I’ve heard again and again how my generation doesn’t believe in anything. That we’re all self-centered little monarchs in our own kingdoms running around with paintbrushes and pens, spray paint cans and costumes practically screaming, “Love me, love me! For Christ’s sake, love me!”. We are warned-against nihilists.
For the most part, I’m unable to articulate what exactly it is about that that irritates me so much.
Maybe it’s Bohemia.
Maybe it’s the minimalist in me.
Or the hoarder.
Maybe it’s that I whole-heartedly agree (sometimes)
And belligerently deny it (sometimes).
I can see the best in us. That we’re smarter than kids our age have ever been. That we’re unwilling to take on the responsibilities of those that have in the past because we’re dualists. That we question everything. That we’re more connected to the world and each other than any previous generation. That we long for intelligence, search for individuality, seek out experience and want more than anything to matter (if mattering even matters).
I can also see the worst in us. We’re lazy. unmotivated. rabidly snarky. pretentious. narcissistic. materialistic.
…It’s not even a feeling like everyone is out to get me, it’s more along the lines of my questioning of my own values lately. I could draw out the litany, but I don’t think that I’m losing anything by just saying that while I love everything about my life at this very second, I feel like there should be a clone of me in several different places.
I’ve started questioning my perceptions of home again. The town where I grew up never felt like home, but being with my parents and family always has. The house where I keep my stuff while living on the road has been more of a home to me in the past two years than any other I’ve lived in, however, I know it’s only because of the memories I’ve made and situations I’ve been in there. I was in Austin last week, surrounded by my friends and felt more at home than I have in a while, but even then, it was the people, not the place (Houston, you’ll always be homebase). These hotel rooms are starting to feel like home. My sprinter van is feeling like home. I don’t know what’s happening.
I feel that I’ve been under a microscope for the past two weeks. Though I hear that I’m on point with my job (doing better than expected, actually), I also feel that my means of taking care of myself are, if not under attack, at least a cause of concern. Not that anyone has approached me about it, condemned anything I do or anything, but if I’m not entertaining then it seems to raise a flag. I realize all the speculation, mine and otherwise, is reactionary
Beyond all of that.
Moving along.
I know that I’ve never valued things that are deemed normal to value. I don’t value many material things at all. I do appreciate the abstracts: honesty, charity, integrity, etc. But I’m wondering if in my development over the past few years if I’ve alienated myself to the point of not actually being able to value any relationship as more than a facade. There’s something to be said for the ease of my ability to pick up and leave on a whim. I love my friends on varying levels. I fall in and out of infatuation regularly, usually with little more than the whisper of a promise of disappointment to stifle whatever could possibly develop out of it. I put on my own different faces in different situations because I know that I’ve found my archetype. And what I’m starting to realize is that everyone plays into an archetypal role in relation to whatever the group commands.
You can get as biological as possible separating alphas from the betas, but I choose to go the literary route. There are heroes and heroines, wise men and villains (Campbell served many of us well). I’ve found that I’m the Fool.
I’m only the fool because I try to be. And I’ve always tried to be the fool. To distract and observe. To learn and to enlighten. To laugh for you, at you, and with you by being an ass myself. It’s what I’m meant to do. It’s what I’m good at.
There aren’t many that I ask to see beyond that and I don’t expect it from anyone, but there it is. I value my ability to mediate and to meditate…but I generally value it alone.
This post shouldn’t carry any connotations of loneliness, it’s more of a jab at and solemn agreement with both Kafka and Sartre. The autonomous man exists within himself. The brain and the body are not eternally linked. And yes, we are all created from the same muck, but we all experience wading through the excess muck individually. Above all else, I value that experience.
I’m still sorting out most of this, but for once, I’m going to not be paranoid about the imperfections of what I’m writing, or what anyone who reads it will use of it to judge me. I’m posting to post. This is becoming more necessary and therapeutic by the day.
If you really get down to it, paranoia is its own form of narcissism.
Phase 2 is beginning. Phase 1 being physical exercise, Phase 2 began when I created this Tumblr, and decided to run with the idea of following my own philosophy. Work has interfered slightly, but I do have the goal of getting mental exercise daily, whether that be in the form of a blog post, reading or just discussing and debating with friends. The results of mixing both are going to be very interesting. I’m still trying to figure out what path I’m going to take to begin Phase 3. How do I get there from 1 & 2?
We’re all looking for some form of spiritual exercise, even if it’s just found in denial.
It’s 6:30 in the morning.
I can’t sleep.
I could blame it on many things, but I won’t.
I ran a mile and a half today, and worked out harder than I have in weeks.
I ate healthy for the most part.
I worked. I got home. I went out.
I’m exhausted.
But I can’t sleep.
And I’m not going to blame this on insomnia, like I have for years.
I’m not going to blame it on anything.
I’m going to weird out for a minute and share exactly what’s going on in my head.
I’m putting this out in public because I can’t keep it within myself anymore.
For years, I’ve had this philosophy that I have basted in my own hypocrisy—
I’ve called and seen myself as an existentialist, an agnostic, a seeker, a gatherer, a student of semiotics, a wonderer (a wanderer), and above all things, an experiential creature; but there’s been this one thing that has always been more true to me than anything: I’d be a Christian if it weren’t for the Christians.
Christianity makes sense in it’s most basic form, which for me is, separating out all the deified commands and focusing on what is actually there to be taught:
Be good to people.
Take care of each other.
Experience life, but learn from your mistakes.
Be practical.
Live in moderation.
Don’t be a fucking asshole.
It’s not about the Dogma, or the stories, or the far-fetched tales of gathering two of every kind of animal to chill in a boat and wait out a storm, or a dude getting swallowed by a whale and, you know, waiting out his trip across the sea in its belly—I’m not crazy enough to read things that literally. I’m not about all the rules, or the condemnation, and I’m certainly not about the bastardization of the bible or any other religious text which is used to justify heinous and obviously unethical (immoral, and yes, I’m saying that) means of treating other humans.
Fuck all that.
Each one of us have our own path to follow, and whether you believe in a path or not, you’re leaving a trail behind you. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re Christian or not. Shit, man, it doesn’t matter to me if you’re an Atheist or a Scientologist. I honestly couldn’t care less (I’m not exactly comfortable with what I just said about being ok with Scientology, but I have to be right now). Experience is everything. Knowledge is everything. But I believe there was something very important laid out in the Bible that hasn’t ever been discussed, at least not on a large enough scale that I’m aware of it:
God is a metaphor.
Those of you who have heard me say this before, yes, I know, I know, this is beyond an old rant on my part, but I believe honestly that it’s laid out perfectly—that it’s something that is important enough to discuss, or at the very least write about. I’ve read a lot of mythology allegorically, found similarities in most, but what I think is important here is that the Christian God is described as a Trinity:
God the Father
God the Son
and God The Holy Spirit.
I just happen to think that these different God beings also are a metaphor for human life. I’ve believed for the longest time in a three-part separation of the human self: The Body, The Soul and The Spirit. I’ve believed that each of those separations plays a significant part in our growth and development. That the Soul is a stand-in for God, our creative urges, or our mind and the ability to process the world around us. That the Body is related to the Son, who actually took the form of a physical body, but came here specifically to die. And that the Spirit…well, I believe that the Spirit is our Conscience, our need to understand, our instincts and our inexplicable will to commune with the world around us.
I also think that each one of these aspects of the self is inherently and constantly in need of exercise.
And here’s where my hypocrisy reigns. Only recently have I begun to start working out again—however, physical exercise is the easiest of the three to maintain and propagate since all you really need is time to work out. Spiritual and Creative exercise are indeed hard to come across, at least from my perspective.
For now, I’m deciding that in order to maintain my sanity—In order to sleep like I believe I can—I’m going to need to exercise every aspect of my three-part being daily.
I’m starting this tumblr in order to explore as an individual what this philosophy (or if not a philosophy, at least an idea) means to me.
Why do I have this urge? It’s not just an urge to write, but an urge to share, to connect with others on some metaphysical level. I believe that is the Spirit inside of me trying to connect, but only at the soul’s urging.
I don’t want to repeat myself again and again, and I would love to allow people to comment in order to share what they’re thinking, but I will clearly state right now that in this moment, this Tumblr account is merely a means of expressing in words what I feel I’m unable to otherwise.