There's a reason my phone is never off and that I do my best to reply to every text or message I get. I've been down in that hole before. I've been in places so dark that light/hope seemed an impossibility. I've been fortunate to have family (including friends, I don't make that distinction) jump down in that hole with me. Moreover, I've know friends who were down in that same black hole and on more than one occasion have had someone call/text me from the event horizon of that black hole; where there is nothing but darkness, and one more step would be the last. However, you would never have been able to know that bc what most people saw of their lives was filtered/perfect.
By all accounts Madison had the world by the balls. Young. Beautiful. Athletic. Smart. And outwardly, specifically on social media, she led a life of infinite happiness.
The problem I've always had with social media at large (full disclosure I don't have Instagram, never have, but when you filter the pix so that your skin looks faker than a botched boob job...just stop) is we live a filtered existence; one in which an incredibly misleading sense of perfection is the modus operandi.
Even the #NoFilterNeeded is complete and utter bullshit. In some ways it's worse, the consummate level of narcissism. It's as if the person is saying "I'm so perfect, or this is so perfect, I don't even need a filter", you should be jealous, envious, that I don't need a filter.
The constant barrage of everyone else's seemingly perfect lives has the unintended consequence of magnifying even the slightest setback or imperfection in ourselves. The reality is, it's completely gilded; lives covered (filtered) with a thin layer of gold to cover up what is truly there.
We need to be more accepting, and more real with each other. We need to stop filtering life and start looking out for each other. To that end, here's my updated , unfiltered (not "no filter needed", bc i am far from perfect) off the cuff reality, who I am:
My name is Craig, and I am not crazy, I am just a little unwell…actually who we kidding I am absolutely bat shit crazy. I battle demons on a daily basis that I would not wish upon anyone. I don't think Robert Frost had me in mind when he said taking the road less travelled would make all the difference. Nonetheless, here I am.
I am a much different person than I appear. I am well educated. My memory is both a blessing and a curse. I love to learn, and can’t tell you how many times I have been talking to someone in a bar, or offered an opinion (ok a drunken rant) and they have looked at me puzzled and have said “you read books?”
"Yes I do, what are you reading?...Oh Hunger Games? How cosmopolitan/intellectual of you, when you’re done with that I recommend buying a 64 box of crayolas and doing some coloring. Stay in the lines if you can, and don’t eat the glue stick, asshat."
Sorry. I am also someone who has no filter but just bc I have no neck doesn't mean I'm incapable of intellectual discourse and the implication offends me.
I am too quick to judge even if I am right 90% of the time, and not quick enough to forgive...especially of myself. I am slow to trust, slower still to love, but when I do it is with every ounce of my being/soul. A beautiful woman once told me the only thing bigger than my neck is my heart, I’d like to believe she is right, but I often wonder. I suppose the drawback to having a huge heart is that the bigger it is the more pieces there are to pick up and try to put to back together when it breaks. Not (m)any people ever see that side of me. I also recognize that one of life's greatest ironies is only someone you choose to let all the way in, to truly and unconditionally love , could ever hurt you. And that's a pain that there are no words for; saying it feels like someone stuck a fork in your stomach and twisted and twirled around your insides like a bowl of spaghetti doesn't do it justice.
I am someone who values family and friends above all else. I love my little people (Adam, Emma, Erin, Ryan and Sadie) more than anything in this world. I often wonder if I'd be a good dad, or if I'll ever get to find out. I would quite literally do anything for those close to me; a friend texted me once telling me that righteous vengeance is one of my best qualities. Not sure how I feel about that. ambivalent? maybe? see what i did there? must be from reading books....
I do know if anyone ever hurt someone I love, I would make it my life's mission to visit a pain upon them that would make Hostel look like a Disney movie. I am quietly overprotective. Don't poke the bear. The lives of my loved ones mean more to me than my own. In fact that's probably how love should be defined, but what do I do know? I didn't read Hunger Games.
I am someone who has been through the closest thing to hell I imagine exists in the world. My unfiltered life....it's been a roller coaster I wouldn't wish on anyone. I try, so very hard, to carry on, to be a better person today than I was yesterday. I don't half ass anything. All in or not at all. I give myself fully to people....only to end up in front of an oncoming train. I often wonder what this life has in store for me. I don't know If redemption is attainable. I know adversity, it's closer to me than my shadow. I've been forged in that crucible of adversity, but strength isn't how much you can take before you break, it's how much you can take AFTER you've broken. Pain is/was a gateway to becoming who I am, who any of us are. We can complain about it, which is only normal, but at some point (days or weeks later) it's better to look at pain and say "hey mother fucker take a seat. Get comfortable. Real comfortable. We are going to be friends, because I don't want to be ordinary, and you're going to help me out.". After all, I've never met a strong person w an easy past.
I also know I'm capable of great love. Of unconditional , reality altering , die before I let you down love. Regrettably, each time I am able to call upon that part of my soul for another.....there's that oncoming train. I've learned enough. I've overcome a lot. I've gone through things I wouldn't wish on anyone. "It made me better" I said....."life won't beat me" I said. I do believe that if nothing can save us from death, at least love should save us from life.
I sincerely empathize for anyone who struggles at all themselves, in any way, life presents different challenges to us all. Call me anytime, night or day, and I’ll be there to listen and help as much as I can. Loyalty matters to me more than anything in this world.
I am the guy in the gym alone in the corner who loves to train and lift heavy (and alone) bc it is an outlet for the anger that I let define me more often than I should. But I’ve learned as much under the bar as I have anywhere else, even in school, because barbells never lie. They will not flatter you and tell you that you look great or that everything will be ok. They are always 100% honest with you and will let you know if you haven’t put in the work. If you haven’t, they will crush and humble you quickly. Barbells never say “nothing is wrong" or " I'm fine”. For that I am grateful.
I am someone who gives my all to things and people I think are worth it. I don't believe in half assing anything; have you seen my Sunday meals? I eat because I workout ; I workout because I eat. I'm fat bastard without the infanticide or cannibalism. Luckily my body has an innate ability to repartition poor macronutrients into BOOMSAUCE. In fairness I work my ass off too.
I am self motivated and driven by something deep inside me that I've never been able to put a finger on.... maybe its fear, maybe it's passion, maybe it's passionate fear. I believe what I believe in. Black and white. There is no gray. Coincidentally I'm color blind. I do not expect you to necessarily agree with me but if you can't present a cogent argument as to why you believe what you do and display some modicum of passion (I'M NOT YELLING I'M JUST SPEAKING PASSIONATELY) I will mock you....endlessly. The world is too full of half assery. I invent words when I want to and decided a long time ago one could add " 'ing" to anything and make it a verb. Drunken decisioning are usually some of my best. Good beer-ing. Just like that.
I also have a lot of bad ideas. Some are directed at bad people, who should be picked up by the face then introduced to the pavement ...from a third story window. Others manifest themselves after 17 budweisers and a bottle of rumpleminze, like running over cars, going down a flight of stairs in a shopping cart, or playing keg Donkey Kong. "Hold my beer, watch this" should probably be on my tombstone. I suggest sticking around for the tom foolery likely to ensue whenever you hear that line. It's trite/hackneyed to say "I love to have fun", and it sounds about as philosophical as tony stuttering tony, but it's true. I'd rather regret the things I've done than the things I haven't.
To that point Ive been told I love too hard, but that it's also a gift. The jury is still out but I believe love is the ultimate irony of evolution. Some may argue that we are wired to love; it is part of us, to seek it out, to want or need companionship. I think there is some truth in that but for entirely different reasons. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes wrote the natural state of man is brutish…..it is the “war of every man against every man”. We evolved, formed groups and then societies for self preservation. Our instinct is to survive. I don’t know that is our nature to love. Self preservation, kill or be killed, drove our evolution. Love is not that. It would not have served the self preservation instinct to value someone more than yourself; therefore love is above our nature. It transcends. To give, and accept it, is, respectively, the most noble and bravest thing we can do.
I think we should read ALL THE BOOKS. There is so much we can learn. As Bob Marley said "don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold".
The reality is no one is as perfect as they would have you believe. In fact very often they are more phony to themselves than they are even to the public. Maybe, I am the angry boy a bit too insane, but I am comfortable in my own skin, even though others may find it abrasive or offensive. At least I am not trying to be someone I'm not or doing the "fake fun, phony friend" bullshit. More than anything I am just a tragically flawed man who tries his best every day, and often worries that it is not good enough. Maybe time will tell you , why I got so much hell to sell you, but please understand me bc you can't just dance around me.
No comments:
Post a Comment