PERSONAL HOT SHIT #2
First of all, allow me to address the elephant in the room. I know full well that the title of this post sounds redundant and silly. Hot shit? #2? Really? All I can say is: Look, "#2" comes after "#1." That, and I like the term "hot shit" for these posts. It doesn't have anything to do with actual shit. So let's move on and not make a big deal out of this. I mean, seriously. Shit.
As a recap, I've been trying to think and communicate directly about my childhood and life so far. What's gone right and what's gone wrong, at least as much as I can make sense of it through my limited, human perspective. I heard somewhere recently that life isn't about milestones so much as moments, and I like the sound of that, so I'm not focusing on big events from my past so much as I'm looking for behavioral patterns. Things I do regularly that work for or against me. The first thing to stand out is my tendency to be passive. By all measures I'm too passive. I'm very, very passive.
When I was a kid, I used to hang out with whichever other kids would ask me to hang out with them. Although I didn't realize it at the time, my friends would always choose me, and not the other way around. That's not to say I had a lot of friends—because I didn't—but only that I don't recall ever taking any initiative socially. Sometimes in grade school, two friends would actually fight over who got to hang out with me after school while I stood by passively, not knowing what to do. And although I wasn't wearing an old-timey dress or a fancy hat, and my friends weren't dressed up as gunslingers, in retrospect it all seems so silly that we might as well have been. Unfortunately, the only thing that's really changed since then is that now sometimes my friends and I do dress up that way. Just kidding. This may work better if I resist the urge to make dumb, albeit hilarious, jokes.
I've read that the people who are most successful in life are the ones who learn from an early age that they have the ability to reshape the world around them. When I was a child, I was pretty aggressively taught the opposite. My family culture was such that I was supposed to do exactly as I was told, and that amounted largely to doing well in school. The good news is that I did do well in school. I got good grades and I received tons of academic accolades. The bad news is that this required a lot of hard work and studying, all of which came at a cost: I spent most of my time alone and I didn't learn to socialize in what I feel is a normal and healthy way. For whatever reason, I seem to have been brought up as if school mattered but social development didn't. As it turns out, in my case anyway, this was not a recipe for success.
I should note that, on the whole, I think my parents did a fine job raising me. These days my family gets along great, and I know what a rare and wonderful thing that is. It hasn't always been that way, and the fact that it now is certainly isn't lost on me. The point I wanted to make is merely that I'm naturally a passive introvert, and it just so happens I was brought up in a way that amplified those qualities, rather than balancing them out.
Cut to today. I'm 34 years old and, for the most part, I've spent the last fifteen years trying to figure out how to socialize normally. I suppose "normally" isn't really the right word. Let's just say I've been trying to develop a version of myself that's compatible with the social realities of our world. In some ways I've made a lot of progress. In other ways, not so much. I still spend almost all of my time alone, and I almost never ask anyone if they want to hang out or do anything. The idea simply doesn't cross my mind.
Now, I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that it's very difficult to succeed or experience fulfilment in a vacuum. So I'm under the impression that it would do me good to get out more. In all honesty, I've been under that impression for years. But it's very, very difficult to motivate myself to get out more. And in the rare event that I do get out, it's usually to go for a walk or go shopping. So I'm still spending that time alone. I guess part of the problem is that, a lot of the time, I really enjoy spending time alone. I love being alone with my thoughts and I actually laugh a lot when I'm alone, just talking to myself or thinking about interesting, unusual, and oftentimes ridiculous hot shit.
But what I've got going isn't so much a life as it is an existence. For example, I enjoy writing alone, but it would be rewarding in a different way to write collaboratively with others. It would be fun to write a play and perform it with friends. It would be fun to write a movie with friends and film it, even if it turned out really, really shitty. Who cares? The whole process would probably be a blast. It would be fun to start rapping again. I would love to put together a rap group or a band. It would be fun to teach kids how to rap. It would be fun to dress up as a kid and play basketball on a grade school team. All joking aside, I could probably score a lot of points on a grade school basketball team. Maybe it could be an all-girls team and I could work my way toward a bench position in the WNBA. Holy shit, yo. Streets ain't ready.
All those things would be great. But as it is now, I probably average only an hour or two of human interaction per week. I need to pump those numbers up, playboy. I need to take the initiative to somehow teach myself that I do indeed have the ability to reshape the world around me. That's step number one. And I don't know yet what comes after number one, but whatever it is, hopefully it'll be the shit.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Monday, February 23, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Friday, February 13, 2015
Thursday, February 12, 2015
PERSONAL HOT SHIT #1
Yesterday I saw the movie Boyhood. For a lot of it, I thought it was pretty much the best movie ever. But by the end, I absolutely hated it. As I jokingly said afterwards, "I don't have a violent bone in my body, but I want to stab that kid in the face." Why did I have such a strong reaction? Good question. Today I scanned through the DVD to try and pinpoint where, for me, things started to go wrong.
Without putting too much effort into it, I think I started hating the movie when the boy is talking to a girl at a party after a high school football game. They have what to me is a gloomy, judgmental, obnoxiously flirtatious, pseudo-philosophical conversation that includes lines such as "You're kinda weird" and "Words are stupid." If anyone saw the movie and liked this scene, that's fine with me. To each his own. But I fucking hated it. And I hated pretty much everything that followed. The main character goes from being a simple, relatable, lovable boy to being a self-satisfied, pointlessly analytical sadsack who likes to listen to himself talk despite claiming that he doesn't. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but seriously, what happened to the "boy" in Boyhood? By this point it should be its own separate movie called Shit-hood. Or maybe Shit-boy, but that's only if we're being generous. I don't know. The word "shit" should definitely be in the title.
But enough about that. In a way the whole movie is good, because it's true that a lot of kids become less lovable as they get older. And a lot of kids become less happy as they get older. I think the general idea for the movie is great. I just found myself disappointed in who the main character turns out to be. I stopped liking him. I wanted to be watching a movie about someone else. Someone I found less annoying. Someone I could consider an inspiration rather than a cautionary tale.
Like a lot of people probably did, I also found myself thinking about my own childhood. I found myself thinking about how I was as a kid and how I am now, how I've turned out so far and all the things that have added up to get me to this point. Granted, I think about that stuff a lot anyway, but the format of the movie made the whole human aging process a little more vivid to me. A little more tangible. A little easier to visualize and work with in a straightforward, intentional, and hopefully constructive way.
One thing I know about myself is that it often comes most naturally to me to express myself indirectly through art. Another thing I know is that I'm naturally a thinker and a dreamer, and that I don't naturally care too much about, shall we say, "doing things." But, by the time my life is over, I want the story it has told to be an inspirational one rather than a cautionary tale. And I think a good way to do that might be to try to start expressing myself more directly, as well as training myself to become the kind of person who cares about "doing things." After all, no one has ever inspired anyone or accomplished anything merely by thinking and dreaming about it.
As the title of this post suggests, my plan is to start writing in a personal way about my own life. People can either read it or not, but the idea is that if I'm open, honest, and direct, maybe that will make me feel more accountable for what I do with my life and how I spend my time. As for the term "hot shit," I mean that in the sense of how I think it's used in the old Nelly song: as an upbeat, general expression of positivity. And although it may only be funny to my brother and me, I sometimes say to him in a Jimmy Stewart voice, "What's your favorite type of shit? Is it hot shit, or is it horseshit? It better not be horseshit, fucker." I hope it goes without saying that our favorite type of shit, hands down, is hot shit.
But either way, no matter what happens, the word "shit" should definitely be in the title.
Yesterday I saw the movie Boyhood. For a lot of it, I thought it was pretty much the best movie ever. But by the end, I absolutely hated it. As I jokingly said afterwards, "I don't have a violent bone in my body, but I want to stab that kid in the face." Why did I have such a strong reaction? Good question. Today I scanned through the DVD to try and pinpoint where, for me, things started to go wrong.
Without putting too much effort into it, I think I started hating the movie when the boy is talking to a girl at a party after a high school football game. They have what to me is a gloomy, judgmental, obnoxiously flirtatious, pseudo-philosophical conversation that includes lines such as "You're kinda weird" and "Words are stupid." If anyone saw the movie and liked this scene, that's fine with me. To each his own. But I fucking hated it. And I hated pretty much everything that followed. The main character goes from being a simple, relatable, lovable boy to being a self-satisfied, pointlessly analytical sadsack who likes to listen to himself talk despite claiming that he doesn't. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but seriously, what happened to the "boy" in Boyhood? By this point it should be its own separate movie called Shit-hood. Or maybe Shit-boy, but that's only if we're being generous. I don't know. The word "shit" should definitely be in the title.
But enough about that. In a way the whole movie is good, because it's true that a lot of kids become less lovable as they get older. And a lot of kids become less happy as they get older. I think the general idea for the movie is great. I just found myself disappointed in who the main character turns out to be. I stopped liking him. I wanted to be watching a movie about someone else. Someone I found less annoying. Someone I could consider an inspiration rather than a cautionary tale.
Like a lot of people probably did, I also found myself thinking about my own childhood. I found myself thinking about how I was as a kid and how I am now, how I've turned out so far and all the things that have added up to get me to this point. Granted, I think about that stuff a lot anyway, but the format of the movie made the whole human aging process a little more vivid to me. A little more tangible. A little easier to visualize and work with in a straightforward, intentional, and hopefully constructive way.
One thing I know about myself is that it often comes most naturally to me to express myself indirectly through art. Another thing I know is that I'm naturally a thinker and a dreamer, and that I don't naturally care too much about, shall we say, "doing things." But, by the time my life is over, I want the story it has told to be an inspirational one rather than a cautionary tale. And I think a good way to do that might be to try to start expressing myself more directly, as well as training myself to become the kind of person who cares about "doing things." After all, no one has ever inspired anyone or accomplished anything merely by thinking and dreaming about it.
As the title of this post suggests, my plan is to start writing in a personal way about my own life. People can either read it or not, but the idea is that if I'm open, honest, and direct, maybe that will make me feel more accountable for what I do with my life and how I spend my time. As for the term "hot shit," I mean that in the sense of how I think it's used in the old Nelly song: as an upbeat, general expression of positivity. And although it may only be funny to my brother and me, I sometimes say to him in a Jimmy Stewart voice, "What's your favorite type of shit? Is it hot shit, or is it horseshit? It better not be horseshit, fucker." I hope it goes without saying that our favorite type of shit, hands down, is hot shit.
But either way, no matter what happens, the word "shit" should definitely be in the title.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Friday, February 6, 2015
I've been thinking about the way people are attracted to mysteries. This is true both when it comes to stories and when it comes to other people. "Isn't it mysterious?" "Isn't he/she so mysterious?" There's something romantic about the notion of a mystery. We're fascinated by the strange and the unknown. The problem is, most of what we consider mysterious has nothing to do with real mystery.
A real mystery is something that we're as of yet unable to solve or explain. The key word here is "unable." A lot of the time we consider something or someone mysterious when, in fact, we could easily solve the mystery if we wanted to and tried. The easiest example of this would be if you've ever gone to school or worked with someone you considered mysterious. "I wonder what he/she is thinking. I wonder what he/she is like." Well, if you walked up and asked, he/she would probably tell you. Unless you tried that and the person refused, there was never any real mystery. There was only something easily knowable that you didn't bother to know.
A lot of the time we create a false sense of mystery by not investigating the things we find mysterious. And I think the reason we do this is because, more often than not, the romance of the mystery is better than the realization of the truth. Chances are, if you went up and talked to the person you thought was mysterious, he or she would share with you some rather mundane thoughts and opinions. It's the same thing that usually happens at the end of a mysterious TV series: We're drawn in by the thrill of the mystery, and ultimately disappointed when there's no real pay-off. Consequently, we've learned to extend the illusion of our false mysteries as long as we can.
But it seems to me that we should try not to be seduced by the empty romance of mysteries that aren't real mysteries. If we find something or someone mysterious in an alluring way, we should respond not by keeping our distance but by trying to find out more. Oftentimes we'll discover that we're capable of getting to the bottom of things. And when this is the case, there's either going to be a pay-off or there's not. We either uncover something truly worthwhile and interesting, or we "ruin the mystery" by discovering there was never anything underneath. But the thing is, it's good either way. What's important is that we learn to value things and people based on their actual qualities, rather than merely valuing the illusion of what's easily knowable yet continues to be unknown.
At the end of the day, there are plenty of real mysteries in the world. If we're looking for the romance of the strange and the unknown, we don't need to resort to deluding ourselves with false mysteries. And even if we set aside the notion of the mysterious, there are still plenty of things worth investigating, stories worth hearing, and people worth knowing. But nothing was ever worthwhile by virtue of being mysterious alone. We should think of a mystery only as an invitation to explore. And it is through exploration that we might discover real value and actual romance, not in the mystery itself.
A real mystery is something that we're as of yet unable to solve or explain. The key word here is "unable." A lot of the time we consider something or someone mysterious when, in fact, we could easily solve the mystery if we wanted to and tried. The easiest example of this would be if you've ever gone to school or worked with someone you considered mysterious. "I wonder what he/she is thinking. I wonder what he/she is like." Well, if you walked up and asked, he/she would probably tell you. Unless you tried that and the person refused, there was never any real mystery. There was only something easily knowable that you didn't bother to know.
A lot of the time we create a false sense of mystery by not investigating the things we find mysterious. And I think the reason we do this is because, more often than not, the romance of the mystery is better than the realization of the truth. Chances are, if you went up and talked to the person you thought was mysterious, he or she would share with you some rather mundane thoughts and opinions. It's the same thing that usually happens at the end of a mysterious TV series: We're drawn in by the thrill of the mystery, and ultimately disappointed when there's no real pay-off. Consequently, we've learned to extend the illusion of our false mysteries as long as we can.
But it seems to me that we should try not to be seduced by the empty romance of mysteries that aren't real mysteries. If we find something or someone mysterious in an alluring way, we should respond not by keeping our distance but by trying to find out more. Oftentimes we'll discover that we're capable of getting to the bottom of things. And when this is the case, there's either going to be a pay-off or there's not. We either uncover something truly worthwhile and interesting, or we "ruin the mystery" by discovering there was never anything underneath. But the thing is, it's good either way. What's important is that we learn to value things and people based on their actual qualities, rather than merely valuing the illusion of what's easily knowable yet continues to be unknown.
At the end of the day, there are plenty of real mysteries in the world. If we're looking for the romance of the strange and the unknown, we don't need to resort to deluding ourselves with false mysteries. And even if we set aside the notion of the mysterious, there are still plenty of things worth investigating, stories worth hearing, and people worth knowing. But nothing was ever worthwhile by virtue of being mysterious alone. We should think of a mystery only as an invitation to explore. And it is through exploration that we might discover real value and actual romance, not in the mystery itself.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
ENDORSEMENT 13
There are a lot of teams to root for in the Intergalactic Football League. But only one IFL team has the heart, the passion, the intensity, and the solid red uniforms of Planet Earth. Here on Planet Earth, we love our football team so much, we bleed red. Of course, our away uniforms are blue. So in outer space, we bleed blue. Or is it still red? Dark red? Have any of our fans ever actually bled in outer space? Whatever. Planet Earth football rules.
Planet Earth football. Bleed red.
There are a lot of teams to root for in the Intergalactic Football League. But only one IFL team has the heart, the passion, the intensity, and the solid red uniforms of Planet Earth. Here on Planet Earth, we love our football team so much, we bleed red. Of course, our away uniforms are blue. So in outer space, we bleed blue. Or is it still red? Dark red? Have any of our fans ever actually bled in outer space? Whatever. Planet Earth football rules.
Planet Earth football. Bleed red.
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