Seeking Egomaniac

Insecure girl fond of overstating her youth seeks enigmatic egomaniac.  Prefers to find solace in unreasoned assertions of superiority, fast driving, and stare-me-down bargaining over popcorn at discount movie chains.

Willing to take the first step in over-estimating future earnings, over-stating your good looks, and always realistically pretending to orgasm at your faintest [albeit aggressive] touch.  Equally willing to make excuses to my girlfriends about why you matter more, to blame other people for your faults, and to talk up your 1995 Volkswagen GTI, and to prop up alternate versions of whatever you wish, including foibles with family members, affairs, and less than stellar self-grooming patterns.

Let's Inhabit the Average For a Day - no?

For all of you who want to be perfect.  For those who want to excel at . . . everything.  For everyone who checks out their image in the minutest level of reflective material (say, your partner's sunglasses, the stainless steel of elevator doors, car windows, or even chrome embroidery, and of course, almost all windows).  For those who find the need to purchase a new pair of pants, excessive amounts of shirts, ties, socks, underwear, or other accouterments.  For those who find their own exceptionalism perfectly normal and expected, and never question their superiority . . .

Really?  Are you fucking serious, or what?  (I freely admit that this is a somewhat solipsistic self-mediated conversation with a version of a historical self that I loathe in a mild black tea induced froth of Saturday morning (which is to say, not a heavily frenetic mindset (which is also to say that the old self would be much more frothy than the current self if I were forced to converse with the old self)), but I wouldn't go so far as to say that we're always talking to versions of our old (or current) selves, and I wouldn't say that we, as in we individuals, are only mirrors of the exterior social networks, systems, societal whatevers, birds, flutes, trees, and tables, either, because the self exists, and one of the reasons it does exist is because it thinks it is exceptional, and makes distinctions and rationalizes those distinctions).

Still, there must be some capacity that we all maintain to look into the mirror and obtain real live data from the world, and recognize one thing: that most of us are profoundly average. 

The next step is to be happy with that.  Because to be unhappy with that would make us far too average.  And being happy with averageness, in a way, is quite exceptional.

Let's Pretend We're Not Competing

That will be the goal: That we're not competing with each other, and internally, with ourselves.  That we don't care, because somehow, deeper down, our urge to care is something we're nervous about.

We'd rather, perhaps, stay detached and aloof, or reclusive and drunk, you know, I know, and we're walking around with bullhorns, third-eyes that scream out with ferocity at the minutest of interactions.

Because we're scared, deeper down, of communicating with someone and having our message actually conveyed. It is better not to engage and somehow not be pegged into a number, into a boxed reality that can be compared to other boxes.  Better to "stay out of the system," that is, to pretend.  Better to pretend.  And while we pretend, everyone else pretends.  Except for those willing to engage overtly, who we immediately scorn and judge for reducing themselves.

And when we pretend and those others don't, the cruel fact is that those others will have advantages over us, and have more access to the things that we, deep down, actually think might make us happy, were we "given a chance" to acquire them.  If not for all the assholes out there ruining everything, right?  Right.

The trick, it seems, is not to pretend we're not all assholes sometimes, and not use excuses to keep you from getting what you want.  Otherwise, you know, we have to face the fact that we might not want what we say we want, and instead, simply want to label all of the other people--that is, the convenience of ignoring reality simply becomes reality, and the reality we tell ourselves becomes delusion.

We Don't Know Our Own Preferences -

This becomes more and more apparent to me as I hear spiraling justificatory narratives for events, actions, reactions, and whatnot.  We people are intensely bent on fitting reality to something that we find consistent, and we're entirely inconsistent about our methods and the machinations we incarnate to make our perception of reality the way we want.  What is so maddening about admitting mistakes and trying again?  Why such associated guilt, self-loathing, and generalized shame?  Why squeeze the little sense of freedom, that is, of interaction, self-discovery, and genuine interest we have left with the needle-pointed calipers of dense pressure?

The answer is that we're always trying to achieve something we're not, actually, internally, sure we want.  We just think we want it.  And we think we want a lot of things.  And for those people who think they don't want, and are somehow free, I'm not sure I buy it.  I think they just keep what they want buried more appropriately, neater, that is, and aren't as touched, or as vulnerable, to showing others how badly they actually want--something.  It is often generalized and highly ambiguous.  Which is why it is so hard to talk about.  But if we realize that, I think, at some level, we can start to let go of the things we think we want, and respond to those things that make us happy--even if we aren't quite aware of our own enjoyment, even if we are, that is, simply involved in a task fully.  Even if that task is not status-contingent.  Especially so, perhaps.

Insanity, and back.

Today I had a tingling feeling.  In my frontal cortex.  It didn't stop so much as spread itself like butter over the rest of my brain, engineering itself to masquerade as part of me, as something essential that I'd previously overlooked.  Somehow my examinations weren't up to snuff.  And this feeling, something akin to the buzz of an out of tune television and a drill boring down into dense pvc pipe, also anchored itself in such a way that I began to doubt any previous existence without it.  It was an acute, though long lasting, hunger, if you will, one that I thought I could quench with food. One that I thought was at once alien and familiar, and one that was frightening because it made me feel so light, like helium, like I could float up and away and not come back, and that my gradual dispersal throughout the stratosphere might be, in a way, pleasant, or at least, that my cessation of being would be a relief.  At least, a relief.

Difficult.

We should find difficult stuff worthwhile, but often it is easier to give up.  I know that I've repeatedly given up in my life.  It is always easier in the moment.

Here I'm thinking of exercise.  And school.  And papers.  And writing.  And diets.  And girlfriends.  And my own sense of self!  And well, insert almost anything in there, and I've tried and given up on it.

But I'm here to report that after a life of giving up, budding consequences can catch up to the wave of freedom that accompanies a lack of effort.  And, I'm here to report that continual effort, likewise, can yield unforeseen positive outcomes.

Wasted Life

Consider that, without some proper thinking, we can spend a god-awful amount of time chasing things that we don't like or need.  We can be quite active about this, even frenetic.

Consider, also, that we spend too much time sitting back and thinking about what we might do and not accomplishing anything, or even maintaining our body as much as it needs.

Consider what benchmark or indices we'd need to know the difference between the two above, particularly if we cycle from one to the other.

Driving To The Bed -

Ah, well, that's what I just told my mother in law I would go do, ya  know, instead of walking.  God bless Polish.

Rejecting Advice -

Rejecting advice comes quite naturally to most people, especially if they feel that following the advice given will lead to ends that they find emotionally unappealing.  I'd venture to say that rejecting advice (combined with feeling qualified to give it) is a fundamental bias in human nature.  We know our lives better than anyone else, right, and our wants and desires and outcomes?

The point is that, if someone is taking the time to give some nugget of advice, they might have thought about it and might have access to a "you" that "you" don't actually quite know well.  That's certainly not always true, but, if the advice comes from someone who has navigated an experience that you know theoretically, the odds are they have something to say that you should listen to.

I certainly have found that out the hard way.

Branding Brooklyn Luxurious -

Whether Brooklynites like it or not, their borough is increasingly being branded as luxurous, mixed with just the right amount of authenticity and raw self-consciousness.

There is Brooklyn Chocoloate from the Mast brothers, selling at 10 dollars a bar.

There is brooklyn beer of all varieties.

For goodness sake, I saw brooklyn cheese at whole foods the other day.

All of these things are luxury goods.  Unlike eggs and milk, for instance, they are taken mostly for pleasure over need.