Exit Signs Tend to Congregate

I live and work with people who do not like Donald Trump. But unlike many of them, I do not hate Donald Trump. I don’t like his attitude, his bravado, and his policies.

But more importantly, I do not believe he represents anyone but himself.

I base this on maybe an idealistic notion that people are not the backwards, slack-jawed yokels they’re made out to be by slacktivists and the media. The idea that everyone who is a registered voter of the Republican party is a secret racist is a logical fallacy, and guilt-by-association. I highly dislike that sort of thing because if we’re to be this enlightened society progressives envision, they’re going to eventually have to accept that other people hold different opinions than they do. It’s been my observation, that the “simple-minded folk” aren’t the ones starting all these controversies we read about on clickbait social media. It’s usually these armchair activists who poison the well to immediately polarize the situation.

And that’s what politics is, really. The second-deepest form of polarization to religion. The second form of deep identification for many people. Because any common-sense person with a healthy dose of skepticism and a willingness to alter their beliefs will not succumb to polarizing identity politics. They will simply discuss the topics and arrive at a mutual compromise. Another person hard-up to preserve their identity will scratch and claw their way through a debate or argument and throw every sort of fallacy they can think of until they win, usually by the other person giving up and walking away. Then they will steel themselves from further discourse by blocking any and all dissenting opinions, even if it means removing their friends from social media or withdrawing from social events. Yes, as it turns out, the crazy need-for-an-identity phase people go through when they’re thirteen and listening to Linkin Park can last until they’re eighty and they’re listening to Rush Limbaugh.

But deep down, when you peel away the rhetoric, the bravado, and the need for acceptance within a group, you’ll find people who just believe in values they think will serve them, and their family through their limited life spans. It’d be one thing if we were all immortal space-beings of omnipotent power and without need for controlling others or deciding what to do with thousands of war refugees, but we’re mortal human beings who leverage form, function, and order to shape our lives. I don’t enjoy getting into political battles with people, but sometimes I have to discuss my values to others and listen to theirs. People take that freedom for granted when you consider for many other countries, you have no say in how your life goes, or how your family exists. Privilege isn’t just a lazy buzzword for the willful ignorant, it’s a cold reminder that humanity can never follow a single path, that we all follow different paths that sometimes cross each other, and how we interact with those we cross may shape the next path we follow.

When I was a kid, Halloween was awesome. We got to dress up as our favorite character or thing and acquire a shit ton of candy our parents wouldn’t otherwise let us consume that much of the rest of the year. I don’t remember every single costume I’ve worn, but I recall doing Ghostbusters, Spaceman Spiff, Gambit, and the Red Ranger. I am pretty sure every costume was made by my mother, none of the store-bought nonsense, so even though it wasn’t picture-perfect, that was never the point. The point was to run around the neighborhood and collect the good stuff.

An old neighborhood stomping-ground friend of mine penned a response on Facebook earlier on an interesting one-panel imgur comic which isn’t so much interesting as it is a very telling statement of many of our fellow generation.

Normally, I will try and refrain from posting one-dimensional, “trying to make some sort of topical point,” click-baitISH, one-panel comics; however, seeing the flood of idiotic hipsters dressing their kids up as something for internet vanity points I pretty much agree with this.

Really…your THREE YEAR OLD wanted to dress up as the Heath Ledger interpretation of Joker for Halloween? Noooooo, you’re trying to exploit your offspring as a prop to gain web-popularity. Let the kids pick their own damned costume. It’s THEIR HOLIDAY too.

Hell, it’s just like gamer-parents trying to shove Nintendo classic down their kid’s respective throats with some idiotic message like “PARENTING DONE RIGHT.” At least my parents had enough respect for me, they allowed me to develop my own tastes and idiosyncrasies. That’s just as bad as DECLARING THEM A CHRISTIAN right out of the womb, before allowing their brains develop enough to make a rational decision about religion and theology on their own.

I won’t lie, I’ve quipped a few jokes about subjecting my niece to Japanese anime someday, she’s come upstairs as I am watching something and stood there watching it with me. I would love to have a daughter that would spend a Saturday with me watching super robot cartoons. But it’s not really to placate myself in any way, it’s because my childhood was spent embroiled in universes. When I played with Lego, with other toys, I constructed a story, characters, and played them out. I had Star Trek-inspired firefights with myself. We did Power Rangers-style terrible action moves in fourth grade recess. Children are supposed to be able to pick up something they enjoy and interpret it their own way. I am afraid that we, the geek and nerd parents, are taking that control away from them, to placate ourselves. We so very badly want other geek and nerd parents to see how great we are that we force things children do not understand for the purposes of one-upping someone else.

Would I want my kids to enjoy video games, anime, and nerd culture with me? Sure. Why not? I think it is great when I see parents interact with their children with things, and I would love nothing more than to introduce them to the things I grew up enjoying. But I am not going to name my kids after my favorite nerd character, I am not going to slather their baby room or bedroom with nerd themes. I am not going to dress them up in nerd outfits or accessories. But if they ask me to, if they express that desire or interest, then I most certainly will. My children can like whatever they want to like, and dislike whatever they want to dislike, and none of it has to be the same as me.

Unless it is Twilight.

I am fairly known in my limited social interactions to self-depreciate myself often. I have to. It stems not only from what I would describe as a hard-knock life since middle school, but also because I have never felt physically or emotionally confident in myself. I know a lot of people will say “Well you’re just talking shit, you didn’t have life nearly as hard as X” or pull a Tumblr-style “You’re a straight-white-male, check your PORRIDGE.” I get that. I get that compared to whosit-whatsit, I am not the only guy with problems. I’ll proceed to break out my razorblades and Linkin Park now.

But earlier today I read a few inspirational messages, the sort you usually read from people more successful than you. I don’t fault them for such, they obviously put themselves in a better frame of mine and made it happen. I grabbed a tub of ice cream and watched Star Trek all day.

Recognize we are all flawed and hypocritical. We all want to become better versions of ourselves.

I don’t think I’ve ever once felt I was special, or the best, or that anyone else around me was pure shit. Even in teams, and especially with the people I work with, I tend not to excel above everyone. I do a good job, and specialize in some skills others don’t, but I don’t like being the center of attention or taking away from other people’s efforts. It’s a bit odd to explain, but it’s effectively like me wanting another person to get the award and the praise than myself.

Thing is, I know I am deeply flawed. I have decades of psychological issues I still battle off and on today. People would tell me “Why bother? Forget about it. It’s in the past! It doesn’t matter!” and it would really be nothing more than deflection and distraction, wrapped in a neat bow of appealing to my emotions. I’ve always considered seeking professional help, to try to get past this and be better, but I don’t really know how, and I don’t know if I want to assault a stranger with those demons.

We will slip and stumble. That does not make us bad people, it makes us flawed people – which is to say, human.

I’ve fallen a lot in life. Part of the reason I deeply regret the past thirteen years is that I’ve only really accomplished what I’ve wanted in the past six years. I wasted a lot of time and energy on things I shouldn’t have, because I didn’t get a chance to waste my time with those things in high school. I used up a lot of valuable time in my twenties living life in the fast lane. I imagine a lot of people would wonder why that is a problem? In many ways, it isn’t, but in a lot of ways, it is. I never properly finished college, and I could have stuck my foot in the door with an entry-level tech job a lot sooner and been in a much better position now. I could have had kids sooner. A lot of people told me “Wait!” and I feel most of them did so because they regret not doing it themselves, or some other reason. My problem is I don’t take enough risks. And I should.

You do you, whoever that “you” is.

I’ve always done me. Hell, this is the one thing I know I’ve done right. I’ve never pretended to be anyone I am not. But I believe that is the reason I feel isolated, alone, and without a lot of people around me. I reach out to people online because I don’t have many people in-person that I feel comfortable with hanging around. I feel most people don’t want to bother. People see my political and socio-political charged bullshit online, they see ideas and opinions they don’t agree with, and they think I am not right. I don’t expect people I know to agree with me on everything, but I don’t expect people I know to talk those topics with me. Talking about nice things, family, friends, or whatever, those are great and I’ll do that all day. People use the phrase “heart on their sleeve” a lot to talk about people who express themselves more forward than most. Even for being an introvert and rather emotionally-closed, I still wear much of my heart on my sleeve. I can’t shake the core of who I am, someone who wants very much to be an extrovert, but it’s just not that simple for me, and even more difficult to make people understand.

If you cannot begin to adopt a mindset of love for yourself, how can you expect others to love you?

For the most part, I love myself. I know I am fat, out of shape, unable to do a lot of traditionally male things, but I always assume that eventually I can change. It is difficult. I’ve tried exercise and eating better in the past, but I get lazy, the day goes to hell and I get home late to make anything, same with my wife, life doesn’t seem to really help us out when it comes to that sort of thing. And with this whole debacle in having a child going on, it’s taxing and tolling on both of us physically and mentally. I don’t even want to tell other people because many of them don’t understand, or they do, but are always quick to point out how they don’t have those problems. It’s a very human response to immediately reinforce one’s ego, and that makes conversation difficult.

Given all of this, and the ever-looming anxiety I have over mortality and the specter of death, there are times where it is hard for me to process a lot of things. I try to take each day one at a time, and keep myself occupied with things to get through the day. But it’s hard looking back and not really seeing anything significant being accomplished, and wondering how you can go forward doing better. All I know is when I look at myself in a mirror, sometimes it is just difficult to see anything through the fog.