The perils of knowledge (part 2)

So then… the real danger of being well-informed, knowledgeable, and in that knowledge, to know yourself to be on point to brofist Socrates on the daily, is that you become your own worst enemy. Enema. You become your own… mental… enema. Got a cool idea?! LEMME GET THE HOSE! *FLUSH*

Why does this happen? HOW does this happen? Well, it’s a very simple, not complicated at all process. You know yourself to have gathered a decent amount of cursory knowledge on all areas of human experience. So you’ve read a bit, you can follow sheet music a little, you can carry a tune, you are sparingly versed in opera, theater, cooking, baking, edumacation theory, philosophy, you can solve brain teasers fairly easily, you ace logical and spacial-sequence based IQ tests and you have cracked the code on how to fold a fitted sheet. All good and well but when your brain is a dumpster for endless factoids, a whole chunk of your gray matter holds release dates of your favorite 90s movies, along with all sorts of basic survival skills, a spare sprinkling of actual adulting skills and SOME higher learning baggage, you start doubting whether any of it amounts to you being truly good at ANYTHING.

It’s like that super smart kid in high school, you know the one, clever, funny, talented, HELLA cute almond skin green eyes ashy blonde curls omg… *ahem*… yeah, that sunovabitch who may or may not have been your first kiss and then never wanted you for anything serious but you still THANK him for breaking your heart holy shit…  WELL, that mofo was good at EVERYTHING, but you still find out years later that he never made up his mind on what he wanted to be and do with his life so he just joined a string of crappy cover bands and snorted away his youth, got fat and made a couple of kids… ok, I made up that last part, but the idea still holds. Being too good at stuff and not having enough grit to follow through with projects seems to go hand in hand for some people.

So, I guess being any good at anything or becoming good at anything requires a good heaping dose of delusion and a fuck-it-all attitude. “I’ma  do it, and allow myself to suck”, that kinda deal. Or “I’ma do it and MAKE myself believe it’s the best thing ever, or use it as a step in a ladder that may or may not be cemented to the ground or leaning on anything or even ever going somewhere”.

I have made myself believe that I’m going to start writing the missing half of my novel in November, with views to finish it before the month is over. I think I have convinced myself this is really happening, because I’m already getting hot flashes from wave upon glorious wave of anxiety and feeling like this may be the boot that will crush my dreams like the innocent little cricket that they are.

I wish I had a friend in this process. A new friend for a new project, someone who actually finds anxiety-spurred diatribes charming could be just the thing. Are you it, kind reader? Drop me a line in the comments and tell me if you were at all impressed by the fitted sheet thing.

The perils of knowledge (part 1)

OMG I just bought the most disgusting slice of carrot cake in all creation. It is… chunky. And I don’t mean chunky in a nice way like oh maybe extra crushed pecans in the mix, no… I had a hard time putting my finger on it at first but, get this… there’s cinnamon in the mix. And now you’re rolling your eyes or possibly entertaining the notion that there might be more to it because carrot cake is supposed to have cinnamon (if you are, thank you ;)). Of course that’s not all… it’s not ground cinnamon, some supercilious assmunch apparently thought it would be a cool idea to put WHOLE CINNAMON  in the carrot cake. I am effectively getting a pretty good helping of sawdust in every damn bite. This is downright evil. It’s time to hit the reset button, Lord…

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to write about today…

There’s always a slight peril to being a well-informed, well-educated, curious individual. For one, people often distrust you because very few people want to submit to the possibility that someone may know more about any given subject than they do. I think this has a direct correlation to our obsession with social networking. Facebook is pretty much just a giant wankfest, a worldwide pissing contest.  Your worth is determined by the number of cool activities you participate in, your intellectual value measured by the quality of posts you share, and your social value by how much you’re tagged in other peoples’ memories. I’m slowly starting to get turned off by FB, to be quite honest. It’s everyone attempting to claw their way to the top of their network of acquaintances by showing how gosh darned more awesome their lives are compared to your bland, meaningless existence.

But yeah, people like to think they know best. I seem to notice a trend of people being less and less inclined to be amazed or sincerely captivated by new information others provide. I mean, of course it still happens within your closest circles, or so I want to imagine, but every time you try to share some new insight, reflection or an alternate take on something of common interest with another person of medium to distant closeness they seem to be ready to pounce and question everything you tell them. And I like questioning stuff, it’s the basis of curiosity, but people are losing their ability to say “really?!”

It’s sad. I don’t consider myself to be on a high tier of human knowledge. I often have to remind myself that I have read, seen and studied more than the average person, because it’s easy to lose sight of it in a landscape of self-aggrandizing characters. And yes, we’re all characters, because Shakespeare said so. Deal with it. So I’m not high tier but that’s ONLY because I’m high tier. Because true wealth of knowledge can only be measured by a person’s humility about what he knows. Knowledge is a freakin’ conundrum, the MORE you know, the MORE you know there’s a whole vast OCEAN of OCEANS of knowledge you cannot even hope to amass in its entirety during your lifetime. The more books you read the more you hear of others books you HAVE to read and there’s only so many hours in a day, so many days in a lifetime. It’s humbling, it’s THE most humbling thing in the world, so attempting to pose as a master of all things knowledge is actually the first sign that you’re dealing with a fake.

Maybe it’s my current surroundings, I don’t know, maybe you’re reading this shaking your head and thinking “well, who are you hanging out with, gurl?” and that’s sad because I’m a TEACHER, I’m supposed to be hanging out with the most like-minded of my ilk, but it doesn’t seem to work out that way at all. I mean, my theory about teaching is this: when you’re a carpenter with an apprentice, you’re teaching him to be YOU, or as close to you as possible or maybe even better. If you’re a tailor, same thing, you train someone to be LIKE you, to do the job you do as well as you do it. But when you’re a teacher you’re not training TEACHERS… nonono… you’re training LEARNERS. And people ain’t gonna learn jack SHIT if you don’t inspire them. As teachers we inspire others to learn, to seek out knowledge, to hunger for it. But how can anyone do that properly if they have NO passion for learning? I believe geeks make the best teachers. We made fun of how excited our grade school teachers were about class, but that’s because when you speak about what you love you want other people to feel that too.

Damn, that went on… and I’m not even halfway through with this subject. Oh well, to be continued.

Already there

So, I guess everyone has beliefs, even people who say they don’t. Belief is a personal choice, and where we place it can be a determining factor in how we present ourselves and how we are perceived. I work in a low key Christian school. Kids don’t have to subscribe to any specific belief system to be enrolled in the school, but they do have a class based on the teachings of the Bible. I like the Bible, I have little to nothing against IT. I kinda take offense to some of the people who attempt to interpret it, though, but that’s a subject for another day.

So I rock the Bible, I’m down with it, but I have yet to encounter a flock of like-minded people. I am respectful of others up to the extent to which they are also willing to be respectful of their fellow men and especially those with dissenting ideas. But the funny thing is, wisdom can come from THE most unexpected places. Take for example, my working theory of heaven. It was fleshed out and polished from the final act of a Hollywood cinematic… piece. A little gem of sorts called “This is the End”.

Now, I am okay with the works of Rogen and Franco, I dig it just fine as I do with anyone trying to push boundaries and slap the establishment on its buttcheeks. I do think their humorous attempts are sometimes too obvious and their supposed metaphors a little bit on the nose, but oh boy did I like the final act of TItE. You see, I always wondered about the souls of the dead, where we would go and whether we would be able to look over the ones left behind. I mean, if we already crossed over into the land of endless joy, it would be a wrench in the gears to have to see our living loved ones going through the throes of existence. Bliss would be blemished. But then I remember that time is a physical construct, I mean we can only sense the passage of time through our earthly vessel, so once we’re freed from it our essence should be timeless. So by following this logic… we don’t HAVE to wait for the ones we left behind, they’re ALREADY THERE.

You might be wondering how I went from Backstreet Boys musical finale to epiphany on life and death, but I can’t explain how my brain works. It just seemed a very comforting thought, infinitely better than “your *insert loved one* is watching you from heaven”... nah, biznatch, how about “YOUR LOVED ONE IS ALREADY ROCKING ETERNAL WITH YOU IN THE AFTERLIFE”? Is that just deluded, or kinda brilliant?

I can’t make that choice for you, I’m just putting it out there.

All of me

I don’t know myself that well. I can’t presume to know my motivations half the time, and I often find myself amazed at the things I say and do. I like myself a whole bunch though; I think I’m interesting as hell. I can’t understand why people I consider infinitely more amazing and cool than me even give me the time of day, let alone build me up from time to time.

I am invested in getting to know myself better every day, I think I could be good for me. My biggest hope is that one day I’ll finally be able to muscle my big secret out of myself, that I’ll finally trust myself enough to give myself my whole… self.

I can never be enough for myself by myself though. Others are a big part of getting to me. I often daydream about getting alone time in a secluded location with my favorite people; one on one time. Ever since I visited Isla del Tiburon last year, it has been a recurring wish to take people there and just wander off alone to roam the shore and talk. Being at a remote corner of the earth, alone… and I mean ALONE alone, with someone I love, care for, admire, respect or otherwise just wish to pick bare is a major component of my waking dreams.

I am prone to depression. Depression comes from a place of feeling unfulfilled. Whenever I let myself believe I’m stuck, I’m up to my neck in the mud, I will never move again, this is it… my neurotransmitters just check out and go on vacation. Dreaming is a big part of what keeps me mobile, dodging the blasts of sadness and the feeling that I will fade into the background and pass like a fart in the wind. So I look for outside stimulus while simultaneously cheering myself on, trying with all my might to shoulder the inevitable burdens of everyday life. I use my right shoulder for this. I can no longer even carry a purse with that shoulder, it’s shot to shit.

So in the midst of this mental twister, I attempt to write a book. I started it back in May, actually. I went full-on, head-first, drop-it-like-it’s-hot, balls-to-the-wall into it at first and amassed a pretty little word count in a surprisingly short amount of time. Then people started to read it, others learned I was writing it, and my enthusiasm sort of fizzled. Now that I’ve decided to enter NaNoWriMo to finish my manuscript, I’m scared. I’m pinning dreams on this project and betting pretty heavily on myself. Writing is a silly little bag of conundrums. Baring your soul is cathartic and nerve-racking; liberating and daunting; exciting and terrifying. It makes you giddy, light and childlike, but it also chafes your emotions. Dealing with work, children, responsibilities, after vomiting raw feelings onto a document for hours on end? It ain’t easy, lemme letcha know.

So now I’m sort of doing this (blog) as an exercise to start putting myself out there, and perhaps in the process letting myself know it’s okay if others come for me or ignore me royally. It’s about me, it’s for me… but it’s not. We put things down, write, speak, and create, as a means of communicating. Communication is not achieved unless someone outside of ourselves acknowledges our efforts and puts forth a response to it. The response will either be something we consider positive or negative, and then we will have to decide how to respond: in kind, in improvement to the energy sent our way, or not at all… but it needs to get out there. When you have something to say and a way to say it, it’s your responsibility to get it out there.

So… what will I get back, I wonder?

I’m still afraid, I’m afraid.

Who needs you? (part 2)

So anyway, yeah, filling voids with ideals is the reason we invented art, pretty much. It’s like medicine for your ailing mind and soul. Need to emote? Haven’t cried in a while? Here, have some cathartic tragedy. Need to laugh through the tears? Have some pratfalls. Want to feel more attractive? Have a bunch of needless products… wait, I went off course there… or did I?

But it is important to realize that the further apart we grow from others the more we will have the need to consume in order to keep the balance in our minds and emotions. We are sold the idea that absorbing entertainment, art and commercial products will somehow cover up the rabbit holes in our subconscious, but the rabbit’s still down there so, it’s either gonna fight its way out or otherwise… you killed a rabbit. Asshole.

So what level of entitlement do we have towards these people who mix the cement that plugs the holes in our mental reservoirs? These emotional construction workers are, again, as much people and individuals as any of us, and like many of us, they can be entitled to being great at what they do while being flawed individuals. Maybe one of their flaws will be that they don’t like to be treated like totem poles. Maybe they dislike reading endless fanmail that gets repetitive after the fifth letter. Maybe they have self esteem problems of their own that make them sad or depressed that people think or expect so much of them and they feel like they can’t deliver on that level. I’d HATE for that to happen to me, I have trouble keeping up with my own expectations of myself… which I why I never get anything done XD.

I have cried for very few celebrity passings. Very few.  Can count them on one hand and have fingers left over to pick my nose. But what’s the deal about crying over the death of people you never met? I mean, I got to see George Carlin live before he died but I still cried and got sad for days when he did. I didn’t know him personally, but of course I felt like I was gonna miss out on a lot more stuff he could have done. But then, isn’t that a selfish thought? I cried buckets for Robbing Williams but that was another deal altogether. Robin Williams was a wakeup call for humanity, that we needed time to tend to each other better, and stop this gross belief that it’s every man for himself and we’re all looking out for number one. But under that rationale, aren’t people in position of general popularity also in a position to give more than the rest? As far as effort put into keeping people hopeful and positive? Maybe Robin Williams did that to an extent that he put others’ happiness before his own, but that, as we could all attest, is not healthy.

I felt super bummed when Maya Angelou passed away. I was MAD and sad as hell when Terry Pratchet passed away too. But those were, again, out of selfish desire to attain more wealth of knowledge, wisdom and all-caps-speaking reapers. But there are some people out there who are just so insanely awesome that I wish I could be of service to THEM. If I put out a service where I could be called any time, day or night, to lend an ear and extend a sincere opinion, thought, advice… would I become some form of art myself? Only if I were any good, I guess… it’s not like I would be seeking that anyway (retribution), I’ve done plenty for others without expectation of retribution already, and I love being of help to people I care about.

Has anyone ever just been the kind of person to just be like… “I like this so and so on the teevee, I want to meet this happy so and so… I will set it up immediately!” And just like that they had the power to summon anyone they deemed worthy of their time, maybe even friendship after a while? Does a creature this ratchet and vile exist in this world? Can anyone just summon their life-hole-spacklers and try them out like a freakin’ car out of the agency? And then DECIDE if they are a good fit and keep them around or just sashay the fuck out of their lives like anything?

OMG… that’s Oprah… I think I just described Oprah…

Who needs you? (part 1)

What are we missing from relationships nowadays? There’s a needless distancing between people and a growing need for physical signs of interaction that trump the stuff that used to be more paramount like… a story to tell. People didn’t carry cameras around back in the day so when they met someone or had a prized moment most of the time they just had to exercise the will to commit it to memory well enough to recall and retell in a compelling way. Becoming good with words was the ultimate show of personal prestige. Because hell, you could bullshit your way around a story that was plain and ordinary, or even completely untrue, and jazz it up to morph it into a thing of status among your acquaintances. Images have made us lazy and unimaginative. Although I don’t really like twitter I have to admit there’s a merit to having to craft a whole idea in a limited amount of characters. There has to be thought put into it. Which is why I hardly ever use it, lol.

So then there’s the whole thing I have with the apparent meeting of people in the celebrity world. How much can we really tell about these people? They can seem like individuals that you could resonate with on a molecular level, “this person could be my friend”, “this person is SO perfect for me”, “OMG I want to get with them”, and everything in between. People have different needs, different holes in their life they want to spackle over and they do so with projections of their desires onto idealized models that seem to fit perfectly into those voids. So, what do you see in those people you so admire? Friends? Teachers? Lovers? Soul mates? Confidants? Why can’t you find those things in your everyday life? Are you seeking an unattainable ideal and therefore just taking a page from a magazine and cutting it to fit your desires? All of these people are… well… people; as people-y as the cast of characters in your particular corner of this worldly stage.

So, yes, I have to admit to myself that I fill voids with ideals. My needs are simple, like food and water, yet as seemingly distant and out of reach as the next star over. I need a generous mind to pick. It’s an impulse as real and human as any other tic like running fingers through your hair in a calming fashion, or smoking for comfort or biting your cuticles like the balance of the universe depended on it. I love a brain that challenges me; intelligence makes me tingle in the netherregions. I have found some people in my little earthly nook that I consider to be blessed with abundant intelligence, and whose brains I love to pick… but then comes another crux to this whole situation… there’s always the nagging feeling that people always have something better to do. I know this because even I feel I always have something better to do, but I LOVE talking to smart people. I love one-on-ones about books and science and psychology and my fandoms. I love hearing about other peoples’ travels and what they’ve learned from them. I love making my own plans based on what others tell me has worked for them, how they’ve managed to solve problems. I adore seeing human creativity, determination and spirit pull through and make people better versions of themselves than before… oh… Lord… I ADORE people who are able to change and by sheer power of will turn into better human versions of themselves. That is like… SO damn sexy.

Is there a point to this? Yes, there has to be. It has to come to something, and it will. But not today, because as usual, time has passed and other things need my attention. Dammit.