Jewish New Year
Need to write something. Fucking anything. Been too long. I think ego kept me from writing for a while. The fact that I'm not getting any better is what made me come back. And yes, that certainly applies to getting better at writing, but what I primarily mean is getting better as a person. I thought that I had to sort some shit out and learn a certain number of hard life lessons before I could earn the right to write. But I haven't learned shit. Not really. And I'm not sure I ever will. So I've stopped waiting to suss everything out and started writing some things down here.
Maybe I thought the transformation after marriage and after having a kid would be more radical, but deep down in my core I still feel like I'm the same miserable cunt I've always been. Maybe just a bit more tired. Is that what happens in life? Everyone gets hammered down a bit by the end of the ride. I don't feel like a dad, whatever that means. I feel like a prick in a dad costume.
I'm thirty-six, which perhaps is young but in other ways feels old as shit. I both can't believe I've lived this long and am grateful for that fact but also puzzled as to how much longer I can keep living like this. When you're mentally ill or simply sick - the umbrella term I'll use for what it is that's wrong with me - the days can feel laborious.
I've always felt despair, and I almost thought I'd feel a sense of relief once the external circumstances of my life were more aligned with my inner feelings of dread - that it would be a sort of relief to have something real to worry about - but the reality is different. The reality is that the fear has doubled. The stakes feel larger, and I feel inadequate to them. The stakes of adulthood and marriage and fatherhood can feel overwhelming, sure, but also the stakes of the world. Like what the fuck are we actually doing? The world is fucking falling apart why is there not mass panic in the streets? Why are people not prepping for the apocalypse, for the streets to run with blood? Why do we not talk about this more? Who can just keep going to work during a time like this?
Anyway I also feel like a loser because I'm a stay-at-home dad. There, I said it. I feel nutless. A castrato. Confined to the Sisyphean fate of forever housework. The tedium of the domestic world. I am Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels. I feel like a twat pushing a stroller around the Financial District at fucking 11 a.m. on a weekday. I went from undergrad to teaching English overseas to an MFA program to various university teaching jobs for a few years to now stay-at-home dad. Is that such a bad path? But if it's not, why do I constantly feel like the biggest fucking boob in the world? Is all confidence fake? It must be mostly fake because fucking how else.
I spend my days taking care of my son, gooning, getting high, reading, working out, cleaning the house, finding reasons not to write, and picking pointless fights with my wife because I'm sick in the head.
It's like a part of me wants to be this better person but this other part of me is a huge miserable piece of shit and he/I also like it that way. Being a better person feels fundamentally better, more wholesome, but it's also hard work. It's a constant grind. Being a piece of shit, on the other hand, feels good and is easy.
Maybe I wouldn't be making this argument for immorality or at least a certain level of inconsideration if it weren't for the current climate of our world. All of the worst fucking people are winning, so what incentive do the rest of us have to keep coloring inside the lines, especially when these aforesaid worst people are actively and vigorously fucking shit up for the rest of us. At the civilian level you can see the breakdown of morals. Something like driving becomes a barometer for the zeitgeist. People seem like they don't give a fuck about anyone else when they're driving because they don't give a fuck about anyone else.
Jokes aside: sure, don't be an absolute tosser, but sometimes I truthfully don't know where to land re: ethics given that with my tendency towards scrupulosity, if I follow my ethical gut I usually end up doing some shit - like tell the truth - that's self-injurious to my objective these days, and perhaps always. Always tell the truth. What puerile advice. What nonsense. What a way to ensure one does not advance in this world. Everyone who is winning is lying. Everyone who is winning has lied to get there and is lying to maintain their position. So what fucking pristine code of ethics? Now that the fascists are back in power it's all gone topsy-turvy. Being a cunt is cool again. I would say so much for Kant's categorial imperative but I haven't reached that part of the book yet. Yes, that's my way of bragging about reading Kant.
I thought I'd be different at thirty-six if I made it this far. I didn't think I'd still be such a twat.