Reflections
26th Year Epiphanies
I am someone who is deeply in touch with The Should. I always know what's right and I can always find The Why.
For most of my life, however, this has led to a persistent struggle to internalize The Is because it is so intensely estranged from what ought to be.
I've been in constant conflict with difference between what is right vs. what is will be; what I want vs what I need; and what is ideal vs what is plausible, because The Is is merely optional and full of flex, whereas The Should is utterly unchanging.
And, in almost total disbelief of this jank reality -- and its participants, with their audacity to resist The Should -- I have lived my life accordingly:
"I should have X, I want X, and so I am going to pursue X regardless of what has been imposed upon me."
I have lived as if my limitations and oppositional forces have no legitimate existence.
The problem, however, is that my lack of subscription to them alone is not enough for them to be neutralized
I cannot evade being slowed and damaged by their being despite my commitment to ignoring their presence. And, overtime, the toll of flippance has become significant.
This year, however, I am fortunate to have found inspiration to change my tactics — before it is too late for me to benefit from operating differently. And, though, I have neither done nor experienced anything that would court this kind of development, I've had realizations that majorly impact how I relate, view, and proceed in life.
It's all just been kind of epiphanal over the first half of 2024, as if emergency-beamed into my consciousness or perhaps just occurring on some kind of brain development timeline. Still, I wanted to take some time to document what I learned this, apparently pivotal, year, mostly for my own sake. But, also for those who can benefit and relate.
1. Humans Are Humans
Late March, there came the realization that I was often asking those around me to behave in ways that they were psychologically, if not, at times, physiologically incapable. Failure on their part, would result in perceptible dissatisfaction from myself, and this became a foundational dynamic of many of my interpersonal relationships. I’ve realized now, however, that an excitable human often cannot be measured, a people-pleasing human often cannot be discerning, and so on and so forth. Expectations that humans will change, rather than keep being who they are, are ill-founded as human personality is fairly rigid.
Still, placing too much stock in the abilities of the average human, I had been expecting too much. And, in that, I had become angry and resentful of many of the people in my life for never being who they should have been and, by extension never being who I needed them to be.
At this time in late March, however, I spontaneously became aware that most humans just aren't going to have the traits or behaviors required to enable the level of trust, interest, and closeness that I need in order to enjoy the depth of connection that any given kind of relationship should entail. For many of them, it is better to just give up expectations of The Should and navigate The Is with a stoic acceptance of their being.
Still, this was a happy moment for me. It felt like relief. Once the expectation of those things that should be was released, it became easier to take the good with the good and to accept, if not even forgive, the bad.
2. Jump Down The Rabbit Hole
Obviously, I have a bent toward the abstract -- the theoretical, the philosophical, the esoteric, the systematic, the new, and the futuristic. And, most of the things in these spaces -- the best developed of them, at least -- lie in the realm of in taboo or the "occult." In Gnosticism, astrology, paganism, tarot, magic, and foreign practices…
But, for the usual reasons, I've been resisting full engagement with them: I’ve been attempting to evade the stigmas of "craziness", irrationality, feminine association, and accusations of "demonic activity." Exploring in these areas has always felt particularly threatening to the things that matter in my life, so I've chosen to walk in circles around the rabbit hole, yet never to jump in.
Still, the draw is a part of me that will not go away. I will always want to be near the rabbit hole and I suspect that many of the things that I need to fill out my character lie within it. My personal development is perhaps, even, stalled by this aversion. So, I believe it makes sense to take the plunge -- to dive and to know what is hidden.
This will also accompany an effort to stop saying “no” to things so much. I’m going to follow opportunities more often, in general, rather than being so caught up in my opinions and how I am perceived.
3. This Is Really Happening
I am in this body. These are my circumstances. This is my current life on Earth.
These really are my cards and, rather than waiting to be magically phased into someone else, it is best to figure out how to play them.
Up until about 23, I actually expected to "grow up" into a completely different person: someone with a totally different personality, mindset, appearance, strengths, and interests. I've spent the vast majority of my life waiting for morph into another human and, to this end, I've delayed taking on any significant endeavors in the interested of hiding away until I've become "ripe" enough to begin my "real" life. That would be the life were I can pursue my endeavors head on, perfectly suited within the perfect conditions. And, all the while, I've expected perfection to simply work itself out into a future iteration of myself, with minimal concerted effort on my part. Literally, just "growing up" -- as it had always worked when I were a kid.
But, I've been surprised by the persistence of things.
I actually have to work with has been allotted to me and and accept what has not -- I cannot be "anything" and I cannot do anything else. There actually is no developmental milestone were your brain just clicks and you simply become your "best self" doing all the things that your ideal life entails, as that is, apparently, not adulthood. And, failure to come all the way out of the womb, to finally be born, and accept the reality here -- to fully boot into the jank Matrix -- delays adulthood.
Our demystified culture says that everything is simply a matter of time, age, and bodily markers, but human adulthood is a conditional and psychological thing. It is something that one should have spent their whole life working toward, in aspiration of completing the rites that govern its passage, which are feats pertaining to ones ability to deal in this reality, by means of independent production.
And, no one ever told or taught me to do that.
I never learned that being an adult means being able to tangibly do things (rather than to "be" things) that enable a self-directed existence in the physical world. And, I don't mean the modern idea of employment and support roles, but to actual do and produce products that transform the quality of life for oneself and/or others. That's how agency works here -- that's the only way that change and unshackling can happen.
So, despite the fact that this is all terribly disappointing and laborious, I'm taking a look at what my cards are, figuring how they can be leveraged for the best outcomes, and putting on a mind to touch things and develop more technical, and more enabling, life skills.
I’m setting aside The Should to deal with The Is, for now.
4. Give Up The Rat Race
Mid June, likely as an after-effect of the above, I realized that I should give up the rat race.
I need to give up concern for the social prestige of my job title and, subsequently, stop gunning for rank. That is likely to come with a number of less desirable adjustments, but career prestige is actually something that is more an accessory to me than something that I care about in itself: it is a shorthand for garnering respect, which is, in turn, a tool for eliciting favorable behavior from others.
But, in reality, I'm not competitive: I don't care about being the best [insert role], I could not give a flying fuck about "service," I don't have "passion" for anything that isn’t shared in this blog, and I’m not concerned about inducing any particular emotional states in others. I believe that it is dumb and effeminate to be so concerned with the business of others as to be invested in “competing” with them, that "bestness" has no value outside of the arts, and that "commitment" to one's secular work -- as an employee, in particular -- is silly and laughable, on it's face.
It used to be that all of this was normal and expected sentiment — since people do not live to work. And, the normal response to expressing it was "that's why they pay you."
But, those who care and have normalized competition, "bestness," "service," and "commitment," on both the employer and the employee sides of the work environment, have made pursuing titular prestige exhausting and they've driven down salaries so low, that the hassle is far too much more than it's worth.
Most cringe is the Millennial and Gen Z phenomenon of making their work their identity. Some who are not influencers (or even normal social media managers), but literal non-sales employees, will have their entire social media presence, birth name, and persona orbiting around their actual job.
Or those who devote significant chunks of their personal time to job related activities -- like getting unnecessary credentials, company activities, social media interactions, free promotion, etc...That is because these demonic, mentally ill "people" don't work for money.
They work for the "self-worth" and "sense of purpose" that they derive from the act and feeling of working for an authority figure. They are slave "people," and they are the guardians of an ever worsening status quo.
There. I have said all of the things that will get the bootcucks raging on Reddit.And, while, I do want to fulfill my end of the deal in work-- I want to honor my commitments and do quality work where that is what I have said I will do -- my actual goal is to minimize the amount of time I spend working and to maximize the amount of money that I extract from others as income. My interests, well-being, purpose, and life lie outside of the traditional workplace and I have increasingly little tolerance for it jumping out of place and bidding my attention.
The work done for others and the "prestige" associated with it is something that I will stop internalizing for my own sake.