We all know our own obvious flaws. It takes eons of time and wisdom to more fully understand our more nuanced scarcities, but the others are obvious. You don\u2019t need to tell a fat person they\u2019re fat. In the middle of that spectrum of our obvious proclivities, we are really capable negotiators of denial. A drunk knows he\u2019s a drunk too. But there are a million good reasons why. When you\u2019re fat (like I\u2019ve been), it\u2019s self-disgust and shame. When you\u2019re drunk (like I\u2019ve been), it\u2019s because she did that, or he said that, or I lost my job, or she left me.<\/p>\n
Here is the part that\u2019s embarrassing. If you are half a human being, these are obvious, inexorable truths. Did I say obvious? Everyone can see them. Everyone knows they\u2019re true. And I guess this evolutionary survival mechanism helps you explain why it\u2019s not true. And this earned weird evolutionary instinct helps the closest to you in your tribe make you feel better; they describe infections as a phase. As an anomaly. They look for reasons to share blame.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m telling you now, a human living in the midst of proclivity. There\u2019s probably no one to blame except the universe. And that\u2019s not really blame; the universe is by definition everything. Your proclivities, faults, and failures are by definition part of everything. It was inevitable, but that doesn\u2019t let you off the hook. If your sadness and falling down were inevitable, in an infinite reality, so was your happiness and standing up.<\/p>\n
The choices we make feel like free will. Ok. I choose to be an alcoholic sleeping at a bus stop. Does that make sense? Ok. I choose to finish my master’s degree and buy a house and have a beautiful wife and two kids, and a garage. Those sound like opposites. I am the same person, and I HAVE chosen both. And they both seemed like the exact correct decision when I made them. EXACTLY. THE. SAME. Confidence at DEFCON 1 when I pressed the button.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019ve realized is that even the best minds of our generation risk being destroyed by madness. I\u2019ve been mad. Mostly I love, but I\u2019ve been mad (crazy) and mad, and when I was (second) mad, there was no reason to be mad. I\u2019ve come to see, and it’s taken far too long, that madness is actually sadness. It’s like a white blood cell response to a threat to your body. You see a threat, and you grab a can of Raid and spray everything in sight. The people who love you and reach out a hand. Fear is a cunt. You spray their hands and mouth because you’re so afraid of whatever is making you feel is making you feel so much. You spray their hands and then go hide. And hide and hide and hide, until showing your face becomes a threat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We all know our own obvious flaws. It takes eons of time and wisdom to more fully understand our more nuanced scarcities, but the others are obvious. You don\u2019t need to tell a fat person they\u2019re fat. In the middle of that spectrum of our obvious proclivities, we are really capable negotiators of denial. A … <\/p>\n