Thursday, May 22, 2008
Bleh...
Everyone has at least one part of their personality they wish could be turned off. I can point to two components on my cognitive self explicitly: my compulsive cataloging of other humans' behavior and the primitive drive toward companionship that makes the first such a massive liability. These two things combine to form something of an intellectual prison. Nothing I have tried, from mediation to social isolation has been able to stop my almost obsessive observance of, and absorption within, human behavior. My brain seems hard-wired to record, catalog, and contemplate the actions of myself and my fellow humans, particularly those of a negative or destructive nature. This is the pessimism the SIL referred to in previous comments, but there is something more than simple pessimism at work. This obsessive behavior is partly inate, in that I absorb and contemplate nearly everything I come into contact with, but it is also a part of how I have learned by watching, rather than by doing. Some lessons are better learned, and taught, by others.
It is said that a wise man learns from the mistakes of others and I tried to embrace that.
But where the train derails and I get it wrong is in letting the actions of others have a powerful effect on my perceptions of reality. I've written about it before and will probably write about it again, because the hopelessness of the situation vexes me to no end. The idea that, to be content in life, one must disassociate to the point of not caring what other people do with their lives, is an incredibly difficult thing for me to do. Why do I care? I don't know and I want to stop.
I suppose some of it comes down to a belief that utopia is impossible only because people lack the strength and will to make it reality. The only thing stopping us is us and therein lies the problem. There is no utopia coming, because people won't allow it to happen, but utopia could happen, if only people would let it. How are you supposed to find contentment with that sort of paradoxical nonsense constantly swirling around your mind?
The real question for me is, why aren't more people frustrated by this fact? Why isn't everyone pissed off that the only reason they are not living in paradise is the willful denial of paradise by their fellow humans? As far as I know, I harm no one, I take advantage of, manipulate, and undermine no one. My perception is that my life has had a nearly zero negative footprint on anyone's life. In my mind, something so simple as minimal negative impact has a major positive effect. What if everyone could say that? What if we all interacted on a benign level, at worst? I try to have a positive effect on the people I care about, but I actively try to have little or no effect on those I do not care about.
I am not an angel, but I wish I were. In that light, I approach existence. I am not claiming to have the answer to the world's problems, but I do believe there is great value in the idea of common decency. The idea that I do not have to like, enjoy, or even respect someone to exhibit common decency. Fact is, in my experience, common decency is not so common. But I'm rambling and I'm tired and I'm buzzed off of a couple drinks, so odds are that little or nothing I might type will make any coherent sense, but then very little seems to make sense these days, so perhaps I am making perfect sense after all. Who's to say?
I included the lyrics to a song by Atmosphere below. This particular song is off their new album, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold. This track has struck me as being particularly poignant in my own life of late. I want things to make sense. I want to accept people for what they are and be OK with that. I want to lower my expectations to the point that I am content with expecting nothing from others. To date, in all of these endeavors, I have failed.
Atmosphere - Like the Rest of Us
See I've been here for thirty-some years
Lookin' at myself in the same dirty mirror
So it ain't like I don't comprehend
Open that bottle, swallow that friend
No crime to take a little too much
Got time to drink away a few months
Got a little cocaine habit
But he says he only does it if somebody else has it
Go do that shit, do that shit, lady
She went vegetarian for the baby
Third trimester, I see the kid kick
She showed me outside when she gave me a cigarette
Shit, there's no way to measure it
Not every pony grows up to be a Pegasus
Ya gotta let people be hypocrites
Count your blessin's and mind yo business
[Chorus: x2]
Stuck with yourself like the rest of us
Dirt gets done and then we back to dust
Runnin' in place
Sun in my face
Let me fly 'way
Heaven won't wait
Heaven won't wait
Let me fly 'way
Get in my way
Everyday
Heaven won't wait
Let me fly 'way
Get in my way
Everyday
Just tryin ta keep my mind on work
It's like that's the only way to love this life on Earth
It's like everyone takes number one in the race
'Cause we all keep runnin' in place
Here kitty kitty, can't train that fox
Must be drinkin' that name brand scotch
All of us cut from the same damn cloth
Some of us never cut the price tags off
She ended up on the pole
With her heels pointin' at her Jesus she used to know
Stripped her down to her naked body
We made her drown in a lake full of patriarchy
In between the pride and the misery
With the infinite supply of sympathy
Are these invisible walls that hold me
Like this goldfish bowl is the whole sea
[Chorus: x2]
Stuck with yourself like the rest of us
Dirt gets done and then we back to dust
Runnin' in place
Sun in my face
Let me fly 'way
Heaven won't wait
Heaven won't wait
Let me fly 'way
Get in my way
Everyday
Heaven won't wait
Let me fly 'way
Get in my way
Everyday
Labels: life or the lack thereof
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I think about that stuff constantly as well. You're not alone.
I keep hoping "they" would hurry up and finishing hitting bottom, so that we could get busy rebuilding things. We are part of a generation that is almost certainly going to leave their offspring a world worse than the one we were born into. I know it is stupid to care about such things, and it is torture to not be able to put it away. I can hear Kurt Cobain singing Dumb and feel just as connected now as I did then...
Dumb - Nirvana
I'm not like them
But I can pretend
The sun is gone
But I have a light
The day is done
But I'm having fun
I think I'm dumb
or maybe just happy
Think I'm just happy
my heart is broke
But I have some glue
help me inhale
And mend it with you
We'll float around
And hang out on clouds
Then we'll come down
And I have a hangover...Have a hangover
Skin the sun
Fall asleep
Wish away
The soul is cheap
Lesson learned
Wish me luck
Soothe the burn
Wake me up
I'm not like them
But I can pretend
The sun is gone
But I have a light
The day is done
But I'm having fun