old 1
Culled from the bones of an old place, c. 7/17/02
So, in my bid to actively rid myself of…wait, that’s a shitty way to start.
Again: I came up here to write some stuff, whatever it was that needed out, so I could function today. What I’ve done is
- try to tweak my computer “quickly”, a proposition that never works out
- obsess about not having headphones (privacy in a family of six becomes more important)
- tweak the simplistic design of my site
- begin this weak installment in the chronicling of my self-diagnosed neuroses.
What I do is manage everyone else’s expectations of me. Right now, I’m wondering how to contain this particular output for you, whoever it is that’s reading this, so that it’ll be satisfactory in some nebulous way. This particular compulsion is cyclic, recursive, and, actually, boring.
…and driving me insane.
Consider being an apologist for every facet of your personality, submitting yourself for approval to every person you associate with. It’s not so bad until you realize the diversity of personalities you’re bound to run into every day, and consider the effort it takes to be the right person to all of them. And, to provide a symptom of this sickness, it’s got to be annoying to them, too.
My natural inclination is to be nobody. Some call it being “low-key,” or “laid back,” but, really, it’s just that I don’t have the energy to keep up, so I shut down. I’ve always been struck by just how much I don’t impress upon people, because there’s always a bunch of shit going on in my head at any given time.
Maybe, at this point, you’re ready to tell me to shut up and stop whining. Great, I welcome the note. I know everyone’s got their own tumult, their own internal storms, but for my purposes here, I can’t really give a damn about them.
By now, I’ve taken up plenty of time attempting to be the somebody I want to be. Now, it’s back to life, to apply some of this energy to the people I love, with whom I’m building lives in a world predicated on death. It sounds gratuitously metaphysical, but there is no life without death. It’s all about conservation, though whichever quantities you’re concerned with conserving is up to you. They’re all just rehashed versions of the other ones, so, as with life and shoes, it’s a matter of preference.
The moral of this episode: I don’t apologize to you, my family, or myself, for being consumed with myself, for being condescending, for whatever you think of my writing, or for being boring. I’m not any of those things, and if I am, cheers to me.
No Comments Yet