Goddam Right It's a Beautiful Day

While happiness still alludes me, I'm much better. Much much better. There's a noticeable shift.

The way I would have remarked 'it never ends' 3 years ago would have been one of remorse resolution. Nowadays, 'it never ends' would be one of delight and gratitude.

Something is taking shape in my future visions, something I can almost grasp.

Throw Away the Ledger

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” 
― Benjamin Franklin

Perhaps in a move that makes little sense, I'm going to open with a counter-point to the point I actually want to make. I'm running a profitable business, and one day Penfold from accounts rushes up to me with a ledger and says 'sir! I've discovered that a fault in sector 7G is costing us $5 a day.' being a manly man of decisive action I say 'what will it cost to fix it Penfold?' because I solve problems it's what I do, and Penfold says 'We can fix it for $10 a day.' and I say - 'don't fix it.'

Terrorism too, in terms of money certainly, and as the record is showing, human lives - is a more costly problem to solve than to by and large ignore. Terrorism over the long term, is less clear cut.

But in the above examples, the obvious real lesson is that you don't fix a problem with a larger problem. You need a 50c solution to a $5 problem, not a $10 one. Terrorism needs a response that doesn't result in escalating conflict.

But what Benji Frankleberry is saying is that there are situations where one incident negates all previous knowledge.

A conviction of a sexual offence against a child, tends to completely undo all one's other accomplishments in life. Similarly one positive drug test can strip you of a whole bunch of Tour De France titles. One bad day on the markets can undo 60 years of wealth accumulation.

So there's nothing new there, except that these kind of things keep happening to people, people keep perpetrating them and people keep falling victim to them.

So in some ways when I say 'throw away the ledger' it's a misnomer. The issue is in the weighting, which proper ledgers actually do. You can have a thousand items valued at 1c in the Assets column and one item worth $10,000 in the liability column and the ledger will make it clear that you are in trouble.

The ledgers people keep in their head though, go like dessert was delicious, main was delicious, soup was delicious, entre made me violently ill. That's 3 courses to 1 which means on balance the meal was delicious and I'll go back to the restaurant. Okay so we don't do that. We know that the presence of salmonella in just one dish ruins a whole dining experience.

We restrict this kind of clear thinking, and accountability though when it comes to evaluating people. Well some people do. There are terms like 'deal breaker' that are employed. But a lot of people don't really take Benjamin's falsifiable approach to a person's reputation.

It will take the rest of your life to prove, definitively that you are reliable. The instant you flake out though, you are unreliable. You cannot be relied on. This is the crucial distinction between '99% certain' and 'certainty' - the use of 'certain' in the former is a misnomer. 99% certain is uncertain. Thus the other 1% possibility needs to be provided for, or it needs to be acknowledged that you are indeed actually risking something.

Furthermore, in practice 99% certain looks a whole lot like 20% certain, and even 1% certain. Certainty has a particular property, that means one exception negates it's whole value.

I have brought issues I have to people, and often they have retorted that I wasn't being fair, and then tried to rebalance the ledgers with all the counter examples of behavior I don't have an issue with.

The argument is moot. If arguing with me, you are in practice defeating yourself. Because it's the act I take issue with that ruins all their counter points for them. It actually stresses Franklin's point above and further obliges them to address the issue.

'He physically assaulted me, but he threw a great surprise party just the month before, that takes more effort and thought than beating up somebody as weak as me!' No, doesn't work like that.

"You got a shitty job, and I got a dollar."

I hate unassertive cyclists. And I hate waiting around for nothing. As a cyclist, virtually every T-intersection traffic stop creates a situation where you can assertively run the red and continue on your path or stop at the light like a law abiding citizen.

You can probably take a guess at which option I opt for, and I hate coming across a momentum stopping cluster of law abiding citizens waiting for nothing but lights to change to carry on.

But more so than those cyclists are the bystanders. I once had a ped at a tram stop point out to me that I had to stop behind a tram so long as it's doors are open. I was baffled as to whether he honestly thought I didn't know the law. Did he think that I would bother to point out to the myriad of peds daily that they were standing in a bike lane, often on a set of words that said 'stand clear'. I don't because peds are peds and generally oblivious to their surroundings. They are genuinely ignorant of the law. You don't cycle as long as I do and remain ignorant of all the traffic laws you violate regularly.

This morning a guy honked at me as I ran a red. A red he in his jeep had to wait for. I was transitioning through a number of T-intersections (all of which he'd have to stop for) and heading into the heart of the CBD where bikes travel much faster than cars so I never had any chance of encountering or being confronted by the guy (I actually don't know if it was a guy).

But it set me off anyway, you have to cut through all the bullshit of what these people will report they are doing - trying to point out I'll get myself killed that way. Call me up when I'm breaking the law. Trying to keep me and others on the road safe.

Truth be told, I can't honestly imagine what somebody hopes to accomplish by beeping a cyclist when they run a light or make an illegal turn or don't dismount in front of a 'cyclists dismount' sign.

What I hear, in that car horn is 'it's not fair, I can't run a light so why should cyclists get away with it?' wine wine wine wine wine. A big noise from a small person inside a protective, uneconomical, inefficient shell.

To which I say 'yeah, of course it's unfair. Why do you think I cycle?' As far as I'm concerned, any car withing 5km of the CBD is an admission of logistical failure. Taxis sure, goods delivery vehicles of course. Single commuter driving to work? You fucked up.

Deal with it, you can't register bicycles they are too easy to steal, lend, borrow, onsell, repair, modify etc. Meaning that short of a police present to pull you up on the law, there's no legal repurcussions to transgressions for most cyclists. There's no number to take down, a red light camera gets a photo of a John Doe the police don't have the resources to trace.

Then one night as a lady yelled from her car as I legally took a lane she was driving down and assumed the law must be that a car can run down a cyclist who changes into a lane like a regular vehicle: 'do you have a death wish?' (I responded 'Yes' to confuse her, you don't get much time in these situations) but the best response would have been 'do you?' largely because it is an incredibly high risk activity to confront anybody on the road.

But pertinant to this discussion, the answer is no. I have witnessed many traffic accidents involving cyclists in my time, and with no exceptions, seriously, not one, the cyclist with the 'death wish' has been in full compliance with the road rules. The most common accidents I have witnessed (and experienced) as a cyclist, is having somebody open a car door into a cyclist (known as dooring).

The cyclist is always riding perfectly legally as a cyclist in these situations. Often they are in harms way because they are riding in the bike lane they are both designated and required to ride in.

And just as most pedestrians are killed in pedestrian crossings, and very few are killed while jaywalking, I have seen numerous 'stupidly dangerous' feats of cycling in my time, ones I don't have the confidence to try on. Like riding at night with no lights and no helmet, and riding against the traffic, and cutting across an intersection as traffic is passing through... I've seen all kinds of 'stupidity'.

What I've never seen is one of these acts resulting in accident or even injury. Hence I have to put 'stupidly dangerous' in scare quotes, because my experience is that obeying the road rules is dangerous, and stupid unnecessary risk taking appears to be quite safe.

If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.

The quote of the title of this post comes from Joe Rogan, in his context it was copping bad attitude from a stripper. In my context, if you are driving a car into the CBD sitting in congested traffic, getting frustrated by your work commute, frustrated enough that seeing a cyclist just skip the lights and ride on his merry way. And you can't look around and think that you are in a comfortable climate controlled environment with a sound system and that's why you chose this mode of transport. Then you made a shitty choice and just fucking choke on it, choke on it silently thanks.

Legacy

"It takes something to just say 'fuck it! this is reality. And I'm going to deal with it.'" ~ Angel Haze.

"In my experience, life makes us pay for our mistakes. What you are experiencing now is that payment." ~ Gordon Livingston [paraphrased]

This has been a hard post to write, I'm not sure when I started it, but I've lost track of it 3 or 4 times and deleted it each time back up to the above quotes.

Today though another way occurred to me to open this post, as I had an actual epiphany. There are actions I am taking now, that are drastically reducing, or preventing, my daughter from becoming an addict, attempting suicide, developing an eating disorder, self harming etc....

It's hard to even construct a hypothetical bad situation for my hypothetical future daughter (or child) to be in, because I know enough people who have been through enough shit for all of the shortlistings to resemble somebody I know.

It's a big call I guess, to say my child will be happy and secure, when so many in this world are not. But that's the most positive way I could put legacy issues. I make this call because I have had the means and the opportunity to actually deal with my shit. And I've been dealing with it.

You have the means and the opportunity to deal with your shit, whatever it is.

I am an advocate of mental health. But I have one slight reservation about it, I do believe that healing begins with compassion towards the self, and often mental health professionals do a lot of work to get us to accept ourselves as we are.

That to me though is the starting point of healing, due to the fact that I am a patient, and not a mental health professional, my experience of mental health is only limited to my own. But I have much experience with people.

The advice that is common enough for you to maybe have heard: 'You can't change other people you can only change yourself' is good advice, but tricky. In my experience, wishing your environment would change to render your issues irrelevant is neither realistic nor empowering. At the same time accepting that you cannot rely on others to change, and specifically to change for you, does not mean people are off the hook responsibility wise.

In fact if anything, the advice is pointing out that you, whoever is reading it, have an obligation to change yourself because you are the only one that can.

In finding compassion for the self (and rejecting the notion you are inherently flawed) doesn't mean you can say 'well I just need to drink to console myself, that's the only thing that numbs the pain.' and here is why:

1. It's a fallacy, consolation is not a necessity, nor is drinking to console a necessity.
2. After numbing the pain, you will sober up, and in sobriety the pain will return because you treated the symptom but did nothing to change your circumstances.
3. And most crucially, your not dealing with your shit puts the cost of your shit onto other people.

That's how legacy issues arise.

Because whatever variety your shit is, that you don't deal with, It almost certainly renders one egocentric. You have another need that needs addressing that other people don't. It butts into your heirarchy and diminishes your capacity to see to others needs.

While you are drinking away the painful thoughts and feelings, memories experienced by the body, you are spending time on yourself and thus not on people who look to you.

And those who look to you feel hurt and rejected themselves. All they model from you is how to self soothe the pain of their own childhood and this shit gets passed down as a legacy.

Sooner or later somebody on the family tree has to say 'stop, enough is enough' and they do that by actually dealing with the pain, whatever it is rather than suppressing it however they do. Most importantly they learn to stop perpetuating it.

There is no point in your life where dealing with your shit will not create the greatest and most dramatic improvement in your quality of life and those that care about you.

So deal with it.

Emotional Investment

I recall reading in one of my 3 hour breaks between lectures back in the day, one of those books with pictures of animals and affirmations and shit, light on the words.

Anyway there was a picture of a frog and a platitude like 'the human heart has infinite capacity to love' and I remember it re-framing emotions as a resource.

Like there's certain abstract concepts, like time, time is the most limited resource anybody possesses. Conversely apparantly, emotions, like love are inexhaustible. It was a comforting thought, now I'm not so sure.

I think there's a fundamental truth there, somewhere. Like your capacity for love never diminishes. You got this indestructible energy. I think physics would back that shit up.

Upon reflection though, I think our emotional capacity is elastic. Maybe having kids changes shit, you unlock some extra capacity that applies to them in a way outside of ordinary social experience, I'm not qualified to say, but I assume just about anyone reading this would have experienced at some point that state of tension that comes from losing some emotional investment you've made.

The sense that you are walking on egg-shells, or trying to execute some complex manouvre like destroying the death star. Your heart is on the line, your very being. It preoccupies and consumes your thoughts as your run over the plays and possibilities in your head. If you can just salvage that friendship, or get somebody to realize they truly love you...

In my experience from adult life, what I feared losing, was unloseable. Most of these high-tension scenarios were resolved by acceptance, simply accepting the person, the situation, whatever. And like that, it becomes incredibly hard to recall what or how you'd actually lose the investment emotionally. My emotions just snap back into shape.

They are restricted and finite perhaps only because they can be directed by time and energy. The times where I've felt at risk of losing an emotional investment have actually been when that time and energy was disproportionately invested somewhere where I wasn't getting emotions back. Once accepted, bang, I find myself enjoying life more.

The tricky part is that on paper acceptance looks a lot like giving up. But accepting I've read, and it feels right, is an affirmative act. That is you actually have to do it, where giving up (which in the context of running, I've had the occasional experience with) is where you literally just stop exerting effort or will.

It's been too long since I've experienced heart break to really reflect on what that's like, but I don't think heartbreak is acceptance, I suspect it is more like the catastrophic failure of the denial coping mechanism. Some emotional exercise akin to trying to run at the corners of a Necker cube. It's kind of maybe where you want to run but can't, you can't bend reality to your will. But acceptance I can recall feels not like heartbreak, it feels like shit is leaving your system (probably literally a heap of cortisol).

Anyway, the curious conundrum is, how motivating a percieved emotional investment can be, how much work we are willing to do to not lose what we have invested in someone or something. Yet it prolongs often in my own experience a substandard of living, and when that investment is relinquished I always find I have much more of what I feared to lose.

Know what I'm sayin'?

Natural High

Last Tuesday I'd been listening to the Butthole Surfer's 'Pepper' a lot and switching between that and Voodoo Child by Hendrix. Ah those songs they set my mind on fire, and make me feel alive. Then I had to go out, and the weather was nice and I was coasting down studley park road reliving those songs in my head and I realised I was high.

A natural high, that shit is real. It was like the onset of drunkenness without the spongy fatty layer between you and reality.

It was ridiculous, but it can be done. It is possible to just feel really really good, by yourself. Just live in a way that occassionally releases a potent combo of reward chemicals into your brain. Yet it's an experience so lucid, you remember it afterwards, you aren't left with an overwhelming desire to chase that feeling again. It's kind of there.

To Bury A Reboot

The first time I watched 'Man of Steel' I actually kind of enjoyed it. The second time I couldn't get through the opening sequence on Krypton.

I have to say, my impression of the reviews of 'The Amazing Spider-Man' were that it was treated fairly - it was a well made film, simply missing that Sam Raimi magic. Not much could be said for it's sequal, except that I feel, deeply and with conviction, that this franchise should be buried.

Perhaps same same with the new Superman franchise, I'm not particularly excited about a Superman-Batman crossover, I imagine Nolan will cherry pick the best of Loeb's efforts to combine the two. But even that is not very good, and I suspect, not the way to make Superman interesting subject matter. Like offering a free coke with every sprite purchased. I think at the end of the day it will leave consumers asking 'what the fuck?'

I suspect though the amount of time between reboots will continue to contract. The comic movie industry, is beginning to replicate the comic publication industry. The industry's on a learning curve and the subject matter suffers as the business model strengthens.

Firstly, there's a fan base that wants to see these movies made. They want them and they can't help themselves. A large contingent of comic fandom, simply lacks a capacity to learn. These are nerds we are talking about, dweebs. It's hard to call them indiscriminate, but effectively so. In their powerlessness they can only express rage at the mistreatment of their sacred texts, not actually predict a crappy product and avoid consuming it.

And I don't believe in popular movements or consumer activism. I believe in decision makers. The first three Spider Man films set records at the box office, with a decade of inflation passed and an increase in movie ticket prices, the next two films have cost almost as much budget wise and performed not as well. Not as well as Captain America, when one would expect box office performance to map roughly onto comic title sales performance, and I can't imagine there's anywhere near as many fans of Captain America comics as there are of the many and varied Spider Man titles.

What it puts me in mind of, is of all people Dave "Hughesy" Hughes, because after the opening ceremony of the Melbourne Commonwealth games, he asked the question 'surely somebody in some meeting pointed out "flying boy on a skateboard, isn't that a little bit like the flying Nikki Webster in the Sydney Olympics opening?"' and in whatever meetings I imagine take place, certain questions aren't being asked.

Like somebody looking over the script and saying 'so we are portraying on film the death of Uncle Ben, Peter Parker's Parents, Gwen Stacey's Father and Gwen Stacey... won't that mean our Spider man pretty much does nothing but deal with guilt and remorse and self doubt?' or even 'these designs are terrible. You're saying this is what our Green Goblin is going to look like? This looks ugly and ridiculous and stupid as shit, we are clearly falling short visually and technologically of what was achieved in previous films. What are we thinking?'

I don't know and I don't understand. That's why I feel comic book movies have probably peaked in terms of approaching legitimate films. Clearly the new franchise is underperforming the historical benchmark set (even adjusted for inflation) but it's still clearing a 160% return for investors on the budget, and these movies will get pumped out so long as they pull in a positive return. What hasn't been established is any threshold for the movie going public to say 'batman, again? you know what, I'm really not interested.'

The profitability will I suspect eventually just be what the comic book industry used to be when it was in print, do to saturation and competition and diminishing quality of product.

The diminishing quality of product comes from the diminished perception of risk. There used to be a reason to get an auteur director like Tim Burton to do the Batman film adaptation, you got very few shots at adapting a comic into a film. It was big and expensive and it needed to work. There used to be a reason to get Willem Dafoe to play the Green Goblin, you wanted a compelling on screen presence because Marvel didn't know if Spider Man was too campy to hold up on the big screen.

These reasons have evaporated. You can be pretty certain so long as the IP is big enough and the visual effects budget can cut together an enticing preview, enough fans will go see to make the project viable, and if it bombs, you reboot in 2 years instead of releasing a sequel the next year.

Thus nobody is going to agonize over script and director until you hit upon Raimi's ability to conceal a romance within a blockbuster action film creating the perfect date movie for a generation. You aren't going to have sketch artists sitting with Tim Burton as he completely recreates our visual conception of Batman characters. You aren't going to fire Tim Burton because his sequel didn't outsell the first installment. You just accept diminishing returns and keep pumping out ho hum interpretations hoping a happy accident will occur. Or knowing you will be dragged upwards if enough of the other franchise films succeed (aka the Avengers).

Even Captain America's installment this year though, suffered from the benefit it receives being associated with Iron Man etc. It could have been fucking great, had it the space to do a Spider Man 2 - which would have been to remove Hydra completely and make it a story about the pin up boy from the propaganda being the real deal having to turn against the propaganda machine that produced him.

Can't do it though, has to fit the plans for the next Avengers crossover.

The decision makers need to be decisive, and ditch these dying franchises to create space for good shit to be created at a rate consumers can handle. Instead of fucking canabalising their own markets through product line extension. Sorry to end with marketing jargon, but if the decision makers read it, they'll understand it.

Theoxeny

On sunday I went to a memorial for one of the genuine great human beings it was my privilege to meet. Scott was kind, said Colleen when she burst into tears, and I think there in that moment you have greatness epitomised. There were also two of the first Temporary Protection Visa holders released from Woomera detention center that Scott answered the Fitzroy Learning Network's door to, drove down to the Supermarket and bought packets of biscuits for to make them feel welcome.

And the FLN crammed all those 20 new students into classes with pencil and papers on the same day, again to make them feel welcome.

It's one of those illusive truths, that the greatest acts of kindness and courage, the most heroic and meaningful actions we can take in life are also so simple and practical. There are no doubt incredible circumstances of Scott and others lives that ensure they are in the position, and have the opportunity to extend this hospitality and have this impact. A hidden set of values, social ethos and orientation just as complicated but far less exposed than the huge social machine that produces the kind of people that create the mandatory detention and temporary protection visa policies.

And one of the things I learned on Sunday was an antonym of Xenophobia, something that stains Australian culture. That word is 'theoxeny' a greek term for 'friend of the stranger' the speaker said people of Island nations get and embrace this concept, knowing that with a change of winds, they too could easily be the stranger. It is the very embodiment of empathy. It is a recurring theme in Greek Mythology, and Zeus the mightiest of gods was sometime titled Zeus Xenios, protector of travelers.

It is akin to 'there but for the grace of God, go I' and this man that passed, was a friend to the stranger. There to listen, there to care, there to find solutions. One of the last times I spoke to Scott was when Zamin's daughter had died, and he was tremendously comforting then. Just calm, present and a lender of perspective. And I was just one of many volunteers who very occasionally dropped into the network.

It's one of the few funerals where it could be said that the person's reputation was not improved by death. Scott was what people presented him to be in the eulogies delivered. Any admonishment to 'not speak ill of the dead' was entirely uneccessary with him.

Thus it was an intense privilege and opportunity to have met Scott and conversed with him. He is a rare and important role model, I think for anybody, and particularly men. He is gone now, but it's hard to feel anything but loss. There is no deprevation, or being cheated with a man so kind and generous.

Remember theoxeny people. Don't move away from xenophobia, so much as towards theoxeny.

Body Language ...ugh ...?

I think this is the third time I've written about body language, so I'll be brief.

I've found my study of it fruitful. It has counter-intuitively helped calm my mind and made me a less superstitious person.

The only way body language can be of interest is if it is involuntary, subconscious and explained. Not a very high standard of explanation, just something that allows my conscious mind to reconcile with subconscious behavior.

And that is where I draw the line. I want to be able to recognise body language when ever I am sufficiently present enough to notice it, so that I can walk away from that situation feeling like it went well vs not well.

Because previously I used to spend much more time debating my intuitions, my gut and chest feelings with rational arguments as to why I was 'just seeing things' or whatever. Basically I spent a lot of time doubting, in conflict with myself. Which gave way to denial, which could then be used to exacerbate bad situations, pass up good opportunities or simply just waste my time anxious wondering how some shit is going to pan out.

That's useful. I would venture on my own experience that it has actually been healthy.

Then there's the 'life hacks' or 'how to use body language to...' type shit. Outside of the domain of acting, the very notion of using body language to manipulate communication, in the same way we manipulate verbal communication destroys all interest in the subject.

The moment people are able to lie to me with their posture, there's no benefit to me being able to read that posture. The moment I try to manipulate my studies into presenting myself as attracted to women that I am not, or approachable to people I plan to attack - I can only see such things leading to even more tarnished reputations than if I was just a regular liar. Furthermore I'm sure the cognitive effort would probably override any chance I had of reading and intuitively responding to the body language of others.

I have no plans to think about which way my feet are pointed in a conversation. If I want to leave my feet point towards the exit. If I want to talk to people my feet point towards them. Why do I want to start making decisions about this shit? I don't. But I'm happy to notice when I do it.

"What do you consider to be your flaws or the ways in which you devalue yourself?"

A sat with Bryce in a cafe one time and said to him 'I figure there's plenty of good guys out their for women, they're not losing anything by me not dating them.' or something to that effect and Bryce responding 'that's one of the most depressing things I've ever heard.'

Thing is I was sincere. I kind of see clearly now, or if not clearly, within the vicinity of clear that some devaluation has gone on.

I can see a legacy, of my dad's dad disappearing into a shed to invent or work, something he did around his grand kids when they visited as well, but must have characterised my father's childhood. And my dad caught workaholia long before it became the norm. He came home every night, while we were awake, and ate dinner with us, and he was at all my basketball games and shit, but you know, he was into his work. Really into his work. I see the same in me, how I isolate myself into projects and shit.

Even if I'm present for my friends, there's a value I place on work that isn't real. I don't really care about work as much as I care about people. From the inside the retreat is something about being unworthy of attention. Maybe it's just birth order shit, plain and simple. Not the youngest, most vulnerable and most demanding of attention. Not the eldest going through the learning curve and causing the most anxiety.

It's funny, I really can't point to when I started disappearing. It seems really hardwired, literally subconscious an assumption that I'm expendible, redundant, spare or leftover. Cognitively I can see the irony, it's this belief that lead me to take risks, figuring there was no real harm in my failing, and because of that I've become much more important to many people. A precious snowflake. Yet that assumption of expendibility remains, innate.

Then I'm sure as a combination of cultural conditioning, and post-fact rationalization, needing to be a hero. Stick my neck out for others, charge in the vanguard etc. is superficially admirable but really the result of a belief that I myself am not a sparkle princess locked up in a tower worth rescuing. If you can't be loved, sought after and desired, you can be the one that dose the loving, seeking and desiring. The hero is a hero because he doesn't have a hero to rescue him.

Prince charming isn't locked up in Maleficent's tower because he isn't important, nobody cares. He has to throw a tantrum and cut his way through.

Self reliance too seems admirable but allows me to avoid ever testing whether I can rely on anybody. I think I do ask for help, but there's still way too much Musashi in me, too much Batman, too much Abe Lincoln. Gotta have my own back and everybody else's.

It's all obliquely true. I don't believe in my own value - somewhere deep down. I crave people caring about me. I try to do this for others to vicariously rescue myself. I literally engage in reciprocal tactics to try and fill my esteem needs.

There are worse problems to have. But my problem's out there, I accept it and it is known to me. What next?

"Consider what you project onto your partner. Is your preoccupation with your partner's flaws an avoidance of anxiety about your own imperfections?"

Two questions to go, and we get the hard hitting ones. Though in my case it's less a case of partners as everybody.

I almost feel like I answered this question before I started answering any of these questions. I was running at the time and thus it never got spoken aloud, but what I was thinking about on that run was a forthcoming meeting of minds where I needed help. The thought, a whine, a complaint, collapsed immediately upon itself - I wanted to say 'Rod, do you know of an island somewhere populated by happy secure individuals that I could just move to.'

Because my issues are not other people's issues. My issues are my own. I do get preoccupied with the 'flaws' of other people. And there's almost certainly a part of me arrogant and condescending enough to consider people inherently flawed, while making an exception of myself.

The tricky part is the complexity of these words 'an avoidance of anxiety about your own imperfections' I believe in law circles they'd call this a 'complex question' that is to answer it requires me to accept that I have imperfections (no big deal) then that I feel anxious about them (harder for me to recognize) and lastly that I avoid them. (very hard to catch myself doing).

It's true that I am bullshit at multitasking. I cannot think about my own issues and somebody else's at the same time. I can't be looking at and critiquing the work of others while simultaneously making my own. The best I can say, is that looking at and critiquing the work of others is part of my creative process, in constructing the critique, I am already drawing my own piece, my own take.

In the same manner, the best I can say is that getting preoccupied with other people's problems has in some ways helped illuminate my own decisions. I have no evidence to suggest though, this is more productive than just examining myself in the nearest mirror. There's plenty of evidence to suggest it is much more productive when I just sit down and think about myself. It can even be more productive when I am illuminated by others projecting their anxieties onto me.

So yes, ironically one of the things I project most - is a frustration with people in my life worried about the welfare of others, the addictions and mental illnesses of others, even the welfare of animals or kids in indonesian sweatshops sooner than actually take care of themselves and address their own issues.

Looking back at my psychology sessions, I can see how much time was dedicated to trying to solve the problem of other people. How to effect or adapt in such a way as to bring about desired change in others. When I actually gave up and accepted, things got better quite quickly. I just turned on myself. Turned back to myself.

I see with former partners, a clear trend - I only really ever accepted my partners for who they were when we broke up. It's also the only time generally we communicated as adults to each other.

One of the 'too little too late' gestures I made in one relationship was to read 'Development as Freedom' by Amartya Sen. It was one of the two times I showed an interest in what my partner wanted to dedicate her life to. I only remember parts of that book - namely how cultural identities have always evolved and aren't worth defending or preserving, how famines are caused by pricing mechanisms and rarely by a shortage of actual food but also I think so much value is wrapped up in the title - the only goal, the only purpose of development is freedom. And that applies equally to personal development.

Then something I saw earlier in the week, a gif of a Brad Pitt monologue from 'Killing Me Softly':

"My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words 'All men are created equal', words he clearly didn't believe since he allowed his own children to live in slavery."

Even though Chappelle did a bit on this before, this particular phrasing hit me harder, perhaps because of the observation that Jefferson sired children that then lived out their lives as slaves. There's something about that cognitive dissonance, that disingenuity that hits home here when asked about projecting. No matter Jefferson's own moral failings, he did manage to pen a document that has formed a very powerful basis for the winning side of the civil rights movement from the American civil war throguh to what's happening in Fergurson today. But this polymath, this genius was blind to his own imperfection in a manner perhaps more instructive than Isaac Newton's failings at investment.

Of course, Of Course, OF COURSE! I am no exception. I go to therapy and regard myself as 'doing something' and therefore an exception to the rule of having to sort your own shit out first. I did eventually, but this here, this is my shit - the world rejects me, I'm not important enough to take something for my own, or to seize an opportunity that is there. I'm worthy of being ignored or passed over, and it is up to me to take care of myself, solve my own problems and then assume privilege enough that it falls on me to 'help' others as well.

The trouble of course being, that this subconscious program I'm on if you will is scary in its power, and it's easy to avoid looking at it. And the anxiety drives avoiding behavior. When you're successfully avoiding shit, then your blind. It's hard to unravel. I don't think the above paragraph accurately articulates exactly what my subconscious drive is, but it's close. I'm getting closer.

next (and last) question.

Note to self - you can trust your intuition

I had a moment of clarity today that coincided with the clear sky's above. I wrote a post a while back I can't be bothered digging up on a question as to whether I was lying by omission.

I listened to Sam Harris' audio book 'lying' in the past couple of days and found it vague on providing me a definitive answer on whether I had been unethical, even though the question had become moot - which is to say one way or another I have to live with the consequences of my non-disclosure.

All I could really say, in basically dropping the question and not paying it much mind, is that it never once felt wrong. I never once did I feel like I'd missed an opportunity to disclose the truth. My intuition let me sit easy with not saying a phrase aloud to an audience of consequence.

A lie of omission, that would be unethical for example would be to not disclose that I knew definitively of an affair being carried out to that persons partner. I would become complicit in the affair even if I saw other parties as having a greater burden of responsibility to tell the person than I did. Harris' book gives a great an illustrative example of such a case.

It is also a lie of omission for me to not disclose the true degree of uncertainty I feel speaking on a subject for which an audience is heeding my advice. That too would be unethical.

But it took until today to have my conscious brain click as to why I felt no compunction to share information I had in a situation that bothered me. But it clicked quite loudly, and successfully and I feel much lighter because of it.

The information I possessed was irrelevant to the decision being made. If it were of consequence, the information I possessed would actually no longer be true, nor informative, and hence not actual information.

Or perhaps in other words, to beat around the bush, if the decision to be made was actually conditional on the information omitted, then the decision would fundamentally change in nature.

eghk...

Consider by analogy that somebody you know is producing a movie. They are looking over and over the script wondering if it really has the potential to be a great film. They are looking at the production company and the locations sought and questioning the viability of such an ambitious project. You see your friend stressed and being a billionaire with an actual human-chess set, know you could afford to underwrite the production and protect them financially.

Suddenly the decision this person faces is not 'is this film going to get made?' to 'do I want to make this film?' or to be absolved of evaluating the fundamental downside risk and just consider the upside.

See even if all of the above doesn't make much sense, my intuition get's it. I trust it.

"What can you accomplish and control that will help you restore your self-esteem?"

Easy seeming. I already do it. I can control who I spend my time and attention on (including me), controlling that I gain greater control over who and what I think about.

One of the best ways I can esteem myself is bring the focus back to myself. Adapt to my social environment by building self-awareness. With self awareness I generally get actual clarity and make actual progress rather than having my wheels spin.

It is learning to recognise when a situation is the same and when it is different. Then when I understand this I can relate myself to my environment in a way that builds my esteem rather than needlessly putting it at risk and damaging it.

That last part is a harder and slower process to actually do than to describe. But I do it, you see much of it here on this blog.

next question. almost done.

"What did you want for yourself that your tried to give your partner?"

Support, investment, encouragement. Freedom. The clarity of this answer makes this question stunning to me. Namely to draw that fucking line between what I want for others - to myself, my own wants and needs. I never ever made the conscious connection. But it seems too obvious to me now.

I think of the arguments I've had on and off with my parents for the past 5 years. I say arguments, really they are conversations, conversations I find frustrating because it is them drudging up doubts and insecurities on my artistic career choice eg. home ownership, attracting and keeping a partner, having kids, supporting kids, paying rent, foregoing opportunities... etc. doubts and fears that are so obvious, it is actually frustrating to hear the suggestion that they hadn't occured to you.

This creates friction, for me at least and I imagine for most people. Imagine you figure out the next big tech innovation, an interface that will put touch screens in an early grave. You see it, it's risky but you know you want to press ahead. Then you have to push the idea through 20 layers of management approval, and each layer demands you make the same case again and again until you convince them. 18 months later, the top brass sign off and of course the innovation has cropped up elsewhere - in a company that doesn't have all these layers of friction. The project ultimately fails.

To me, an artist I've looked straight in the eye at all the potential downsides of this career path. I decided to press ahead anyway. At the point you decide to do something as hard as succeed as an artist, what you need, all you need is support. Even criticism if it is pertinent to artistic or professional development is support. But having people ask you to reevaluate your decision to embark is not support. It's friction.

That's what I want gone for myself, that I try to provide or compensate for, for others.

Next question.

Intermission

The next sets of questions relate to self-agency, influencing your own life and taking responsibility. It was here in reading the book I learned the hard lesson of diagnosing oneself from the internet. Originally I read a small excerpt from the book that was a case study that closely reflected my own childhood. Bam! that's what I have, the white knight syndrome.

I then had a relatively brief period of about 6 months where I overcorrected, culminating in my first ever panic attack where I felt honor bound to disengage from anybody that had any kind of problem so as to not let me rescuing tendencies take over me. Like an addict abstaining.

I reached out to several friends, while simultaneously worsening my own crisis as I realised these friends too had their own problems. I wanted to ask the senior most and most seemingly stable of my friends if there was some island somewhere populated by happy secure people that I could move to so my White Knighthood would not be a problem for me.

I never had to ask the question because at that point, I actually read the book. Talking to my friends helped a lot to. I have a problem when I lose my sense of self and shift focus to the extrinsic. When I have my sense of self, and am focused intrinsically - which is actually most of the time, I'm fine. I have some triggers and some issues, but in the end I am not a White Knight, not a dysfunctional sub-type at least.

So much of the remaining questions, about self-agency, personal goals and particularly taking responsibility are not the areas I need to address. When I do these things I do them well, my issues are with ignoring my own esteem needs, and projecting my problems onto others to vicariously rescue myself and recieve some kudos or some shit.

When it comes to the lives of others, it is the same as when I look at other people's art. I am most critical of what is being done when I am doing little myself. When engaged and focused on my own project, I wouldn't say that's when I don't care, it's when I don't over-care. I become happy that others are making progress, and doing their own thing, instead of being disgruntled that they aren't doing what I want them to do.

Anyway, I imagine these question answer sessions have been not great reading. I stuck them here to force myself not to lie to myself, and because writing a blog post is what I do often to procrastinate, so I figured I should actually do the homework and force myself to do it here.

"Think about the relationships you had with family members and how they impacted your self-esteem. What could they have done to help you create optimal self-esteem? Now, find a way to do this for yourself."

So the question is actually the speculative 'What could they have done..." part. I treat the first sentence as pre-amble, and due to the largeness of the number of interactions I had with my 4 immediate family members, I don't want to recap the specific or even the abstract here. The last sentence I treat as a call to action, and will simply keep in mind as I speculate, that what I identify I have to transfer to myself.

The first thing I note, even prior to doing these questions here, is that my self-esteem is pretty healthy, if not optimal. Enough was done, particularly in early childhood for me to avoid the kinds of insecurities I see cripple other people. I am not without insecurities or even evidently my own issues - I just want to put on the record that there's not much more my family could have done. I don't wish to diminish the very real suffering of my friends with debilitating anxieties, depression, addiction etc. by exaggerating my own issues. Nor as I've recently realised, alienate them by pretending that many of the symptoms don't occur to me. For example I do experience anxiety, but it is fleeting, transitional and typically clearly linked to my environment.

So what could have been done? When my parents had their career crisis, it was good that they were honest about it, insofar as we were told that my fathers job was under threat. Furthermore it would have been a better representation of the truth to say that with the new management team, my father no longer enjoyed his work. Beyond that though, what was told to me was for the most part fearful speculation. Bad worry. Anxiety being expressed that brought my mother fleeting relief to her sense of powerlessness, by transferring it to me. When that relief fled, the same fears were shared again.

Furthermore, I was not conscious that I was being told simply for the therapeutic act of telling, I still carry the expectation (and reflex) that when people outlay problems to me, they are looking for advice, relief, solutions to be provided by me. I really have only adjusted this common assumption to the more humble 'What can I do to help?' response, rather than presuming that I should simply leap into action.

So on that front, I appreciate being told honestly the situation. Though it should have come directly from my father, not indirectly. And it should have been limited to what was known to be true. Aside from that, my esteem would have been optimised if I had also been told '...but don't worry, whatever happens we'll look after you, you can finish your schooling, just carry on becoming who you want to become and we'll find a way to make that happen.'

Or something to that effect. To absolve me of responsibility over situations I have no real control. Such that I feel I could look at the suffering of others without inheriting their problems personally.

As regards my self esteem, at the moment my esteem is vulnerable to elemants outside the control of myself. eg. others inability to change, I take personally. I am unable to use my privilege (in all its various forms) to trigger a chemical reaction that leads to the prospering of everyone around me. I get involved in systemic and robust problems until I am simply a part of them.

Breaking the connection between my self esteem and the imperfect world, would seem to be what I need to do for myself.

Next question.

"Think about the last time you suffered a slight to your self-esteem either from an external or internal source. What actions did you take to feel better about yourself? Did these actions work?"

To be honest, I have trouble identifying or remembering 'slights to my self-esteem'. Which isn't bravado, my natural inclination is to think of the last time I felt bad, or felt self-doubt. Do these cut it? Or are we talking about damage to the ego? Most memorable is the anxiety attack I had that set off this most recent bout of self-reflection and prompted me to read the book that these questions are drawn from ('The White Knight Syndrome') but that's an anxiety attack. A symptom of low self esteem, not a slight to it.

I can remember the last time somebody attempted to insult me, but I understood that situation, and if anything it built my self-esteem because I won a power exchange. I solicit feedback from people which isn't always pleasant to hear but is ultimately, a gift.

So fuck it, I'll just pick something. It's almost constant but triggers me reliably, to dwell on it. I got this failed friendship, that despite my efforts to accept that failure and move on, and all my conscious efforts to restructure my life to cut my losses. I am bothered by the fact that the failure cost me so much and my friend little-to-nothing-at-all. The very fact that I bear all the downside is a slight to my esteem.

Also how long it took me to notice the assymetry and that this was the natural result of my hubris.

As for the actions I take. I guess expressing anger is one thing I do. And also trying to 'solve' the problem for myself. Those actions don't work.

To feel better about myself generally involves conscious acknowledgement - that I've been triggered, that I'm here in the moment and the hurt is in the past. Then I seek out nurturing company, if I can obtain it it works, and not in a fleeting way. It lasts me a while.

It's a risk though, other people's dysfunction can be a trigger for me as well. That dysfunction is inescapable and I have my own, that despite bringing it into my consciousness, remains a powerful force for me.

Doing exercises like this, and speaking to the right friends helps me regain my center. When I focus on my own agency, I am fine. Fine and dandy. When I get to work and get things done that I want done, I feel better about myself.

I guess in any given moment I have the choice between creating something beautiful, or doing something else. When I choose the former, no matter the application, it works.

"What external sources do you depend on for your self-esteem? Consider what you get from those sources and find a way to provide it for yourself."

Surprisingly interesting question. Failure manifests in me as feeling like a creep, unwanted and untrustworthy, and of course potentially dangerous. I have friends I reliably go to for reassurance. To a lesser extent career wise when I feel like I'm deluding myself, that my act is all bluster. I look to them for objectivity, but basically reassurance that I don't have to change, or to keep changing into whatever it is I am becoming.

Like most I am fairly adiccted to checking my phone for messages, my facebook for notifications and my email for correspondence. Exacerbated by the fact that even given how much time I spend running, going to gigs, commuting by bicycle, writing blog posts and working - I am still spending the majority of my time in front of a computer with constant internet access.

Un-returned mail I notice and weighs on me considerably. I perhaps spend too much time reminding myself that other people don't have the luxury of time I have, or consider writing a letter a chore. I get a massive high when somebody takes the initiative to contact me. It can make my fucking day. I try to give that to other people, people's inability to respond or even acknowledge (which is probably a gift of the smart phone) helps cultivate the impression that everyone else I know is less isolated than I am.

Having said that, the esteem somebody else can give me is very limited and not equal. I definitely recognize domains of expertise. While I value encouragement and dislike discouragement. Depending on who somebody is, their ability to effect my self esteem rises and falls dramatically. Criticism can bother me, generally speaking, but few criticisms result in substantial motivation.

The thing is this, everyone's advice, everyone's support comes through the prism of their own perspective. Anxieties get projected that I may or may not share. Or have previously dealt with. Same happens with compliments.

So I don't know what I depend on. There's something there. Something matters. I have had demonstrated and firmly believe we are drawn to others by what we possess ourselves (and repulsed as well). For me the self-esteem I derive from external sources come from finding common ground, even with long dead sources. Like hearing somebody talk about Lincoln and then relating it to things people have said of me, even though there is a vast gulf between President Lincoln and I in terms of our place in history (and even the present).

So yeah, I mean for me external sources are like a 'hotter-colder' game of trying to find who I want to be.

That's the tricky part, if I provide it for myself, cultivate it in myself, I should see the result in others around me. And then there's just the plain desire for intimacy. I think I'm supposed to, biologically, culturally and just personally find somebody else to provide intimacy and that would have a positive impact on my self esteem.

I see what the question is saying, but 'banging a hot chick' to feel better about myself has never been a misguided source of esteem for myself.

So yeah, I'm not sure I'll have to delve deeper.

next question.

"Think about the times you've felt good about yourself. What commonalities do you see?"

Space, I see space. I might feel good when I'm at an exhibition and it's buzzing and there's a lot of people there. But generally when I feel good about myself will be after the event. A couple of days, maybe while running. When shit is quiet and I am alone. That's when I acknowledge myself.

Then there's times when I know I feel good because I lose control of my face. I can recall vividly sinking a basket back in the day which was a rare occurrence (and funnily I can't recall anything else around me but the ball going through the net) and feeling super proud of myself. Just flooded with euphoria.

Between those and the first example, I know I feel good when I'm in my own world. Not pressed, or motivated. In those times, even though generally I fear isolation (though I do so much to exacerbate it, is that really something I can claim?) I actually like myself, when given time to assess.

Exercise is also the common connection, most of my self appreciation seems to happen during exercise. I even enjoy catching my own reflection as I run past shop fronts. (Actually, I enjoy my own reflection wherever it appears)

And generally it follows some achievement, no matter the scale of it. It's where I can forget the opinions of others and validate myself. It goes both ways, there are people I get concerned about if I fail to impress them with my achievements (well, generally speaking - person) and other people whose praise and validation I discount or discard because it is more inflated than my impression of how things are going or how I'm doing.

When I can forget these people, these factors I actually am generally pleased with progress. I feel happy, I feel good.

Next question.

"Think about how you were treated by your caregivers. Now think about how you treat your partners. What similarities do you see?"

Well obviously I am not the foremost authority on how I treated my partners, they would be. And also when talking about my partners everything is in the past tense, though I may be primed to repeat those patterns into the future.

So my parents were present for one thing. My dad took me to all my basketball games for my entire basketball career. We generally ate together, with almost no exceptions. They took an interest in my schoolwork, and generally did everything they were supposed to do.

The only thing that wasn't supposed to happen, (including things that should happen but didn't) was mum using me as a cheap therapist, and expressing her pessimism. Also they waited way too long to divulge the 'family tragedies' of which, the most tragic aspect was that their value system regarded them as tragedies. Mum put the wrong emphasis on what went wrong in her chiildhood - focusing on the symptoms and not the actual problem. (ie. her family of origins dysfunction, rather than her parents error in partner selection).

Dad was never engaged visibly in these sessions with my mum. I suspect they occurred in part because he wasn't present. Dad is a solitary man, who disappears into projects. He is also self reliant, having said that he would sooner die than ask for help. He solved problems on his own and with little consultation.

In the treatment that had the greatest effect on me, Dad was actually quietly off ensuring everything was fine and seen to, while Mum was being loud about everything being not fine and about to fall apart around us. I know I don't think of my parents as competent. Particularly in matters political, strategic or to do with bullying.

I see a similarity in how I've treated my partners there. I imitate to an extent my father. Although I will ask for help, and ask the advice of my partners (even post relationship) and look to them for reassurance when plagued by self doubt.

But I know I have a pattern of withholding my concerns, insights, opinions on them. From them. Assuming they will be hurt by them or cannot handle them. I try to devise solutions or contingencies for my partners independently and without informing them directly. As in to be a reassuring figure, but to take 'everything will be fine' as a matter of faith.

I am dismissive of my partners capabilities to identify or address their own needs. I make a bold assumption that if they possessed this competence problems wouldn't arise for them. Even though believing myself to possess these competencies it isn't true of my own life. I am still plagued by interpersonal problems.

I also know I find it incredibly hard to believe that my capabilities are best spent in partnership with people capable themselves. It feels intuitively wrong to me that somebody of my privilege should seek out somebody privileged. Even though my ex-partners have at times come from equivalent privilege to me. If they do not have problems for me to address, I see myself as having no value to them.

My past relationships have consisted of alternating parent-child dynamics. Where either I am playing a parental role to their child, or I am playing a child role to their parent. Rarely do I think we relate as one adult to another, except in the post-relationship relationship.

This has been helpful. Next question.