Affected Solo

Precursor: I’m going to speak on behalf of all humans, which is quite a dick move. And what’s worse, I stand by this whole “speaking-on-behalf-of-all humans” trip. I truly believe, what I’m about to describe, must happen to all of us. I’m disgusting, I know. And that last statement I just uttered? It’s only there as some societal padding space, to make it acceptable, to apologize for the fact that I love myself this God damned much:

Here goes... (or went):

We all want to be recognized for something deep and specific that we do.

We sit and we live our lives, and we notice something about our own mind, and we smile in awe at ourselves, or we’re smiling at how ridiculous the feeling is that’s occurring inside of us. It’s complex and it’s wicked and wild and different, and it’s the most enjoyable thing, because it’s completely new.

Whether we admit it or not, we think our mind is the greatest force in that moment. We’re stumbling upon something fresh and different, and it’s a fucking high. And God fucking damnitt, we say to ourselves, no one else gets to do this. Look at me and how unique and brilliant I am, we say somewhere in our subconscious, even if we’re too societally humbled and convoluted to ever know we’re thinking this.

And here I am a moment later, now realizing that some people don’t want to be recognized for those moments; they don’t want the world to know what their mind just did back there, even if they enjoyed the hell out of it.

And how treacherous to live a life like that! What must it be like, to see these deep things you know about yourself, and not want them to be seen by anyone. What does that do to a soul?

Then again, I’m pretty sure people have a lot of fun in their private moments.

I mean shit, i’m kind of jealous of people who have high doses of that trait right now.

But realistically, I’m just being overly flattering, pretending that I want what the rest of you have, as a way to downplay my own self-love.

But back to that unique and splendid and brilliant moment the mind just had, whatever you’re comfortable calling it. Here’s what I wonder: is it a completely solo moment? Did the brilliance only occur because we were alone?

Does the idea of “other” only come into play a millisecond after the brilliant solo moment? Or, do we only get to see the brilliant moment, once we remember that others exist?

I’m not going to take a stance on this quite yet, for I don’t have one.

At one time, I was very convinced that our energy and motions only occur because of the existence of other, even tweeting (on an account with 2 followers):

“there is no such thing as living without an audience. we are here for one another. we make one another who we are by our reaction to each other. and none of that is completely true, but a thought for you to send back to me and we can have other thoughts”

Often times I’m acting in the ways that would make me more appealing to the rest of you. I try to combat my “#1” flaw: self-absorption. Which is an insanely ironic thing: to stop being self-absorbed so that others can see me as flawless.

Regardless, I’m physically trying to act less self-absorbed. And it’s fucking working. I’m acting for you. And in this act of acting for you, I get to be someone closer to someone I’d admire. I enjoy existing more, because of these constraints, the concision. Am I creating a personality the world would enjoy? I want to say I’m finding the personality that was already here. But maybe the person I am develops in the act of acting for all of you.

I don’t care who it is, but I want someone to be motherfucking affected.

I wish I could say, that the eyes and the opinion of everyone in this world is equal for me, but I know that isn’t the case. But even my favorite minds and opinions, I don’t need or want them to see this if it won’t affect them. I only want the affectable to see it.

And I actually look back at that statement and see lies.

Is everything I become, for my favorite audience?

Those coolest cats in Detroit who have the greatest things to say. I want my existence to appeal to them. I know it does.

I know my existence would appeal to anyone, when described in minute detail. It’s ridiculous and disgusting to say that. But I believe it’s true for all humans. If a human can truly describe who they are and what they’re feeling, the complexity of it will inevitably be interesting to everyone else.

(I guess you should know this about me, but immediately when I say anything, I see a contradicting statement, so I do apologize, dear audience.)

Here’s where we’re at: I had just claimed that we’re only interesting when we describe ourselves in the closest of details. But now I’m wondering if we actually become interesting through the mix up of information, the lack of description.

The choice in details. It’s no choice, really, but rather a selection that our mind does without our permission. Our mind can only handle certain information about our true self. We never get a straight picture of who we are. We’re only able to tell ourselves the details that we can tolerate. That’s the only information our mind let’s us see.

But, oh I do believe we see more than we will ever know. We spend our energy trying to hide the person we can’t tolerate. And the habits formed during the process of hiding become who we really are.

I’ve patted myself on the back saying I can describe all the things about myself that I hate. But I barely scraped. I said one umbrella statement about being self-absorbed, and determined that was enough. What was happening to me as I tried to tap in and see what I really hated?

Well, I noted that my main complaint was self-absorption, which would mean I should probably stop writing about myself, which should probably mean I should stop writing in general. But then how would I ever be able to learn more about what I hate about myself?

Or I looked at myself, did an animated sideways nod and remembered how much I loved myself, and I was like, yeah, it’s chill, be self absorbed.

Neither of those things happened, and both happened at the same time. I decided to stop rambling because, even I was bored of myself.

Or maybe all the writing stopped appealing to me because it felt like self-absorption-- the thing I was supposed to be avoiding.

And, in the self-absorption (which I was somehow always let slide), I claimed I could be something more if I set my mind to it. I could stop writing about me, I could write about important topics in life that would benefit the world.

But then there is the self-absorption again: me thinking I have some insight that the world needs.

And I don’t want to believe this, I shouldn’t believe the statement if I ever want to claim I’m not self-absorbed. But I truly believe we all have the insight that the others need.

So I’m sitting and living in kind of a paradox.