Esse Est Percipi

I used to have a friend who hated his job, his economic situation... Most of the things about his life when it comes right down to it. He wanted to be alternative. He wanted to be an artist. He wanted normal, mainstream society to accept him exactly as he was. Bitterness, resentment and the general "unfairness" were pretty common themes in the frequent monologues about how his civil liberties were infringed upon because they wanted him to dress a certain way. He wanted all of these things for his life, but he lacked the one very vital part of achievement: doing something about it.

We're not friends anymore more or less because I pointed out this very thing. You are not a helpless bystander in your life. If you want something, you have to get off your ass and go after it. Apparently that's not a nice thing to say, but we all live and learn.

Or not, because I'm going to say the exact same thing to all of you. (Yeah, I was the kid who had to get burned five times before I learned the lesson about hot things; in my defense they were all different hot things.)

This is something I've been thinking about quite a bit lately, particularly coming to the end of my degree and going through the process of applying to start another one. I watch people quite a lot - though this is actually a misnomer. People-watching is usually more people-listening because strangers do not like it when you stare at them for too long.

"No one appreciates me."

Of course they don't. Why should they? How are they supposed to know you even exist? I know quite a few artists (henceforth a collective term for anyone doing anything relating to the arts, not just visual), so this complaint comes up a lot. I know some exceptional artists who bust their asses putting themselves out there, networking, jumping through all the hoops, and get maybe a tenth of the attention they actually deserve based on talent. I know some meh-to-mediocre artists who do all the same things with the same amount of effort put into selling themselves, and get about the same results.

But that's not fair! the masses (who remain largely unnoticed because they make themselves noticed) cry out. Well. Fuck fair. No one is going to see your poetry/paintings/videos/songs/photography/etc. if you only put it on Facebook for your friends to see. No one is going to seek you out and help you succeed. I don't know how many times I've heard I'd love to be published (usually immediately following the mention that something I've done is appearing somewhere, because people are nice like that), and every time I do, I think (and, yes, usually say): so do something about it.

Yes, yes, before you all start screaming at me that it's not that easy, I know. Being a published writer is fucking difficult and has quite a bit to do with luck and self-marketing, but it's damn near impossible if you don't put yourself out there to begin with. You don't get to whine about it not happening if you aren't trying to make it happen.

The same thing applies to just about anything you want in life. Being a good person isn't going to ensure you get rewarded. (Neither does being a bad person, contrary to popular belief, though this group does seem to have less guilt associated with self-promotion so I'm sure that doesn't hurt.) Being talented, intelligent, or whathaveyou isn't going to do it either. You've got to get out there and work your ass off for it, and even then there's no guarantee you'll be as successful as you want to be. I don't know if you've noticed, but there are a hell of a lot of people hanging around on this planet, and every single one of them has some big ambition or aspiration. It might not be exactly the same as yours, but I'm sure there's enough out there to give you some competition. And those people might be better, smarter, more talented, more charismatic, wealthier... Or they might not be. If you never step outside your comfort zone, it won't matter. They've already beaten you.

Some people get very bitter about all of this. Somewhere along the line, they've gotten it into their heads that society owes them something because... I don't know. Inflated sense of self-importance, maybe? I don't know. I suppose if you really see it that way, it would be fairly easy to resent people who do succeed.

That person I mentioned earlier? Used to expression envy towards me quite a bit, and go on about how lucky I am to have the opportunities I have. And every time I said: it's not luck, it's work. You could do exactly the same things. There are plenty of people who put in the same amount of work and have all the same opportunities I do. Hell, there are plenty of people who put in way more effort and get even more opportunities. And it hasn't been easy. It's meant starting over in a new place more times than I might have liked, turning down social activities to stay home and work. I rang in the new year by frantically doing some last minute (literally) edits to Trinity before sending it off to meet a deadline, as a matter of fact. I have no idea if anything will even come of that, but I did it, because you can be damn sure nothing would have come of not doing it.

The world doesn't owe me anything. If I don't succeed, it's because someone else worked harder for it. If I do, I can look at the sacrifices I've made and the work I've done, and actually be proud of my efforts. And I'm okay with that. 

PS You have to be brave.

"One has to have a complicated kind of optimism. You can't refuse to look at how horrible things are."

Many, many things have happened since last we spoke, but I'm not going to talk about them. Enough has been said and said and said about them that adding anything more at this point would just be rehashing things already done and sometimes, sometimes we all need a little space to breathe.

"Sometimes it's like watching a delicate flower surrounded in snow, and it tries to stand up, but the snow just keeps crushing it."

There is a certain weariness that attaches itself to life. We're taught and told that adversity breeds strength, that the injuries we suffer build character and enable us to move forward. Persevere. There's a lot of importance attached to that. The ability to persevere. It's noble. It's honorable. Whatever happens, we shall hold our heads up and comport ourselves with dignity. We will conceal all wounds and smile blithely even while blood soaks through layers and layers...

"Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone... Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way."

I wonder about that. Is our strength founded in the pain we feel, or do we only discover it at the bottom of the box when everything has already been taken out? Is it just that thing we are left holding in the end, pushing us to move breathe sleep eat because ultimately, whatever we would like to say or believe about ourselves, we are programmed to survive and even when our cognitive identity crumbles, that innate, unignorable programming kicks in and demands you will carry on. Is that noble?

"I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of feeling like shit when I didn't do anything wrong, and being angry when there isn't anything I can do to fix it, having to be the one responsible for knowing how to fix it - like I have any idea - and just. All of it. I wish it would just stop and go away."

There are those who don't, I suppose. Those who get so much piled around them that all they can do is collapse beneath it. Are they less noble for their inability to persevere? Are they damaged, flawed, unsaveable, deserving of pity because obviously they must not be imbued with this strength that is so vital, so admirable, so indicative of someone worthy of respect?

"Respect the ecology of your delusions."

There is a comfort and a danger in spending too much time in a nonexistent world. In the things we create, the stories and lives and events we manufacture, there is an order and logic to the messiest of situations. Every line of speech has significance. Every action is meaningful. Nothing is arbitrary, and you can be assured of that. But if you linger too long on that side of the glass, you start interpreting life itself with the same codebook, when the truth is there are no layers of metaphor to unwind. A mess is a mess and nothing more. The virtues - the ideals, the beliefs - you try to hold on to break down, wear down, are stolen from you. Sometimes without you even realising. You think you still have them and one day you find yourself in need of one, so you reach into the box and pull out something that looks vaguely like honesty or integrity or whatever else it is you might be seeking, but it's not quite what you expected. It's not quite what you remember it being.

"I'm not suited for this. I'm not designed for it. I don't like it. I can't even remember to breathe regularly without thinking about it, and that's supposed to be automatic. I'm trapped in the teeniest of cages without even any door that I might try for an escape. And maybe I could bear it if there were more room to move around, but I am pressed and squeezed into this limited space until so often I feel like I'm just going to burst out of it but it never yields. I don't think I am a creature that was ever meant to be forced into corporeal form. I find it awkward and unwieldy. And maybe that's why I have such difficulty trying to place myself amongst tangible things - I don't spend much time in the physical realm, and the things that exist there don't hold any importance to me." 

And maybe it's better that what you pull out isn't quite that thing you thought it was, because the world has no use for them. They're a little like fairy stories; things we tell ourselves at night to make the dreams easier to catch. Take honesty. We are, generally speaking, expected to be honest, but not too honest. If you are too honest, you're mean. You're heartless. So we develop a practice of speaking in half-truths, reading between the lines, accepting the little lies we give each other to spare someone's feelings. This is more acceptable than true honesty, but no one knows why. I've asked.

"You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty an kind but it's not always kind to be gentle and soft, there's a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be."

Inevitably, because we're trying so hard to be careful and respectful, to follow these proscribed standards of behaviour that allow us acceptance as members of the whole, there are misunderstandings, complications, confrontations, those injuries that foster that much-sought-after attribute of strength. It's part of life, they say. Everyone experiences it. Just keep your chin up, kid, and remember that smile. Maybe, even if we weren't expected to perform two contradictory actions simultaneously, these things would happen anyway. Maybe they wouldn't.

"But failing in love isn't the same as not loving. It doesn't let you off the hook, it doesn't mean... you're free to not love."

So we misunderstand each other. We hurt each other. We hide from each other and we scream at each other. We allow moments of great silence to fill the cracks that had been made. We try to replace those silences with words that mean nothing in the hopes that over time they'll start to mean something again. We tell ourselves to be strong. That the strength we've discovered or developed or however we came by it will see us through every moment of shaky ground. We try to put our faith back together. Perhaps that is the most difficult thing of all. Once the yelling is done. Once the silence has lasted too long. Once all parties sit humbled and hurt, there is still the matter of faith, and whether or not it has been truly lost. If there is still even a hint of faith left, or maybe even just the desire for faith... Maybe, in the end, that is all strength really is.

"It isn't easy, it doesn't count if it's easy, it's the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet."