2️⃣062: how are you? 🤷🏽‍♂️

Hi!

Hey

How are you?

I'm good! I mean, I've been better. Haven't we all, though? I feel like I'm trying really hard right now. But do you ever get that feeling when you're trying hard but still don't seem to be advancing anywhere? Yeah, yeah, I know. It's all about incremental gains and the little steps you take. You don't notice your progress in real-time, but after an extended period, you look back, and you're like, holy shit, look at how far I've come. I know it's like that. And I've experienced it before! I see things right now, things I've accomplished that I've been working towards for a long time. And I realize all the little things I did every day that got me to where I am today. But, even with all that, sometimes it feels like forces out of my control are working against me. If I'm so good and unique and special and different like so many people say, why does it feel like the people who decide a lot of my future presently don't feel that way? Why do we continue having to conform ourselves to succeeding at the way things have always been if we can all collectively agree that so many things now are better than they’d ever been before? Why are we so stuck on past methods when changing and evolving are what got us to where we are today? They tell you that the most revered people were thought to be crazy at first. That they pushed the boundaries when others thought they shouldn’t. It’s what made them so unique and successful. That's the model for changing the world! They tell us. Not You, though. You need to do it exactly like somebody who has no idea who you are or how you work best decided decades ago. Well, because that's what they decided, and it worked. We don't want to mess with something that worked. But we're all about innovation! Just don't stray too far out of the lines because we won't know what to do with you (lol). People love to talk about how they feel super different from the rest of society. That this world doesn't understand them. Like that's supposed to make people around them think they're so unique. Newsflash, everyone feels that way! Even the person you see as dull and normal feels misunderstood too! You're not any more different than anybody else just because you only listen to music that was released in 1973. We're all just trying to survive here while being the most ourselves we can be in this crazy world that celebrates uniqueness but makes you feel like you have to conform. The dude in khakis and a polo can be just as unique as the purple-haired mohawk person. We all have to do different things to survive. That's really what it is, isn't it? The problems affecting society are so big and overwhelming that we can't even imagine how to begin to address them because, as an individual, it's so challenging to actually make a difference. So we just go about doing our best to survive and point out differences in each other because that somehow makes us feel like we're better than someone else. Or we feel like we're doing this life thing the right way, while they aren't. Another newsflash, no one knows what they're doing! And the powers that be know that. So they keep us weighed down by all these burdens and distractions that drive us apart, when in reality these fights among ourselves are tiring us out and keeping us from focusing on the bigger issue. They don't want us to realize that we're stronger together. We're really not that different. Who gives a fuck if we dress differently? Who gives a fuck if we listen to different music or prefer different shades of colors? At the end of the day, we're just bags of flesh and bones trying to survive and feed our family and not hurt others. Well, I think most people don't want to hurt others. Plenty of others don't care. Many people think they care, but they really don't because they've never been affected, so they don't know how bad things really are. I know that some people don't have clean water or even electricity. I know that some people are afraid to just be themselves or afraid to love who they really want to love because of what others might think or because those decisions might put them at risk. I’m aware of the system that rewards who you know instead of what you know, and how people with more resources and privileges can try and fail hundreds of times. But the time they get it right, “We all struggle!” But the majority of people don't have the chance to fail that many times. When their one shot doesn't work out, someone who doesn't understand what that life is like says they're lazy or should've worked harder. Maybe they should've spent a little less money on a nice coffee on a Saturday morning if they really wanted to have a two-car garage and a pool for their kids. But we shouldn't have to sacrifice one thing for the other like that if we have the resources. We have the resources! But, they want us to believe we don't have them, so we can fight about who's the president and bicker over trivial shit while they continue to destroy any future our imagined kids may have. I have a homie who says he doesn't want kids because of climate change. That's crazy! But, it's not at the same time! WTF MAN. I want a partner and a family to raise so I can continue what my parents started, teach them even more, and help them become even better humans. It fills me with so much joy to think of a life I could help mold in the most positive way. Teaching them to do things better than I ever did or better than anyone who came before us. But that might be farfetched, too, when you can't even find love. And people say you complain about not finding it, but you ignore the love that's right in front of you. Okay, but what if that's not the one I want? I ain't out here a lo loco with a Sports Illustrated centerfold pinned up to my closet door, telling myself that's the only thing that would make me happy. I'm open to meeting and giving myself to people. And I do that, but then they think that at any moment that I don't continue to give the same type of energy, something's changed, and it was never real. I just need some time for myself, okay. Can't I just consume the stupid little tweets from my stupid little phone without having to text everyone back? And “everyone” can be like five people, but sometimes it feels like messaging back five people and having a convo takes 45 minutes, so whoops, there went my spare time after work. I only had two hours. Guess I have to eat and shower and get ready for tomorrow because if I stay up too late, then I wake up late, and I can't plan the day before the chats and emails start coming in (not that they ever stopped coming in). And I get a random phone call from people I love and get upset. I get upset! Do you realize how dumb it is to get upset when someone you love simply wants to communicate with you? To tell you how much they love you? Some people hope day and night for something like that, for everything I have, and I get upset because my mom wanted to talk to me for five minutes? And then I want to post, but I haven't responded to messages, so people get upset, “Oh, you can post, but you can't respond to messages?” Am I supposed to please every single person exactly how they want? Granted, it's like three people, and I'm still complaining. Do you realize what I'm complaining about? I could be going home to loneliness, like someone without a family or loved ones. I'm complaining that I get too much love and feel overwhelmed? Can't even call it first-world problems because it feels so much worse. And I was supposed to be the one that changed everything. The one everyone believed in. Am I fulfilling my potential? My family still believes in me because they always will, but is time running out? Suppose I don't change the world or help millions of people, or even make millions laugh or smile. Did I really accomplish everything I could've accomplished? Do we expect too much of everyone? Sometimes I think we should tell people it's okay to be perfectly plain and normal. If everyone is special, then no one is special. And it's okay to not be special in the way this society has made us believe special should be because even perfectly plain and normal people are special in their own way. But not me. I'm different. But then again, that's what everyone wants to believe. That they're not like everyone else. That others might be plain, but they're not. I just want to wake up and laugh at stupid tweets about Minions: The Rise of Gru, but I have to worry about someone misinterpreting my likes. And let's not even get into the fact that the legislature that carries our society is crumbling beneath us. The country of “freedom” is telling others exactly what they can do with their bodies, which doesn't sound too free to me. But, apparently, I'm some sort of asshole because I didn't share an Instagram story that said, “Down with the patriarchy!” Even though anyone who knows me knows the patriarchy can suck my dick. Do you just decide what kind of person I am based on my stories? I show you what I want you to see, and it's like 5% of my life, but that determines everything I am? I like drinking hard seltzers! That shit is delicious 😋 It's like water, but it's flavored and also gets you drunk. It's the perfect drink to just relax, especially as I get older, and I want to take it easy. But I start drinking, and I’m worried about whether the dishwasher was set and how much laundry I have because if I don’t do it tonight it just piles up during the week and gets worse. God, I just want to be frolicking in a field somewhere, not worried about credit scores or whether tomorrow might be the day my car finally breaks down for good, and there's no affordable public transportation that can take me to my job without having a 90-minute commute. Can't we just go back to Season 6 of Game of Thrones before everything started going to shit, and we would all sit around our TVs together on Sunday nights enjoying one of the most beautiful journeys ever seen on TV?

I don't know. Maybe the Game of Thrones things isn't that important. But I think you know what I mean. It's a lot. So, I guess that's kinda how I am. Give or take a few things. How about you?

Sir, this is a Publix, you need to pay for your groceries or move the hell on 😠

Oh..sorry about that. I’ve just been going through some things lately.

You don’t say. 

🫠

PS