disintegration

I’ve been a little out of sorts since I got back to Utah. No, it’s not Mormon insanity like old times. It was/is a feeling of a lack of control.

The first and most overwhelming source was my parents. I’m a grown-ass man, but still my mom can’t go 2 hours without offering to do something for me. If you’re going to call me an ingrate for complaining about my mom doing all of my laundry for me when I got back, then you clearly don’t know what I’m talking about. To help you, think of how you felt if you’ve ever been micromanaged at work. Now extend that feeling to every single thing you do in your everyday life. On Thursday, I felt so helpless I couldn’t even motivate myself to do something as simple as get my address changed with the post office. The first time I felt normal since being back is when I went grocery shopping and made myself lunch on Friday.

The lack of motivation also came from the sense from my dad that getting a job is just par for the course, nothing special or praiseworthy. Ok, maybe it’s not, but then again, I wasn’t recruited straight out of college like my dad. It’s really hard to get myself pumped for something where if I succeed, I will be adequate at best.

I’ve been thinking a lot these last few days about how artists are a self-destructive breed*, mainly because I’ve been feeling self-destructive. (I’m not nearly so emo as to like cut myself or anything, so don’t worry.) I’ve tried to write music because I want to communicate how I’m feeling, and it’s not working. I don’t have the right genre. I’ve been wanting to write like crazy, but haven’t felt like I have the right format. Poetry is lame, short stories aren’t confessional enough.

And I was thinking, of course artists are self-destructive. We demand so much of our artists. We want nothing less than stark, revealing honesty that is equal parts entertaining and innovative. We want poet-shamans and lovers who are good at their craft and also sophisticated and wise. Of course, if we don’t like what they produce, we have no obligation to buy the emotions that they’ve irreverently turned into product, threatening them not only with rejection but with financial ruin.

Plus, artists by their creative nature are maladaptive. The people who are successful at life are the ones who are able to distill patterns out of chaos and live in ways that keep them out of harm’s way. For artists, these patterns look an awful lot like rules, which are infinitely less fun than the chaos at the fringes of civilization and order. Creativity plays with rules, rearranges patterns, flouts convention. Success lives firmly within the boundaries that creativity plays with, and so being an artist and a human requires a balancing act that the social pressures of being an artist can upset in the direction of self-destruction and willful emotional handicapping. I really like seeing musicians smile. I feel like the musicians playing these days are more unabashedly happy than the perpetually angsty 90s rockers, both mainstream and underground. Even Trent Reznor lightened up. Maybe it’s a collective exhaustion with all the grimness, or maybe it’s a byproduct of the collapse of the major record labels, forcing musicians to balance themselves out by being their own businesspersons.

There is always the fear that happiness isn’t as fun to write about, so being self-destructive is better for (art) business. Luckily, I exploded that myth for myself by being perfectly stable and responsible while in Michigan and still writing and recording two ep’s worth of music (btw the new Straight Up! Ep, which you should care about, is going to be called Super Midnight, and should be ready to be rolled out within the week, provided I can keep one of the files from freaking out long enough to properly mix it). Besides, working on my music has really kept me sane since I've been back. It's given me a sense of control.

When comparing myself over the last few days to my Ann Arbor self, I’m surprised by how even-keeled I was in Ann Arbor--I knew practically nobody and was almost entirely anti-social. The difference, I think, is that while I didn’t have the same amounts of love in Ann Arbor, I also didn’t have to meet anyone’s expectations. Everyone here knows me, and what’s worse, they’ve known me for years. YEARS. I know I don’t seem like I’ve changed a lot in the last 3 years, but for me, I’m a completely different person. I’ve always been particularly sensitive to people’s expectations of me, and I don’t like disappointing them. So every person that I know here represents another instance in which I have to limit myself so as to not throw anyone for a loop. And the feeling’s the keenest when it’s the dudes, because I feel most limited by standards of machismo.

I’ve had a really good time with my friends in the short time I’ve been back, and I love so many people here and have felt really loved. I really like being stupid and silly and just having fun. But beyond that, I need plenty of personal space.

I really liked my anonymity in Michigan, because it gave me so much control over how I presented myself. Ironically, when given the chance, I didn’t resemble at all my narcissistic, womanizing, androgynous alter ego that I now want to explore. The lack of control is pushing me towards creativity and self-destruction.

What I've realized is that destruction should be taking place, only I should direct it outwards rather than inwards. I'm not talking about hurting people, only disappointing them, breaking down their expectations of who I am. It's such a small thing for others while breaking my own spirit simply to follow their pattern of who they think I am (Thoreau's "foolish consistency?") would net greater unhappiness. This is the breakthrough I had a few years ago, and it made me a lot happier--disappoint others a little instead of wrecking yourself a lot.

And of course we get to the ultimate social relationship: romance. I haven’t been shy about being non-committal for the last year or so. In this light, I’m realizing why. I don’t need a tremendous amount of love, I need a tremendous amount of space. I turn off on girls because I reach points when I feel as if I’m playing a role in a relationship, so I resent myself and the girl by extension. I feel like I constrain my own growth in order to not disappoint her expectations of me.

It’s mostly internal, I know. And besides, the extent to which the situation is unacceptable to me approaches pathology. I realize that. But chastising myself for not wanting to grow up is counter-productive. I’m on the remedial track for life, and that’s how it is and I’m finally okay with that. It helps, though, that I can identify the problem. Now I have to figure out whether or not commitment necessitates a certain amount of constraint on one’s self. If so, I need to prepare myself mentality for that, preferably after a string of term-limited romances. Either way, I am going to need a girl who basically thinks I can do no wrong, just like my mom does (she spoiled me). I test girls (subconsciously) by acting like a self-absorbed asshole after I go through the initial perfect-boyfriend phase. I need to know if the girl I will marry will follow me and believe in me with perfect loyalty despite my mistakes and shortcomings. Tall order, but I’m not so bad a guy, right?

I’m willing to be a realist about this and admit that a girl like that probably won’t have much of a mind of her own. This would be a big disappointment, but in marriage, I’m just looking for something that works. I used to want a classic Mercedes convertible, something high-performing and elegant, but now I would really be happy with a ’99 Accord like the Republican (my car). It’s no beater; I take care of it, but its big draw is its reliability. So yeah, marriage scares me.

Once I can get more control over the basics of my life and be more self-sufficient, I am going to want to move away from self-destructive, self-indulgent physical relationships. I want to do that. I want to start to settle. In Salt Lake City. I’ve never been interested in the places I’ve lived because I’ve been afraid to settle down and get attached. I’ve never been into hiking or exploring or being a part of any community. I’m starting to want that. So that’s something.

I’ve been living in the song “Disintegration” by The Cure. The whole album is fantastic. It’s all I’ve wanted to listen to lately. Yes, it is more along the lines of self-absorption and thus self-destruction, but it’s so so good and feels so good. I can’t exactly say I’ll miss the nights when I’m feeling as if any moment I’m either going to write down world-shattering epiphanies or have a panic attack/seizure/stroke and I can’t sleep because I’m lit with a consuming creative energy. To be honest, my best stuff doesn’t come out of those nights. But the beauty of art is in the giving in to the feeling, at least for moments. It’s losing control, not thinking ahead or pragmatically or according to the rules and patterns. I’m aware of the ill effects, but human experience, like humanity, is full of duality, and love isn’t very convincing when it’s pick and choose.

If I paint my fingernails black in the next few weeks, now at least you’ll know why.


*Migdat introduced me to this lecture from the author of Eat, Pray, Love, who talks about this issue in the terms of how we think about artistic genius. If you’re interested: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/453