Giving up in 2014

What do we give up to keep on going?
I suppose that’s a tough thing. It’s harder for some than for others. For the people I generally care about, it’s hard to give up on just about anything. Memories, however painful, are to be cherished and preserved at the expense of our present existences. People, however useless and hurtful, are to be held onto because of some magic memories of when we thought they were someone else. Ideas, long since discredited, we hold onto because they give us some form of comfort, even when we know them to be wrong, and killing us in the process. What is, is sacred to us, because it is.
I spoke to Tristan about the tragedy of the Mittani. A tribe once so great, they crushed the Assyrians and Egyptians. With their powerful horses and advanced chariots, they were able to dominate the people around them. Now, their existence comes down to us in shattered bits of their long forgotten lives, and in the records in the annals of the people who they once looked down on with scorn. Who, then, could imagine a world without the Mittani, the endless and unstoppable threat just beyond the horizon? Who now has heard of them?
He was unimpressed. So was Amber. I think that a few people will see why I mourn for the Mittani. Why they appeal to me so much.
I told Amber that, without God, nothing has any value because nothing has any permanence. An action only matters if it has an impact. If there is no impact on something that outlasts the action, then the action was meaningless. An action can be meaningful to us, but, without an external impact, are we useful? Imagine that someone sitting on board the Titanic had discovered the meaning to life, the universe, and everything. It wouldn’t have mattered because it wasn’t able to be transmitted. Neither are we, if there is nothing to transmit us. All we can hope for is the immortality of Gilgamesh, the mighty walls of Uruk, long since destroyed, and the stories of his life, changed into something he’d never have recognized himself. Is Gilgamesh immortal? I once talked about the tragedy of some of Aristophanes’ victims, men whose names come down to us only as the butt of his jokes. Sometimes, I’d call them lucky, though. Really, is Gilgamesh any different? We know as much of him as we do of any of these men. He lived. He did what he wished to the extent that he was able. He died.
Amber was unimpressed with these ideas. Tristan doesn’t like the philosophical exercise of supposing that there is no God.
I suppose, though, that, in the end, I can’t mourn the Mittani. I’d also need to make time for the Hurrians. And the Hittites. And the Elamites. What about the Lydians? The Carthaginians? There are too many nations to mourn. How, then, can I spend so much time mourning people who probably never existed but in my head? How, then, can I spend so much time chasing after things that are even less real than these entirely real things that are so very very dead but in the unreality of my mind?
I looked at pictures of Amber on Facebook. She was in her bikini looking beautiful. Of course I wanted her. I wanted her as I’ve wanted her from the first moment I saw her. What of it? She’s gone. With the Mittani. I remember the first time I saw Rachael, she wore a green Lord of the Rings shirt with Frodo on it. Her breasts were unbelievably perky (push up bra). I remember lamenting that I’d never see those breasts. I did. They’re gone now. With the Hurrians. Why did I mourn this loss for so long? Even if I could have them in my face at the moment, they’d be as different from those distant memories as the current residents of ISIS’ new territory are from the Hurrians. Same place. But everything is different.
I’ve written on this before. Possibly in here, possibly in Open Diary. I suppose that as much as I’ve been criticized lately for my self repetition lately, I’m going to keep doing it. I don’t want to forget the Hurrians. Or the Mittani. Or Rachael. Or Amber. Or the young friend I made at the rest stop who I called Cyclops. Or the girl walking by the Hannukah display near Harmony House when I thought to myself how strange it’d be if, when I was the ancient age of twenty five or so, I were to marry that same girl. What I need to do is to let them go. To set myself free. I’ve chained myself to so much and to so many things. I think that’s why in solitude, hard work, and exertion I find so much peace. I simply cannot cling to these things. I am focused by action to act. And, by acting, I find myself inspired to do more. The problem has, of course, been that bad habits come to the fore, and it’s easier to dream of a past that never was than a future that I could make happen if I really wanted. I used to idealize hope. I suppose that hope is all fine and good, but what really matters is shutting the fuck up and doing it.
We cling to so much. We don’t give up anything. So we give up on everything.
That’s why I’m giving up a lot of things these days. People. Ideas. Hopes. Dreams. There’s a lot I’m giving up. I clung to them for any number of reasons, but, in the end, nearly everything is in one’s life to the same end: to bring happiness.
If you get what you want, and you honestly want it, then you’re happy. The problem is, so many of us deny what it is that we really want. Activists don’t want to change the world. They want to fight it. My mother doesn’t want to keep the house clean, she wants the process of cleaning the house. How many of my gay friends were just awkward teenagers who desperately wanted acceptance and affection and latched onto an identity that absorbed them while only actually reflecting a part of them? How many of my Christian friends cling to the trappings of their religion because they cannot accept the reality of it? How many of my married friends can stand their spouses or children? What do we want? Until we know that, we cannot be happy except by embracing the uncertainty. I do not know what I want. I know I’m looking for it. I know I’m moving in the right direction because I’m getting happier. Answers are formulating. Ideas are coming together. Things are fitting into place and life is fitting into place because I am moving towards something. Towards what? I could not tell you. But something, and, by all appearances, something good.
I don’t know what I want. So, I’m shedding. I’m shedding what I don’t want. I’m shedding the useless. I’m shedding the baggage. I’m giving up. I’m not rejecting it. I’m not forgetting it. I’m simply moving on. I’m not tied down. What is is. What is not is not. What may be may be. What was matters only insofar as it relates to those things. Sure, in a larger cosmic sense, truth is important for its own sake and, by extension, the past is important for its own sake, but, functionally, for me at this moment, in pursuit of reality, the past is something to be mined for the resources needed to build a future. What cannot be used needn’t be destroyed, but there is no point in trying to build with both gold and clay.
I talked to Simona about our lousy conversation. She was upset with me and now says she’ll have a hard time trusting me. That’s fine. I like talking to her, but I don’t need her. I admitted a problem, I offered a solution, and we’ll see what happens next. There’s nothing more to be done. I’m sincerely sorry to Courtney and Kat for leaving them high and dry these last two months. Focusing on Amber wasn’t a very nice thing to do when I consider how much the two of you mean to me. Yet, as friends, I also knew that you’d understand that I needed to make the effort. I don’t know if I consciously knew it, but, looking back, it seems to underlie my assumption. It’s nice thinking things through to the point of inevitability. It’s nice saying to yourself, “Things are because they must be,” or, “Things are because this is how I choose for things to be.”
I’m really going to have to work on expressing myself more clearly, and a lot of that is going to mean offending people on some level that confuses me. This philosophy of mine seems to give a great deal of offense. The notion of action, definition through action, self reliance, the desire to reduce things to inevitability or pure choice, seem to bother people. Quite a bit in some cases. Simona was really bothered in particular. I suppose that I sound a lot like a motivational speaker. I think it’s because, in all reality, a lot of them have good things to say. I think that often we confuse the message with the speaker. People trust child preachers because children are pure, and embrace a religion they don’t understand. People distrust politicians, who are be definition corrupt, and instead listen to the policies of people who have never been in government. Motivational speakers are often worthless people, but nobody ever blamed a stereo for playing good and bad music. Fill somebody with something to repeat, and they’ll do it. A good stereo can make bad things sound better, and a bad stereo can make good things sound worse. People are all the same.
I think that there’s a resentment around the whole “Master of my Fate Captain of my Soul” Victorian sentiment. I think that it’s very VERY easy for us to blame everything on circumstance. It’s quite popular to be powerless. We race to the bottom to become the most helpless of victims, and each searches for some messiah to save us. What do we want? We want to be given the freedom to do what we want. But what do we want to do? I think a lot of it goes back to another thing from David Wong’s article.
I’m picky with words, as many know, yet there’s an interesting quirk in English that David Wong points out that had always escaped me. Saying, “I want $200 Million,” and “I want to accomplish this thing,” are two very different sentiments expressed by the same word. I think we’ve confused the realities behind them. We want (sense 1) things, but we don’t have them, so we blame outside forces. Well, if we want things (sense 2) and we are willing to pay for these things, by and large, I think we can have them. Granted, the world may be stacked against us in such a way as to make wanting (sense 2) more difficult, but that’s within us to change, to an extent, and no world will ever be perfect.
My train of thought is moving in too many different directions. There’s a lot here that isn’t dealing with my initial idea. I’ll finish, then go to bed.
I’m not just pruning bushes in that garden. I’m pruning myself. It’s one of the reasons I’ve really stopped listening to music while I’m out there. I’m figuring out everything. I can’t build until I’ve stripped a lot away. I don’t know what direction I’m moving in, or what I’ll find there, but I’ve learned that you move a lot faster when you dump a lot of extra weight.