Deviant Rambling

I find myself contemplating the life I was living just a few years ago and how out of balance it was. I hold up my life today as a model for comparison and it would seem like someone else’s.

In 2021 around this time, I had really begun to feel the effects of burnout from helping run a business. I was never able to be truly free from the day-to-day concerns of the venture and it sapped my strength do want to do much of anything outside of what needed done. I was near the peak of my drinking problem and more and more of the daylight hours were spent in some stage of intoxication. Alcohol is numbing and it is effective on pain of every variety including physical, emotional, and mental. But that temporary relief was less effective by the day and I had to ramp up the quantity because my tolerance was becoming heroic.

Now it’s three years later and my life has so few concerns that I look back on this period as an informative one. I could see every single thing I didn’t want my life to be daily and I felt powerless to change course. There was no end in sight so I resigned that things would finally come around when I was able to step away and put this life to rest for good through a business closure at some distant point in the future. I clung to the idea like a drowning man clings to the floating wreckage of his ship.

I was sure it would take a death to be free of it all, and almost as if by fate, there would be one.

But now I have the exact opposite set of problems to contend with. Although I’m not burned out from having way too much on my plate, I’m finding myself more and more disillusioned with having literally all of the free time in the world. It has made me available for others 24/7 and there is a sense of fulfillment to be had from being there for those who need you when they need you. But the pay for that kind of work is nonexistent, so I have to pick up freelance gigs to cover the few obligations I still have.

I want to be doing something with my time that helps other people on a broader scale and also allows me to make a living like the one I had from the business. I wasn’t an employee, so I didn’t report to anyone, and that is how I will have to work for the rest of my life. It is one of the few aspects of my old life that I want to maintain in the era I find myself in now.

Not having a lot of resources to draw from has been a blessing and a curse, because although it sucks not being able to get out and see more of the world, I worry about so little. It has made me prioritize what I want my life to be about, and it makes me appreciate the feasts between periods of famine.

There is nothing that could make me want to go back in time and relive the life I was struggling with a few years ago. Not even the alternate universe where dad didn’t have a stroke and die. Because that life didn’t seem to have any happy endings, and this one seems completely open to the possibility. I just have to make happiness a priority and find it everywhere I can.

I wandered onto YouTube to see what a couple channels I subscribe to had to say about all of the recent developments in the world and it was refreshing to see sane conversations being had. The comments sections were supportive and echoed much of the level and rational thinking that highlights how I try and view events.

Granted, there are always people with an axe to grind, and they will be the loudest, but it was a nice reminder that there is such a thing as a “home” crowd. Living in a historically red Midwestern state like Indiana, it is hard to find folks who aren’t the new brand of conservative. It seems like the version of Republican I grew up around is gone now in favor of the flag-waving, Bible thumping, autocrat-supporting kind of people and it feels impossible to reason with that kind of disconnection.

I am still outside of any party but have recently taken to researching left-leaning Libertarianism because it is where I fall on the political spectrum. Being left of center is a mark against you and you have to be careful to mention that out loud in mixed company. If I were to lead with Libertarian, most people around here would just see that as Conservative and as acceptable for that reason. But I’m not either one of those things, and I wouldn’t be able to leave well enough alone. I’d be in the political weeds almost immediately and given my surroundings, I’d be on the constant defensive. Or at least that’s how it feels.

But thanks to the power of this incredible communication tool that is the internet, I can seek out others like me so that I can enjoy the same camaraderie people enjoy in-person here. I felt something approaching this when I attended a 2020 rally for Bernie Sanders in Iowa, but it was all-too-brief and I knew that the very next day I’d be back where I was surrounded by folks who would threaten physical violence against me for attending such an event. I stay in my lane and only discuss political ideas with those I’ve confirmed will not make it about how wrong I am and that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is also wrong.

It is my hope that I can some day return to the state of affairs prior to 2016 when identity politics truly became the law of the land and we all set up shop in the “us versus them” mentality for the long haul. I want to be able to respectfully disagree with a viewpoint and have a conversation without it devolving into a meaningless tirade. The only thing that is in that direction is the death of discourse and I want to go the opposite direction.

Civility in D.C. has dissolved entirely and elected officials are just openly hostile to one another and encourage their base to do the same, further attempting to cement the “us versus them” contest. They will never let us in on the secret they are trying to keep and that is the fact that they’re just trying to keep their seats and will do whatever it takes to do so. If they were civil and attempted to come to bipartisan solutions, though, they could keep the seats forever as far as I’m concerned. My gut tells me I’ll never have to worry about that level of cooperation in Washington, ever.

But among the people I might call kindred outside of my own loved ones, I hope to establish a community and a rapport. I hope to affect change through the limitless ranks of folks online who I surely agree with. And more than anything, I hope to be a force for good through reasoned, level-headed discussion about common issues we all face, aiming to place party aside first and proceed as fellow human beings.

I’m a dreamer, for sure, and I’m always looking for others who dare to do the same.

The economic landscape has seemed to drop out from under everyone in the past week as markets took a nose dive. My response has been giddy laughter at the panic of all of the people on the news as they describe what has happened and what may happen next.

No one is asking me my thoughts on the matter because I am one of the millions of unwashed Americans who have no business discussing the matter at hand. But I think that what is happening is the result of an unprecedented time of growth following the historic events of 2020. The decline was inevitable because the growth wasn’t organic by any stretch of the imagination.

When the markets started to go absolutely haywire and only up, I knew what was coming, and it was just a matter of time until the momentum died and took the economy with it. I continued to watch them climb with no end in sight and as it happened I saw the cost of living for everyone creep up at the same time. Now the idea of achieving anything even remotely close to the old American dream is dead and buried.

Restoration will require a dramatic decline, and I personally want to see people throwing themselves off buildings. I want the markets to bottom out and I want the rampant capitalism to have a reckoning. People need to have the excess stripped away so they can see what actually matters. It isn’t their 401k or their real estate holdings, but they may only realize it once those things have lost their perceived value. Because none of these things, money included, have any inherent value, only the value we assign to them.

I realize that just because a thing doesn’t have inherent value doesn’t mean it can’t ruin your life in very real ways. No money is no way to live, and that’s just a sad fact of the life we find ourselves in. But if you could just find your way to enough and be satisfied with it, then you will be a more generous person in the event that you have abundance.

When the world is on fire, I won’t be looking for toilet paper, milk, and eggs. I will gather the ingredients for smores.

It just occurred to me that I have changed my entire tune on voting because of something Trump did earlier this week. In order to clarify if you happen to be reading this at some other point when the news cycle has moved on, I’ll remind you what it was.

Trump was invited to be a guest at an association of black reporters and he was to be interviewed, appropriately, by a black woman. The first question was to bring him to account on his record for black folks, and he decided it would be a good time to attack black folks head on. He then brought Kamala Harris race into question and said he didn’t even know she was black until recently when she started saying she was. I will not speak for Kamala Harris but I have always seen her as a person of color and never once questioned her racial bona fides because I’m not a sociopath.

But with just this one, over-the-top display of backwards, racist, ignorant thinking, the man ensured that I would be voting against him. How Harris handled the conversation and the fallout convinced me that she was capable of serving the office and by extension the people that it is accountable to: all of us.

Now I have begun the work of diligence to ensure that my vote is as informed as it can be, and more to the point, so I can feel good about casting a ballot for the first time in 12 years.

I have spent most of the current election cycle sure that we were barreling towards the inevitable disaster of another Trump term. It felt like a certainty, and I remain cautious of the possibility.

But once the Democrats finally pulled their heads out of their asses and confronted Biden with reality, it seems like the whole scene changed for the better. For the first time since 2012, I feel as though I am not left to choose between the lesser of two evils. I have begun to come around to the idea of voting. I don’t feel icky about the candidate the same way I did in 2016 and 2020. That comes from a place of genuine ignorance about Kamala Harris’ record and aspirations. I knew too much about Hillary and Joe to ever feel completely on board with them, but the alternative was and remains truly insane.

The air around us changed when Harris picked up the torch. Something shifted in the national conversation and in my own heart and mind. I believe it would only be fitting for a woman of color to run away with it. It’s high time we gave women a chance to run this thing because we have seen what hundreds of years worth of white men accomplishes. More of the same is a sure path to ruin.

I am sure that the particulars of Harris and her record will be known by election day and I am sure that they will not find any skeletons that would stop me from believing she is the better choice. I continue to maintain that my vote will be a protest vote, but I will cast it happily this time. As an act of defiance against a man that I believe could spell the end of democracy.

We seem to be living in an age when people can do things with zero inherent value and get paid for them, so long as enough people interact with the content. I’d rather skip the middle part where I have to feign interest in a subject to make content and push it as hard as possible to get traction, ever seeking virality.

Can I just have some of your money, free from conditions and judgment?

K. THX. BAI.

In daring to open this space to the public, I run the risk that my opinions on the state of the world will meet with resistance. As these are merely my opinions, I expect them to be taken with a grain of salt.

But I am not sorry for how I feel and I will not hold back. I see the world as I do and I give the benefit of the doubt to as many folks as I can. It just isn’t realistic to believe you can meet everyone in the middle and I suspect I wont’ be able to.

The political landscape we find ourselves in is a veritable minefield and I know I will step on a few as I trudge through this journey called life. So long as I can avoid any truly insane responses like doxing and the like, I should be able to proceed unabated. I expect a fair share of wounds but if my thoughts reach even one set of receptive eyes and land as intended, it was all worth it.

You’ve been warned, and I’ll try to keep the political detours to a minimum, but it is impossible to avoid entirely.

As a person who pulls words from thin air to transmute them into money, I am curious about the nature of these insights. They seem to appear of their own accord and often out of sync with when you need them. This leaves me convinced that such wisdom can only be obtained through careful observation and through the practice of taking mental notes.

When an inspiration arrives from nowhere, you should do your best to stop everything you are doing and observe what is being communicated. From these ethereal threads, you may be able to piece together a work of art or at very least, grab hold of an idea before it finds another, more suited recipient. Make as many mental notes as you are capable of storing in your working memory and then get them down on paper or in an app.

Given the apparent random nature of these epiphanies, it can seem a futile project to take notes at the time. But these notes can be just enough for you to see the outline of a puzzle you didn’t know you needed to solve. Assembling this outline after the fact is only possible through your diligence, and recognizing the signs of this gift from the heavens.

There will be times where you simply can not devote the energy required to wrangle these forces to your whims, and this is an inevitable form of suffering that you must learn to endure or better yet, accept. Any and all ideas find a home where they were meant to be, and if you’re exceedingly lucky, it just might be in your heart and mind.

Browsing through my posts on here it is apparent that I dislike almost everything about the world I live in. So that has me considering the opposite.

What do I like about this world?

Relationships

The first thing that always comes to mind when I consider what I value is my relationships. First and foremost, I am living a lifelong dream to be with my muse. I spent years of my life aimlessly wandering after we fell away from one another out of love but I never stopped loving her. It is the kind of all-consuming love that lasts a lifetime, serving as an underpinning for some of the greatest moments of my life so far. It promises to remain a constant and I will spend my life serving this love and keeping it whole and sacred as it is meant to be. I have an endless supply of gratitude for this timeless love, because I know how many people in the world go without.

I still have my mother and the kind of endless love that all parents have for their children. We have both changed so much in our lives and dramatically in the past couple of years, but I am glad to have her around. The losses we suffered together in 2022 brought us closer together and I’m thankful for that. I find it difficult to relate to her all the time but I think that most children run into the same thing with their folks.

The few friendships I do maintain are sibling level and I would honestly do anything in my power for these people. I love them more than I ever loved my own brother and that says more than anything else I could put here.

Conversation

Among our oldest traditions as a species is that of conversation. I’m not referring to casual dribble about work or sports. I mean the kind where we get into the fundamental nature of why we believe we’re here.

This isn’t the sort of conversation that you have every day and that is part of what makes it so special. It allows you to set aside prosaic concerns and discover what’s under it all. You can learn so much about what drives a person if you just sit and talk about it, and it helps you be a better friend and confidant. Make the time to have important conversations and show up for them 100%. Leave your phone in your pocket.

Intoxication through the use of mind-altering substances can lend these conversations a sort of mystical status and I can’t recommend it enough. You may not come out remembering everything that was talked about, but you will come out feeling changed, often for the better. The snapshots you do remember will stay with you for years, and you’ll remember the company for a lifetime.

Expression

I had a difficult time deciding what to call this particular section. It was going to be music but then I zoomed out some more and considered all of the forms of expression that I consider precious.

The list evolves as my tastes develop and I find new and exciting things to expose myself to through travel and more convenient modes like social media. Seeing what people are capable of creating with nothing more than skilled hands and their imagination, I am reminded of how incredible we can be as a species.

If a work of any sort can elicit a genuine emotional response then it has inherent value. I include the full spectrum of feelings and believe a piece causing anger can be just as powerful as one that causes spontaneous tears of joy.

Having seen a few world-class art museums has made me want to tour the planet in search of this greatness just so I may sit with it for a moment. I want to carefully receive what skilled hands have fearlessly put into the world and hold onto it for as long as I’m here.

As a person cursed to live a creative life, expression comes in many forms, with new avenues presenting themselves all the time. One of the greatest tragedies of our short lives is knowing that we can’t try them all and achieve mastery. Specialization demands that you become ruthless in spotting rabbit holes and avoiding them in favor of what you do best. I’m a writer. Everything I enjoy outside of that is dabbling and doesn’t carry nearly the weight. All the more reason to absolutely revel in what others are capable of.

To all of the creatives of the world, no matter your form of expression, thank you for the bravery you show in releasing your work for us to make a part of ourselves. I’m jealous of all of you.

Simplicity

The average household contains over 300,000 items according to a Google search I just did. The number borders on the absurd but I think it’s low. That is hundreds of thousands of ways for you to add needless complications to your life.

I want to possess so few things that people wonder if I gave away my sanity when they see my space. I am reminded of this fundamental need of mine now as I sit at one of the desks I kept from when the business existed. I look around and I see items that I still consider to be excess and I feel driven to remove them.

I am something of an extremist about my minimalism, but it has made my life better in every conceivable way. Likewise, I never suffer from our societal contagion in the U.S. to “Keep up with the Jones’s”. People who identify with their possessions first lost the thread somewhere and it can be hard for them to ever see anything meaningful in life. They chase a high that can only be had with blind consumption and they never have a chance to get off the Hedonic treadmill.

I don’t agree with the Stoics on much but I find they are kindred spirits in this respect. If you give material things power over you, it will only ever end badly. Keep what is necessary and discard the rest because your experience will not be enriched by tangible things alone.

Honesty

It’s something of a rarity these days but I value radical honesty. I am referring to the kind of honesty that never pulls punches and doesn’t believe in white lies save for insane circumstances where the truth will put someone directly in harm’s way.

To paraphrase a short story by Sam Harris, the only time lies seem to be warranted is in the event that not doing so will result in injury or death of another person. Say a person comes to your door in a panic, informing you that a killer is on their heels and you have to help them hide. You allow them in to shelter them and sure enough, an armed individual appears shortly after asking if you have seen the person you are now hiding. The most effective thing to do in this scenario might be to lie to the would-be perpetrator and call the authorities if/when they accept what you tell them. Only in these extreme sort of life or death circumstances does it make any sense whatsoever. Even then I say the best thing to do is lock the home, retreat to an interior room and call the authorities as a first and best choice of action. Everything shy of this kind of never in your lifetime event warrants your complete honesty.

The world would be a completely different place if honesty really was the best policy and not just some trite saying that authorities use to guilt people into telling the truth. Telling the truth is the easiest course, too, because you’ll never need to craft a narrative to cover anything up.

Travel

Earlier in my life I wasn’t much for traveling aside from concert-related road trips but that was enough to leave the door slightly open for me to rediscover the power that adventure has to transform our lives for the better. Some of the most illuminating, transcendent, and life-affirming experiences I have ever had were because I took a chance to go and see the world.

If you never leave your hometown, state, or country, you are missing out on hundreds of other ways of seeing literally everything. The perspective shift you experience is worth the price of admission alone, because it will forever alter how you treat your fellow human beings. In daring to open your mind, you allow other cultures in and this makes you an infinitely more complex person.

Traveling also gives you more tools of expression as you become able to relate to and communicate with more of the world’s citizens. It requires that you remain present at all times and this makes it a rare opportunity to be in awe of the commonplace, every day lives of others because it is so different from your own. You’ll return home with a great appreciation for all that you have and some clues about the things you want more of.

Fire

My inner caveman loves fire and won’t let me make this list without including it. On a barely subconscious level, it is a symbol of our primordial origins as a species that crawled from the sea hundreds of millions of years ago. After enough walking on four or more legs with varying degrees of consciousness, we arrived at something resembling humanity. We discovered combustion almost certainly by accident and it enthralled us with the power of anything elemental and seemingly magical.

It kept us warm, safe from becoming a meal, and it allowed us to cook the animals that were slower than us. I continue to admire it as my ancient ancestors did, with the same entranced state coming over me as I’m sure it did them. It is a fitting metaphor for our lives and it has stood the test of time as one of the most incredible forces we have ever tried to tame.

There is just something about watching an inanimate, amorphous form with an endless appetite. It is completely indiscriminate in the way that it consumes, and in it’s wake, you’ll often find vibrant renewal, as is the case with forest fires. The same fire when intensified to a cosmic scale produces planets, stars, galaxies, and everything from here to the ends of existence as we know it.

Memories

My memory is noteworthy by all accounts, having stored decades of truly useless information between my ears. Much of this can be recalled effortlessly on demand to the astonishment of those who requested it. Names, faces, places, directions, it goes on for what seems like forever with little struggle to find it when I need it and what seems like an endless storage capacity.

It is only as I get older that I come to terms with the fact that some day in the not-so-distant future, I may lose this capacity in favor of having more operating memory. Our minds are incredible bits of evolution, becoming fine-tuned machines that establish meaning in everything, but eventually, priorities shift in favor of daily functions. I may live to see the day where my mind begins to arbitrarily remove old memories in favor of storing more practical information like where my shoes are, and this notion makes me sad.

But having the time I had so far and all of the years ahead that I’ll remain in relatively good health encourages me that the descent will be dignified and I will appear to improve with age. At least that’s the hope I’m holding onto.

I’ve seen what cognitive decline in the elderly looks like, and I intend to outline the conditions which I will not suffer through for the sake of adding years to my non-existent tombstone. When the joy has gone from my mind, I’ll be on my way. I’m not asking anyone, it’s just a courtesy to say I will go on my own terms. I will have zero regrets, and all of the gratitude in the universe for the time I did get.

Love

I believe love is the single greatest force in the universe as observed through our lens of conscious experience. It has the power to start and end wars, and has been the source of inspiration for the best and brightest among us.

It is an accessible, abundant, and timeless commodity that you can count on giving and receiving throughout your life. It is the lifeblood of our passions and it gives us all a reason to live as the best possible version of ourselves, so that we may spread love to all we see fit. From the beginning of time until the end, it remains constant and steadfast.

I speak of every form of love in the broadest sense. The universal love that you feel for your favorite dessert as much as you feel for your family and significant other(s). It can be familial, romantic, platonic, and every other conceivable configuration.

I am loved, I love others, and I love that I have something so powerful and limitless at my disposal at all times.

Stories

The stories we tell and are told are a major part of what make life worth living. Either those made by teams of writers and brought to life through the talent of players on stage and screen, or those stories put to paper for the imagination to do all of the work through reading. Our stories help us keep note of the time we live in, make the every day seem amazing, and give us common ground with anyone.

The stories that have made up the substance of my life are important to me and to a lesser extent those in my circle. I speak on them with a mixture of pride and wide-eyed disbelief that I got to live them and survived to tell the tale. Since I am the main character in my story, it will be for others to decide if it was a comedy or a tragedy once it’s all said and done. I intend to live the whole thing true to the things I consider important and will leave the summary up to the historians who may tell it in the future, should it be so interesting. I suspect it will just be the few loved ones I have that remain, and that is comfort enough for me to live every day as though it were my last.

Tomorrow is my 42nd birthday.

I remain ambivalent about the day being any kind of occasion, and instead prefer to focus on others in the time surrounding this annual occurrence. Over the weekend, I was able to spend a lot of quality time with my muse and we had a good deal of fun together as well as with friends on Friday night.

It would seem that I have become receptive to new friendships again, and it is a strange thing to seek out at this stage in life. The decades I’ve lived have given me a broad perspective to judge potential friends against, and a means of filtering out less-than-ideal candidates. As difficult as it is to find new friends, it’s even harder to vet them and make sure you won’t run into conflict straight away based on ideological differences. Great care must be taken in this respect and it takes extra time but it’s time well spent to find other members of your tribe.

Now more than ever, I find myself probing for political affiliations or at least leanings, because I know now how core these things have become. We all used to be able to pretend at pleasantries if we disagreed with someone politically but that time may be gone for good. I know better than to try to find people who I agree with point for point on everything, but there are some things I simply will not negotiate on. If a person leads with a discussion about Trump and how great he is, it’s an immediate dead end. I’d go a step further and say that if a person were to lead with their political baggage from either direction, I’ll exit quickly.

If a person wraps their identity up in their favorite elected officials or the party they represent, it’s safe to say they will have a hard time with critical thinking. I prefer my company to be free thinking and capable of making their own decisions and coming to conclusions independent of leadership.

Likewise, if a person greets you as a complete stranger with intimate details of their life from the first word, you should exercise a great deal of caution. Odds are the person thrives on drama and they will inevitably attempt to get you to side with them in these stories so they can add your name to list of people who agree with them. Your life is interesting enough without helping other people carry their baggage. I’ve had people I barely knew confide things in me because I seemed trustworthy and I lived up to this by immediately discarding the information as opposed to holding on to it for later sharing with literally any third party. It doesn’t ever bother me because I know that this information is nothing of use to me so I will promptly toss it the second it seems socially acceptable to do so. If a subject is truly none of my business I will just tell the person that much and help steer the conversation away from the problematic issue. If a person insists on tangling you up in their story, cut ties and continue the search for better.

It also occurs to me at this stage in my life that all of the ideas I had about friendship when I was in my formative years were consistent with how I feel now. A person knows when a friendship is mutually beneficial and when it is lopsided in one way or another. We spend years trying to determine which is which but in truth, you know almost immediately based on the instinctual pings you get at every turn telling you yes or no. All we have to do is listen for these signs to know how to proceed, but our need to have a community often forces us to ignore negatives in favor of the “Something is better than nothing.” mentality. Being comfortable in solitude has been an absolute godsend for me in this respect, because I know I don’t have to settle on any relationship. I’m good by myself, and if I’m to let anyone in, I have to be good with their being there. Quantity is easy, quality takes diligence.

This has meant that over the years I’ve changed friend groups a few times and reduced at every opportunity. Now I have just a few truly close friends and a massive pool of people I know on a surface level, enough to nod hello to in public but never have more than a passing, meaningless conversation. The energy I devote to this kind of person is minimal and I make every attempt to hasten these exchanges so I can proceed with my day unencumbered. Knowing a lot of people becomes a curse because it feels as though you can’t be out at certain times or places without bumping into one of these unknowns and having to talk about the weather or even worse, about lives we lived 20+ years ago in high school. I’m not that person any more and I’m not interested in that version of you, so let’s leave it in the past for good. 2021 was my 20 year high school reunion and I had some classmates trying pretty hard to get me to go and my response was the same every time “I have no interest in talking about the past and I will not be at any of these events, please stop asking me.” Social rituals like this are just dead weight to me, a relic of a time that might have made sense in the past but is now ridiculous. Those people didn’t really matter to me in high school and they certainly don’t now.

It’s not that I harbor any sort of ill-will toward any of these people. I want the same thing for them that I would any complete stranger: that they’re doing well, free from debilitating illness, and capable of fulfilling their needs. They are all strangers to me, so I extend the same kindnesses I show to everyone.

Despite having been here over 40 years now, I am still searching for my place and purpose in it all. I feel as though I’ve caught glimpses of who the ideal version of me is, but never any more than a fleeting vision. Sustainable happiness is elusive in this regard, and always comes with a lot of feeling like there has to be more to life than this. I may be a lifelong seeker and only ever get these glimpses as opposed to some fabled and lasting path to travel, and that has to be alright, too.