I am socially awkward.

I bristle when people tell me this, but so help me I am. Not in the “weird quiet guy” way, but in the “people don’t know what to make of me” and the “they can tell that I’m not entirely engaged in the same way as them” way. So help me it’s true.

I can work a crowd of hundreds until they’re eager to invade the deepest circle of hell by my side armed only with toothpicks, a hairbrush, and an assortment of broken shoelaces. And I’m comfortable standing in front of them and grandstanding. But in small groups or one-on-one, I’m never quite comfortable.

At this point in my life, I should accept that this is probably not going away.

“Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?”

I recast painful questions as onanistic public reflection about me. That’s one of the things that I do. When, in fact, often the things that I’m meditating on concern my relationships with others in the world.

But because I have a distaste for confrontation and for its consequences—a discomfort that exists only with people that I care about, never with strangers—it becomes easier to make it a meditation about myself and my responses to others, in the rather solipsistic abstract, rather than in concrete events, thoughts, and terms.

See? I’m doing it again.

There is also some justification for this; many private things can’t be aired publicly with ethical justification, yet it is the public airing of things that makes me feel better.

So—then twist the knobs until only the part about me is left. Then, blog about it. The catharsis isn’t complete, but it’s better than nothing, and no-one gets hurt. Not right away, anyway. There is, of course, the quiet boil factor, that I now know can go on for years.

— § —

One of the things that’s hardest for me right now is not knowing the rules of engagement. I suppose a wise person would say that they are all being renegotiated, and that those about which I’m unsure are in fact hidden in shadow because they haven’t yet come up since all the rules changed or were dissolved.

Problems with this are twofold:

1) I find myself hesitant to engage anything about which I’m uncertain. Because, first, I am so emotionally exhausted by so many things (a long-term exhaustion that will take some time to overcome) that the thought of “renegotiation” is almost too much, not to mention that I’m likely not in the best frame of mind to interact with a clear head about sensitive issues. And because, second, anything that I raise may result in an outcome that is painful, so it is almost better to let sleeping dogs lie, as they say.

2) Partially as a result of circumstance and partially as a result of (1) above, new circumstances and realities are wont, just now, to come out of the shadows without my intervention and without any negotiation, and often it is painful anyway.

None of this is thus ideal, and yet I’m sort of along for the ride at this point. Because space has been an explicit request. Because I often don’t have energy for much else anyway. And because I don’t know any other way to live.

— § —

I’m haven’t generally thought of myself over the years as someone that was bothered by uncertainty in life, but my life in general is now testing this self-understanding. Turns out that the right kinds of uncertainty will get me just as good as they’ll get anyone else.

One meeting down. Not sure how many to go.

Much to be done. Working on developing the motivation to actually do it.

— § —

Mobile/responsive CSS is now in place here.
Updated favicon (or rather, restored it).
Added sharing.

We’re getting there.

— § —

Read a story in the New York Times about a couple that “consciously uncouples” and then, after many years, “consciously couples” again.

And read a bunch of comments debating divorce. The positions seem to be:

1) It’s always better to stay together.
2) It’s better to divorce, respectfully, to avoid just fighting all the time.

The problem with #1 is that some couples are simply miserable, and simply make their children and their own lives miserable, with all of their hate and discomfort.

The problem with #2 is that any couple that is just fighting all the time by definition can’t do anything respectfully, so the divorce will be a hairy one.

So I’ll give my more nuanced position. If you can be respectful, you should stay together. You made the commitment. Hold your nuts and make it work. If you can’t be respectful, then you’ll divorce anyway, since you’re likely immature enough that no position, reasoning, commitment, etc. matters to you anyway. It’s a kind of tautological thing. Couples that can’t do anything but fight contain at least one, and probably two, individuals that simply want what they want, and the rest of the world be damned. At that level of maturity, the question of the ethics of divorce doesn’t even come up.

You can thus presume that anyone that divorces is immature and unable to honor their commitments respectfully and/or that their spouse met these conditions (in fact, likely both, since mutualism implies an active mirroring of interactive proclivities, given that such mirroring is one of the proclivities of interaction).

I say this with full recognition that we used to be a household embroiled constantly in either excessive displays of emotion or in extended bouts of the “silent treatment.”

I also say it knowing that now we are not any longer, and that hopefully we never will be again. We’ve both grown up, I think, this year. Though the process is not complete, it is certainly underway. And as a result, we can now be respectful. And for that reason, we now have the self-awareness (the obligation itself was always there, for both of us) to hold to each other and to our commitments to each other, provided we can avoid losing our minds.

— § —

Of course, hanging onto your mind is easier said than done, as we’re finding out.

But I have a very good amount of faith at this point.

— § —

Flex work is both beautiful and dangerous.

Beautiful because it gives you the space to structure your life in ways that make sense.

Dangerous because with that space, you are still free to do things that don’t make sense, perhaps even more free than you would otherwise be. Successful flex work depends on a certain amount of maturity as well.

— § —

Maturity is not something that western society, and in particular American culture, excels at producing. Case in point: me. In 1999 when I started this thing, I was twenty-three years old. And it reads to my forty-year-old self as if I were a naive, self-absorbed ass.

Twenty-three ought to be old enough to run the farm, or even run for office. Instead, it’s about the age when most young men finally can afford their own video game consoles. I say this with some experience, and having lived and made friends in Los Angeles and Chicago with people that were in their twenties and doing exactly that: buying all the booze they could get their hands on, playing video games nonstop, and turning up for work only because they had to in order to support their booze and gaming habits.

Such people are the precisely why employers continue to tend to shy away from flex-work. Because our “adults” can’t handle it until they’re in their late thirties.

— § —

Does this national culture infantilize its young adults? Superhero Anti-Capitalism Man says, “Yes!”

Meanwhile, arch-villain Capitalism Man says, “Buy an XBox 360, a twelve-pack of Bud Light, and then hit the clubs! The more you’ve earned, the more you can spend on yourself!”

Keep the jealousy in check. You’re forty years old for God’s sake, and it’s as much your fault as anyone’s.

And the frustration. Keep that in check, too.

Be and accept.

— § —

“The bright path seems dim;
Going forward seems like retreat;
The easy way seems hard;
The highest virtue seems empty;
Great purity seems sullied;
A wealth of virtue seems inadequate;
The strength of virtue seems frail;
Real virtue seems unreal;
The perfect square has no corners;
Great talents ripen late;
The highest notes are hard to hear;
The greatest form has no shape.”

I got asked why I’m supporting Sanders. Here’s why.

1) Sanders is to the left of Clinton and I’m to the left of them both.

2) If Clinton wins, then by the end of her first year I’ll have spent the majority of my entire life under the governance of just two wealthy nuclear (not extended) families. If I’m to believe in American democracy at all, much less someday try to defend it to my kids, that can’t happen. I’ve already spent exactly half of my entire life being governed by just these two families. And it’s already too much.

It really is as simple as these two points. I could go issue by issue, but the result would be the same.

To put it another way, Sanders is too far right for me on:

– Guns

While Clinton is too far right for me on:

– Pretty much every issue of importance, from finance to defense to healthcare to diplomacy

I think Clinton acquitted herself well as Secretary of State. And I hold her in reasonably high regard as an individual. It’s just that her policy positions are too centrist for me. Hell, Obama is too centrist for me and Clinton’s significantly to his right.

So that’s that.