going to be painful as all hell.

We don't have the luxury of avoiding that task any more.


All of my heart goes out to the victims of these kinds of attacks, and all of my intellect will continue to try to find a way to prevent them from ever happening again.

blinders

While it is true that we must all begin with our own experiences and perceptions to form our opinions, it is also true that at a certain point, our dependence upon these markers end up functioning as blinders.  

This is not easy to fix, and, sadly, those of us who are committed to NOT getting caught by our own blinders are sometimes even more at risk of doing so, if only because of our insistence that we are constantly keeping an eye out for them.  

Some of the hallmarks of being caught in thought tunnels that I've noticed: predictable, repeated responses to external stimuli.  A tendency to immediately discard information which superficially appears to be suffering from intellectual tunnel vision. An over-reliance upon personal experience to back up opinions, statements, or actions.  

Sound kind of like everyone you know? Yeah, me too.  

When I say that things are fucked up, this is what I'm talking about.  Anecdotal evidence  will always play a role in our worldview, but it should never comprise the entirety of it.  Ditto books you've read or people you know. Even if you actively seek out information counter to your own opinion, the likelihood that you're really considering the opposite point of view is pretty slim.  Not because you're an asshole, merely because you're human.

When I first went back to college, I took a philosophy class which discussed absolutism and relativism in social scenarios, as well as from an aesthetic perspective.  I was about ten years older than everyone else in this introductory level class, and I swore, then and there, that I would never take another philosophy class.  No one listened.  All of these eighteen year old kids spoke with this level of conviction about what the knew was true, and I couldn't imagine how they knew any of it.  In this fairly large class, almost every single student was a self-proclaimed relativist, and I realized that it was probably in large part because they were kids in the early 2000s, in the aftermath of the PC movement, where we were all taught by the restriction of language that it was completely unacceptable to say anydamnedthing for fear of impinging on someone else's point of view.   

Oh, for fuck's sake, really?  

I wrote a piece in that class called "Absolute Relativism", which I started out with a quote from Men in Black: 

Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

My paper was about how relativists are absolutists in disguise, and hypocrites to boot. The basic premise of relativism is that all manner of knowledge and morality are relative to culture, society, and historical context.  Of course, the assumption that there are, under no circumstances, absolute truths is...you know.  An absolute truth. 

My professor didn't like it so much.

No matter how much you say you don't impose your beliefs on others, I promise: you do.  

I've been stuck for years because I know that, no matter how strongly I hold a belief, those that oppose me hold their opinions equally as strong.  So what can be done with that?  How can we coexist with other people who are equally validated in beliefs that are completely opposite our own?  

Annoying damned questions and no answers.  

An argument for an intellectual class (pt the first)

This is a piece I've been thinking about for a really, really, really, exceptionally long time, but never actually sit down to write.  Partially, it feels like such an elitist thing to argue for, and I'm so very not comfortable with coming across that way.  So any time I try to write it, I spend a few pages defending my non-elite status, and by that point I'm too damned tired and frustrated to write a coherent piece.

Not that I'm saying this first real attempt will be coherent.  But it's an attempt, at least.

There's also the fact that it's such a complicated topic, it should be (and nearly was already) a chapter in a much, much larger piece that, hopefully, I'll write someday.

So here goes:

The case for an intellectual class is really just a plea to value the members of society who are not specialists--those who can fit into virtually any situation, understand what's going on, what the problems are, and what fixing those problems might take, long and short term.  These folks may have bizarre resumes, reflecting a variety of jobs for which they are entirely overqualified and technically underqualified for.  This variety might make them seem flighty.  They might not have graduated from college, or they might have a crazy assortment of degrees that add up to no clear educational direction.

They are, in short, easily dismissible.

Part of this is because our society has become massively specialized--the only valuable skills are those that are easily qualified.  We teach schoolchildren to take tests, not to think critically. Colleges are in the slow, yet inevitable, process of turning into nothing more than glorified vocational training, while outside of pure academia, more and more students (and workers) are choosing actual vocational schools that promise to teach to a career or specific type of job.  The world has evolved to a point where specific, specialized skills are all that matter: you are an RN, a CNA, an HVACR repair person, an administrator, an MBA, &c, &c, &c....

Now, I'm not going to sit here and try to argue that I don't want they guy who comes to repair the AC in the middle of August to know what he's doing.  Trust.  I do.  Very much.  Want him to know.  But when the majority of people are skilled at one particular thing, and are, perhaps more importantly, trained for the job as it currently exists, something scary and bad happens.  You a) have a job market that is flooded with people who have been completely indoctrinated to look at things in a particular way and b) you lose a vital component of that job market that is able to walk into virtually any situation and create success there.

All of this adds up to a kind of terrifying scenario, where the only education that is valuable is that which is necessary for employment, where all intellectual and academic inquiry is judged only for its marketable traits. Thus begins a cycle: the society reflects these values in its educational system, the employees it chooses to retain, the people it views as unemployable, and in doing so, reinforces the fundamental belief that the only valuable skills are those which fit neatly into a job description.  It's a nice, tight little spiral, and the beauty of it is that once the value of those who can--and will--really think outside of the proverbial box has disappeared, there will be no way out of that particular thought tunnel* for a long, long time.

The intellectual class constantly evaluates, for better or worse.  It is the voice pushing us along, or cautioning us against moving too fast (a topic for another day, don't worry).  It expresses that which it would be easier not to hear, and helps us to sort through the mess that arises when we finally listen.  We need these people.  It's time to dig out the resumes that didn't make any sense, to ask the disgruntled guy in accounting why he's so pissed off all the time, to have a serious conversation with that bitch in purchasing and find out what's got her so frustrated.  I can guarantee, they've been watching, waiting for someone to ask them.

You might be surprised at the answers they have.  You might be blown away by the problems they see.  There is no shame in finding solutions in unexpected places. The shame comes from being too afraid to look.

(Love you, mom.)



*See also: Fleck's denkkollektiv (thought collective); Kuhn's paradigm and paradigm shift; Timothy Leary's reality tunnel, and, of course, Robert Anton Wilson's thought tunnel.  Among others.

This is not what I was going to write today.

My compatriot wrote a lovely piece today that echoed, precisely (and far more eloquently) what my previous post was getting at, so first, a big ol' thank you for that, love.  The picture of the horse made me cry, though.

I called my mom today because she knows about energy medicine, because I realized 'where it hurt'.  (This is a real thing, I swear....the next time you're in a situation and you're angry, frustrated, excited, sad, overjoyed, take a moment, close your eyes, and pay attention to how your body feels.  It knows what the hell's up.  Once you learn to listen to this amazing machine we lug around and bitch about all the damned time, it'll tell you stuff before your brain [who likes to overcomplicate and overanalyze] even knows there's a problem.)  It hurts from my throat to my belly button.  My throat, well, it's obvious...for all I'm not saying, I'm literally swallowing thousands of words a day.  It doesn't feel good. The rest?  Because swallowing all those words robs us of our personhood.  It forces our energy into stagnation, forces us to spend our resources to NOT create.  Forces us to deny who and what we are, to assert that our experience is not real, that our perception is wrong, our feelings, invalid.

Energy spent on the suppression of creativity is not simply wrong; it is a crime against ourselves.

Too many of us are in this position of having to deny our existence to be able to survive.  How beautifully, tragically, paradoxical is that?  In order to ensure that we can meet our most basic needs, we have to ignore the most basic part of our human nature?

So how do we carry on in this situation?  How do we go to a place, every day, that demands or requires our silence, without running the risk of losing the ability to express anything at all?  How do we shut down only temporarily?  Or better, how do we find a way to ensure that we can turn all of those feelings, all of that expression, back on when it's safe?

I'm still working on it, but this whole writing thing is part of it.  (It's no wonder, in a way, why the whole blog thing has taken off, if you consider how many of us are just biting our tongues all day.)  Create a place where it's ok to say the things you're not allowed to say, and say them.  Scream them.  Write them down. Carve them into a tree limb and set the damned thing on fire.  So long as you are creating something.

Remind yourself that you are.

I type "resentment breeds" into Google and it automatically fills in the following options:

resentment breeds contempt
dependency breeds resentment

Contempt, resentment, dependency... and I just follow it all with a sigh.

It's really hard not to get overwhelmed, to get trapped in circular thinking that constantly just brings me back to negativity and anger. 

That is, when I can muster enough energy to be angry.

Sadness can get to anyone - it's not like you're not perfectly normal when this stuff makes you want to give up and sink to the bottom. But there's a difference between accepting what's happening as being something temporary or able to be changed, and accepting that it will never change and it's useless to try anything else.

Be angry when things aren't "right" - whatever that may mean. But don't just be angry. Do something about it.

My problem right now is anger mixed with fear. The anger is the stand up and shout feeling, and the fear sticks out an arm, grabs anger's coattails, and pulls it back down into its chair. 

Because what if someone noticed?
What if someone heard?
What would we do if that little bit we have, that's not even enough to get by on right now, was taken away?

Powerless sucks. It feels like dependency and it breeds resentment. I want to depend on myself to stay alive and make it through another day/week/month/year. But when every small move is dependent on someone else - their whim, their mood, their decision to not mention something to you until the last minute or to hold onto a grudge - it's hard not to want to give up and give in.

Screw that.

Google also said "familiarity breeds resentment"  
.....so I'm going to try something new.

So the entire month of March was, apparently, building up to a complete nervous breakdown.

I started a second job, didn't want to, but not paying my own rent for the fourth month in a row seemed like a bad idea.  It's yet another production job, where I (and pretty much, I alone) make all of the products for a li'l store.  That in itself is fine; I like making delicious goodies.  In my heart, I think that feeding people is one of the best and purest ways to show love.  In my oh-so-few-and-far-between Buddhist-y moments, I think about all the people I made happy with those little goodies, and it's almost worth it.

But most of this work is kind of tedious.  Monotonous.  Dare I say....boring?  Yeah, it's fucking boring.  Sometimes I get to create my own shit, and those days are glorious.  I glide around the kitchen with a dumbass smile on my face, listening to the food talk to me.  And it's great.

But mostly, yeah.  Boring.  And sadly, when I do boring shit, my mind goes a mile a minute.

And then reality sets in, and I think about all those people I made happy, how much money my boss made, and how I still (goddamnit) can't pay the rent and have enough to live on for the rest of the week.  Buddhist-y moment: gone.  Joy taken in making people happy: gone.  Anger at the inpenetrability of the wage system: skyfuckinghigh.

This, of course, is a terrible way to live.  Anger breeds more anger which breeds rage, and when you feel stuck and are raging, the only place to put all of that energy is into yourself.  These are not the kinds of jobs where you have the opportunity to air your grievances to a manager, boss, or HR person, because they'll just go out and find another little pseudo-foodie who they can pay a dollar less than they were paying you to do essentially the same work.  Your successes, (like pulling a thousand pieces out of your ass for a catering they decided to tell you about with less than a day's notice, even though they knew about it for a month), merely enable a cycle of more of the same.  Your failures get stockpiled for future reference.  It's a lose-lose.

I know, I know, this is pretty much the same old story anywhere you go.  I don't know anyone who doesn't hate their job.  Or....you know....jobs.

But I realized that the problem with this system is that all of the exhaustion, all of the rage...it keeps me from the things I'm meant to do.  It keeps all of us.  Too tired to pour our energy into our true passions.  Complacent.

Now, I don't think there's some great conspiracy to keep us all down.  It just kinda works out that way. Unchecked, the 'way things are' have a way of turning into a bigger, uglier version of themselves.  And we--all of us, now--get so caught up in the day to day that we forget to keep track of how the day to day is making tiny little shifts into the fucked up system of tomorrow.

So I'm challenging myself to not lose my shit to the day to day.  I might be exhausted. I might feel completely stuck. My voice, in these dipshit little jobs, might be completely unheard.  And you know, I may not be able to pay the rent.  But that doesn't mean that I'll also succumb to the bullshit.  It doesn't mean that I have to be silent in the rest of my life, and in fact, if I am, it means I've given up.

And that ain't happening.

It's not easy being red

Wrote this over on Facebook, in response to some of the questions I was seeing about why people made their profile pics red and what the point of it all was. Thought it was as good as any a way to kick off my tenure here...

I thought to myself, why not? I'll make my little picture red, and do my little homo-solidarity thing regarding an issue that's important to me, and then on Thursday I'll swap it back over to the amusing cartoon of myself glaring and that will be that.
And then the day progressed, and I saw more and more red as I scrolled along my newsfeed, and I became more and more moved. 
Each time another "so-and-so changed her profile picture" showed up, I found myself getting emotional and near tears.
There's something that is nearly impossible to express in words; something that can only be felt and, unfortunately, seems to be connected closely to having experienced pain at some point. 
When you feel like you are all alone in the world, to see one other person across a crowd who looks like you can be a lifeline. 
When you feel like saying "sure, I know I'm okay, but I really wish I didn't have to fight all the time" and you hear someone else take up the fight for you, even if it's just once, that can feel like a boulder has been moved from off of your shoulders. 
When you have become so used to hearing hate that you tune it out; even if it's just a numb throbbing noise in the background it's still there. 
And to see the people you know, not even the people who you'd necessarily say you "love" but just the ones who make up your world, the ones who have just simply always been there, the ones who are happy to know you, stand up and say "look, I'm going to just put this here. Just to show that I care. That I got your back. That I might not get what it's like to have someone demonize me or wish me dead or treat me as less, but that doesn't matter, because I'm here" - that matters.
Seeing all of this red is amazing.
It isn't lost on me that this is also going on during Passover - when the red mark on a doorway meant that the inhabitants were safe, protected, not to be harmed.
I'm just so grateful. And I wanted to say thanks.

(in)adequate

I've been thinking, since I decided to embark on this little public writing voyage, about why it's so...goddamned...terrifying.  I'm constantly writing in my head, but letting out into the world sends me into a near panic attack.  As if any negative response will leave me crushed beyond recognition or recovery; as if any positive response will be utterly undeserved.  I don't know how or when I acquired this deep-seated fear of putting myself out there, but it's become paralyzing, and it's getting old.

I can remember every single instance where someone told me that I was good enough or smart enough, and I guess over the past few years, I have accepted every single one of those instances as truth, and have set about living up to them.  Or, I suppose, down to them.  

Which is pretty fucking stupid.

I wonder how many of us accept positions that allow us to merely survive.  I wonder what it will take for us to start telling people who insist that we are worth so little to fuck off.  I wonder what would happen if we all, tomorrow, say, or next week, just started saying no.  No, we won't keep silent.  No, we won't keep our passions quiet so as to better serve your dreams.  Nope. Sorry.  Not anymore.

What would that world look like?

I always swore that I'd never be one of the people who started a blog.  Swore. Up, down, and sideways.  I never felt informed enough, intelligent enough, motivated enough, articulate enough.  I felt that it would seem self-important: "Come! Read my opinions! Marvel at my natural depth and profundity!"

And more: how dare I present myself as someone who had the right to comment on...anything, really?  I have no expertise, and I (as will, undoubtedly, be discussed at some point) loathe this growing trend of internet writing that allows anyone to come off as an expert, simply because they had the wherewithall to figure out how to set one of these damned things up.

And even more: most days, I'm so fed up/pissed off/blown away by what's going on that I can't even find the words, let alone a whole bunch of them, that could even begin to comprise something that anyone would actually want to read.

And finally: I know that often, my opinions are unpopular. I've lost friends, lovers; I've pissed off family members, alienated myself at jobs--because of how I see things.  I've learned, through painful experience, to just shut the hell up already.

So it's come to this: wake up, go to work, try to ignore everything, go to job number two, try to ignore everything, come home, and fall asleep to another Chopped rerun so I don't think too much.

But I do think, all the goddamned time, and so when left to a monotonous task for too long without the distractions of teevee or another chat about how the kids next door are doing, I'm writing--composing essays that never find their way to the page, practicing perfect responses to bosses, friends, professors, exes, that will never be given breath. The whole living under a rock thing is not really working.

And then a chance moment poking around online reminded me of the sad fact: that almost everyone I know is in a similar boat--broke, pissed off, frustrated, and about ready to implode.  

So.

Herein will be rants, raves, and outlandish statements that can, at any moment, be revised or retracted. If you feel compelled to comment, if anyone ends up actually reading this, go right ahead.  Disagree, but respectfully, because we've all been there, and that shit ain't going down here.  And who knows.   Maybe we'll come up with some answers, find some expertise, or at the very least, make the drudgery of the work-work-sleep cycle a little more bearable because here, finally, is a place where we can all say the shit we hold back.  Where we can leave our rocks behind and find, if only for a moment, a bit of solidarity.