These are the cookie crumbs for my depreciating mind.

Tag: job

Socks and Misconceptions – the silent judgements

I saw an image that depicted what society thinks to be love between a woman and a man. The heart is located in the mans crotch and the woman’s heart is in the chest, but next to it, it has the “reality”: The mans heart in his chest and the woman’s in her head.

For me love has always started in my mouth. I talk about my life, my experiences, my stories, and my thoughts of the day to see how it hits the significant others mind. To see how she processes my spew. From there my heart begins to go to my eyes and brain. My brain watches her to see how she handles social situations, herself, if she is independent, co-dependent, emotionally connected, likes, dislikes. If we pickup on the same things around us. The ability to say “Did you just see…” and her to turn to me going, “OMG HIS HAIR WAS ON FIRE!”

Social situations hold a lot of water, because these show how we will interact with the world together. I am very sociable, yet reclusive in my own ways. I give off an exterior of confidence but under my arms are telling a different story. I want someone who can handle themselves but also be aware that we are there together and together we can be a stronger team. It is the old idea of both being in a room, one surfing the web and the other reading a book. Being together but being perfectly content to be “apart”. Independent but situationally aware.

My eyes look to see how she dresses, what she looks like, if I still am attracted to her as the days go on. This is a real thing by the way. Beyond the “puppy dog infatuation” the rules of attraction change on a day to day basis. The best thing you can hope for is everyday she becomes more attractive to you. And this is not based on physicality only but on mind and connection. You start to pick up on her body, her smiles, her emotions, and they just make you smile on the inside. That feeling of the butterflies but because you know you are still together.

After this my heart starts to slowly make its way to my chest. But before the ribs open up and let it in, my brain, eyes, mouth, and heart all have a sit down. They discuss what just happened, what they saw, heard, felt, and ultimately make the choice to finally spit out the words “I love you” not because it is the perfect timing or the logical next step, but because if I sit at that conference table anymore my heart will pop out of my chest if I don’t let it control my mouth to yell, whisper, cry out the three simple words, “I love you”.

This is the process of love for me. To be able to finally say I love you is such a freeing feeling for me being so analytical minded. It gives my head breathing space to just be. To be able to have my heart in my chest and just believe in it, in the way she looks at me and know the best parts are still to come now that this has opened up the ability to truly love even more is beautiful. I guess I also set myself up for a scarier fall if they change their mind after the fact, because if I say I love you, I am not just reciting one of the most overused phrases in our culture. Love is an action. We have to be willing to show it, not just say it. And we have to grow with it.

Majority of my relationships stall out on the mouth part. Sharing so much, yet in my mind so little of the “deeper” shit, up front scares a lot of people away. This is the one thing I refuse to compromise on. I am either me 100% or not at all. I refuse to have thought about love, romance, relationships, life, etc so much to have to penalize myself for having a larger outer shell with less fear of breaking my own heart than them to find love in the first place. I don’t have the mind space to be different people with my potential matches versus my best friends or family.

I am willing and do give such a large portion of my own self, which to me doesn’t feel that large, but it frees up the mind to go about growing/learning in society, life, family, and the other things that get thrown at me and this new person on a daily basis to learn who they truly are. But many people I have run into get stuck on love so much that I no longer get a picture of who they are, but a picture of who they think I want them to be, if they have decided to say “I love you” before I have had time to process their share versus mine. This can cause love to hinder the growth of who we could be together rather than open it up. My analytical brain fizzles pretty quickly the minute I feel as though I am no longer able to enjoy their company because it is so focused on “I love you” and the usage of pet names like “Baby” than the everyday. I talk about this in great details on my podcast “Why Love Is Not Enough“.

When you find that mixture of pet names and living life, wow what a feeling that can be. Living with love, not living for love.

I actually think men need more affection than women. I truly think society has it backwards as guys being the emotionless fuck machines and women being the tissue sucking, chocolate icecream inhaling succubi. We as men are used to being “strong” and when we can be softer it is a pleasure and something we want to share deeply with that special person. Something we couldn’t do with our friends or our family. The person who makes a holiday picture card seem like a fun activity.

Ultimately I will always value interpersonal relationships over a job or money because I feel as though this world we live in is backwards. I believe we put so much emphasis on the physical things that we literally lose years of life so we can have a bigger inch on our TV when in the end as we take our last breaths who will give two shits about the size of a TV and care about those who are next to us. We also do this with our jobs that afford us that TV, will we remember when we crunched 800 hours of our life for that “release” cooperate wanted or will be think, I wish I had spent more time living. To quote something I recently heard, “you don’t work the piano you play the piano”. If I could flip the way we work and retire I think it would make more sense. We are retiring our lives with our “savings” when we no longer have the energy to do what we wanted to experience and we are working away the hours when we have nothing but energy and ambition.

Social media feeds into this misconception of “self”. We post moments from our lives in the forms of 140 character blurbs or pictures on instagram. What is weird though is not only do we have to deal with societal norms and “the way things are” but we each have our own perception of what a picture or 140 character insert means. What weight it holds, what it shows about the person posting it. Although with a job and tangible life it is easier to label an interaction versus a moment posted to the cloud. There are not definitive ways to portray yourself yet “online”. We are making it up as we go along. So for each person you are now faced with a second layer of judgement. What is OK to post about and how are we being portrayed without even knowing? Is it better to show the smaller moments in life? Is it better to keep the bad out of the news feeds? Should be post the $$ signs from our latest raise or job? Or should we not have social media, at all.

For instance, I post a photo of my sock drawer with all new socks after throwing out the old ones.  I think bragging about socks is more acceptable in the world of Facebook then how much money you pull in on a gig. When twitter first came out my first post was “on the toilet” not knowing what anyone would actually want to know about me in a 140 character post as my day went on. I treat social media differently than person B and C may perceive it, and that is a problem, not because it is wrong or different but because you never know if you are talking to an A B C or Z person.  This makes a picture of my sock drawer turn into much more than was intended. Kinda like my writing. Stream of consciousness. Nothing holding more water than the thought ten seconds after this one. So I post a picture of socks and in my own head maybe this is going on: my family has always been surprised when they see me clean because as a kid I was that rebellious asshole and then when I hit college I grew up. So it’s nice to continue to show them I am continuing to grow. I get pleasure out of their “likes”. I guess I also feel like I can show them and myself I am an adult when I can have a drawer full of new socks instead of ratty old ones I kept due to financial situations or prioritization. It is a silent societal judgment on the size of a metaphorical TV. The constant struggle if we get super meta on a picture of socks, boiling down to us wanting to feel like we are living as adults and can portray that through material things such as apartments, amenities, new clothes, and the like. I am as guilty as anyone else for doing this and for one of those reasons I just spoke of that is why I post that innocuous photo of my socks. I post smaller achievements to mask my “unsure” bits about the bigger picture. It’s this 24 hour accessibility that you have no input on, no way to give context to, and becomes a perfect recipe for snap judgement on who YOU are versus the image itself, thus turning socks into a stream of words and emotions you may never have had, said, or thought. But for the person looking on, they can’t help it, it is human nature to analyze the “meaning”.

It amazes me that pictures of your animals or selfies are often more acceptable than a more intimate off the shelf look into ones life. Social media is causing a new level of social disconnection and intricacy to dating. It is causing us to look into the past of someone else’s experiences forgetting the most important idea; the idea of making our own memories. Expecting to get what we see as if we are shopping for a doll or buying tickets to a movie we just saw the preview for. Going home after a date and looking at the past life of the person you just spent real time with instead of thinking of the night you just had, instead replaying the preview for the movie again. We are choosing to live off a post or status update of the one we are with rather than picking up the phone and hearing the persons voice, letting that warm our hearts and meeting up to make our own social media pasts. The worst part is we don’t know when it is happening. It is this sub-division of a relationship that we have no knowledge of until it is brought up. Our profiles exist even while we sleep, so 24/7 the other person can be spending time with “you” without you even knowing, unable to respond, react, or give the subsequent emotional context via expressions or inflections. The definition of Lost in Txtlation. We are accessible to those we love at every moment of every day, and I don’t think that is such a good thing. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”. We are suffocating our significant others without even knowing it.

“…non-personalized use of Facebook—scanning your friends’ status updates and updating the world on your own activities via your wall, or what Burke calls “passive consumption” and “broadcasting”—correlates to feelings of disconnectedness. It’s a lonely business, wandering the labyrinths of our friends’ and pseudo-friends’ projected identities, trying to figure out what part of ourselves we ought to project, who will listen, and what they will hear.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/ (Highly recommend this read)

There is so much more to our own progression through life than we can ever express via social media. There is a limit on how much is socially acceptable to talk about depression, struggle, and failure. So much so that if there isn’t a constant stream of updates and progression of your “working life” on a place like Facebook, you may just be perceived as someone with a lack of ambition and ability to “keep up”. But if you are anything like me, there is no update or photo that can truly explain the everyday struggles and successes between the creative and monetary side of the brain. It is something that real life allows us to make a more accurate assessment of. I am not one for delayed gratification, but honestly I think we really need a more organic approach to all of this. Instead of scrolling through the past photos of someone on social media after a good date, living through a curated version of that person that may no longer be applicable to the person you met, rewinding our own imagination of the evening, and letting songs like Maria from West Side Story write themselves in our head til we next meet.

Then again maybe I just like having new socks and underwear.

The Reality Is…

Lately I have been in a rut. I feel low even though things are good in some senses and mysterious in others.

I have doubts of my life goals, my future decisions, and my current ones as well.

As you may or may not know I quit smoking, it was 5 months a few days ago, and it is still a struggle. Then I think about the fact that 5 months passed and realize my life is not where I thought it would be by now which makes me get semi depressed because even after “searching” and “trying” many jobs, paths, goals, I still have NO IDEA what I want to do with my life, and I have tried a LOT. And a lot of those “attempts” were VERY successful. 

How can you pick ONE thing to dedicate a huge chunk of your life to if you don’t know if you will like it for more than a weekend. 

I also have this huge want to just speak my mind 100% lately. Fuck the “joking” “sarcasm” and other methods to skirt the true to others so they take it without getting pissed.

I am tired of this so called tactful way of saying “You are a complete dick and I want nothing to do with you”. 

Why should we be pissed if someone has a different opinion or view on things. Why should we be pissed if we don’t fit someone elses life. Just say it how it is.

I suppose I figured also that by now I would have found someone to be in my life with me. I also thought I would have some sort of fame to my name by now. Yes I have achieved many things including that so called “fame” but it was fast fleeting and never had the effect I wanted from it: To be able to have an impact on those around me with what I have to share. And through that I would have access to more people to possibly be in my life with me. But alas it doesn’t work that way. And the groupie is probably not the best way to find love.

I have a very in depth view of love and relationships, and I have found I will speak my mind on that subject more than others, so when I share what I write about it they often react well. But where is that yin to my yang that has a million opinions, loves a million things, and can love me for that fact that I don’t have my shit together yet but know how to love. 

Where is my hiking partner that doesn’t mind if I get lost in a video game or random obsessive compulsive endeavor? 

I am in great shape and all I want is for someone to hold my arms and touch my stomach now that they are changing to me too. Someone to notice it and enjoy it. I feel like I am wasting it.

I put a lot of emphasis on my own physical appearance because I don’t feel like myself when I am bigger, yet I seem to attract women more when I am out of shape… I don’t get it other than maybe I put so much emphasis on it, I subconsiously try less because I feel like my personality isn’t as important if I have abs of steel haha. But I am still the same teddy bear, romantic at heart boy who just wants to wake up and run my hands through her hair, kiss her forehead, and go on with my day knowing I will see her when I return. 

My dreams are messed up lately too. From being at my old job, to getting ill, to other weird things that are hard to explain due to them being dreams(the sleeping kind). My mind is a mess, and I wish I had someone to keep track of them with me other than my family. 

Will I never find that job because I can’t make up my mind? And because I can’t make up my mind will I not be able to love? Love finds you so they say, but right now my days consist of me working out alone, working alone, and feeling very alone.

I dunno. I am scared, feeling down, and also feeling great because of my physical shape. But even that is fleeting.

Blah 

A self confrontation of a shadow turned nighttime

P.S. (I know I am doing it wrong haha) This song was on repeat while writing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmCn9W7M7CQ or spotify: Ingrid Michaelson – Are We There Yet

I am sore and have taken a beating these last few months. But I feel good, no I feel great, I feel healthy, I feel strong, I feel physically capable, confident, and healthy. I breath the air yearning for it, not ignoring it as a daily activity. 

Here is the hike we did Yesterday:

Here is a video from this weekends hike:

It has been an amazing realization to know that the outdoors, the place I went to everyday as a child, sleeping with one eye open for, was still there waiting for me. Taking that first breath of the cool air, and getting the sensory memory overload from a childhood otherwise pushed aside now. Something meditative for the guy who can’t seem to get out of his head or stop talking, writing, txting, browsing the world around him.

This form of meditation was not through a chant or pose, but from the perspective of a child, my childhood, my carefree exploring mind of young, it gave me what normally hours of mediation would create for someone else, a sense of relief from the world, thoughts, and everything around us except that open, clear, cloud free mind, that just feels like a frozen moment in time, as if you were about to have a car wreck and the world slowed down just for you to see the events panning out before you. But in that moment you just saw the dust particles falling through the sun light infront of you, heard the leafs rustling, waterfalls pouring. It was and is beautiful.

I get home from these hikes now and don’t know what to do with myself if I am not outside now. The downfall to this is I have lost a little motivation to establish the social norms of “work” because I don’t see a clear path to anything yet that can be as enjoyable as that moment of clarity, nothing I love as much as this thing I just learned to love again. Ironically the “paths” I take while hiking, regardless of signs or maps, all feel comfortable and exciting. But my own “path” has yet to let me on it. I don’t know if I need to go up or down to get there.

I am still wandering this world unsure of my purpose. I have so many passions, I direct, I do photography, I used to act, I worked for a video game company, I did construction, worked at Mc Donalds, but I can’t tell you ONE of those that I value more than health, love, passion, happiness, family, and not taking life too seriously. I love to smile, I love to share my ability to smile, but how does someone make that into a “career”… I am yet to figure that out. I am starting to get frustrated at the “what are you doing for work” question again, (this was something I am familiar with, because it happened last time I quit smoking. I fell deep into it and lost hope. I refuse to do that this time… so I am talking about it outloud, I am confronting those things that scare me so much with open arms and no need to inhale on smoke to make it OK.) I am hearing myself wanting to get lost in a video game world to hide from my inability to achieve my own goals by achieving those in the world I do not exist in. And I find that conflicting with my need to wake up everyday and be active and outside, disconnected from Facebook, txting, phones, computers. I want to take the love of my life up on a mountain and just run together, or 10 feet ahead or behind each other, and still know we are on the mountain, breathing the same air, and eventually we will sit down and have lunch together.

I think those two ideas are starting to clash too, because yesterday on my hike, it may have had to do with exhaustion, but my anxiety was a little elevated for no good reason and has remained a bit elevated all day. I felt like I could get the panic feeling, but it never came. But I also fought it subconsciously by running up the last part of the trail and back down, in a record speed, just letting my legs move, and ignoring the pain or my brain saying to slow down. I just wanted to be in motion. And even though I was no longer hiking right next to my friend I knew he would catch up eventually and it was truly freeing to just jump down and up rocks, until I hit pavement again, and heard the sound of cars, resenting their exhausts and sounds, wanting to be at the top again.

As I write this I am actually figuring some of this stuff out too. Trying to figure myself out, while being punched in the face with a newfound love, but unable to make a living off of it can cause issues in the conscious. I have always felt so empowered by what my own body can achieve. And I love to share. Maybe that is a clue. Maybe my life isn’t behind a camera, but exploring, pushing my mind and body to the limit, and sharing my stream of conscious with those around me. Helping others to better themselves, not because I myself am better, but because I am passionate about sharing my everyday thoughts. The unoriginal originality. Inspiring through the simple idea of “I think that too!”, “I struggle there too”, “I want that too”, “I love too”. I have said before, we are, regardless of our achievements or fame, still looking to talk to others and connect with those around us, because at the end of the day and during, consists of just that, interactions, meaningless in an otherwise meaningful “idea” that is society. Figuring out a medium in which people will enjoy reading my 10 page hieroglyphics will be a challenge however. 🙂

So with the good comes the bad. But one day at a time here. One antsy, want to be outside, climbing, scrambling, breathing heavily, day at a time. 

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