I was doing some paper & pen journaling and, as basically always, trying to figure out a direction for my life. Because most people at least have some kind of answer when asked what they want and I really don’t. So to try and deduce it I asked myself what do I fantasize about?
And again somewhat spookily and annoyingly the answer basically nothing. But it did generate a memory – There was a time when I was writing scripts and screenplays and thinking that’s what I want to do with my life, I got to ask a question of a writer who had their book turned into a movie and their A1 piece of advice was move to LA. Everything else, everything about writing, was preparation for doing that. And I knew instantly that I wasn’t going to do that; I liked fantasizing about being a writer for movies and television but the reality between here and there was too scary and I’d never do it.
So, in the present again, I asked myself why did I used to fantasize about that, and what else did I use to want to be? Musician, writer, actor. They’re all things that I can’t imagine being now but I can remember wanting to be them and I can still imagine some alternate universe version of myself being successful at them.
What I think they all have in common is they rely on mining your inner self to get something of value for the world at large. There becomes something objectively important about one’s inner life, it becomes a feature not a bug, rather than something best done away with.
In layman’s terms – you get to express yourself. And I asked myself what other ways I might get that same special something in my current, mundane life. Partly, yeah you’re reading it right now. Someone asked me a long time ago why I blog and I figured out that writing something that could be read feels purposeful meanwhile writing something intended to never be read feels defeating. If I write something meaningful with paper and pen I instantly start thinking about how I want to discuss it with someone.
Something I see in people who don’t have expressive outlets is they repeat themselves a lot and steer conversations onto their pet topics. There’s something opportunistic and gross about using people as audience under the guise of discussing something.
There are people in my life where I feel like I’m talking up hill. Everything I say seems, not even bounce off of them but to roll back at me totally impotently and I’m left with the feeling of why do I bother?
As an easy example I’ve mentioned before – my coworker complains so vehemently about such tiny shit that it not only wrecks my day it wrecks Liv’s day when she asks how was my day. He will just offload any and every sad or angry thought onto me like I’m his biographer. And I’ve lost the interest to engage with any hope. Instead I check the time.
What super worries me is that I might be that to other people, particularly my female friends. There’s a cultural problem that we think of women as sympathetic and understanding so it’s okay to just say I’m upset when talking to a female friend; when initiating a conversation. You can explicitly make the conversation about emotions and particularly negative emotions whereas guy to guy there has to be some disguise, some purpose and some booze, before you’re allowed get there.
I think there’s a fear of seeming needy when talking to a male friends whereas there’s something presumed safe when talking to a woman, because there’s an assumed norm in women meeting men’s needs.
And yeah while typing that I thought of counter examples and how it’s too broad of a generalization and gender is ultimately a myth anyway. yada yada. I know men who are tremendous listeners and women who are emotional vampires, obviously.
We all talk to the people who will listen and it’s often just recapping things we wish we said to the people who won’t. We’re saving up things to say until there’s no risk to saying them.
There’s a stage of alcoholism where motherfuckers just need their phone taken away. They’re aware they’re out of control so to preempt embarrassment they drink – not merely home alone but truly – in isolation. Yet the need still kicks in and they start going through their phone for people to call. They need confirmation they exist even while existence is what they’re running from. And if you’ve known drunks like that you know they always end up saying I’m okay, right? Surely I’m not hated, at least not as much as I hate myself? And we all end up not taking their calls. Because we don’t want to endlessly serve that purpose to someone offering nothing; someone just taking; someone just using us so they can feel heard.
I wish everyone could feel heard. I wish there weren’t a supply-and-demand problem with hearers and those-who-wish-to-be-heard. But I guess at that point I’m talking about psychiatrists and cam-girls. What I really wish is that I could be an expressive speaker with everyone and never be less than a perfect listener.
Even at the store I desire to be a perfect listener, to give everyone through the door a flawless version of myself because there’s no reason they don’t deserve that. Yet I feel sucked dry before the first customer comes in by their endless, anonymous, neediness. And maybe that capitalist dry-sucking has left me deaf to the needs of my friends and my friends deaf to the needs of me.
It’s said that the sign of a good parent is if the child has no desire to be famous – and I think that’s true of a mutually fulfilling friendship too. Especially since we all refer to our friend-groups as family anyway.
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