Antagonism

All of my post pubescent life life I've been conducting a personal crusade against unnecessary conflict. I can remember myself, sometime in primary school, returning all the time in my mind to the expression "superfluous conflict" (well, the less obscure Hebrew variant thereof). This crusade has expressed itself mainly, possibly entirely, in refraining myself from entering into unnecessary conflict, by the surefire way of never entering into any conflict under any circumstances.

As the years have gone by, I have grown more and more sensitive to and threatened by unexpressed disapproval, concurrently with its waning manifestations, and I've taken dramatic steps of self-assertion, some of them regularly, but they've all felt thoroughly superficial. I'm so afraid of becoming part of the aggression that overwhelms me so much all of the time, that I won't reconcile myself to its place in the social world under any circumstances.

People are idiots. That's a fairly antagonistic phrase I've repeated often in the recent (well, previous) posts. They are idiots because of the unnecessary antagonism they so often create, judging and proscribing and excluding what is not merely harmless, but often exactly what would make life sweeter, richer, and less achingly, depressingly stupid. This antagonism towards antagonism is not a contradiction. Only an idiot would suggest that, at least if he were to make it into a judgemental assertion instead of letting it stew long enough in his brain for him to notice he's being a self-satisfied dickhead entirely removed from reality.

Enter me. I can handle other people's aggressive promotion of people's right to be different. In fact I admire it,  relatively openly, even when this promotion is of themselves and when others deem them to be going over the line. But I think it remains a contradiction in my brain, or wherever this seemingly endless reserve of restlessness is located. Somehow, no context arises where it seems like it would be the right thing to do.

It's much easier for me to relate to the idea of it being a really shitty reality where people put others down just because an opportunity presents itself, and they don't have the self-discipline or inclination to stop themselves. I have my trouble getting my head, or I suppose my heart and soul, around the notion - accepted in principle - of it being a worthwhile life, or meaningful enterprise, defending your and other people's ability to deviate from stupid conventions, even when they're upheld by well meaning, fundamentally good people. I can't even make myself feel it as justified.

For at least a year I've been pumping myself up to reply "No, fuck YOU," but an opportunity somehow never seemed to present itself. And I'm sure it has tons of times. And even where nobody said anything, I would have refrained from expressing myself fully to avoid it. My day-to-day fantasy - the one I don't write about here with defiant pride, is of a life without antagonism. It occurs to me, that in a very crucial way, this is an aspiration to a life without meaning. A life of not bothering people as much as they bother me.

Conflict in unpleasant, and has a potential of finality attached to it. I don't actually know which of these is more significant in hindering its emergence. It would mean a real life and it would mean an end to the world of ponies and rainbows in which I live, at least in terms of the actual social interactions. It didn't use to be pleasant. Not apparently far enough in my past there was unequivocal hostility whenever I let my guard down.  At least some of this is bound to reproduce itself. And once I have actual memories to take with me of years in my life, they will be significant in defining who I am. It's like some strange kind of long holiday that needs to come to an end somehow.

Sometimes you need to respond in a way that is likely to ruin somebody's day. It's a novel thought. I'll see if I can manage to keep it rolling over in my head. It's probably purely a moralistic rationalisation anyway. Idiots have it coming. If they don't want the responsibility they can easily shut their stupid mouths.

Bullshit Artistry

In the great brown land of Down Under, they have the curious habit of dubbing anybody suspected of momentary disingenuousness a "bullshit artist". In the land of English-speaking internet and pop culture, and therefore presumably in the United States of wacky Republicans, there is a tongue-in-cheek tendency to inform people that they have "failed at life". It is my intention here to try and weave both these threads of contemporary philosophy together, so as to shed further light on the childish dichotomy from my previous post, which I am totally sticking by.

"Succeeding" in life is succeeding in bullshit. Were I to be reasonable about this, I'd define it not as a steaming pile of bovine manure, but as survival skills; a faculty for successful cooperation with human beings within the various projects - economic, social, spiritual - they undertake together. It is, however, a steaming pile of bovine manure.

I suspect this is why when I have trouble doing one I inevitably end up having trouble doing the other. When the mere thought of dealing with people's bullshit exhausts me, so does going to work, buying groceries, even cooking. Everything feels polluted by idiotically fucking arbitrary expectations and conventions, in a feeling that probably isn't justified but that I'm pretty sure wouldn't arise were I a farmer growing his own food and not needing to play games even for the simple stuff.

"Survival"  in our close-knit society always has an edge of competition to it - of hostility. This is where all this love and individualism business inescapably leads to a political attitude. As I once irritated a friend professing total political apathy by insisting - your desire to be left alone and not have any service to a grand ideology demanded of you, is a leftist sentiment. Social well-being can be sought after either through victory in the Darwinian conflict - reverberating through my brain at any rate as the "better bullshitting the other bullshitters" option - or through not treading on people, and demanding not to be trod on.

For the life of me I cannot begin to understand why anything else is ever considered necessary. I cannot believe that any inconveniences enabled by a looser leash on people would come anywhere near the suffering and blatant waste of life caused by the current asphyxiating bullshit-regime. Expectations and demands are okay. But it seems like common sense to stop before voicing them to make sure they're not completely fucking stupid.

But that's not how the system works. It needs the act of judging almost more than it needs its supposed protection. It gives people something to do. It makes them feel that their life isn't meaningless, that their emotions aren't confused. Rather than try and keep two contradictory thoughts in their brain for more than 3 seconds, they'll throw a cockfight, and give their religious devotion to the side they think will win, and denounce the other as more or less impure. Or ridiculous. Or "wrong".

Doing this (and avoiding it) well is demonstrating bullshit artistry. But, to paraphrase an important insight more generally, the trouble with the bullshit contest is, even if you win, you're still covered in shit.

Sometimes something or somebody is just different. That really shouldn't have to be a big deal.

The Love-Bullshit Spectrum

Rewatched the brilliant episode where Bart and Lisa are being rabidly set against each other by idiot sports fans in a hockey game, and they finally say fuck this shit, we're not playing, and go give each other a hug instead. A kind of defining moment for The Simpsons I think. Also pretty much a repetition of the episode where Bart and Todd are trying to impress their parents by their achievements in a mini-golf competition until suddenly they aren't, when Todd says "My knees are shaking, I got butterflies in my stomach, but, I guess this builds character," and Bart says "Who wants to build character? Let's quit."

But it's not a repetition, because the first time around, there was no hug, because Bart and Todd never did like each other that much in the first place. An essential corollary of dumping the bullshit is being more open to love. This fits in with this theory I have, about how people are depressed when they feel themselves so deeply sunk in bullshit they can't feel love any more.

Thing is, for some utterly insane reason, the world - that is, the idiotic sports fans, also ably emblemised in The Wrestler - prefer your bullshit to your love. The degree to which you immerse yourself in bullshit will determine the degree to which you'll become accepted by your surroundings. It's a compromise you have to make, one way or another.

The whole notion of Lisa Simpson is of someone rejected by their surroundings because they are too little full of shit. An integral part of finding meaning in life is putting yourself in that kind of conflict. An integral part of giving love is having it thrown back in your face, and being condemned for letting it lead you to fail other, stupider criteria. People do not appreciate you stepping out of the competition. Every move that you make outside it is subject to stricter scrutiny, to more aggressive commentary, to more enthusiastic potential derision.

Should you throw idiots a bullshit bone once in a while to keep them sedated? Probably. But that's all by way of buying yourself time. What do you invest time in? The only sensible investment, unavoidably, is of the kind that will send the sports fans jeering. As a wise, colour-blind prospective pilot once said: You do what you love, and fuck the rest. This "rest" isn't just judgement. It's judgemental people. They are aiming to drown your life in meaninglessness. Give them no more than you absolutely have to.

And Your Prejudice Won't Keep You Warm Tonight

Sometimes I wonder who it is that manages to persecute me so fiercely all the time without anybody but me ever noticing.

But then I consider my new hero Morrissey. The only thanks he gets for being the coolest person on earth is their adamant refusal to accept that under the hatred there lies a murderous desire for love, and how they look into his eyes and still they don't believe him, and how they hear him say those words and still they don't believe him, and if they don't believe him now will they ever believe him? Thing is, Morrissey is probably very much what I would be were I not full of shit. I suspect there's a kind of personality-trait constellation too many people are too stupid to be able to deal with for it to be a comfortable thing to carry around.

People too ignorant and vulgar to deserve being treated like grown-ups are trying very hard to create a public atmosphere that would make me ashamed of caring about the suffering of people towards whom they'd prefer me to be indifferent or hostile. It's insulting, and it's depressing, but somehow, it's not even remotely frightening. Possibly this is because it just hasn't gotten bad enough yet, but my feeling is that this whole current of political "delegitimisation" - a peculiarly Israeli preoccupation - doesn't sway me too much because I think myself a pretty convincing citizen. I don't seem to convince myself as much as a regular social person.

*

"You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does" - The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?"

If only I could muster that same kind of militant independence in dealing with complete tools saying incredibly stupid things directly to me or around me as well as with those passing laws against me, I'd probably be a much happier guy. But it's a much tougher argument to win in the first place. "I am human and I need to be loved" doesn't pack quite the same punch as "your infantile posturing jeopardises the freedom of us all and your irresponsible confrontationism could lead to unnecessary war and countless pointless deaths". It's an entirely different ballpark. I'm not saying "agree with me", or "let me participate" - I'm saying "love and respect me, you stupid shit." Why must you be so stupidly stupid in your stupidity?

*

"I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I'm miserable now
I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now

In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I
Live or die?" - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

I'd always really really really liked this chorus. It felt like an epiphany to realise I didn't have to care as much as I did - to devote as much of myself, and "smile/" in the words of the poet, "At people who I'd much rather / Kick in the eye." Many people probably wouldn't notice for very long your disappearance from this earth - a sad result of our living in the hyper-socialised, deeply-alienated group clusterfuck in which we do. But, it has occurred to me, there's more.

Even many of those who would prefer you breathing and with a pulse, would still like you as dead as possible within that physiological framework. You are best loved automated and conditioned into full basic predictability. Your feeling of self-fulfillment or silent desperate misery are by the by. I know I say this a lot, but I think I'll repeat it, to create a constant refrain in this blog: FUCK THEM.

*

"If you're wondering why 

All the love that you long for eludes you
And people are rude and crude to you
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why

You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You just haven't earned it, son
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You must suffer and cry for a longer time." - You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby

No, I'm not kidding. Someone or something is actively fighting my attempts to live a life I won't hate. I am wondering why. What's wrong with my way? What is it with people and their aversion to being human? Why do I need to be terrified of approaching life as anything other than a fancy dress party? Why does it feel like a disadvantage to approach a social situation not sufficiently dead inside?

It's like an army of zombies, trying to take everybody down with them. They need to be quarantined and gassed or something. Problem is, when you're in a room full of idiots, and they idiotically pronounce you deficient in some way or another, it is more or less undeflectable. I just really wish they'd cut it out, at least long enough for me to wade through the dead and find some of the living.

*

"Sheila take a, Sheila take a bow 

Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear
And don't go home tonight
Come out and find the one that you love and who loves you
The one that you love and who loves you." - Sheila Take a Bow

Probably a good start.

Breathe

Tonight I made myself a proper dinner for the first time in probably about three weeks. Fried rice with vegetables and little hamburger pieces that took time to make and was surprisingly good. As I was eating on my own, immediately after taking my last forkful I got up to clear the dishes, but then I stopped myself, sat myself back down, and allowed myself to calmly feel the satisfaction with what had just happened, for the first time in about as long. It was one of those "moments" usually reserved with me for reactions to popular or "high" culture, allowing me to see how I'm being a real dickhead towards myself.

Somehow, still, every single time anything turns out well, it is always a surprise. It's nice to be pleasantly surprised, but because these instances so skillfully manage to evade predictability, they don't get very many opportunities to present themselves. Few things (and people) in my life enjoy focused, unequivocal attention and effort, and instead I find myself in a kind of aimless, permanent hurry to get through the things I think people think I'm supposed to do, without letting it become too much of a strain. And then all of a sudden it's 1:00 am and I haven't taken anything seriously in another day I'll never get back.

Everything and everybody become blood-sucking leeches to whom I'll give free access to my body but never my soul, and somewhere along the line I'll lose sight of the fact that my dinner is not fucking out to get me. It's dead.

It is difficult for me to express the degree to which I despise the arbitrary system of expectations and demands I feel myself subjected to. I hate it with an energy that could fuel a small village for a few months. It has nowhere to go. It confuses me. Mostly, it confuses me how any of this is acceptable or even legal. People will make demands or accusations the only appropriate response to which is to ram your hand down their throat  and rip their heart out of their ribcage, and usually you don't, and everything is supposed to go on as normal. Today, on the national "atonement" day, the countless people who would be shocked at my publicising my orgasmically delicious dinner, wouldn't give a second's thought to how their casual praise and condemnation vaporise people. And unfortunately, it's not because they're bad. It's because they're idiots.

When people hurt you without being malicious, how are you supposed to deal with them and the world that contains them? How do you participate, without prostituting yourself? What does it even mean to participate, besides playing your assigned role?

If I could crack the code to what makes experiences satisfying, rather than shit, I'd stop being so surprised all the time and be able to regularly communicate with the world without feeling constantly violated. Dinner is outside the danger zone. And trying to get through things I hate quickly doesn't solve anything. It's probably a good idea to attempt specific things more often.

Dark Passenger

Dexter Morgan can't muster any feelings for the people around him, because he is removed from the experience due to the need to keep under wraps his inner need to kill people for reasons other than self-defence. He doesn't conduct his killings unreasonably or unconscionably (he insists on proof of guilt and intent of future harm), and there's no good reason not to accept them and him, but people wouldn't understand. They get touchy about the deliberate removal of life.

My life is much better than Dexter's. My girlfriend kicks his's arse, for one. And I have a bunch of friends whose company I enjoy and with whom I can have conversations I don't feel alienated from; the events of my life are far less convoluted and the people around me are far more convincing as human beings; and I never debase myself with his brand of appalling dad-jokes. And yet, the resemblance is uncanny.

I'm not actually indifferent to my surroundings, but then neither is he. We are both blunted. More to the point, almost exactly like him, I get terrified whenever my dark secret seems like it's getting ready to surface. My secret is that I get sidetracked from the attempt to function like a person far more easily than other people, and don't see (or feel) as quite as obvious or simple the preferability of life over death. When full-blown, this was designated "clinical depression", and now once having come under control, it's an ill-defined psychological rather than psychiatric issue. Like Dexter's, this is an unfortunate condition, but it's not something that justifies condemnation. But people get touchy about the deliberate complaining over that which isn't a big deal for them.

Until he and I can say "I feel the need to kill people" and "I have serious trouble dealing with life", respectively, out loud, there is no point to having a relationship, or at least no chance for any degree of intimacy or emotional significance within it. It is very very important to be able to tell sanctimonious intellectual midgets to fuck off and die when they challenge the legitimacy of your feelings and existence, rather than try to explain and apologise your way out of their criticism. Because even the less convenient aspects of your personality are here to stay.

Too Sad to Play Dodgeball

I totally would make a youtube video just for the sake of making this point, but I don't happen to have any video-editing software on me, so what you're going to get instead is a transcript of selected scenes from this probably my favourite Simpsons episode. I'm probably pretty much alone in being reduced to a gibbering mess by this rather than seeing it for the simplistic sentimentalist platitudity that it no doubt is, but hey, it's my fucking blog.

Season 1 Episode 6 - Moaning Lisa:

  Lisa:  [standing still in a gym, being knocked on the head with dodgeballs] Ow, Ooh, ow!  Ooh!

  PE Teacher: [blows whistle]  Lisa!  We are playing dodge-ball here. The object of the game is to avoid the ball, by weaving or ducking out of its path.

  Lisa:  In other words, to dodge the ball.

  PE Teacher: Listen missy, just tell me why you weren't getting out of the way of those balls.

  Lisa:  I'm too sad.

  PE Teacher: Too sad to play dodgeball?  That's ridiculous. [to the rest of the class]  Now let's see some enthusiasm.  Play Ball!

  Marge's Mother: [in a flashback, to young Marge] Wait Margey, before we go out that door, let's put our happy face on, because people know how good a mommy you have by the size of your smile.

Young Marge: [turns to her mother, wide toothy smile plastered across her face. Walks with it out of the house]

  Marge:  [driving Lisa to band practice, turns to her in the front seat] Now Lisa, listen to me, this is important.  I want you to smile today.

  Lisa:   But I don't feel like smiling.

  Marge:  Well it doesn't matter how you feel inside, you know?  It's what shows up on the surface that counts.  That's what my mother taught me.  Take all your bad feelings and push them down, all the way down, past your knees until you're almost walking on them. And then you'll fit in, and you'll be invited to parties, and boys will like you, and happiness will follow.

  Lisa:   [feeble attempt at a smile]

  Marge:  No, come on.  You can do better than that.

  Lisa:   [a much brighter smile]

  Marge:  Aww, that's my girl.  [rubs Lisa's hair]

  Lisa:   [through her teeth]  I feel more popular already. [Walks into the school grounds]  

  Boy 1:  Hey, nice smile.

  Lisa:  Thanks.

  Boy 2:  Hey, what are you talking to her for?  She's just going to say something weird.

  Lisa:  Not me!

  Boy 1:  You know, I used to think you were some sort of a brainiac, but, I guess you're okay.

  Lisa:  Uh-huh.

  Boy2:  Hey, why don't you come over to my house after practice.  You can do my homework.

  Lisa:  Okay.

  Music teacher: 5 minutes people! 5 minutes. Now, Miss Simpson, I hope we won't have a repeat of yesterday's outburst of unbridled creativity.

  Lisa: No sir!

________________________

I have never understood this. What's the big deal about being sad? It's not that bad, and it doesn't have to constitute so dramatic a statement. It's an integral part of the experience of all of us. Sometimes things make us sad. Often, in fact, and it doesn't prevent us from doing anything, beside participate in the collective pretence of being happy. Of being jovial, I should say.

Why does anybody want to play this game? What do they get out of it? Why is it ridiculous to not want to? I have heard people tell me a million times that it's best to try and put on a happy face, because nobody likes hanging around pouty people, but have never felt an aversion to anybody because they weren't happy enough. And what is this "fitting in" I keep hearing about anyway? Is it pleasant? What is everybody smoking? Why is there an expectation that you waste so much of your time and energy, on such fucking bullshit?

All being "sad" means, is that you're dissatisfied with the way things are at the moment, and you would like to make some sort of change. Are changes that bad? Is it that important for everything to always stay exactly the same? Who are the people who decide these things and on what grounds do they decide them? Somebody somewhere has declared war on personality, and they're fucking winning.

So what's the next step after not playing? I still find myself mainly identifying with the Bonnie and Clyde method, but I'm probably missing something far more sensible. What would Neil Young do?