decompression

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

i get in these moods sometimes where i start thinking about responsibility, and the differences between what we do every day to keep the wheels turning and what we really need to do in order to be good people. i think, for the most part, that a lot of what we think we need to do is a farce, but we do it anyway because it makes us feel on top of things. i think there are a lot of good reasons for this approach, and indeed that one of the inspiring features of the human condition is that we do some rather amazing stuff just because we can.

we also, however, get hung up on a lot of crap and wade through life with a heavy burden of insecurity. we worry about
and i think these worries often get in the way of our ability to answer questions about

sometimes i have a day where i’m just like “you know what? no. i’m just going to sit here and drink a cup of tea. and

it’s a huge luxury to be able to have days like this and not lose my job, run out of food,
but i think that luxury is actually a part of what leads to the reaction. unfair as it may be, i do not live in a world where i can kid myself into thinking that
and that, i think, implies a new sort of responsibility
if i don’t believe that i have to fit into the slots that culture has carved out for me

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

i know that i can dominate discussions. be overpowering. ask for feedback without really listening. yes. listening is really the key. i know that i don’t listen deeply enough. actively enough. honestly enough. i know that i worry too much about getting my own ideas across. about being heard. about being smart. i don’t care so much about being right in the end, just about contributing. believing that i played a part in shaping the conversation and that it would have been different and somehow less rich if i wasn’t there.

i also know that i enrich situations by simply being a part of them. that’s how people work. the only way that i can endanger richness is by derailing conversations so that they’re about whether i get them or not instead of just about themselves. seeking validation of the fact that i tend to seek validation is a bitter pill. it is burying my head in the sand. succumbing to fear rather than standing up, looking around, and doing what is right.

so here i sit. and i can’t worry about what you (whoever you are) might think about posts like this. i can’t worry about whether this is a manifesto. or an apology. or a rant. or self-indulgent. or productive. or anything else. i only know that there is too much in my head, and worrying about what i send out doesn’t accomplish anything because it only means that i displace one thing with another without actually freeing up any space.

i hate writing things like this. i hate reading things like this. i hate the constant drive to rant and moan and complain and then try to make it better by going all meta and ranting about ranting and thereby proving that i get that i don’t get it (which means i get it, get it?). i hate pretending that the goal is just to find the right switch and flip it. i hate being able to say that i understand that it is all here, right now, not there, not later, not THEN, not MAYBE AFTER, not IF ONLY…

but, most days, i can’t fully let go of wanting to SAY rather than just DO, and i hate admitting that it’s hard for me to do something so easy. that

but then at the very same time…

i love

expressing yourself is not about finding a unique formula that does catchy without too catchy, deep without cliche. it’s just about saying what’s in front of you. honesty is unique by default.