My head is falling apart. Everything I read feels instinctively full of shit. Is it paranoia?
I went to a book fair. An author fair? A book expo? I guess it was, they were selling bound piles of paper. Prose written by hundreds of different authors that are all disillusioned and pasteurized, like they all took the same class with the same professor who published a poetry book in the nineties called "The Fog of the Zeitgeist" and then met up in the back of an locally-owned coffee shop and edited everything together and as a result creativity is a formula instead of an idea.
Set up. Punchline. A sentence that lists one, two, three things followed by a hyphen---and a question? I'm just sayin. Your pacing? Is bullshit. I do it too and we can smell our own. Self-deprecation is disguised as a gimmick of endearment instead of actual loathing, it's just cool to refer to yourself as someone with self-loathing because Chuck Palahniuk said so.
But hope is so much more powerful than self-loathing, hope and want and the balls to exist, which is something I completely lack and desire deeply and I write myself in circles, I'm sliding around this funnel-bong of meta-actualization, and I don't own a fucking bong because weed makes me even paranoider about people's perception of me than I already am.
Nonsense because someone said nonsense was funny, not because they themselves are nonsensical, and can't people smell contrivance when it's thrust upon them? Not everything is contrived, of course. TED speeches seem unique, but sometimes they are so rhetorically slanted I get frustrated. I can't stand social commentary because it's old and it's tired and it's always about things I know inherently or things that ring false in my fibers and I have this craving for things that are new, even if they're only new to me.
If I ask someone for something new and they give me something old I feel like a guilty scumwhore, because should I thank them and move on? My uber-obsession with authenticity (which, I know, is something most single people my age are going through right now, and believe me: shut up, that doesn't fucking help me feel authentic) tells me that I should thank them, but let them know they told me something I already fucking know, because did you seriously think I didn't know that?
What a terrible way to function.
At the same time, 90% of the strangers I've met are a slopbucket of self-righteous cunts that love congratulating themselves on educating me. "Well, you probably don't know this, but..."
I stay away from these people as much as possible, because all they've really taught me is that 90% of the population is full of self-righteous cunts, and I'm trying real, real hard to believe that statistic is inaccurate. But I've thrown up defensive firewalls because there are some irksome, irksome people out there, and weeding through them is exhausting and in the end I'm terrified that I will come across as ungrateful to the people I love and respect, but I'm argumentative. It's who I am.
So I try to stay self-aware, but I am aware of my self-awareness. I am so aware of my self-awareness that it becomes a chore to make sure I do not look like I am so incredibly buzzing with molecular reactions that I forget to pay attention to other people just so I don't split apart and little bits of me don't go flying in their faces.
I forget that my stray thoughts might sound careless and cruel. But I love having conversations with people that disagree with me: those are the best. But people who disagree with me hate talking to me because I want yelling matches and debates, and I can't help it if my logic is more meta and more logical due to my self-awareness. Come on.
Talking to people who have the exact same opinion as me is completely boring, we're just jerking each other off, and poorly, unless it becomes a contest over who can say the same thing in the most interesting way: I love that game.
I acquire energy through conflict, but whenever I conflict with someone they don't want to explore the conflict, the nature of it, the why behind it - do they not care?
Why do we live in a society driven by people's opinions instead of a society driven by their actions? Why is it that I'm aware of this, dislike it strongly because I believe actions are more valuable, but I know that I am better at opinions and words and therefore continue to focus on them, and dislike myself for it and wish, wish, wish I were different?
I keep on making things because I have to. It's my only real acting compulsion. I think it's because I keep gaining weight, and I keep gaining weight because I keep drinking the beer. People keep on leaving it at my apartment and everyday, like clockwork, there I am: drinking the beer and building the clock.
Oh, I made a clock, did you know that? From scratch. I mean, it was made out of paper. And it kind of works.
In some ways, it's the most successful, innovative clock ever created because it completely defies the logic of spacetime and essentially the room in which it dwells exists in a completely different timeline than the rest of my apartment, so I am constantly crossing the threshold between alternate timelines where the rules of modern-day societies' timekeeping do not apply, and that's a comforting thought.
But according to the small-minded, little people living in reality: one of the gears is totally warped and the fucking thing is broken.
My truth, of course, is better. But the other truth is truthier. And as much as I want to believe in truth and the importance of actions and harmony, I don't. I believe in nonsense, and talking about how I feel about nonsense, and going out and committing nonsense and causing and resolving conflict, and the joy that comes from conflict and talking in three-hour funnels. Fuck, I love talking in three-hour funnels. Circles and circles and circles and circles and circles and boom! Result.
So this is where it comes from: I know who I am, and I wish I wasn't that way, and no matter how much I strive to be someone with virtue and the beauty of soul, someone who acts for the greater good of mankind, someone who truly loves the people of the world--and I'm trying, I really am trying (DO, there is no try) and the harder I try the more I realize that I'm trying to be something I just am not. Because people I respect and want to emulate are that way, and they always seem so lovely and free even within the cages some of them built for themselves.
We, as people who blog, or people who read my blog, are all familiar with my navel-gazing - although fancy people like me call it omphaloskepsis. But you know what? Sometimes it leads to things I'm proud of, and it's okay to be proud of them, because writing is my meditation, I guess. I'm navel-gazing.* Who cares? No one but me. I'm the only one who cares to call it that. Probably because I'm funneling my own thoughts, and no one is helping me with this. YOU! Blog readers! Look alive, people. Call me on my bullshit. Give me something, please. Do I make sense? Does this feel like truth to you, even despite the nonsense? Does it make any sense? I'm appealing to you, asking you, all you motherfuckers that read this blog - am I yelling at nothing and no one? You read this, and you soak it in, and I know you do and you file it under "Rassles Talking Garbage" and you know all of this shit about me, and I know nothing about how you feel about it. Selfish. Fuck you.
...
* Not naval-gazing. Not naval-gazing. I DO THAT ALL THE TIME. I ALWAYS GET THAT WORD WRONG. I should just stop saying it. Naval.
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13 comments:
I'm the fucking Muhammed Ali of Navel Gazing and don't ever forget it... and to paraphrase Vonnegut- fuck humanity
And fuck Chuck Palahniuk and fuck book fairs, fuck MFAs and coffeehouses and fuck authenticity cuz if you read enough Derrida and Foucault and other fancy French guys you can disprove all of it, fuck this that and the other, c'mon Razz you and me, we're gonna be fucking pirates, fuck Jack Sparrow and that dude from the Hobbit, fuck them all, and though you may be having what i call the 30something breakdown (even if you ain't 30) fuck that too, i've not given a fuck for so long i almost think i should start again but fuck that, i want you to fuck up everything in your sight, and scream like Denzel "King Kong ain't got shit on me"
This is only blog entry that I've ever had to take notes on. I'm just going to give you the notes verbatim, sans editing, and you can think what you want about them. Oh, do you read Thought Catalog. Does it all sound exactly the same to you? My note-taking skills...here they are (you'll see how they are):
Well, you probably don't know this...
There is nothing new or old.
Slopbucket of Self-Righteous Cunts is a good band name.
Little pieces of you do go into their faces when you fart.
I have the exact same opinion, but a different tone, so it's completely different. Treble Clef, Bass Clef.
It should be wish, wish -- wish I were different?
Don't stop drinking beer.
I have two clocks -- one I keep at midnight and the other at 11:59.
Funnels.
Fetish for sailors.
It feels like truth. It's felt like truth to me since day one.
I go back and reread my blog regularly, and it all sounds like bullshit. All of it. Navel-gazing. The worst kind of navel-gazing - the navel-gazing of a girl whose life is so markedly uninteresting, she has to create tags asserting how interesting her life is and how awesome and/or crazy she is, and those are the ones she uses most often.
There is truth in what you write, and I personally love it. I would bleed to have your gift with words. I am desperate to be able to bend words and form a perfect sentence with an amazingly well-crafted placement of the word 'cunt' with as much skill as you do.
And you don't have to be sorry. I appreciate your comments on my blog, I do. I think you're right: we're approaching the concept in divergent and irreconcilable ways.
You're still one of my favorite bloggers.
Also: fuck you for calling us selfish. As if you're immune to that. :)
if you come on my podcast we can argue. i'm not easily offended and it'd make for good content. already made plans w/ someone to do the dragon tattoo book/movie (why am i guessing you'd not want to do that one anyway?) but if you have interest in the rum diary let me know.
you want readers' honest responses? although i HATE how sexist this comes off, as i was reading this i kept thinking "poor girl is taking all of this so seriously when really she's probably just going to get her period tomorrow."
You're asking for opinions? Twenty paragraphs is too long, I think you could get your point across in less words. Though I know words are your thing xx
Naval-gazing? Are you spending too much time watching boats or something? Or are you navel-gazing? No, go back to naval-gazing, that's more interesting.
i think i kinda get this. i genuinely like people, though. and when i find good humans - all of them deeply flawed in some ways, just like me - i hang onto them. in fact, i think it's the broken shit that makes me want to hold onto them tighter. because if they are broken, and i love them, perhaps i can be loved even with all of my broken bits.
as for words vs action? i go for action every time. i've gotten pretty dead inside, and about the only way i can feel anything is when i'm doing something. riding a horse (oh, um... that feels extra good, by the way), riding a motorcycle, throwing myself down a snow-covered hill while wearing sticks on my feet.... this is all i feel.
maybe you should try to do something - the clock is cool. doing something that requires your entire focus prevents you from that cranio-belly button inversion.
pass the funnel-bong. i'll make sure brother kono gets some of it..
You people are wonderful.
Kono: I give a great big fuck about too many things that most people probably don't think deserve fuckery, and I had a dream that me and Denzel walked around the mall with machine guns yelling that at people.
JMH: I do not read Thought Catalog, but I will start. Usually I just have to fight people that devote their lives to Slate and Gawker. And I'm switching to gin.
Jane: You know, the thing about cunts is that if they are aware of their cunt-ness and slightly embarrassed by it but never really turn it off, I find them incredibly endearing. And I won't stop reading your blog, Poopyhead, because I love reading it. I'll just stop the topic thread I started.
Jessica: Your logic is better than my logic because of its brilliant brevity. I would have no problem with the Dragon Tattoo story whatever. I plan on reading it someday because it's supposed to be excellent, but thriller novels where no one has superpowers usually don't interest me. Characters always do the wrong thing. If someone is magic, though, I accept their actions because I don't know magic, and there are no limits. (Don't fight it. My logic is sound.)
Nurse: I probably could...but you're right. The whole point is using lots of words in the first place.
RF: I fucking hate your guts.
Daisy: I guess, when I say "action" I don't mean movement so much as work. I do things, like I move around and go out and do things constantly, it's not like I'm sitting around staring at walls and talking to myself and writing blogs where I misspell "navel" in a sitcom misunderstanding.
It's more...I wish society valued work instead of talking about work. I wish they valued the action instead of just the implications of the action. I wish my heroes were more hands-on. Yes, I know, there are people out there who do wonderful things - but more people know about Perez Hilton than Wangari Maathai Marathi, and that's sad. I wish it weren't that way. I would rather talk to Studs Terkel than Jimmy Carter, and I would value Studs' opinion more because he taught me so much, but Carter is a philanthropic king! Why would I pass that up? Because I just would. I would take Tarantino over Sebastian Junger. Well, maybe not. Junger is pretty much a bad ass.
Rossi--grow the fuck up. Quit thinking about writing for a living and do it.
Who the fuck is Chuck Palawho? Is he an Eskimo? His name sounds Eskimoese. I hate the idea of sounding like I'm preaching or advising or sounding like I think I know more than you, because I do not. But, you sound to me like a woman discovering and that's fantastic. I, for the moment am sick of discovering. My brain is atrophying from a combination of age and over consumption of wine. I piss people off and for about a millisecond I feel bad about it. Ok, more than a millisecond, but not too much more. I am impatient with my colleagues. I try to show more patience. It's good to try to improve, but it is also good to know who we are. I miss your dinosaur heading. Want to fight about that?
Bullshit.
Nu-uh. You do so believe in truth. Otherwise you wouldn't need to funnel anything round and round your head. You're analytical. Who cares if most of it is self analysis? It's still truth-seeking and hence believing.
I recently went back and re-read my blogs because at one point I thought it was good shit, remembered it as being good shit. And then I realized that the reason I thought it was good was mainly because people I like were telling me how great it was. I was so uncomfortable reading it in hindsight that I was literally squirming. I felt like I hung my shitty underwear in the sun for everyone to see and really believed them when they said 'Those underwear are awesome'. And then I got mad and thought maybe people were lying to me. And then I got sad that it wasn't happening anymore and realize I need an outlet for something, speaking I guess, being listened to and I don't have it anymore.
Despite this, I still know that you like me, so I'm not buying that shit about you being a people hater. By the way, the fact that you like me makes your likeability then questionable, because I'm self-hating at the moment. But I still like you, which means I must be alright after all. See, it all works itself out in the end.
Merry xmas Rassles, hope 2012 is a great year for you
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