More of the same

As a boy I was always getting scolded about talking too much about myself, and as a teenaged man I was very aware of the weird badness that comes from putting on airs. Like, my father would yell at me if I had interests because then I might develop a cockiness or gloating behavior, which for some reason he hated. Later, I’d put a name on that behavior and know it was mainly about him and not my own things. Like, it is a thing of him to be a competitor and so he would knock the feet out of other competers. Once he told me a story – when he was in college in Cairo – they didn’t have electricity all the time, you had electricity only certain hours of the day – but since the university there is purely competitive it was important to be the best because only the best person could go on to say – medical school. So the other collegians would meet up under the always-on streetlights to study. This is a great image to me, all the college kids hanging out on street corners studying on the curb. Anyhow, he would buy candles instead of food so he could study all day in his room, and then at night he’d go to the street-corner and get the other kids to play cards with him or backgammon – he’d study and then go to sabotage other people’s studies. I always imagined that someone who came out of such a competitive world and into the US scene would really win out. Then I knew people in Law School who’d point out that there were those who went to the library and cut pages out of books to get the edge over others. I never did get that competitive of a bug, I always said – we should all aim at getting the same grade – “let’s put the system on trial!” I’d say. Anyhow, there’s always someone who’ll ruin that for you. I think, that in the end my pop would say – don’t go around bragging or acting like you’re great, mainly because he was super-aware that this was like painting a target on your back. “Just quietly be better than everyone.” Not that he could articulate that in a way that didn’t make me feel terrible.

But as a teenager we were, I don’t know punks? Suburban punks so we’d not talk about our good qualities because those were a liability, really – we argued about who was in a worse space. That was a different competition, who had the worst mental illness (never me!) who had a harder situation to overcome. None of us had shit to overcome (except, like, that we had everything to overcome, but not hardship, exactly – just suburban bullshit – everyone’s got a thing in their life that’s a shitty struggle). So in that world though you’d talk about how crummy everything was and never about if you had a true/good feeling or cared about something – which was a bad place. I’m glad I beat that.

Eventually I became Kingtycoon and would just rave and rant about my greatness but then – it never was a real authentic rant or rave because I’d be kind of aggressive about my performance of things that I still didn’t really regard as being very good – so I’d be like: “I did makeouts with so many people and they loved me for carnal reasons!” But , you know, I never ever did think of that in a prideful way – more of the same – more of: Examine my notorious flaws! Examine how I contend with the banality of human existence!

My own kid is in the other room right now and that feels right, like today it feels like we are alive together and that it matters a lot but that it is normal and right – we are unified in our way. She’s over there breeding her pokemon and I’m getting into the writing mood because when we discussed what we’d do today – it decided to be cold and yucky out and we settled on laying around and writing. So we’re doing that and this is my warmup for writing. When she says things about herself, it’s not arrogant – cause she’s warned about that – same as me, I guess? I say to her: “It’s okay to be great, but if you meet people who don’t think so you should consider why it is that they don’t laugh at your jokes, or why they are mean or seem grouchy. Maybe they go to the daycare – which is like going to school after school. Maybe they have to go home and be by themselves and cook their own food? Maybe they have to take care of their littler brothers and sisters?” Maybe they aren’t carefree and just happy, is what I mean. Maybe they are dealing with some shit in their lives and they are humorless and adult and don’t fuck around at school with a lot of nonsense about jokey little kids.

Which, I guess I was just aware of as a kid and maybe that’s the cause behind my weird punker fetish for the shittyness of things. So I’m allowing that to go away for now because I can tell that I need to mention, because it’s been a while, a few things about what I’ve done that make me feel okay about myself:

At my job I’m heroic. Like – I made sacrifices and did bold things to solve real problems – and these problems had a cascading effect on the different data structures, and then I found that our backup integrity was not what it should be. So I went into some kind of death trance about fixing everything for everyone and then sent a not too long expository mea-culpa out and was acknowledged and admired for my forthright goodness. Also, I jump up to help anyone that seems like they need it and usually solve things. People say I am helpful and handsome and great and I get a little embarrassed and hide at my desk and try to do right. I listen to everyone who wants to say a thing and care about it.

On the bus I always give my seat to anyone who needs it, I give my pass away to people who look like they might need one, I always share money and cigarettes with anyone who asks. I let little kids play my 3DS and name the pokemon that I catch, if they want to. If there is a person having trouble with their wheelchair I get off the bus and help them get it onto the bus, once I even lifted a man up and I think he had an electric wheelchair because of his weight problems, but I did lift him onto the bus. When the substitute busdriver went past the blind-man’s stop without warning, I got off to walk the blind man partway to his house and tried to be patient and kind and even petted his dog. And then I thought you shouldn’t walk a blind man all the way home because maybe a blind man doesn’t want you knowing where he lives. I felt really badly about how much you’d have to trust people if you were blind. Especially about money and about walking into bushes.

Out and around I give a beer to anyone that asks when I am walking home with beers from the store, I try to tip well and offer kind compliments whenever I see someone. I pay attention at the different murder and suicide memorials that are everywhere and feel badly about anyone that has died and wish that they hadn’t.
Uhh.
Alright, there’s not that much to say – I’m not like a fireman or something, and maybe I am a little bit of a bad guy, but maybe I’m in the same proportion a good-ish guy – so that’s all, balance the books – trim the vessel.

Really I’d rather care about being a clever dude with smart ideas, but I’ve been hard up for thinking times lately.