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[pinkamquiet]

To: Journal From: A long lifetime ahead, if that

What’s the point of putting your feelings down when it will all just dissolve after awhile anyway? --when I’ll dissolve after awhile anyway? 

This lack of feeling is the non-feeling I carry with me constantly. It’s a murky heaviness that colors everything I sit with--through. 

Social

Professional

Romantic

I’m detached.

I overcompensate for feeling nothing by overfeeling. ‘I feel you.’ ‘I hear you.’ ‘I heart you.’

I don’t any of those things. 

I mostly seek death--that is, if future me is dead already, than what is current me to seek otherwise? WHY?

It’s obvious that this all started when he died. My blood, my kin, my brother. Gone. I went numb right then. Couldn’t feel my nose piercing. Couldn’t feel the lack of tears when his casket lowered into the earth. Couldn’t feel much else from the car crash ‘cept the physical burn from the airbag.

I don’t get how everyone performs at work so well--running numbers, slaving over making metrics, lining up each detail like you’ll die without the warmth of fire--which, you will. We need that cash to survive. That’s why. 

It’s why money seems like the only real motivation. If I must continue to live amidst... this... why not sell your ethics for opportunity.

The big problem is, my ethics are so, so rooted in my identity that the thought of becoming a blatant shill freezes me up. Even the thought of bullshittedly smiling in order to earn more than I ever thought possible makes the black bile of the depressing nothing rise up and cloud my barely-functioning mind. This isn’t me. And if I succumb, it will in fact be the full death of who I once was. 

I despised branding. I wouldn’t even charge for my events lest that fee excluded anyone who might have wanted to attend. 

But you know what? People can’t live on that. The bands didn’t get paid. I secured venues using my own funds from another job. Free wasn’t sustainable. Corporations made what I wanted to do possible. Frankly, I was dumb. 

I’m still dumb. But they said in order for me to be considered, I have to have confidence. I have to own the position. I do have fucking confidence enough to know I’m not dumb. And I’m not dumb. I’m just fucking depressed and I do not care. I’m comfortable. 

Can I do this: the full answer is YES. Do I WANT to do this: the full answer is you still haven’t committed. I have to shut the fuck up with my depression and anxieties. I can control this bullshit. 

My bigger insecurity is my physical ugliness. I’m not... but when you’ve got no one to really lean on... you are. I’m not the hot head-turner. I’ve never wanted to be that. But you see the power your supermodel friends command, and it’s tempting not to want to be that head-turner. What’s so great about being the smart one, anyway? My adolescent self prided me on being able to analyze any situation. That kept me at an untroubled distance. But I didn’t learn much about socialization except judging others. 

But when you pause, you always get to make the better decision. Your impulses don’t always have your back. Your impulses, if you’re so inclined to please, like I, are responses to others’ wants. 

Can I present to Executives? Yes.

Can I seduce? Yes.

Do I want to seduce? No. I do not want them. I do not want anyone. I do not want. 

Wanting isn’t death. 

Wanting is life, and life is not a promise.

Basically: I need to cheer the fuck up if I want to devote my life to materialism. 

I don’t think that’s what I want, but it’s a surer thing than betting on activism, or socialism. No one has quite helped me, save for a select few. Once I have my leg up, I can return that favor. But why become a bum because someone’s going to judge me otherwise? Someone that has nothing to offer except their limited, stale, selfish opinion. 

They’re all self-centered selfie-disciples. 

These are my laws.

Be kind.

Do your work.

Stay out of trouble. 

[pinkamquiet]

In a Realm Without Judgment You feel empowered when you can express yourself in the raw, in a realm without judgement. A realm without judgment doesn't mean a realm where your views will not be challenged, or develop. It means you won't have to prepare your defenses for an abrasive attack on your dear inferences and feelings. You won't have to put a stop to your natural discourse because of fear. Judgment, here, implies a negative, stifling energy; one that pushes back on the natural trajectory of ideas, as ideas turn from seed to full-sprouted flowers. A room without judgment is relevant to ideas expressed in Sontag's "Against Interpretation."

[pinkamquiet]

11 Steps To Enlightenment Step 1: Decide or realize you didn't have enough rights. Step 2: Decide, based on your limited, maybe severe experience that everyone ever is indecent, and liable for the violations you've suffered. Step 3: Raise your right hand in allegiance to the Jerk club. Step 4: Inject, as part of Jerk Club initiation procedure, the empathetic part of your brain with Novocaine. Step 5: Front your cranked up cab to the wall of your first floor apartment, and pretend complex tenants generally add earplugs to their daily getting ready routine. Step 6: Forget you live below the super. Step 7: Meet your three-strike jerk-being allotment. Step 8: Remember how you used to live below the super. Step 9: Maybe rescind you Jerk Club membership. Step 10: Decide, based on your newly filled-out life experience, that things are unfair sometimes and you do have the right to not make it that much worse. Step 11: Don't be a jerk.

[pinkamquiet]

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so plain dumb. I am just a dumb person. Inarticulate. I am dumb. It’s so apparent, too.

[pinkamquiet]

Stop asking what they think. You can crowd source all you like. No one else has a better answer.

[pinkamquiet]

Sleezy promoter on why spamming is cool: "You don't want to reach the smart ones, anyway. The smart ones aren't going to give you their money. So go ahead. Spam you cool elitist party away."

[pinkamquiet]

Do writers really have to expose their entire intangible souls in tiny boxes and on tiny pieces of paper. Are writers even really a genre of people.

[pinkamquiet]

Sometimes I think people get stuck reading too many philosophers and then they quit having unique ideas of their own and then they quit having ideas altogether because it’s already been done. And isn’t that Futurism? my trained ingrained brain implores me. Yeah, I say and shut up and quit with my thoughts because there’s nothing new to try because trying to do away with it all has already been done. We’re mirroring history, and picking up its junk to build mills along the way. But isn’t that progression, says the voice that likes to try despite the fickle winds. BUT WHERE ARE WE GOING? that wherewithal replies. Nowhere, and that’s alright.

[pinkamquiet]

Someone posted this and it really speaks to me. Sounds like righteousness courtesy of rage. "Well . . . that's a fucking buzz kill. People - Don't be mean. Don't treat people like they exist for your amusement and don't have feelings to consider, or dignity that should be respected. Don't try to exploit people for personal pleasure or gain. If you fuck up, admit it. Everyone fucks up. Digging an obstinate trench in refusal to own what you've done never makes it better. Just pull up your big boy/girl panties, take the heat, and apologize. And be honest, painfully if necessary. People can forgive and get beyond an honest statement that disappoints them or is hard for them to hear, because think about it - it's really hard to blame someone for being honest. By comparison, the betrayal of trust that is dishonesty just conjures on-going doubt, and frankly, it's pretty fucking cowardly. It's really just not that hard to be cool, as I know the vast majority of you know, as well. It just honestly shocks me when I encounter a void of such things."

[pinkamquiet]

Contrived

Daniel Boorstin perfectly captures in his book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America why the live shows I attended without compatriot (i.e. just to be there, otherwise purposeless and mentally removed from the world) felt empty, lame, meaningless. There I stood, stopgap camera in hand, snapping at the practiced musicians and still feeling, at that present, nothing. I felt nothing. I analyzed. I understood. I felt nothing. Why isn't this special? Are memories all-(socio)functional? The excitement? As that guy mimes his feelings out on a manufactured fun-box, how are we allowed to absorb it all; consume live; as if it's a deeply spontaneous, unique event? Boorstin: "A team of thirty-one University of Chicago sociologists, under the imaginative direction of Kurt Lang, took their posts at strategic points along the route of the MacArthur parade. The purpose was to note the reactions of the crowd and to compare what the spectators were seeing (or said they were seeing) with what they might have witnessed on television. This ingenious study confirmed my observation that we tend increasingly to fill our experience with contrived content. The newspapers had, of course, already prepared people for what the Chicago Tribune that morning predicted to be “a triumphant hero’s welcome— biggest and warmest in the history of the middle west.” Many of the actual spectators jammed in the crowd at the scene complained it was hard to see what was going on; in some places they waited for hours and then were lucky to have a fleeting glimpse of the General. But the television perspective was quite different. The video viewer had the advantage of numerous cameras which were widely dispersed. Television thus ordered the events in its own way, quite different from that of the on-the-spot confusion. The cameras were carefully focused on “significant” happenings— that is, those which emphasized the drama of the occasion. For the television watcher, the General was the continuous center of attraction from his appearance during the parade at 2: 21 P.M. until the sudden blackout at 3: 00 P.M. Announcers continually reiterated (the scripts showed over fifteen explicit references) the unprecedented drama of the event, or that this was “the greatest ovation this city has ever turned out.” On the television screen one received the impression of wildly cheering and enthusiastic crowds before, during, and after the parade. Of course the cameras were specially selecting “action” shots, which showed a noisy, waving audience; yet in many cases the cheering, waving, and shouting were really a response not so much to the General as to the aiming of the camera. Actual spectators, with sore feet, suffered long periods of boredom. Many groups were apathetic. The video viewer, his eyes fixed alternately on the General and on an enthusiastic crowd, his ears filled with a breathless narrative emphasizing the interplay of crowd and celebrity, could not fail to receive an impression of continuous dramatic pageantry. The most important single conclusion of these sociologists was that the television presentation (as contrasted with the actual witnessing) of the events “remained true to form until the very end, interpreting the entire proceedings according to expectations.… The telecast was made to conform to what was interpreted as the pattern of viewers’ expectations.” Actual spectators at the scene were doubly disappointed, not only because they usually saw very little (and that only briefly) from where they happened to be standing, but also because they knew they were missing a much better performance (with far more of the drama they expected) on the television screen. “I bet my wife saw it much better over television!” and “We should have stayed home and watched it on TV” were the almost universal forms of dissatisfaction. While those at the scene were envying the viewers of the pseudo-event back home, the television viewers were, of course, being told again and again by the network commentators how great was the excitement of being “actually present.” Yet, as the Chicago sociologists noted, for many of those actually present one of the greatest thrills of the day was the opportunity to be on television. Just as everybody likes to see his name in the newspapers, so nearly everybody likes to think that he can be seen (or still better, with the aid of videotape, actually can see himself) on television..."

[pinkamquiet]

Despite all the handy advice at your reach, we have no real true and correct way to do things. Trends and principles exist, and general morality and empathy and humanity exists, but we do not have one real and total right way to do the things.

[pinkamquiet]

"The best way to serve your guests is to look good."

[pinkamquiet]

What is a good way to brush off unkind words and assumptions, or general negativity? I wish I was allowed to be vulnerable now.

[pinkamquiet]

Grammys

This is a Grammys category, and it was created THREE years ago. Not ten. Not twenty. Just three! "Best Urban Contemporary Album" This is an example of how vague language is STILL being used to sell you cheap ideas under the guise of a seemingly intelligent, classy title. To me, the title says, here is the category where we can lump all of the black artists. I have no authority here so I won't go all Macklemore (Hi, I'm a straight guy banking on the plight of my gay friends through public displays of empathy.) It just seems fucked up. It's obviously OKAY to celebrate other cultures. But not under a such an insincere, inexplicit moniker. I'm primarily offended as someone currently studying language--from that angle, it's offensive that an industry would think we're so stupid as to buy their sloppy category as something other than racial grouping. (It's an UNCLEAR title. Yet, pretty clear.) Otherwise, that's all I'll say until someone of a more "urban" authority can speak for me. If the country actually wants all kinds of equality (it doesn't) it'll stop doing shit like that and start commending people on their skills AS PEOPLE. Or at least will praise cultures in a blatant way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_Urban_Contemporary_Album

[pinkamquiet]

I feel totally paralyzed by the terrible grip of fear. I can try; I'll get criticized. But it's better to try your damnedest, and receive all of the information that failure will give you, and then to move to really process that information and try again with might, maybe strengthening each time of the overall climb than to stew in the ever-condensing stench of What If. Will never learn; will rot dishonestly. Or worse: "That person is mad whatever."

[pinkamquiet]

"But you love writing." Best assertion I heard today. It's true. Thanks.

[pinkamquiet]

I wonder if public transportation commuters are more socially aware?