There's nothing in life more perplexing than casual social encounters. I would say that (at least) sixty percent of my insecurities stem from how people interpret the things I say. It’s bad enough that people are always misinterpreting my mood (because I seemingly cannot convey my actual psychological state), but I am also misspeaking to the point of obliterating any semblance of meaning in my sentences. A conversation with me will likely trail off in a series of unrelated and incoherent phrases, dissipating to the point that I just relent, giving up all together. The train of my mind is in constant flux, always speeding up and slowing to a stop, shifting gears and jumping rails, digressing and digressing and digressing until I’m not even on a track anymore; I’m traveling down some back road in the boondocks of my frontal lobe, and I’ve likely even forgotten what the conversation was about. In the same vein, I am unrivaled in my capacity to tell stories that are utterly devoid of any point whatsoever. I often begin a story that pops into my head—one which seems interesting enough at the time—and begin painting a picture of a moment or event for my friends, really building it up to a sense of expectation, a look of “this better be good because you’re babbling.” I build it up so much that I realize I have no idea where to end it, and I am going nowhere with a train of thought that has no peak or climax of any sort, so I just let it taper off like a song with no dénouement (you know, the songs that just play the chorus over and over again as they fade in volume because the songwriter had no idea how to wrap things up in an orderly manner (e.g. radar love)).
When I was a child, I would just make up an effective ending. If I got to the point that I realized my story wasn’t going anywhere, I would introduce a spaceship or a dinosaur or an army of ninjas, and my friends would all look at me skeptically, saying “that didn’t happen,” but I would just shake my head, emphatically claiming “yes it did!” Over time, I learned to stave this impulse because it caused distrust even in my more honest stories; so now, I continue my story until I realize that it is really, truly going nowhere. Then, I just apologize: usually, “I’m sorry, this story really has no point.” People have learned to accept it; they’ve learned to accept my neurotic babble as something utterly meaningless, and they just nod politely as I wear myself out and my mind freezes up. Then, they pat my shoulder and shake their heads as if to say, “Oh, Scott, what are we going to do with you?” It would be endearing if wasn’t so extremely annoying to everyone involved (including myself).
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I just can’t do “casual conversation.” I hate the moments of lazy mingling before an event or function, the unavoidable encounters with people I really don’t know, people who don’t actually want to hear my opinion on a subject, people who like to hear themselves talk. In these moments, people always revert to inane banter about the most irrelevant subjects, filling space and time with absolute nothingness. It drives me crazy. People talk and they talk and they talk, and (in a way) it’s similar to my story-telling fault in that it never means anything. When there's nothing relevant to talk about, we revert to sexual jokes or playful witticisms or just plain gratuitous self-indulgence. We look for opportunities to self-promote, always working at creating this image of ourselves that isn’t anything like who we really are. I feel like if we all really were honest with each other in these socially awkward moments, we’d say things like: “could you leave me alone,” or “just shut up already,” or “I realize that you see me as an opportunity to expand your social influence, but I really, truly have no power to improve your station in life, and unless you are really an exceptionally honest person, please do no shower me with deceitful, self-aggrandizing gibberish. I so damn tired of this; I’m tired of trying to make people like me.”
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
the Odyssey of Expectation
First, before you do anything else, check this song out: these guys are brilliant: Das Racist-Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.
Okay, now that I've said that, I'm going to try something new with this one. Bear with me. It's a work in progress. The idea of Neuroses is to discuss my insecurities in the most candid manner possible. The idea is to understand my life and what I'm doing here through some sort of human experience that others can relate to. Up until now, I've concentrated mostly on the minutia, running a microscope over these small matters that are really irrelevant to people as a whole, issues that cause the normal and average individual little to no concern. Hopefully, this one is going to be different. I've found that a few people are reading this, including family members that I never expected to take an interest in my Internet personality, esp. because (I guess) I assumed that they were all Luddites (dictionary.com says: Luddite: a member of any of various bands of workers in England (1811–16) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment). I also was under the impression that nobody I knew from my daily life would read this, possibly because American culture is one of Ayn-Randean self-obsession, and we are all involved in our own stories, ones which require the utmost attention, not leaving much room for the ambitions of others. And, even more so, time is so valuable when you really start living an adult life, when every responsibility rests on your shoulders, and there is a sense of urgency in your few moments of real, personal pursuit.
This one's about expectation--Hopefully, I can keep it engaging without resorting to witticisms or poor attempts at flare (wish me luck). I think anyone would agree that when we are young, we start forming expectations about who and what we are shaping up to be, what we are going to achieve, what resources we are going to have on the way, and how we are planning on living up to those expectations. I also think that if you made a pie chart of how we actually turned out in regards to our expectations when we were, say, 14, we would find that it would look much like a monochromatic black circle, just sitting there with a key that read: Black = didn't live up to expectations. Now, I'll try not to equate expectation with success. I don't really think that this is a discussion of success, and I'm sure that that's the first thing that would pop into the mind of someone who's actually read this far. I think success is a mere aspect (1/1,000,000,000) of how we gauge our expectations. Success might hog the spotlight more often than others, but we're all acting upon more considerations than are really calculable, even if these considerations aren't always on the forefront of our minds. Even so, we all know the guy/gal from high school who was just brimming with potential, I mean really going places, and we all though "hey, at least we know that person is going to make it," but when I look back at how I behaved in high school in relation to the expectations I had for myself, I guess I just always assumed that things would work themselves out in the end, and I think a lot of us do that. It's easy to drop off at some point, pull in to a pit stop, and settle down. This can be a pretty disheartening prospect, the prospect of settling for something other than what we had in mind for ourselves. But that doesn't always mean that diverting from our goals is a bad thing. It we drift away from one path to pick up on another, fresher course of development, we've traded up, and that is always preferable to stagnation.
The easy thing to do is to say, "it doesn't really matter. Once I'm dead, I'll cease existing, and it won't matter if I was a gas station attendant or a political leader. It won't matter if I was married with four children or I died alone. I will simply not be." Or, on the other end, "it doesn't matter. My rewards are awaiting me in heaven." But this kind of thinking is caustic to our goals. It eats away at what we want from life, and when you really think about it--I mean, when you really get down to the crux of it--all we have is a finite number of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. When we are born, somebody starts a doomsday clock somewhere in a metaphysical bureaucracy that we can't begin to understand, and if we don't do exactly what we want in this life, somewhere along the line, we will regret it. I don't know; maybe this is all a bit too bleak, but thinking this way can be motivational, even if it is stressful to constantly be aware of your own biological clock counting down somewhere in the corporate headquarters of the universe.
Okay, now that I've said that, I'm going to try something new with this one. Bear with me. It's a work in progress. The idea of Neuroses is to discuss my insecurities in the most candid manner possible. The idea is to understand my life and what I'm doing here through some sort of human experience that others can relate to. Up until now, I've concentrated mostly on the minutia, running a microscope over these small matters that are really irrelevant to people as a whole, issues that cause the normal and average individual little to no concern. Hopefully, this one is going to be different. I've found that a few people are reading this, including family members that I never expected to take an interest in my Internet personality, esp. because (I guess) I assumed that they were all Luddites (dictionary.com says: Luddite: a member of any of various bands of workers in England (1811–16) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment). I also was under the impression that nobody I knew from my daily life would read this, possibly because American culture is one of Ayn-Randean self-obsession, and we are all involved in our own stories, ones which require the utmost attention, not leaving much room for the ambitions of others. And, even more so, time is so valuable when you really start living an adult life, when every responsibility rests on your shoulders, and there is a sense of urgency in your few moments of real, personal pursuit.
This one's about expectation--Hopefully, I can keep it engaging without resorting to witticisms or poor attempts at flare (wish me luck). I think anyone would agree that when we are young, we start forming expectations about who and what we are shaping up to be, what we are going to achieve, what resources we are going to have on the way, and how we are planning on living up to those expectations. I also think that if you made a pie chart of how we actually turned out in regards to our expectations when we were, say, 14, we would find that it would look much like a monochromatic black circle, just sitting there with a key that read: Black = didn't live up to expectations. Now, I'll try not to equate expectation with success. I don't really think that this is a discussion of success, and I'm sure that that's the first thing that would pop into the mind of someone who's actually read this far. I think success is a mere aspect (1/1,000,000,000) of how we gauge our expectations. Success might hog the spotlight more often than others, but we're all acting upon more considerations than are really calculable, even if these considerations aren't always on the forefront of our minds. Even so, we all know the guy/gal from high school who was just brimming with potential, I mean really going places, and we all though "hey, at least we know that person is going to make it," but when I look back at how I behaved in high school in relation to the expectations I had for myself, I guess I just always assumed that things would work themselves out in the end, and I think a lot of us do that. It's easy to drop off at some point, pull in to a pit stop, and settle down. This can be a pretty disheartening prospect, the prospect of settling for something other than what we had in mind for ourselves. But that doesn't always mean that diverting from our goals is a bad thing. It we drift away from one path to pick up on another, fresher course of development, we've traded up, and that is always preferable to stagnation.
The easy thing to do is to say, "it doesn't really matter. Once I'm dead, I'll cease existing, and it won't matter if I was a gas station attendant or a political leader. It won't matter if I was married with four children or I died alone. I will simply not be." Or, on the other end, "it doesn't matter. My rewards are awaiting me in heaven." But this kind of thinking is caustic to our goals. It eats away at what we want from life, and when you really think about it--I mean, when you really get down to the crux of it--all we have is a finite number of years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. When we are born, somebody starts a doomsday clock somewhere in a metaphysical bureaucracy that we can't begin to understand, and if we don't do exactly what we want in this life, somewhere along the line, we will regret it. I don't know; maybe this is all a bit too bleak, but thinking this way can be motivational, even if it is stressful to constantly be aware of your own biological clock counting down somewhere in the corporate headquarters of the universe.
Monday, August 3, 2009
What's Wrong?
Nonverbal communication is a huge part of social interaction. If I looked it up--if I Wikipedia-ed it--I'm sure that I would find that some gigantic portion (like 80%) of all communication is nonverbal. Hold on...here's the Wiki: nonverbal communication. I didn't see anything that might back up my 80% claim, but it is a pretty long article, and I'm not claiming to have read every word. So, let's assume that I'm right. Just about every little detail that we communicate to each other is through subtle physical cues. If this is true, then I am flying incommunicado. Why, you ask? Easy: people are always misinterpreting my mood (and by that, I mean grossly misinterpreting my mood). Okay, here's the example:
Scott: (Happily minding his own business) La, la, la, la, la.
Random Friend: What's wrong, buddy?
Scott: Nothing's wrong. Everything's good.
Random Friend: Come on. You can tell me. Something's obviously bothering you.
Scott: No. I'm fine.
Random Friend: Look, man, I'm here to help. Just tell me what's going on.
Scott: No, seriously, I'm fine.
Random friend: Fine, don't tell me, dick.
Random Friend: What's wrong, buddy?
Scott: Nothing's wrong. Everything's good.
Random Friend: Come on. You can tell me. Something's obviously bothering you.
Scott: No. I'm fine.
Random Friend: Look, man, I'm here to help. Just tell me what's going on.
Scott: No, seriously, I'm fine.
Random friend: Fine, don't tell me, dick.
As you can see, this is a serious problem. I can't seem to convince the people around me that everything is alright, and it's not just limited to nonverbal communication. I recently had a phone conversation with my girlfriend that went something like this:
Me: "So, what's up?"
Her: "Jesus Christ. Calm down."
Me: "What are you talking about?"
Her: "What are you so pissed off about?"
Me: "I'm not pissed off. I'm fine."
Her: "Look, I'm going to let you go. Call me when you're not acting like such a dick."
Me: "That doesn't make any sense."
Click.
This type of thing is a daily occurrence for me. It's like everybody in my life seems to think that I'm just this sullen and melancholy guy, and so, even when nothing is wrong, it's the signal that I'm putting out. I feel like Mork (of Mork & Mindy fame), hopelessly lost in a world of beings beyond my understanding. Something went terribly wrong when I was being formed in the womb, some horrible toxic accident that caused a rift between my intended message and that which is recieved by my peers. I don't know where the disparity comes from, but it's reasonably safe to blame it all on my parents. My father is known for his tendency to look forlorn when he is bored or thoughtful, and my mother is nothing but a bundle of nerves. There we go: the toxic combination. I (xy) am the end result of my mother (x) and my father (y), which means that my condition can be summed up as a mathematical equation (something like 1/2x + 1/2y = socially inept). Of course, I wasn't exactly a math major, but it looks good enough to me.
Is there a cure for this sort of thing? Short answer: maybe, no, probably not. I doubt there's any way I'll ever learn to look 'okay,' but I'm guessing there're things I could do to help. It might have something to do with my inability to smile with confidence. Maybe if I'd had braces as some point in my life. Or, if I stopped drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Or, if I took a xanax every now and then. Or, if I really did feel 'okay.' Who knows. Maybe I've just never felt the particular brand of 'okay' that people are always referring to. Maybe I look sullen and melancholy because I am sullen and melancholy. I don't know. It's hard to self-analyze. It requires more than a liberal arts degree. It requires more insight than is available to me.
Me: "So, what's up?"
Her: "Jesus Christ. Calm down."
Me: "What are you talking about?"
Her: "What are you so pissed off about?"
Me: "I'm not pissed off. I'm fine."
Her: "Look, I'm going to let you go. Call me when you're not acting like such a dick."
Me: "That doesn't make any sense."
Click.
This type of thing is a daily occurrence for me. It's like everybody in my life seems to think that I'm just this sullen and melancholy guy, and so, even when nothing is wrong, it's the signal that I'm putting out. I feel like Mork (of Mork & Mindy fame), hopelessly lost in a world of beings beyond my understanding. Something went terribly wrong when I was being formed in the womb, some horrible toxic accident that caused a rift between my intended message and that which is recieved by my peers. I don't know where the disparity comes from, but it's reasonably safe to blame it all on my parents. My father is known for his tendency to look forlorn when he is bored or thoughtful, and my mother is nothing but a bundle of nerves. There we go: the toxic combination. I (xy) am the end result of my mother (x) and my father (y), which means that my condition can be summed up as a mathematical equation (something like 1/2x + 1/2y = socially inept). Of course, I wasn't exactly a math major, but it looks good enough to me.
Is there a cure for this sort of thing? Short answer: maybe, no, probably not. I doubt there's any way I'll ever learn to look 'okay,' but I'm guessing there're things I could do to help. It might have something to do with my inability to smile with confidence. Maybe if I'd had braces as some point in my life. Or, if I stopped drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Or, if I took a xanax every now and then. Or, if I really did feel 'okay.' Who knows. Maybe I've just never felt the particular brand of 'okay' that people are always referring to. Maybe I look sullen and melancholy because I am sullen and melancholy. I don't know. It's hard to self-analyze. It requires more than a liberal arts degree. It requires more insight than is available to me.
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