On Trust and Good Conversation

I don't trust people.  I don't let them in because I feel it wouldn't work.  I deeply fear being misunderstood yet it's what happens regardless.  The rest is understandings of only a part of me.

Part of it is that I don't think many are primed to listen.  It takes a while to chip away at someone so that I can learn how to speak to them and be able to guess what they understand.  Despite speaking relatively anonymously on blogs, what I really want is someone receptive.

Last night someone tried to convince me that no one like that exists and that if I don't change my hopes, I will just be miserable all my life. 

I feel the need to treat everyone differently, based on what I see of their personality.  Some of me comes through, but it's through a personalized filter so everyone knows a different me.  Maybe that's why a lot of people think I'm cool--I pick up on bits of them that many overlook.  But what that does is make me feel fragmented and alone.

Sometimes when I do try to fill in the cracks, I end up doing it with someone unwilling to listen or who just doesn't care about all those extra parts.  People can be very picky especially in the world of customizable experiences we have.  So should I say "fuck them" or continue with what I can get?

***

The top part is from a couple of months ago, back in CA.  I'm having some similar feelings now.   Right now I've got a big, swelling wish.  I want to use the word urge, but it doesn't quite fit here.  I really want someone I can dump on.  I want to have a giant Conversation (not one-sided blog post) where I can get some feedback on what's going on in my head and life and maybe even some insight.  But I locked people out for a long time, so there's a lot of context that people don't know about.  It's hard to analyze the data I'm giving people since they don't have the foundation built since I've been so fucking quiet and misleading for so long.

I can't rely on S and for most of the friends I'm close with, I'm the ear and that's hard to change once people get used to it.  I have some newer relationships growing, but I don't want to be super intense and wigged out right from the get-go.  I want someone who will listen to me start to rant, help me when I stumble, not wig out if I cry, and maybe give me a hug.

But...

But.

Delusions of grandeur

Is it that I want immortality?

I've always wanted to be in one of those circle of thinkers, creators, even just smart people who create the waves that shape the world; the group of artists from whom stem all the revolutionary ideas of a generation. A group where discussions matter on a large scale--they change the whole world--they make the ideas that penetrate every mind on the planet and determine the flow of history.

Fuck Baudelaire

OK, two things:

I apparently know some crazy ass people and drugs seem like a crazy amazing adventure.

I've always wanted to explore. Explore everything. Every kind of everything.

A friend of mine just told me about speed balls and when he was living his crazy, horrible, ghetto ass, fucked up, amazingly interesting life he could do two of those in a row.

And oh my god he will testify to what kind of shitty life he was living at the time, but I don't know what that's like and I want to.

The derelict and impoverished (both financially and every other sort of way) side of life have some horrible beautiful appeal.  It is another frontier I have yet to cross.

I've got the grad school bug again

Ever since I got reunited with my grandpa over this last Christmas, I've been thinking a lot about family and genetics.  I've also been obsessed with determinism ever since I first heard of the idea.  Christmas got me fucked up with genetic determinism.


The thing is, it makes so much since.  I am so convinced that reality is dictated in a calculate-able, predictable, sensible way and there is no escaping it and we all lack free will.  I hate it and don't want it to be true so I'm reading everything I can to convince myself that it's not.  


I just finished reading "Who's in Charge" by Michael Gazzaniga and it is really good.  I recommend it to anyone interested in a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of the brain.  It did't quite convince me, but it made a really good case.  My current stance is that although complex systems can't be predicted, and human interactions and just even human existence is not only a complicated system, but a complicated interaction of multiple complicated systems, I still think that once we know more these calculations and predictions could be made.  I think they could, but I hope they can't.


How this relates to grad school is such:
I am interested in ideas.  When I studied literature, I studied it comparatively--how cultures and time periods interact to shape one another.  It is a representation of minds bumping into each other within one of our many complicated systems as humans.  It's mental evolution.  Through studying literature, you can see into the mind of the author, see where he came from, and see the people around him--his society--the world.  Books are doors.


There is a more precise study of ideas that I need to learn more about before I commit myself to it and that is the study of memes.  Memes are like the genes of thoughts. They are the building blocks of ideas and are transmitted and can evolve just like viruses.  


I would love to do a collaborative study with a neuroscientist involving memes, broadly, literature, specifically, and their quantitative role in the human mind.


There are so many places I would like to go with this!  For me, this seems to open doors to everything.


I just need to find what kind of program that would be and where I could find it.

A Bitching Article

As I start to type this post, I realize the possible misunderstanding that could arise from the title.  "A Bitching Article" or perhaps "A Bitchin' Article" could mean something that is so good, only expletives can adequately describe it.  Or it can mean "an article in which someone bitches."  Unfortunately, given my currrent state of existence, that's the one here.

I've been living with Mooch for about three months now and it's finally hit the breaking point.  He is gone by tomorrow night, thank god.  So, in a way, problems are solved (except financial ones, of course), but in a way they aren't.  The real problem is that it seems as though no one is reliable.  No one is capable of taking care of themselves. 

I will give you some back story to justify my mean attitude.

Three months ago, Mooch broke up with his girlfriend.  Devistated and desperate, whithout anywhere to go, Roommate, Ex, and I decided to let him sleep on our couch when he wasn't sleeping in his car.  Shortly thereafter, he lost his job due to failing to set his alarm clock and having accrued a goodly amount of tardy arrivals.  Note, this was his fault.  We continued to let him stay here, without pay, and even fed him.  Things got better for him within a week or so; he got two jobs and was feeling better about his girlfriend.  Despite this upturn in his life, he did not offer to buy food nor pay rent.

After a month, when Ex moved out, Mooch got his own room and started being responsable for a share of the bills.  Note I said "being responsable" not "paying."  That is part of where the current problem lies.  The two jobs gave him substantial funds with which to pay his first month's dues, but now that January is coming to a close, he is no longer capable.

His two jobs were at Papa John's (not very good; minimum wage and few hours) and a seasonal gig at UPS (great hours and pay, but again, only seasonal).  He knew it wouldn't last, yet he did nothing to ensure his ability to pay his share once the time had come.  He knew this was coming, but his laziness and selfishness prevented him from doing anything to stop this.  Should you find Mooch on the street and ask him about this, he would tell you that Roommate and I were well aware of the situation.  But the sitiation he is refering to, in fact, is that he was planning on leaving mid-Feburary.  Which has nothing to do with one's abilities to pay January's rent. 

Not only does he lack money due to the loss of his good job, but he is also constantly here.  I was out of town for Christmas and New Years, and since I have been back, I have only been in the apartment without him for 5 hours.  He is constantly present and makes his presence known.  And when Roommate and I choose not to keep his company, he sulks.  Even going so far as to cry loudly on the balcony outside of our room.  He is pathetic and will never do anything for himself.

At this point, all he has done to suppliment his income is ask me and Roommate to try to sell his Magic cards.  Here we are approaching a key part of the problem.  See, he is not just inept because that's how he is--there is more to it.  He is stunted.  He is a tall child.  Without help, he cannot manage to feed himself, to provide himself shelter, to get to work on time, to do anything by himself, or to even wipe his own ass.  I cannot tell you how many times he has stolen toilet paper from me for I have lost count. 

I feel like an idiot for putting up with it for so long, and even now he is doing laundry with water and soap he will not pay for.  He only started because I stepped out to go to the apartment office.  Tonight is his last night here and I will relish the moment of relief when I can be alone before the necessity of finding another roommate becomes pressing enough to ruin my contentment. 

This is what I get for trusing other people to be able to take care of themselves. 

Misanthropic me

Sometimes I hate everything.  And sometimes I'm completely neutral or aloof.  I hardly ever feel up to social networking myself into friendships but then it bothers me that I don't know more people.  It'd be easier if I didn't care at all, if I really could just abandon everyone and be content with just me. 

Actually, that's not what I want.  What I want is Great friends.  Friends I feel connected to and who I can leave for a while then come back to.

Having moved around and living with the urge to be a nomad, I'm always torn and struggling with the idea of constantly leaving the people I get to know (or don't).  I want to travel, to go everywhere, but I can't bring everyone with me.  That's what makes Great friends so awesome.  When I go back to the few people I really feel connected to it's great.  There's no awkwardness and though things change, not the friendship itself.

Forever tired

I will never feel rested, but that's kind of not a problem.  I have a crazy strong urge to make the best out of every single second that I can barely let myself sleep.  At times this is a good thing, but if I'm ever in a situation where I can't do anything or feel I can't do anything, it is absolutely crushing.

It is a good motivator, but it's also depressing.  There's always going to be down time.  I can't always do everything ever.  And that sucks, but I need to learn to deal with it without accepting it too much that way I'll still have the drive to do all the awesome stuff I want.

Closed off

Sometimes I really want to open up to someone, I just don't know how to start.  I don't want to make the other person feel weird, so I try to think of ways to go about it nonchalantly, but if I do that, then I'm not succeeding in my goal because that's not how I'm feeling.

I don't want to burden or distress or bore someone if they don't want to know.  But then that leaves no one to tell. 

It would be so great if someone could read my mind and ask me just the right question that opens up everything.  Or at least just nudge me to get me to start.

Ugh

Do you know what it's like to be eaten away at by passion?

It's a constant desire to do, to feel, to relive, to live and it's driving me crazy in a mixed up good bad awesome frustrating way.  Sorry for all the repetition, it's just that there's no single word to describe this.

I want to spread myself out to make everything come true.

Creativity

Recently I've been feeling great urges to Verb.  I want to do everything, try every single thing out.  What's getting me the most is kind of silly...  I want to write a trance album.  Nothing too spaced out, think DJ Onyx.  I haven't tried writing music in almost a decade (doesn't that kind of sentence make you feel old?).  But I've got some stuff to work with.  I've also been drawing a lot more pictures, but none are quite finished yet.

I'm not sure what I should do first, since all seem to have equal urgency on my list of wants.  So I keep ending up spastically switching between things with extreme focus until something in the real world pulls me away.  Last night I was late to pick up my boyfriend from work because I was so busy working on my food website and editing all sorts of different pictures.  I feel like my drive to be awesome is coming back, though it is hard to fight the laziness (damn you Baudelaire!).