I'm going to forgo my planned entries detailing my transition to Seattle for two reasons. One: I am not motivated enough to remember all the details. Two: I would much rather write about things as they are happening, not as they happened. And here's what happened.
I realized today that everyone in the entire world is insane, myself included.
I keep looking up at the title of this silly little blogspace and noticing how completely accurate it is. I wasn't trying to be witty or anything. No, most of my 'wit' flies headlong into someone's brittle feelings so I mostly choose not subject them to that, seeing as how wit is just another word for douchebaggery and is often construed as such.
I was having a conversation with someone this morning that I haven't spoken to in five years or so. Since then, it's easy to understand that a lot has changed, just in our own lives. Both of us had finished college, dated around, discovered truths about ourselves - and we both found ourselves neck-deep in the cyclical postgraduate occurrences that plague people who aren't quite sure where life is taking them. All that to say that we are standing on the same level, just on different platforms.
During the course of this conversation, it was revealed to me by way of a story that this individual was telling me that every person I know is a coward. A no-holds-barred, truth-be-told, honest-to-goodness coward. Our friends are cowards, our parents are cowards, our teachers and classmates are cowards. All of us. Because we consistently find ourselves wrestling with this Herculean force called selfishness.
Now I'm not here to damn humanity to the pits (it can do that rather nicely on its own) or absolve myself from the blame. No, I wholeheartedly embrace and accept this universal truth and acknowledge my unabashed part in the mess. Besides some wonderful blessings and awkward left turns, it seems that everything I've ever done in my life is a product of some inner selfishness.
Disclaimer: the following is not a boast.
I've gone out on 10 dates with 10 different girls since I've moved to Seattle. That's exactly 11 more than I had gone on in years. I don't even understand the concept of dating. How do people do it? Is there a class or seminar I missed out on somewhere because it appears to me that humans aren't hard-wired for this type of stuff. It's like trying to sell yourself to a stranger - no wait, it is that. You have to say the just right combination of words and noises to capture their attention and then you have to go one step further and hold it. If that weren't enough, you have to convince this person through matters of subtle manipulation that they actually want to see you again. And then you repeat this process, except you have to go somewhere different and have less to talk about. What on earth is this?
Anyways, some of these dates were promising. Some of them I knew 10 minutes into it that they would never go anywhere. Some of them led to second dates. But several of them ended the same way. I would inevitably start spending time with them, getting to know them and whatnot - you know, what normal people are encouraged to do. But somewhere along the line I would realize that I'd much rather be somewhere else, or with someone else - than where I was at the moment.
Take a second to realize that that's awful and yes, I'm an awful person.
Literally, I couldn't not stop thinking about being with someone else entirely whenever I was out with some of these girls. Sometimes I didn't even want to go out and see them but a part of me couldn't say no because I thought what I was experiencing was normal and people just suppress those kinds of things.
Yeah, that's not normal, methinks.
I realize that I'm way too selfish of a person to care for someone in the way that I should normally be able to. I've done nothing but serve myself in this manner, unwittingly using people for some sort of comfort and just before they draw near I hit them with the truth that no, I can't handle this right now because I'm a goddamned coward.
This pattern is frustrating, and yet I don't see how to put an end to it other than just forcing myself to be with someone, which sounds even worse than the alternative. I really only picked up this self-destructive quality in the past few years, but man have I gotten good at it.
I'll take a minute to ignore my hand as it tries to pat me on the back while the other tries to strangle itself.
I'm not proud of a lot of things, and this blog isn't meant to be a beacon of hope or anything, nor is it meant to be a paragon of despair. Rather, it's a little window where I open up my cerebellum and let my Seattle-inflicted brain have it's way with the human language.
And it's telling me today that I am a coward. I am selfish. And I need to change.
So I forgive all of humanity its errors and woes because it has to tolerate walking shipwrecks like myself. It appears I gave up my sanity years ago when I decided to love someone other than myself and it's been missing ever since. But if that is what it means to be human, then I am among the most brazen and naked individuals to ever ruin this treacherous plot of land with the touch of my feet and the burn of my hands.
I realized today that everyone in the entire world is insane, myself included.
I keep looking up at the title of this silly little blogspace and noticing how completely accurate it is. I wasn't trying to be witty or anything. No, most of my 'wit' flies headlong into someone's brittle feelings so I mostly choose not subject them to that, seeing as how wit is just another word for douchebaggery and is often construed as such.
I was having a conversation with someone this morning that I haven't spoken to in five years or so. Since then, it's easy to understand that a lot has changed, just in our own lives. Both of us had finished college, dated around, discovered truths about ourselves - and we both found ourselves neck-deep in the cyclical postgraduate occurrences that plague people who aren't quite sure where life is taking them. All that to say that we are standing on the same level, just on different platforms.
During the course of this conversation, it was revealed to me by way of a story that this individual was telling me that every person I know is a coward. A no-holds-barred, truth-be-told, honest-to-goodness coward. Our friends are cowards, our parents are cowards, our teachers and classmates are cowards. All of us. Because we consistently find ourselves wrestling with this Herculean force called selfishness.
Now I'm not here to damn humanity to the pits (it can do that rather nicely on its own) or absolve myself from the blame. No, I wholeheartedly embrace and accept this universal truth and acknowledge my unabashed part in the mess. Besides some wonderful blessings and awkward left turns, it seems that everything I've ever done in my life is a product of some inner selfishness.
Disclaimer: the following is not a boast.
I've gone out on 10 dates with 10 different girls since I've moved to Seattle. That's exactly 11 more than I had gone on in years. I don't even understand the concept of dating. How do people do it? Is there a class or seminar I missed out on somewhere because it appears to me that humans aren't hard-wired for this type of stuff. It's like trying to sell yourself to a stranger - no wait, it is that. You have to say the just right combination of words and noises to capture their attention and then you have to go one step further and hold it. If that weren't enough, you have to convince this person through matters of subtle manipulation that they actually want to see you again. And then you repeat this process, except you have to go somewhere different and have less to talk about. What on earth is this?
Anyways, some of these dates were promising. Some of them I knew 10 minutes into it that they would never go anywhere. Some of them led to second dates. But several of them ended the same way. I would inevitably start spending time with them, getting to know them and whatnot - you know, what normal people are encouraged to do. But somewhere along the line I would realize that I'd much rather be somewhere else, or with someone else - than where I was at the moment.
Take a second to realize that that's awful and yes, I'm an awful person.
Literally, I couldn't not stop thinking about being with someone else entirely whenever I was out with some of these girls. Sometimes I didn't even want to go out and see them but a part of me couldn't say no because I thought what I was experiencing was normal and people just suppress those kinds of things.
Yeah, that's not normal, methinks.
I realize that I'm way too selfish of a person to care for someone in the way that I should normally be able to. I've done nothing but serve myself in this manner, unwittingly using people for some sort of comfort and just before they draw near I hit them with the truth that no, I can't handle this right now because I'm a goddamned coward.
This pattern is frustrating, and yet I don't see how to put an end to it other than just forcing myself to be with someone, which sounds even worse than the alternative. I really only picked up this self-destructive quality in the past few years, but man have I gotten good at it.
I'll take a minute to ignore my hand as it tries to pat me on the back while the other tries to strangle itself.
I'm not proud of a lot of things, and this blog isn't meant to be a beacon of hope or anything, nor is it meant to be a paragon of despair. Rather, it's a little window where I open up my cerebellum and let my Seattle-inflicted brain have it's way with the human language.
And it's telling me today that I am a coward. I am selfish. And I need to change.
So I forgive all of humanity its errors and woes because it has to tolerate walking shipwrecks like myself. It appears I gave up my sanity years ago when I decided to love someone other than myself and it's been missing ever since. But if that is what it means to be human, then I am among the most brazen and naked individuals to ever ruin this treacherous plot of land with the touch of my feet and the burn of my hands.
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