A New Leaf?
I have been in contact with a few of my friends/readers recently and your calls and emails could not have come at a better time: The master of wolves (both air and lone) has been doing some thinking. The tough kind of thinking. (A New Kind of Thinking?)
A number of recent events have necessitated my engagement in this unpleasant thinking. What events?
Missing a war
The loss of an old friend (Not a loss to due to death)
An inability to write well
An inability to connect with people
Getting my ass kicked in a grappling match.
Receiving negative comments from Professors with no background in passion.
Rejections from programs
Getting sick
A general dislike of my situation
Water off a beautiful swan’s back?
Yeah, sure. I got no problems with the rolling. When sober I’ve always had a knack for shutting down my emotional responses and taking a detached rational stance towards life. Add a few years of fairly intensive study of Spinoza, Stoicism, Nietzsche, plus 1000’s of superhero comics, a brief military stint and… yes, you could say I am a waterproof bird.
My worry though is that the Stoic move (a.k.a. not giving a shit about events in the world) has lead me to simply repeat failures—instead of learning from them.
I have a sense of myself as a badass superhero warrior/genius. The facts of the world contradict this: I am no great shakes as a warrior or athlete. And I have done nothing noteworthy academically. But being stoic about these hard facts has encouraged me to persist in a false self-estimation.
I can’t lay the blame the Stoics or Spinoza for this jackshittery. He warned me.
“The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one’s self.”—The S-dog
I have mistakenly used Stoicism to ignore the world and cling to a prideful myth, rather than use Stoicism to confront my weaknesses and understand what I really am: A thirty year old guy who still doesn’t know what the hell he is doing in life. One part me (the part that ain’t nothing but a monster) insists upon doing something worthy of my “greatness.” This part (Captain Arrogance) wants to be Batman, a founder of a movement, a Professor of Passion, a defender of Truth, Jews, and the American Gentile. Anything else is failure. The other part (the part that is myself) wants to figure out an enjoyable way to earn enough money to live with my babe and raise some kids. This part of myself is painfully aware that he has no idea how to pull this “limited” goal off. I don’t have a skill set. I have done nothing in my thirty years that translates into economic viability. I want to be Batman and I don’t even know how to have a career.
There has been a deep inconsistency in my thinking. My recognition of this is not despondency. I certainly don’t feel sad to come face to face with this fact. I still got my telos: I want to improve myself. I want to understand the world. I want the greatest pleasure. And I remain confident that these ends are equivalent. I just need to stop fucking around.
posted by Old Stallion at 10:29 PM
1 Comments:
I hear this post loud and clear with both earholes set to maximum yo factor blast. I, too, have been grappling with the conundrum of 30 years of life leading to disappointment with myself and lack of direction. Three years ago, my balls were swinging low with pride. I got married, I was about to quit a stupid job, and I was doing a lot of writing. The last two years have seen many a failure. What the hell am I doing? What kind of man am I? I was unemployed for a year. I thought I would spend six months writing a book-length's worth of spiel and then get a job that was better than the last one. Instead, I stayed up all night drinking PBR and spent my days applying for jobs that were just as bad while I watched Ambush Makeover and Divorce Court. Finally, I was forced to take a job that is even worse than my old one, for a multitude of reasons. I am supremely angry and unhappy at what I thought was the world but is actually myself. I fucked up. Life is passing me by. I have delusions of grandeur involving being a published author and filmmaker. I also have fantasies of the decent job, house, and kids. I am doing very little to achieve either goal. I want a life of comfortable modesty, filled with good people, good books, good movies, good food, good music, good drink, and some success, something to pass on to the next generation of Lil' Robot Xes. What do I do? For now, I will (if I am accepted, still waiting to hear back from school) get another damn undergrad degree so I can teach high school English. It's the best thing I can think of right now. I hope it works. If it doesn't, I don't know what will become of me. I need to get my shit together and become a man. A swollen-testicled man.
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