Call Me a Hole

Grow Up

Notes III

In adherence to the internal logic governing such experiences

And I’m like, “rude girl why you so babies”

Well served by

Artfully enunciate the particulars of my embarrassment

Linked // wooden platform

            Sat at the edge, feet dangling beneath unseen knees

            Clenching to describe progress/kicking

Coiled tin viper

What would be required to arrest this state?

A constant broadcast signal

Reliable

Relatable

Communicatable

A tread inconstant

The Attribute!

Imagined ß---à Real

            A firm rooting in the real

            Less interesting? More productive? More stable?

            How does this relate to empathy if imagination is required for empathy?

If you love something, hurt it

If it leaves it wasn’t meant to be

If it stays, hurt it some more

Liquid in cups cracked vessels betraying their amputure rising like glass stalks in clusters in groves of wet luminescence around us

these are people

Perfection is attainable

Sorrow is beautiful

I wanna be Valjean but I’m still Javert

Post and lintel with a wide load, built to bear

Built to care, built to stare

I lost control of half my face

That was the half that was least appreciative

They ran a train on your self-esteem

Prepare to repel boarders

Set pikes to repel charge

Pulchritude, swerve

Mammon, blowing horns at Jericho

Touched his face compulsively like he was hiding behind a branch; affixed cheek to palm by twine or circumstance

Problems

Lists

I make lists. Compulsively. Part of my relationship with writing is the desire to preserve information. Looking back I see no throughline because I forget. I forget things that shouldn't be forgotten.

And so I write things down before they're gone. Albums to buy, movies to watch, groceries. Phrases. Behavioral protocols. Workout plans. Gift ideas. Symbols. Quotations. I even keep lists of things I want to spend time thinking about later. Really process and possess. Here are some of those things:

• Social Deviance - flaunting of norms is the staple of the ego complex
• Heteroglossia - the coexistance of multiple narrative voices decentralizing authority
• Homophily - tendency to associate with those who are similar and reinforce preexisting beliefs
• Rehearsal - relationship between psychopathy and rehearsal
• Hegelian Cycle - thesis, antithesis, synthesis
• Foxes vs. Hedgehogs - I have no idea what this was about
• Neil deGrasse Tyson - "History is replete with people attempting to layer their own philosophical elegance onto the Universe."
• Galvanism - ancient theory about the possible electrical basis of nerve impulses
• Stendhal Syndrome - psychosomatic illness resulting from exposure to art or beauty
• Gödel's incompleteness theorems - any system that does not contradict itself is inherently incomplete. There is no complete model

Humility

Recently I've been experiencing what could be described as a crisis of doubt. I was listening to Duncan Trussell, and was reminded of some things long forgotten. I was less calcified once. 

My position on religion, on faith generally, is well-codified by now. I have the talking points down. It is a solid platform. There are footnotes and addenda. It is perfectly defensible. Is it true? Well, that’s something else altogether.

It’s no secret that I’m angry. Beneath the cake-up make-up I’m seething from the moment God is mentioned. I go to church on Christmas because it means so much to Mom, but I spend the whole time vacillating between boredom, smugness, and disgust. I sneak glances at one of my exes as she chats with parishioners and shushes her kids. I think about how she’s holding up rather well, all things considered. I wonder if her perversions have abated or evolved. I try to text discreetly.

I otherwise avoid the matter entirely. But when that hate flares it’s ugly. I know it. I’m not proud. You may well have seen me three or four drinks in and nipping at my own lips spitting bitter shit. Religion is the bastion of the stupid, the base, the fat and bleating boors. A cudgel used to disfigure children and spread horror. The root of wars and the death of thought and the great barrier to social advancement. Throw them to the lions. It’s that real rage that only comes from disappointment. Losing Jesus was like finding out about Santa Claus and the wound bleeds still. Even when dormant it’s a sign of tectonic activity.

In calmer moments this is presented as a matter of humility – that religion in any sense is an unimaginable act of arrogance. That any human could dare claim to know the secrets of the Universe, we who know so little and the little we know so hard won. It is an act of childish fancy that deserves no more than a pat on the head.

Even more troubling than arrogance is the ingratitude. That a person could consider the vast panoply of splendors that is experience in all its forms, that he or she could take in all the colors and all the words and all the dawns and all the gasps of new life and acts of sacrifice and songs of devotion and the array of quanta and the waltzing of the cosmos and conclude:

"This is not enough. I need something more."

It’s quite an argument. But there is something to be said for scientific humility, as well. There are two types of scientists, those who labor in the trenches and those who dig them. The men and women who conduct the daily business of experiment and inquiry need not worry overly much about upsetting the apple cart. They conduct themselves within a framework that has been provided for them by their forebears. Sound familiar? Certainly they may question this or that, and may publish some very serious paper about some very serious matter and so eke out some further thrust of territory and enlarge the field.

But what of those who redefine fields entirely? The paradigm breakers who are willing to face ridicule to pursue a seemingly mad venture? Often they fail. Usually. But those who succeed are renowned as great, and does not that greatness require faith? It's imaginative work. It's construction. It's fantasy. And when that separation from the flock is met with rebuke what else but faith can sustain that fantasy?  

Is the absence of faith a weakness or a strength? 

Retrospect

Another one in the can, and so the time is ripe to assess what's come before. As if I need an excuse.

I can't leave well enough alone, and so we close out 2012 with an old-fashioned bridge burning. I'm a giant asshole for trying to preserve a friendship with someone I cared so much about. Fuck me, right?

Actually...yeah.

It was a false premise. Truth is I'm still in love with my ex-girlfriend. I thought I could be Joe Cool about the whole situation but that was clearly not the case. Ten minutes in and I'm nauseous. So I push "the talk." What did I want to talk about? Who the hell knows. I thought we could salvage something but it wasn't friendship. It was the same process of defibrillation we've used the last few times things slid into cardiac arrest. "Oh, you're not feeling it? CLEAR!"

A little nostalgia and a lot of vodka. Do not recommend.

So here we are, and there's decent odds that we'll never speak again. It's really a shame. Before I got pulled out by the pity undertow I was sincerely interested in transitioning into friends. I really cared about her - more than anyone I've been with for years. You shouldn't throw something like that away just because the romance failed. And let's face it, it failed long before the move. Neither of us was really satisfied and there was no indication that that would change. But despite whatever intentions I began with I wasn't ready. I should have waited.

The moral of this story is that being an adult means controlling your goddamn feelings. Being sensitive is not a license to roll around on the floor like a child. Man up.

Looking forward, there is much to do. The solution is not to find someone who can provide whatever resource it is that I lack, but rather to learn how to generate that resource on my own. Be the type of person who you would respect.

The self-loathing that characterizes so many of my poor behavioral choices, from social hesitance to excess drinking, is rooted in a lack of self-respect. The thing I'm afraid to say is that part of fixating on a particular girl is the belief that I can't do better. It's fear-based, and like all fear-based thinking it is as flawed as it is reactionary. I don't believe that I'm worthy of someone like Katie. And you know what? I'm not. It's time to stop lashing out at others and feeling sorry for myself. Don't like your life? Change it.

And so we move into Phase Three. From the initial tragedy of KotB we dropped weight and rewired a bit. It's now time to do the finishing work needed to realize my potential. Time is running out.

Considering migrating this blog to Tumblr.

Practice

I decided at the Christmas party.

I'd been considering it for a while. Today I knew. I took the couch and you sat on the floor in front me, leaning against my leg, and I couldn't speak. I wasn't ready. But I will be.

I will build a man who is good enough to be with you. I will build a man who deserves you. There is much to do. The rest of this doesn't matter. The rest of this is just practice.

Bits

I’m tired of doing bits.

It’s a comedy term that functions by extending a premise; interjecting quippy shit and constant veering away from seriousness or gravity. In this way, sincere communication is sidestepped and your trembling core made inaccessible. We’re protected. We’re validated as intellectually dexterous. We’re safely apart.

I’ve been listening to podcasts like all the time for a while now. It’s not just entertainment. Recently, I have come to realize that this is a form of self-medication. I am attempting to fill a nutritional need through desperate means. Stop what you’re doing and spend some time with the following examples. I present for your consideration:

WTF, Episode 300

You Made It Weird, Episode 84

These are good examples, but by no means the best examples. I have not stacked the deck. Do you have conversations like this? I do not have conversations like this. I used to try and we would really start to get somewhere and then someone would say, “Hey, The Simpsons are coming on” and I would be like, “what the fuck is wrong with you guys?”  

Don’t say it’s because I’m alone. Don’t reduce it that way. It’s not about that; this is a chronic, systemic issue and has been for years and years. Being in a relationship solves nothing in and of itself. Yes, I’m really late to the party on that one. It is the most potentially damaging example – we don’t reach out because there is no guarantee that someone will reach back.   

But when something happens in your life you want to tell someone. Maybe your mom. Your best friend. There are specific people you need to share crucial information with and without that “epilogue” the experience itself seems somehow unreal. You need to complete the circuit. I can’t seem to tell enough people anymore to make anything real. 

Sometimes I fear that the tires are coming off.

The real issue here is not with the group but with the individual. I realize this. Not everyone feels this same compulsion or maybe just not to this degree. It has to be fairly wide, though, right? At least wider? There are things you aren’t talking about. There are things you are not talking about enough. Don’t tell me you’re fine with it. No one can be fine with it. There is something more and you know that instinctively. Maybe your needs are being met but I’m skeptical.

I’m just yelling out the window.

When Someone Great Is Gone

Attack on Memory

Secret

"Tell me a secret."

"I can't think of a good one."

"So tell me one that isn't good."

"I've been having a hard time writing poetry recently."

"Why? Because you're happy?"

"Yeah."

Irrational Freight

First picked you up outside Lexington I don’t know it was like two a.m.

We talked for a while through the passenger window.

Later I was telling you about my family you nodded along with the music.

We were making real progress as the sky got born.

That’s when I realized that I had forgotten to unlock the door.

I was alone in the car and had been.

So much time wasted.

The Extreme Claim

“But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark – that sort of make everything else seem – unimportant.”

- Tennessee Williams


He never would have accepted that. It is precisely the sort of statement that enraged him. It privileges the physical. It supports a worldview in which the primitive is not only tolerated but venerated. It defends those choices made of desire and which too often came down against him.

I see it differently. I have learned humility in the face of such compulsion; have seen the insignificance of plan and protocol and protestation. Ethics wilt and reason falters when presented with the grand, biological imperative.

He is gone and gone. Robert Pirsig, when writing about his own former self, used the third person. He spoke of a ghost, named Phaedrus, with whom he was once acquainted. It seems appropriate in that the gulf is adequately wide to consider these separate persons but disturbingly melodramatic. It’s reminiscent of the Extreme Claim.

The Extreme Claim, a tool of metaphysics, states that we have no reason, or no special reason, to care more about our future selves than any other numerically distinct self; that the currently cognizant ‘You’ has no connection to potential, future ‘Yous’ aside from occupying the same space. There is no logically defensible reason to exhibit greater concern for those separate entities than for the billions of other separate entities.

A similar argument could be made concerning ancestral selves; that the many identities you have held in the past have no true connection to your current identity; that the developmental thread that seems to link these selves is convenient construction. There is no schema of identity capable of encompassing all these divergent personalities, experiences, and behaviors.

I was a very different person once, sure. Or persons, I suppose. There’s shame, regret, sorrow, and bitterness. What there is also is a strange sort of pride felt for the mad intensity of those periods. Though I am pleased with the direction things have gone, and would choose this self over other, prior selves, I want very much to be perceived by means of that impossible schema. It is for this reason that I feel the need to reveal portions of my past. I want to receive credit based on my current value and also my previous values. That isn’t how it works, though. You just end up being a guy who can’t let go.

Part of me yearns for the vitality and certainty of those prodigal years, especially the boy who would have spit on Stella. He would only have seen the weakness. He would only have thought of himself. Representative of feminine scorn and abasement, brain between her legs and legs about the Cretan bull.

I see it differently.

All Around Me

Records

Do you remember this? It was very near the end.

It's funny the things we choose to remember. I wonder where you are sometimes. I wonder what you've become. Base or chaste. Married or marred. Suffering or insufferable. It's a piece of history I've long since tucked into a basket and sent downriver.

There are days, though, when things are especially quiet and the rain falls. On those days I want to lie in bed and listen to records. Stare at the ceiling and move only to relieve the tensions of the body. It's not for everyone. A private moment of thoughtful counsel requiring little dialogue and no explanation.

I know that you would want that, too.

Supportive

The core issue is about data processing.

I am, as I have said, very good at identifying social patterns. Using observation and mimicry for so many years has allowed me to develop a fairly sophisticated type of cataloguing. I can predict probable outcomes based on these observed trends. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this aside from the fact that it is, I believe, unusually cognitive. It would rightly be considered a coping strategy. When there are deviations from these patterns I notice immediately.

The issue arises when it’s time to actually analyze those deviations. I’m terrible at it. I’ll know that there's something happening, something potentially important, but determining what that is exactly is mostly guesswork. This is where a lack of instinct becomes crippling. Sometimes it’s a pretty simple puzzle to solve. At other times I will proceed on a completely incorrect assumption and find myself wildly far afield before I realize my error. There has been a lot of damage done from such mistakes.

I have no idea how one becomes better at such things. The options seem to be either:

A. improve
B. react less

By reacting less I mean disconnecting my behavior from the behavior of those around me; internalizing the motives of speech and action to a high degree. This has proven to be successful but only in those situations where I am not particularly invested in outcomes. We’ll call this the “I don’t give a shit” approach. When you really don’t give a shit there’s no need to calibrate based on feedback – you do or say whatever you choose to do or say and call it a day.

Clearly, this is less useful when you are invested. Pretending not to give a shit offers all the downsides of not caring and none of the advantages. It’s also an awful, disingenuous way to treat someone you care about. We’ll throw that one on the woodpile.

In the interest of possible improvement, I spend time studying those who handle this process well. Of particular value are those who, like me, take the long division approach of watching and calculating but somehow achieve better results. The friend I’m thinking of specifically seems to follow my format but does so with more accuracy. At some point in the processing stage she is able to take the same information I’ve gathered and know better what that information indicates. I don’t know how. I’ve asked her and she doesn’t seem to know how, either. She suggested that I am over thinking things. That’s definitely true, but not tremendously helpful. Watching her to see how she behaves in such situations brings us back to the beginning so no solution there.

In the short term maybe the best practice is to trust such people. I’m hesitant to do that. It’s not a matter of pride so much as it seems to be a weakness; a dependency of the sort that is so deeply unattractive. Sounds like a pretty weak objection. Perhaps trust really is the operative term here. She’s good at such things, I am not, and so when in such matters we disagree I should consider her position quite seriously. There’s something else in there, what’s it called? Oh, yes, being supportive.

Kendrick

You need to get with this shit.

Burial + Four Tet - Nova

Civilization

Feel this. Bathe in this.