I sometimes ask comedy audiences "Who thinks life would be better if we could all do whatever we wanted, without anyone interfering?" There's usually a bit of applause, and then I'll explain I disagree completely, and spend a few minutes exploring the ways in which we're all broken, evil, and can't be trusted. Here's a few words along that same theme.
"Remember when you were little, and..."
Most of the potential endings to that sentence are pretty harmless:
"...your sister knocked over all your legos?"
"...you got your face painted like a carwash?"
"...your uncle sat down in a lawn chair and it broke underneath him, and he was stuck there for a while?"
Etc., etc. But I can't handle it. Stories about my past come out, and I immediately want to leave the room. This isn't because I did anything particularly unthinkable as a child. I'm not afraid someone will launch into a story which begins "remember when you were little, and we left the house for five minutes and came home to find you halfway through killing and eating the dog?" They know better than to tell anyone that story.
I don't think this is normal. We all did silly things when we were younger, it shouldn't cause embarrassment or shame because when I was five I did something perfectly normal for five year olds. No one really expects their adult life to be judged by their childhood (Macauley Culkin, perhaps). So where does the fear come from?
I have a similar problem with song lyrics. My old band has been playing again, and a few good songs have been consigned to the Great Box Set in the Sky, because I don't like the words. Given that most songs are about nothing (especially songs which sound like they might be about something), and in general people don't care what the lyrics are, this seems like a waste of decent chords and melodies.
It constrains the covers we play, too - good ideas are never tried, because the prima donna singer wonders how the words will reflect on him (he says, irritatingly, in the third person (he explained)). This makes the least sense - the audience knows we didn't write it, they don't imagine that deep down, I really really really wanna zig a zig ahh (to take a purely hypothetical example). So why can't I get over it?
One last example. If anyone has ever asked "do you enjoy working as part of a team?" in a job interview, I am confident in 2 things: the interviewee responded yes, and it was a lie. Steve Jobs apparently made a comment once that "A players only work well with other A players," the implication being that in order to have a successful team, you must fire all the B and C players. I don't agree with this - large organizations depend on people of varying abilities working well together. It might be nice in a manager's mind to say "we only have A players here," but it's never going to be the reality.
But I find myself sabotaging this "everyone work together" attitude sometimes. (For example's sake, and because I haven't eaten yet, let's imagine a line of people making a burrito). In general, I contribute to a team's success only until it begins to look like an idea I disagree with (for example, eating cilantro) will be part of our final product (perhaps I'm making a burrito with someone who feels rice and salsa taste too nice, and must be ruined by adding horrible green leafy things). Once that becomes clear, apathy takes over and I find it hard to be invested in the success of whatever we're doing (oh, many people probably like cilantro. They think it's fine, and who am I to judge?). If I don't think I can win, I won't even bother putting my case forward, I'll just meander along with everyone until the end (choking down a burrito like a 6 year old forced to eat peas). As I just explained, I know intellectually that this is no way to behave, but it seems to be my default setting.
Is there a common thread here? More than failure, shame, or embarrassment, I think it's control of my reputation. Family members telling stories, band members suggesting songs, or coworkers putting a project together, all cause opinions to be formed which I'm not in control of, and sometimes that's impossible to handle. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing - I've just spent 700 words explaining why it's ridiculous - but destructive as it is, it's definitely real. We often labor under the illusion that if we could control every aspect of our lives, our lives would be perfect...but if even the desire for control can make a wreck of everything, I suggest we're not the best people to be in charge.
I say that not to gloat about my fast paced party lifestyle (I don't have one), nor to make you worried about a potentially life threatening addiction (I don't have one) - I'm just making an observation. The "why" question is complicated. I'm not really a "drowning my sorrows" type, alcohol doesn't make me forget my troubles, it just increases the time between saying something and feeling guilty about it, which massively increases my troubles. It's also not because I particularly enjoy the sensation. The moment of realization when things have gone too far is not a good feeling. It's like... well, it's like an awkward innuendo that I'm not really comfortable typing. I realize nothing which happens repeatedly can be an accident (a comfort to people with 4 or 5 older siblings), so there must be some reason for it.
Beer makes us all the same.
My friend Kim said that. I'm not sure if she was quoting someone (the internet suggests she is not), or trying to be profound (the internet also suggests she is not, but the internet has a spotty record on Kim's intentions), but that thought has stuck with me. Beer has a strange power to break down social barriers. I am not a sociable person at all, it sounds less scary trying to staple my tongue to the side of an angry horse than trying to make conversation with someone I don't know extremely well, but for some reason beer changes all of that. Not the alcohol, by the way - the whole scenario stops being intimidating from the first sip.
So what is it? Why does this one thing suddenly stop me caring about being incapable with people? There are probably a couple of reasons. In Fort Collins, we're blessed with a bonus reason, as well, which is that it's an acceptable topic of conversation. In most places I imagine "what are you drinking?" doesn't generate fifteen minutes of genuinely interesting banter, and I'm grateful that it does here. But there are slightly more mainstream reasons I think beer makes social functioning possible. In the first place, for whatever reason, it actually counts as something to do. It's an activity.
"What are you doing tonight?" "Drinking a beer."
"What should we do tonight?" "Go drink a beer?"
Those exchanges seem perfectly normal, but if you replace "beer" with "Pepsi", or "glass of water," it sounds ludicrous. You might be thinking you can get away with "coffee" in the same way, but with coffee, you only ever want one, so it's not nearly as helpful. Beer (and other alcohol too I imagine) counts as a way to spend time - lots of time. It even counts as something to do between sentences - if the conversation is flagging while you're out, sipping a beer and staring into the distance is completely acceptable. There's no pressure.
In the second place, it's impossible to be bad at. I'm bad at just about anything normal to do with a group of people (playing sports, watching sports, watching movies, playing video games, watching movies about people who play sporting video games), but the feeling of "I will just be in the way" isn't there at all if the plan is to go and do some drinking. I'm completely capable of that, and so is almost everyone I've ever met. Kim is right, beer makes us all the same.
Over against the social advantages, there's a lot to hate about drinking. I hate that I usually have to spend the next day alone in a dark room, and I hate the fact that I say things I know I should be ashamed of thinking, let alone acting upon. I'm under no illusion that it's good to lose my inhibitions and let everything out sometimes - people need to be inhibited, myself very much included. If I were presented with a list of the pros and cons, and asked to make a rational choice, the cons outnumber the pros significantly, but "being able to be with other people like a normal person" is a massive pro. Beer makes us all the same. And I want to be the same sometimes.
About a week. Or until a bad gig. Or the next time you try to write and end up with a paper with a dozen black dots from setting the pen down.
That's how long the elation from success will last.
The first couple of times are incredible, like you've discovered a brilliant new drug. Being on stage when things are going well is like having your hand on a lever that can make the whole world feel good. It's great to be in the audience on a good night, but nothing can compare to the feeling of controlling the on/off switch to people's joy for a few minutes.
Even better, you didn't really discover this moment, you made it. All the fun of being the captain of the big happy ship is turned up x100 if you designed and built the ship. It's part of you, it can't finally be separated from who you are. You've presented something to an audience, they've loved it, and because they loved a thing that you made, you feel like they might love you, too. Any performer who says they don't care what the audience thinks has just changed the definition of "audience" - someone's acceptance is always the prize, even if not always the people sitting in front of the stage. And so when things go well, you walk off the stage feeling 5'7" - not only full of glee, but having been validated as a person, too. Taller people may need to adjust the height of the previous sentence for the metaphor to work.
At some point this feeling wears off, and like all addicts, the hunt begins for more. This drug is particularly evil, because it can't be purchased or found, it has to be made. By you. And you have no recipe, ingredients, or internet. Hearing someone talk about writing is a fascinating thing, because when things are working it sounds as though it's very easy, with a simple process to create something brilliant. People have all sorts of sophisticated ways of saying "I work hard and am good at things." In a dry patch, however, things take on a mystical tone - the process that was so clearly defined the week before has now been rewritten to include a lot more "sitting and waiting for things to come to me." The reality is somewhere between those two things - if you're not working hard, you won't know what to do with a brilliant idea when it does arrive, but however hard you work, you can't control the arrival.
The cycle continues in such a way that every moment of triumph is followed immediately by the fear of that being your last moment. The frustrating combination of labor and luck leads eventually, possibly, to another great idea, but the pit in your stomach from the whole process never really goes away, and that is almost at the heart (almost, because we're still in your stomach) of creating anything:
After the success of the first idea has faded, you live with the fear of never having another idea, until the second idea arrives, but the arrival of the second idea does not bring with it any promise of a third idea. There's success, then work, struggle, and fear, then success... At some point, it occurs to you that you can cheat the system, by finding out how to extend the success of the first idea forever. This isn't all that hard, there are new audiences everywhere, and by the time you come back to the first audience, they've forgotten you anyway.
This should lose it's thrill - there should be some natural dissatisfaction that drags you back onto the "creating" trail of fear and success... but sometimes there isn't. Sometimes you can trade for ages on past glories, slowly forgetting what you're missing because subconsciously you only remember the struggle. Like a guy living on fast food because he remembers that cooking real food takes effort but has lost sight of the fact that it's also a million times better. And that is something to be afraid of. The fear of never having another good idea doesn't help anyone do anything, but not losing sight of the joy of creating something new - that is at the heart of creating something great. You have to keep the fear of becoming the Rolling Stones.
I am unfortunately good at awkward moments. If you'd like to have the experience of getting along fairly well, and then suddenly something happens resulting in us not talking for months on end because it's just too weird - I'm your man. I don't know quite where this comes from, but like most of the personality quirks I'd like to get rid of, I'm guessing I picked it up from my father (don't read that as harshly as it sounds, he would tell you the same thing, and I've learned many good things from him too). But even my awkwardness was no match for a woman I met last weekend in Greenwood Village.
A professor I had at CSU many moons ago told me that Greenwood Village was intentionally designed in a confusing way so as to discourage outsiders from ever returning - they certainly achieved their goals. Thirty seconds after entering, all hope of going back out the way I came in had been lost, and it only took another five minutes before the feeling that I was just going to have to give up and start a new life here had set in. I had come to this place to watch a Green Day concert, and because it had been a somewhat spontaneous decision, I had to come down a few hours early so that I wouldn't have to fight through the will call line and the admission line. Finding myself with 90 minutes to kill, and not having eaten anything so far that day, I thought I would take advantage of the Greenwood Village Plaza and find something to eat before the gig. Another twenty minutes of driving in circles ensued, and I finally found the area I was looking for, two blocks away from where I'd started.
Judging from the signs, I had expected Greenwood Village Plaza to be this area's equivalent of Centerra, and it was, with one exception - Centerra usually comes with people. As far as I could tell, on this sunny Saturday afternoon, only two other people were wandering the streets of Greenwood Village Plaza. It felt eerie, as though there had been a bomb scare, and we had somehow not heard the news. Or perhaps the entire area wasn't open to the public yet, and those two others I saw walking about were just beta testing the complex. I found an Irish pub which looked like it would satisfy my pre-gig burger and beer needs, and cautiously went inside. I say cautiously, because there didn't appear to be anybody in there, either. Just as I turned around to leave, a man sprang up from behind the bar and told me to sit wherever I wanted, before disappearing underneath the bar again. I was beginning to suspect I was interrupting the trials for the USA Olympic Hide-and-Seek team.
After sitting at a table for a very long few minutes, a server approached, and I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she was insistent on making this as uncomfortable as possible. She came to the table and just stood and stared for what felt like about fifteen minutes, but in reality was probably almost a second. And rather than "what can I get you?" or the equivalent, her chosen opening line was "you're going to the Green Day show." Not a question, just a statement of fact. I asked what made her think that, and was told it was "the way I was dressed." At this point it's worth pointing out I wasn't wearing thick black eyeliner and red and black striped pants. No, it was my blue jeans and button-down short sleeved white shirt that gave me away. I looked like a construction worker's idea of "business casual," but to this server, that said "Green Day Fan." Fair enough. I hope her theories on what people look like are equally skewed in every direction, so that if someone does go in wearing a fedora, skinny jeans, and a black spiky belt, they're greeted with "are you here to fix the blocked toilet?"
After that exchange, she returned to staring awkwardly at me, so I asked for a 90 Shilling, half out of thirst and half because I couldn't think of anything else to say. She left and went over to the bar, and rather than getting a beer, had a very long conversation with the barman. I only really came in here to waste time before the gig, so you would think that I wouldn't mind that she's taking her time bringing my drink... but don't be fooled, I found that highly annoying for some reason. Eventually she brought it over, taking care to fill it too full and then spill a bit on the table when putting it down. I decided now would be a good time to order food, but she disappeared before I could open my mouth. It was at this point that I realized she also hadn't brought me a menu, which meant I couldn't loudly close it and slam it down on the table, in that way you do to signal "I've decided what I'd like to eat."
Having decided against food, the server appeared again, and very aggressively said "aren't you going to order any food?!" I then apologized (I'm English, I apologize to inanimate objects if I bump into them), and asked for a burger. The rest of the encounter went pretty much as you'd expect - it took forever and then tasted awful - but she didn't engage in another staring contest or blurt out anything strange, so I suppose it was a win. Searching for a suitably surreal way to end this experience, I tipped about 40%, to ensure that she understood how much I appreciated this level of service and hoped she would bless other customers with the same delightful manner. Time I walked into this joint: 4:30pm. Time I left: 6:15pm. "Longest, most awkward mid-afternoon meal" is too dull to make the Guinness Book of Records, but I'd like to think I won, anyway.
I yell that a few times a week at fellow Poudre Trail cyclists. Most often, both I and they are wearing headphones, so it's unclear what the point of this activity is. I suspect my feeling like I've done the right thing is what keeps me doing it, despite the lack of any actual evidence of it's usefulness. Traffic signaling meets virtue signaling. This is also why people buy greeting cards, in case you've ever wondered.
"On your left" is also the way I've generally described my political leanings relative to my circle of friends. The roots of it are easy to identify - growing up in the UK in the 90s, the wave of enthusiasm which brought Tony Blair to power was palpable, even as a nine year old, and it was natural that I'd be interested. As a teenager in the mid 2000s, cocksure of my own understanding about the world like everyone of that age, the U.S. and U.K. governments were busy tearing apart the Middle East and giving massive tax cuts to big businesses. The narrative was easy to understand and had practically made it into the water supply - the American right was evil and the UK left had betrayed their principles. As the decade drew to a close, America had it's own euphoric "Tony Blair" moment, as the right (left) candidate for the moment arrived and was swept to victory. A couple of moments stick in my mind from November 2008:
A coworker having their car stolen on election night, and claiming she didn't mind, because Obama was president, and so things would work out, somehow.
My grandmother, in my mum's kitchen, exclaiming "right. So when do we get our free healthcare?"
That wasn't evidence of any lack of understanding of the political process on my grandmother's part, incidentally. It showed her confidence that dramatic change would happen soon - a common attitude among many at the time. But what exactly was the change people wanted?
Having had the intervening decade to think about it, it's the economic argument of the left which has always resonated with me - with respect to the market, the government's useful function is to encourage enterprise, discourage greed, and use the difference to bring in those at the margins. Increasingly, though, that economic perspective is available only if we also sign up for a raft of unrelated social ideas. Holding radical views such as "the family structure which humans have used to organize themselves for thousands of years is broadly the right one," leads to an immediate divorce from the left. I'm not sure this is wise, and I think it's close to the heart of why 2016 turned out the way it did.
One of the more encouraging noises on this subject was Obama's comment on Marc Maron's podcast that some Americans felt he was more concerned about transgender bathrooms than the economy, and that this was a problem. He was right, but word didn't travel far enough. Six months later, Clinton's proclamation that we need to "make America whole" demonstrated a firm commitment to her social program over any redistributive economic strategy. Even post-election, the left is still drawing lines in the sand in unfortunate places (warning, that site has an autoplaying video. It was difficult to find one which didn't).
Where does this leave us? In two years, four years, six years, will those who think the government should take an active role in helping smooth the rough edges of capitalism still insist on talking loudest about the genital social issue of the moment? I expect they will, unfortunately.
