some thoughts on my past year

2015 was a particularly difficult year for me, especially at times when I had nothing going on, which feels like most of the time. I didn’t work much, and when I did, it wasn’t full time, and it paid shit. I don’t see that changing in this new year. Anyway, the thing is, I feel that I don’t have many people – sometimes none – that I’m close to, people who are really my friends, people that I see and communicate with, people that I actually spend time with. 

That’s the big problem for me. When I’m in rehearsals for a show, then at least I interact with people, though it’s in a pretty limited way. It also helps to distract my brain from how full of nothing my life is. The one thing I’ve learned this past year— No, really the past several years – is that people aren’t meant to be alone. 

Another thing I’ve learned –and it’s really hit home this year – is that people don’t want to change. Specifically, I’m thinking about relationships. When people have an established relationship – whatever the nature of it, however close or distant or limited or whatever – they don’t want to put any effort into improving it. It might degrade slowly, and that seems okay for people. Or, if someone gets angry about something, then a relationship might drastically end or lessen. But people just don’t want to put effort into becoming closer to others. Or maybe that’s just when other is ME. Maybe I shouldn’t generalize my experience to all if human-kind. People just don’t want to be MY friend. They’re content with acquaintance-ship. Or maybe all these people that I sort of know really think that we’re friends. We’re not. Not really. 

There was one person – I’m sure I wrote about this a few months ago – with whom I tried to re-establish some kind of positive relationship (after a thing that had happened), but this person refused. And another person with whom I’d had a falling out died early last year. So I’ll never be able to reconcile that relationship. 

I can’t make people be my friend. I suppose if I changed who I am – specifically if I didn’t say what I think and pretended I shared all the bullshit cultural norms that people cling to – then maybe people would be more comfortable with me. Then I could make friends. 

I just don’t know if I could stand myself like that. 

So, I’m alone. Desperately alone. And quite depressed.

People are not meant to be alone. 

This past summer was particularly bad. I think there’s one person who knows how bad it was, because there’s one person I really talked to about it. I’ve been feeling this past week or 10 days a little bit like I was this summer. Not quite as bad. But I’ve not talked to that “friend” about it. She’s gotten busy with her own life. 

It’s the holidays. I think pretty-much all holidays now seem to be times that you spend with your friends and loved ones and feel happy as you share the time together. But what if you don’t have any of those? You know, friends and loved ones. Then holidays are just a reminded of how shitty your life is. 

And my life is pretty shitty. 

The one thing I need to not feel this way is the thing that I can’t make happen. The people I know – the ones I might be interested in spending time with – all have their own lives, their jobs and families and circles of friends and hobbies and interests. And I’m not part of those things. I can’t make people be my friend, just like I can’t make people model for me, nor can I make people do a show I’ve written (or even show up to do a reading of a script). I can’t. And being “facebook friends” isn’t really friendship. At least, it doesn’t feel that way to me. The thing that I need is people. In all the various aspects of my life, I need people. I can write a play, but without people I can’t hear it or see it. I can take photos of myself – but that just seems to push a lot of people away, and even makes them not want to hire me for totally non-photography-related work. 

I don’t know if I can really deal with another year like this. I need to figure out something different. Something better. Just SOMETHING. 

Well, those are my rambling, slightly drunken thoughts about the past year. Comments will be accepted at this time.

Be quiet, Joel Osteen

I just saw this on the facebook this morning:

I’ve hidden people from my timeline for continuously posting Joel Osteen quotes. There are tons of them out there, and they are annoying at best. 

If you don’t know who Joel Osteen is, he’s a TV/mega-church preacher. 

Here: 

That’s him. He’s almost always got that crazy-weird smile. It’s slightly off. And sometimes it morphs into a grimace, which is much more telling.

ANYWAY... 

That quote above is not only annoying, it’s kind of harmful. It’s basically a version of “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Aw...

That idea, especially when coming from some sort of “authority figure”. Because what it is saying to the general public, like a mom telling her kid, everything is nice, everything is pretty and sweet and fine, don’t stir up trouble by pointing out the flaws in this or any situation. Stick to the status quo. Well, the status quo is pretty fucked up, and sometimes, maybe a lot of times, we need to say something not nice. 

Perhaps this “if you can’t say something nice” mindset is connected to something I’ve often complained about. That is the fear or unwillingness of people to say no. Instead of saying, “No, I’m not interested or comfortable in doing this thing you’re asking of me,” people will just lie to you. They’ll make up some excuse why they can’t. Some people are quite good at coming up with excuses that sound completely plausible. And sometimes people will even say “I’d love to, but...” or “That sounds great, but...” or “I can’t right now, but maybe...” 

I find this problematic, because I tend to tell the truth, and I tend to (or want to) assume that other people are being honest with me. I want to believe people. So when I finally figure out that someone has been lying, and I call that person on it (which I sometimes have done) the typical response is that he or she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. But the problem is that now the person HAS hurt my feelings AND damaged our relationship. This person don’t respect me enough (or have the strength of character) to be honest, and now I cannot trust him or her. I realize most people don’t think of this as lying, but it clearly is lying, regardless of the motivation. Ultimately, that is a greater harm than possibly hurting my feelings a little bit by being honest. 

I never made this connection before this morning. The connection between “if you can’t say something nice...” and making up some pleasant lie to spare my feelings. But now it seems pretty obvious. 

I prefer this quote: