Because more often than not, they have the exact same shit as I do. Ok fine, maybe different colors, like variations on a theme, but essentially, it's the same.
I learned this when I had infertility - jeez the number of women on my floor of the office alone.
So then I became the brave one, and it became kind of my style to say things aloud that other people were thinking, but were too scared to own openly.
I always thought social judgement didn't matter to me but there I was chasing the hero image. If you are the hero, they can't do without you. And now I notice in myself the tendency to insert myself into conversations just to point out similarities between myself and the others. Especially with my friends. Or to just speak. Basically, to contribute, but only out of anxiety of being left out. Being odd. Not being the hero. I want to control the conversation. As I said to Josh the other day, I come at things from an, "All of you, listen to me and do what I say."
I've, for better or worse, become better at it, not by accident. I try. Very hard. I'm a try-hard but the thing is nobody calls you that if you also succeed. Then they just call you a success, thereby missing the point. Except S of course, but that is why I followed him to his hovel, and then married the shit out of him.
Name it, so you can shame it. I suppose there's nothing wrong with wanting the world to run like you want it to, it's just foolish. And yet, to a degree, possible. That's the allure of it. Unpredictable reward. It's like a freaking bug in our software these days. There was no limiter to our ambitions. And yet, ambition gets you things you want. Our ability to see externalities withers and dies for lack of feeding, and I think we need to bring that back.
I keep thinking about the tail of the dragon. That's what K described it as. Don't worry, the tide is rising, she said, it'll happen with or without you. It's true. But it matters to this starfish. Why can't I be the one to make at least some of the rules?
There are organisms on this planet that take thousands of years just to reproduce once. Bacteria living deep inside the earth. I don't know why that's relevant, but they don't care what we do, and for some reason, we care what they do. We find it worth studying and writing down. Why? At some point you run out of reasons, and it comes down to the eternal dance between order and chaos. But more proximately, this is our planet. Our home.
Somewhere in the last two hundred years, it went from the world to our world. Whose? You know, ours. Humanity's. Uh huh. And now, thankfully it is shifting to a co-ownership model, with all other life. But we, just by virtue of power, have acquired an unexpected responsibility. We can, and have, changed the future of this planet and everything on it. Our actions suddenly affect the whole village, except the village is every other being on Earth.
One thing I have never understood though, is why we think climate change is going to be so bad. What if it becomes nice and warm everywhere and the animals find out how to survive. I suppose it's that oh shit moment when you realize you're messing with something far bigger than you can understand. The, "I should NOT have done that" moment.
So what I'm saying is, even knowing all of this, I still like to try to make the world better in the ways I think it should be. You can happen to it, or it can happen to you, or how about you both just roll with it. But all things considered, I like to happen to other things. It's in my blood, in my bones. I am a teller of stories. I am a keeper of keys and grounds. I am the sentinel. The catalyst. The free electron. I am the life of the party. I am whatever it takes to get shit done.
I rest and sleep, yes, and play. But when I do, this is what I do.
