there's nothing worse than feeling so painfully inspired and having so many great ideas and not being able to do anything with them because of your goddamned psychosis which prevents you from being able to do anything.

Matt was talking to my mom last night. She asked him why he didn't have a girlfriend/why he wasn't interested in finding anyone at the moment. He told her because he hadn't met anyone he felt compatible with--or anyone willing to put up with his "attitude" and that, right now, he just wants to focus on himself--learn some things, about himself and the world, and become more secure in his ever-changing identity. I feel the same way. I miss being in a relationship--and not just in a relationship--I miss the person I was in a relationship with...a lot, but I don't think I was ready for a relationship when I got involved. I still have some self-discovery to knock out--an identity to form and artistic/selfish pursuits to get out of the way before I think I can devote my time to someone else, which is why I think this last relationship didn't work out. I mean: truly, when you get down to it. I couldn't find a way to balance so many exclusive paths and make them meet: my twenty-something social life, my private life of self-reflection and self-expression, my work-life (which is probably the messiest of all these right now because I have no idea what I'm fucking doing or what I want to do) and my life as a romantic companion to someone else. I think if I'd been more secure in who I am and where I'm headed and at a point where I was finally ready to "settle down," I could have been better for Kristen. But I still have some growing up to do--some things I'd like to accomplish before I can fully appreciate (and fairly appreciate) someone else.

The thing that bums me out about Kristen is that I've never felt more compatible with anyone. Ever. She's the first girl I've dated who, after being with her for a significant amount of time, I didn't start to feel like I was sacrificing my identity to please her. I felt like I could truly be myself around her. There was never that moment where I was like: "What the fuck am I doing? This is killing my creativity. I can't even think straight because I'm constantly arguing with this person. I don't even know what I believe anymore." Kristen never made me feel like I was being monitored that way. I never felt scrutinized. There were things she was concerned about and i often had to defend my beliefs around her and explain or discuss certain topics but I never felt...challenged like I did with other girls. And I don't mean to say: she wasn't smart--that I didn't feel "challenged" mentally. Kristen's probably the smartest girl I've ever dated. What I mean is that I felt like she was more accepting than the others. There were things she didn't accept. But she accepted the important things. And that's what matters. She really listened when I tried to express myself to her or explain how I felt about something. She didn't try to make me feel stupid to make herself feel better. Partly, I think, because she is just naturally such a sweet and genuinely understanding person. It sucks that that's such a rare quality. But it is. And I felt, at the time, so fortunate to have found someone like that. I was starting to doubt, if I haven't always doubted, that there were people like that. And it also helped that I found her breathtakingly attractive. I always told her that she was out of my league. The first night we met, in fact, I texted Benedict and told him the same. So, it always puzzled me that she'd want anything to do with me in the first place--or that she decided to stick around as long as she did.

I don't know what I'm getting at, except that I still miss her and I almost regret getting involved in the first place because...it's like, I was fated to fuck things up. I wasn't in a position yet, personally, where I had any business starting something with someone. And I knew that at the time, but I thought I could handle it. I was still/am still trying to figure myself out and figure out the world and how I figure into all of that. But I thought: because I'd reflected so much after my last relationship and decided for myself what sort of things I wanted to avoid in the next one and what sort of things I'd try to do differently, that I was ready. Of course: I could write books and books (anyone could) about hypothetical things to strive towards in relationships, but unless you feel a connection with that person, those theories get thrown out. And I felt that connection with Kristen. Profoundly. Realizing that we already had a workable foundation (the previously mentioned connection), I thought I could utilize some of my theories and personal philosophies regarding relationships, chief of which, was to maintain my own identity in the face of any potential scrutiny and to also, on my end, not scrutinize the other person or judge them unfairly--to be more accepting, because I knew there were some things I didn't like about people--certain qualities I absolutely could not stand about others--but then I started talking to a co-worker of mine who had a very zen attitude towards humanity--like: a very "everyone's beautiful in their own beautiful way, man" sort of attitude--and I really liked that, so I thought: yeah, I should try that. I made a lot of friends by doing this: trying to understand who they are and where they're coming from and accepting that vs. dismissing anyone who didn't fit neatly into my own personal filtering process; people I never would have talked to or cared to talk to in a million years because they listened to icp or smoked weed and did predictably pothead things (these are specific examples) and it was great--like discovering a world I was too cynical to appreciate before.

.....

I'll continue this later. Maybe not. I don't know.

I hate it when I come up with a good idea and then I find out that someone else came up with that same good idea ten-fifteen years ago and their name is Marylin Manson.

This actually happens way more than it should.

i don't like goatees and i don't understand why anyone thinks they're cool.

they're like little furry barricades around the lips so they don't have to tell women: "don't fuck me."

Merrily Courting Controversy in the Age of One-Night Blunders

As you might have noticed, I’ve been listening to a lot of Public Radio recently. Not because I think it’s cool or because I think listening to Public Radio makes me smarter or enriches my perspective. I listen to NPR because I can’t afford Basic television or Internet. And Public Radio is free—it’s pretty much my only source for knowing what’s going on in the world.

There are two shows on NPR offering a “black perspective” on current events. I’m sure white people (like myself) are allowed to listen to these programs—but the aim of these shows seems to be to represent the “black voice” because it’s so vastly underrepresented in the media. I don’t know.

I’m not a racist. I totally get that black people are criminally misrepresented, if they’re represented at all, in American media. But anytime I encounter a show or some form of content where race is the basis for that show or content, my mind immediately jumps to: Well, what if there was a white show for white people offering a “white perspective” on current events? And I mean explicitly “For White People.” Because: let’s face it, every current events or news program—nay, the majority of content in general--is made by white people--maybe not for white people—but white people generally make up the majority of the audience. But what if a show used the same exclusionary angle as these other shows: “for one race, by one race”?

Like: I get that black people need a voice—not just one voice but more black voices in the media and on television and in general. But why does that, specifically, always have to be the main issue? Why can’t we just green-light more “black” shows—that is: intellectual content produced by or starring black people, based on its own merits and not because we feel compelled to throw the black community a bone and say: “Oh, here you go. Here’s a show. Now you have a voice. So you can’t complain about that anymore.”

I don’t know. Maybe that’s naïve. I’m trying to not be offensive. I like these “black” shows, but I was listening to one today and the host was asking specifically “black questions”. He even called them that: “black questions”. He had a panel on composed of one black guy and two white (or I guess it was possible they could have been other nationalities) people. They were doing a year-end recap sort of thing and the subject of Obama came up. The host was like: “Well, I hate to ask the black guy the black question but….” Like he had to not only frame it in those terms but he was required to ask “the black question” in the first place.

Do we have to talk about race when we talk about our black President? Does it always have to be about race? Can’t we just talk about Obama as a person doing his job as President and judge him by that criteria?

I don’t know. It made sense—I mean, it was acceptable within the context of their discussion. They were talking about the “black vote” and if this person in particular thought Obama still had the black vote and how that would affect the upcoming election. But it didn’t seem like a topic the host was interested in. I mean, maybe he was. But it seemed like a question he had to ask. Like: he’d just received a folded scrap of paper from his play-the-black-card producer in the middle of the show that, upon unfolding it, he saw that it read: “Ask the ‘black question’ like we talked about before! Do it!” With an addendum at the end that said: “P.S. Ask the black guy.”

I don’t know. This all begs the question: if black people (and black people aren’t the only minority in America) are disproportionately represented in the American media, should we force this kind of equal representation? I’m sort of torn because: I feel like there is a real need for a “black” program or more “black” programs but I also feel like people should be rewarded or allowed on air simply based on their own merits or the merit of the content they wish to produce. By that same token: I do believe that there is merit in a “black” show for black people—so it should be allowed on the air. But in a perfect world: crappy white shows wouldn’t be given a free pass just because they have this star or this personality and black shows wouldn’t be given precedence either simply because they’re “black shows”. Like I said, though (I feel like I’m talking in circles, here): there’s a need for black shows so there’s inherent merit in these shows so I get why they’re given precedence. I just wish we lived in a culture where everyone was represented in the media so we could start weeding out the crappier content and rewarding entertainers or talking heads based on their talent or their unique op inions/perspective vs. how unfairly we treat members of their race.

Tender Horkidelics and Musings on the Ecclesiastical

I remember coming to the conclusion when I was about 14 or 15, maybe, that the point of life (if there was one) was to enjoy it—furthermore: to love and appreciate each other as human beings with inherently lovable strengths and weaknesses. It didn’t make sense to me that we were born flawed creatures—that is: creatures flawed by design. The Baptist church I went to taught me that our ultimate goal in life was to always chase perfection—to be like the only perfect being who ever existed: Jesus Christ. To model our behavior—our thoughts and our actions—after Christ, even if we could never be Christ-like all the time because it was in our nature to be equally sinful and righteous.

I also considered—but I’m not sure how the thought was put into my head—that the ultimate purpose in life was to procreate. But then I reasoned that this could not be because there were some born unable to breed—those born with botched sex organs, etc. And the idea never settled well with me that these people were automatically disqualified from birth from leading purposeful lives.

I’ve gone back recently and started to re-read the book of Ecclesiastes. While from a biological perspective, the succession of the species does seem pretty important to me, the book confirms my previous notion—that life is for enjoying. In it, the author repeatedly says that: all is vanity and that there is no pleasure except in eating and drinking and finding joy in daily toil. It doesn’t exactly fit with the overall Judeo-Christian message—which is why it’s inclusion in the biblical canon has long been controversial—but it makes sense to me; not just as a work of Christian philosophy or religious philosophy but as a book of general skepticism. There’s something very honest about the way the book is written—the way the author presents his message: as if wrestling with his own doubt that there is a point to life. What he determines is what anyone skeptical about the pointlessness of life would determine: that life is for enjoying. Not in any hedonistic sense (this is the only real evidence, I can find, that classifies this or typifies it as a book of Old Testament wisdom), but to enjoy life for one’s self and at the same time enjoy it within the parameters of Judeo-Christian kindness and compassion for other human beings.

It’s key, I think, that the author doesn’t say: all is vanity—so fuck it, go out and fuck whores and sleep around and do drugs and burn out in a beautiful blaze of glory. That would imply that the author considers it acceptable to act self-seeking—which I don’t think he does. Because what he does say is that one should find enjoyment or all of life’s pleasure in one’s daily toil: in things which affect no one, for better or ill, but the person him or herself. He doesn’t say: enjoy life at the expense of others and be damned if it affects them negatively. He says: enjoy one’s own lot—one’s own toil. And that I can agree with—that I think marks Ecclesiastes as something more than religious doctrine—something instead like proto-humanism. I’m not saying that this is definitively what the author is trying to say—I don’t want to risk misinterpreting the Judeo-Christian message. This is just what makes sense to me—what I personally believe and what I personally take from the text.

I remember initially pitching this idea to my mom following a Sunday morning church service. I’d been thinking about it the car-ride home, after being stricken with the epiphany some time toward the latter part of the service. I felt giddy—because I’d been seriously worried about the issue for the better part of a week. What was the purpose of life? Was there a purpose? Finally, I thought I knew and I couldn’t wait to share my belief with someone. My mom, for whatever reason, served at that time as the one adult I could bounce my heavier ideas off of without feeling too self-conscious or fearing rejection. She might reject my ideas, sure, but it didn’t matter because at least I was trying the ideas out on someone else—another human being; another human mind.

I remember walking in the door, walking upstairs to the closet where we hung our jackets and following her around, eager for an opportunity when I had her full or even partial attention. I waited until she’d hung up her coat and gone to the bedroom to do whatever mom-things she did in there after church (check the phone messages, put her purse away—I don’t know). Finally, she’d concluded her post-church circuit.

“Mom,” I said. “I think I figured out the meaning of life.”

“OK,” she said with a skeptical laugh, not expecting to hear something so awkwardly heavy-handed from her 14 year-old son. “And what’s that?”

“I think our purpose in life is to just--.” I couldn’t think of a smart way to say it or even a way to say it that didn’t sound stupid. “I think our purpose in life is to have fun.”

She laughed. That same summer I asked my mom what it really mean to “love” someone—because I didn’t know. To me, it felt like an automatic response—or something people said without really thinking about what they were saying. A feeling that wasn’t always there and which could mean so many different things in so many different contexts. I explained to her that there seemed to me to be a difference between what I later learned was “romantic love” and “familial love”. She told me I needed to “go outside”—the implication being that I was thinking too deeply about things which didn’t matter. If I were a little older and not her son, I’m pretty sure she would have told me that I needed to get laid.

I don’t know why I bring this up except to illustrate that my conviction that life is for enjoying is deep-seated—a strong and prevalent undercurrent since the time I started intellectualizing things. I don’t think this makes it true necessarily—that I feel it so innately. But I don’t see how it could be false—or why I shouldn’t try to make the best of the shitty hand I was dealt. All things considered: it’s not that shitty of a hand. I am continually amazed at how fortunate I was to be born with so many advantages: white, middle class, male, American. It almost makes me feel guilty for feeling dissatisfied with anything. I realize that sadness and dissatisfaction are relative feelings and that I could be the richest man in the world or the lowliest AIDs-afflicted third-world citizen and still feel disenchanted with life: but I sincerely want to find something I can appreciate about living the life I do. There are several things I do enjoy—several things which inspire in me a feeling of purpose. But I get discouraged very easily.

I think talking to people makes me feel good—in the general sense, even if it’s just bullshit water-cooler banter at work. There’s something about human interaction that’s so gratifying. Maybe because I see it as sort of a game. A game that I’m sometimes good at it. But mostly a game in which I’m struggling to stay competitive and engaged.

There are other things, too—including writing. Expressing myself in some capacity—in some way in which afterwards I feel like I’ve learned something new about myself or the world. And writing does that for me because it helps me explore new ideas I never would have explored by simply meditating on them inside my own head. There’s something about the process of physically and intellectually structuring your ideas on paper that helps you assess them with greater clarity. Maybe that’s obvious. But it’s still true.

I think what I’m getting at is that I derive the most pleasure—consistently—from self-expression. From taking in and then offering my impression of what I’ve just taken in. Experiencing life and then documenting my experiences. Because—I’ve thought about this before—I’m not one of those people who can just live day-to-day and not talk about my experiences. I have to talk about what I’ve just experienced or I feel this overwhelming sense of guilt—or that feeling of knowing I should be doing something that I’m not by actively sitting on a new set of sensations and impressions inspired by what I’ve just experienced. It’s weird—this almost compulsion to talk. It’s not narcissism—it’s not that I think my ideas are so great that they need to be shared with the world. I just feel like—what was the point in having these experiences if I don’t intend to do anything with them or talk about them in any way? It’s like seeing a movie with a group of friends and then not talking about it afterwards. What was the point in seeing the movie if you’re not going to talk about it? I guess, it could be argued, since everyone else saw, there’s no need to talk about—since they all had the same relative experience as you. But there’s something about sharing your own completely idiosyncratic impressions or interpretation of things that feels...vital, I guess. For me, it’s comparable to the people who feel the unshakable impulse to produce children—“the need to breed,” if you will. I need to talk. I suck at talking. But I need to do it.

I don’t know.

So much of my free-time (the majority of it, I’d say) is spent speaking gibberish to the cat. Occasionally: it’s coherent gibberish—or gibberish that kind of makes sense. But it’s all idiotic and it’s starting to worry me.

I think I miss having someone around to talk to. It’s a shame things didn’t work out with Kristen but I couldn’t force her to stay. And I’m not going to kill myself trying to convince her that we were a good match—because, I was thinking about it last night, and I really do think we were.

One thing I really liked about being with Kristen was that I could be myself around her. She was the first girl I can say that about. My other girlfriends—I could be myself around them for a while, but there would inevitably come this point where I, for whatever reason, would assume this “boyfriend” role, that simply was not me. With Kristen, though—whether it was because I made a conscious effort to maintain my sense of self or because she and I were naturally so chummy—I never felt this pressure. I noticed it occasionally, but it took little effort on my part to go back to being who I was. And I partly believe that she kept me in check. She never let me get too unbearable.

All my girlfriends have been smart. They were all smart but in different ways. I felt, though, with Kristen like we were smart in the same way—which is why I never felt a divide between the two of us. If I had a problem I could go to her about it—I could explain my situation without having to explain myself or the way I think. With my last girlfriend, I couldn’t do that. She just didn’t get me. She was smart. But we didn’t share the same sense of humor—and I don’t know why but that seems to be such an important thing in relationships. Because: if you and your partner find the world funny or ridiculous in the same ways that indicates on some level, I think, that you’re looking at the world through the same lens.

I don’t know. I’ve been really sad lately. Especially at work because I’m mostly by myself all night and the workload has dropped off considerably since Christmas. Sometimes, Butch will come down and that helps. But I’m mostly alone with my own nagging thoughts of self-doubt and regret and wishful thinking.

I’ve been hanging out with friends more lately. That helps, too. But when they leave, I’m back to talking to the cat—thinking about things I should be doing rather than doing them.

I came to the conclusion last night that I need to make an effort to go out more and socialize. I’ve made leaps and bounds these past few years in terms of stepping out of my shell. I am now able to carry on bullshit conversations at work with co-workers I know and co-workers I don’t—so, strangers basically. But it’s still pretty hard for me. I can start a conversation but I find it difficult to keep it going. I have to force myself to talk about myself because I’ve determined that’s how people have conversations. I’ve tried in the past only asking about the other person (which is what I prefer) but those conversations crash and burn quicker than anything. So, in an effort to be normal, I’ll wrack my brain for relevant anecdotes, if someone’s talking about a particular topic, and I’ve found that this usually does the trick—effectively bridges the gap and establishes some faulty foundation for intimacy. Here’s my story—tell me yours. So that—in this way, we’re trading personal information and the conversation isn’t completely one-sided. It’s exhausting though and just as quickly as I initiate the conversation I get bored with it. Not bored—I just wish it was easier to know people. I wish it wasn’t such a game of strategy. Like: we could just plug-in on some two-way feed and exchange Facebook stats. “Oh, you like this movie. I don’t. But I see, here, that you enjoy golfing?” That kind of thing.

My friends may not be the best people in the world. They may not always look out for my best interests. But I determined a couple years ago that I need them because this whole process of exchanging information and maintaining connections is easier with people I can talk to so freely—so easily. It comes natural with them. I can just exist in the same room with them and feel understood. It’s a very peculiar feeling. Just being around them—I feel like a plant absorbing all its vital nutrients and sunshine. Hanging out with friends gives me two hours or so to re-charge and prep myself (re-learn who I am and what my place is in the world)—we don’t even have to say anything or do anything worthwhile except, like I said, exist in the same room and feed off each other’s energy—like two cars of the same make or model and I’m always the busted one extending my soul’s jumper cables.

I don’t know. Is that lame? It’s how I feel. And it’s not that I’m dependent on people. I’m actually pretty content by myself. I love doing things by myself. I genuinely value my privacy. People have accused me in the past of being a recluse. But I don’t feel like I need to be around people all the time. I just have a fixed amount of time every week that I need to see someone or be around other human beings. Just being around people, in general, makes me feel better—like throwing open the curtains after being in the dark for so long and finally getting sunlight. That’s how it feels to me when I go out—to the mall or a bookstore or anywhere particular people congregate. I feed off their energy—the things they say—the speeds they move at and live their lives. It’s weird. But when I’m with friends, I feel like I’m spoiling myself. Because I get those feelings of being re-charged so immediately—with no effort on my part.

I don’t know.