Hmm.
Sleep and I seem to have a love-hate relationship at the moment.
I'm fascinated and confused by human nature, none moreso than my own (narcissism and all that.)
So.
I get a lot of crap for acting the way I do, especially in recent months. I'd like to think it's mostly light-hearted crap, but crap nonetheless. In my critic's defense, I undoubtedly come off as just the tiniest bit jumpy. A little bit ADD, if you will. In the interests of getting to sleep before 3, I'm going to do my best to forego trying to make this sound witty or erudite.
The truth is, some time ago (months? years?) I started feeling dramatically different. And not like that not-so-fresh, special time of the month feeling either. It's difficult in retrospect to pinpoint any dramatic, made-for-TV moment that defined where I started to shift my paradigm regarding humanity's natural right to coexist and impinge on the rights of others. A sort of social manifest destiny, if you will. All I know is that for the longest time, I'd done my best to be disarmingly amusing and friendly in an effort to win the attention of others. I'd always played the fool, hoping (as so many other socially inept) that I could win friendship and goodwill through the amusement of others. Getting pushed around and made the butt of jokes was at first acceptable and even welcomed, as it meant I had moved up from nobody to lowest on the proverbial pole.
This sort of behavior carried on through most of my youth and even as far as junior high and high school. At some point I fell in with a pretty steady bunch of people, and who and what they were didn't matter so much as the fact that I had more than one or two people I could call friends at a time. I'd like to think I straightened up in terms of just being generally annoying, but I still allowed myself to be pushed around by people who wanted to be higher on the aforementioned social pole in the interests of avoiding conflict. I convinced myself it was okay, that I was bigger than everyone and thus it was best if I was the one to get the occasional slaps and shoves, it being unlikely that anyone could seriously harm me.
At some point I also started to think that if I just showed those around me what I thought it meant to be a good person, turn the other cheek and all that, that at some point they'd notice and start feeling like they could be better too. Sort of like a perverse Golden Rule, you know? I'd give free rides without hassling about gas money, loan out money freely, do my best to be light-hearted in my jests and never antagonize anyone if I could help it. It made me feel pretty good and I figured that if the people around me were happier, then they in turn would be nicer to those around them and in the end it would make a noticeable difference. Occasionally, I think it even worked out like that.
Recently that all changed. It became apparent that most people I knew weren't interested in questions of morality or ethics, that they were typically driven only to keep their head in the proverbial sand, doggedly pursuing whatever most captured their fancy without thinking about the how's and why's that drove them. My fear of just such a similar fate (and whether my own bucolic nature is really just a subtler way of heaping the dirt over mine own eyes) is another page-long rumination in itself; best to stick with what I've got. These observations gradually dawned on me over a period that undoubtedly covered years, and I just grew more and more fed up with the way people around me chose to carry out their existence. Audacious of me, I know.
To be honest, upon fresh recollection the point of renounciation becomes difficult to pinpoint. I think it may have come near the end of my last relationship, but it's hard to be sure. I doubt that was really the way it sounds upon reviewing that sentence; in truth it wasn't a real relationship in any sense of the word, and to imply that it was central to any crisis of faith is probably stretching it. Rather, it seems likely that at some point I looked up only to find that I was a different person altogether from what I expected.
Formatting's a bitch. To return to my original point (I had to scroll up and re-read it to remind myself) I've been acting in ways many people find a little off-putting, and the only explanation I have to give is that this is the person I think I'd like to be, at least for a little while. I feel it's necessary to play the part of instigator, of pusher, of loud-mouth reactionary because no one else seems interested in doing so. I'm terrified to look back at the last few years of my life, years during which most people experience momentous change, and realize that I have difficulty telling those months and years apart for the sheer boredom and apathy they represent. I've accomplished so little, and dreamed of so much, that I can't stand the idea of sitting still and spending even just one more night sitting in front of a damn television screen.
I have a feeling I know what you're thinking; despite my constant protests to the contrary, I do spend an uncomfortable amount of time just passively engaged with television, the internet, and online gaming. I'd be a fool and a liar to say that I didn't occasionally enjoy these activities; it is not my intention to abolish them entirely but rather to take them in moderation, supplanting their place in my life with other activities as needed. So far, it's not working out so well. I don't want to be the same person when I'm sixty that I am now; I don't want to work the same job for thirty-plus years; and I cannot abide the idea that the best stories I'll be able to tell my grandchildren of my foolish adventures when I was their age involves a lit paper napkin and a cracked plastic lighter.
In the end, it all comes down to storytelling. I'm not terribly good at it, but I love it anyway. When I'm old (assuming I make it that far) I want to be the eccentric grandfather, the crackpot uncle. I want to be able to tell fantastic flights of fancy, and know I'm not lying about a damn bit of it. I want to spend a night in jail, fall off someone's roof and crash through a gazebo, and leap a motorcycle through a hoop of flaming death. I know my chances are slim, but screw it. I keep hoping someone else will pick up on my fervor, give in to the sheer wonderful quixotic foolishness of youth and stop acting so despicably mature; instead, it seems all I manage to accomplish is distancing myself even more from those around me. I'm tired of pretending I'm superior to the "unwashed masses", subtly holding my nose up at those around me because I wasn't popular in high school. At some point, all the posturing just becomes too comically bizarre to participate in with a straight face.
In any case, it's five minutes to three and I've long since given up on making any coherent point. If you feel I'm acting too imbecilic, politely fuck off. Puzzled as I am, I've grown comfortable with who I am and who I want to be. Whether I'll edit or delete this tomorrow remains to be seen; embarassing as it is, I can't think of anything better to put in a crap writing practice like this than an ostentatious line-of-consciousness scrawl like this. Quod erat demonstrandum.
If you read this far, I thank and congratulate you.
Now go outside.
OMGWTFBBQ SILLY PICTURE.
Sleep and I seem to have a love-hate relationship at the moment.
I'm fascinated and confused by human nature, none moreso than my own (narcissism and all that.)
So.
I get a lot of crap for acting the way I do, especially in recent months. I'd like to think it's mostly light-hearted crap, but crap nonetheless. In my critic's defense, I undoubtedly come off as just the tiniest bit jumpy. A little bit ADD, if you will. In the interests of getting to sleep before 3, I'm going to do my best to forego trying to make this sound witty or erudite.
The truth is, some time ago (months? years?) I started feeling dramatically different. And not like that not-so-fresh, special time of the month feeling either. It's difficult in retrospect to pinpoint any dramatic, made-for-TV moment that defined where I started to shift my paradigm regarding humanity's natural right to coexist and impinge on the rights of others. A sort of social manifest destiny, if you will. All I know is that for the longest time, I'd done my best to be disarmingly amusing and friendly in an effort to win the attention of others. I'd always played the fool, hoping (as so many other socially inept) that I could win friendship and goodwill through the amusement of others. Getting pushed around and made the butt of jokes was at first acceptable and even welcomed, as it meant I had moved up from nobody to lowest on the proverbial pole.
This sort of behavior carried on through most of my youth and even as far as junior high and high school. At some point I fell in with a pretty steady bunch of people, and who and what they were didn't matter so much as the fact that I had more than one or two people I could call friends at a time. I'd like to think I straightened up in terms of just being generally annoying, but I still allowed myself to be pushed around by people who wanted to be higher on the aforementioned social pole in the interests of avoiding conflict. I convinced myself it was okay, that I was bigger than everyone and thus it was best if I was the one to get the occasional slaps and shoves, it being unlikely that anyone could seriously harm me.
At some point I also started to think that if I just showed those around me what I thought it meant to be a good person, turn the other cheek and all that, that at some point they'd notice and start feeling like they could be better too. Sort of like a perverse Golden Rule, you know? I'd give free rides without hassling about gas money, loan out money freely, do my best to be light-hearted in my jests and never antagonize anyone if I could help it. It made me feel pretty good and I figured that if the people around me were happier, then they in turn would be nicer to those around them and in the end it would make a noticeable difference. Occasionally, I think it even worked out like that.
Recently that all changed. It became apparent that most people I knew weren't interested in questions of morality or ethics, that they were typically driven only to keep their head in the proverbial sand, doggedly pursuing whatever most captured their fancy without thinking about the how's and why's that drove them. My fear of just such a similar fate (and whether my own bucolic nature is really just a subtler way of heaping the dirt over mine own eyes) is another page-long rumination in itself; best to stick with what I've got. These observations gradually dawned on me over a period that undoubtedly covered years, and I just grew more and more fed up with the way people around me chose to carry out their existence. Audacious of me, I know.
To be honest, upon fresh recollection the point of renounciation becomes difficult to pinpoint. I think it may have come near the end of my last relationship, but it's hard to be sure. I doubt that was really the way it sounds upon reviewing that sentence; in truth it wasn't a real relationship in any sense of the word, and to imply that it was central to any crisis of faith is probably stretching it. Rather, it seems likely that at some point I looked up only to find that I was a different person altogether from what I expected.
Formatting's a bitch. To return to my original point (I had to scroll up and re-read it to remind myself) I've been acting in ways many people find a little off-putting, and the only explanation I have to give is that this is the person I think I'd like to be, at least for a little while. I feel it's necessary to play the part of instigator, of pusher, of loud-mouth reactionary because no one else seems interested in doing so. I'm terrified to look back at the last few years of my life, years during which most people experience momentous change, and realize that I have difficulty telling those months and years apart for the sheer boredom and apathy they represent. I've accomplished so little, and dreamed of so much, that I can't stand the idea of sitting still and spending even just one more night sitting in front of a damn television screen.
I have a feeling I know what you're thinking; despite my constant protests to the contrary, I do spend an uncomfortable amount of time just passively engaged with television, the internet, and online gaming. I'd be a fool and a liar to say that I didn't occasionally enjoy these activities; it is not my intention to abolish them entirely but rather to take them in moderation, supplanting their place in my life with other activities as needed. So far, it's not working out so well. I don't want to be the same person when I'm sixty that I am now; I don't want to work the same job for thirty-plus years; and I cannot abide the idea that the best stories I'll be able to tell my grandchildren of my foolish adventures when I was their age involves a lit paper napkin and a cracked plastic lighter.
In the end, it all comes down to storytelling. I'm not terribly good at it, but I love it anyway. When I'm old (assuming I make it that far) I want to be the eccentric grandfather, the crackpot uncle. I want to be able to tell fantastic flights of fancy, and know I'm not lying about a damn bit of it. I want to spend a night in jail, fall off someone's roof and crash through a gazebo, and leap a motorcycle through a hoop of flaming death. I know my chances are slim, but screw it. I keep hoping someone else will pick up on my fervor, give in to the sheer wonderful quixotic foolishness of youth and stop acting so despicably mature; instead, it seems all I manage to accomplish is distancing myself even more from those around me. I'm tired of pretending I'm superior to the "unwashed masses", subtly holding my nose up at those around me because I wasn't popular in high school. At some point, all the posturing just becomes too comically bizarre to participate in with a straight face.
In any case, it's five minutes to three and I've long since given up on making any coherent point. If you feel I'm acting too imbecilic, politely fuck off. Puzzled as I am, I've grown comfortable with who I am and who I want to be. Whether I'll edit or delete this tomorrow remains to be seen; embarassing as it is, I can't think of anything better to put in a crap writing practice like this than an ostentatious line-of-consciousness scrawl like this. Quod erat demonstrandum.
If you read this far, I thank and congratulate you.
Now go outside.
OMGWTFBBQ SILLY PICTURE.
1:27 AM |
Category: |
2
comments
Comments (2)
You made that sound far too overly noble on your part (with the showing others how to be kind bit and all) and still a bit snobbish (especially since most of the group has been coming to same realization hence all the army joining or moving out ect.) at the same time, even if it was fairly true (I do wonder who you were talking about for the proverbial head burying). Yet I do congratulate you on trying to do something (yes join me in trying to get people to be constructive, hell just make that game I keep pushing you guys to do or help out more with AX table planning, it may not be so grand but it is a start, not that I am very constructive and gung ho myself but I am trying.) That and I would rather have you be yourself, then try and be the butt of all the jokes, it makes it feel less like you are trying to deceive us while secretly detesting us and that you are a real friend. I won’t stop laughing at all the past events as they were entertaining, but you don’t have to play dumb to amuse us we know your smart even if we still think you don’t follow common sense very well. On the other hand I still think you view life a little overly critically and negatively, yeah I agree most people seem to lack inspiration or seem to not be accomplishing much, but I am sure if you look back and think about things they have done it was not a complete waste. I mean consider this most of us may be slacking off but we are still slowly making it towards are goals (artist, 2 teachers, movie director, inventor, vet, or even restaurant owner) even if they are not so wild or lofty as your own, they are what makes us happy. The quality of life is a lot about perception, yeah things may look bad or pointless sometimes but you are still there you can change them, good things still happen you can enjoy them, and good follows those who try and make it. Yeah my grammar sucks and I lack your flair at writing but I am sure you get the message.
I would argue that change for change sake is just as illogical as stagnation for stagnations sake. As a group we are changing and as individuals, none of us are the same people we were in high school. And further more, I will not be the same person I am when I am finally old and grey, whenever that time may come. But to worry that when I am old and grey I will look back on my life and my pubescent joys and worries as stupid and listless or that I didn’t spend enough time our jumping from roof’s and leaping though fire is to worry about that which may well never happen. And to worry about that which may not come is to live a life worrying. I agree that you are changing and that to try to lead by action works on occasion. But it only truly works when someone wants to change. If not that there is no motivation even if there is a model. And no offense but you make a very cynical and hard model. But as has been said many times, we all will grow and change, even if we don’t want to. And even in the face we show the world is that of clown, the heart beneath may be that of a warrior of life.