I'm an anxious person. I always have been. It's just wired in.
A few years ago, I started singing karaoke. As soon as I'd put my name on the list to sing, my hands and feet would go numb. I'd be consumed with anticipatory anxiety, until finally my name was called, and my shaky legs would carry me up to the stage to sing. Around the third or fourth time I did this, I began to realize something: Nobody was watching me.
As I belted out my carefully-selected tune, people chatted in groups, ordered drinks at the bar, most of them with their backs turned away as they huddled together to hear each other over the noise. Occasionally I'd hear a loud Wooooo! Beckaaaayyyy! from my table of friends, but that's it. Nobody cared.
That revelation was freedom.
What a silly, narcissistic waste of time, this anxiety.
Applied to my fear of flying, my karaoke lesson translates as: You think that because you feel as if the plane is going to crash, that it will crash. Out of the tens of thousands of flights every day, you feel as if somehow you have the power to intuit a plane crash, and that it will be your plane that goes down, because you're on it?Really, who the fuck do you think you are? The forces that be/fate/God doesn't care which flight you're on. Nobody cares.
Applied to social situations: There may be people at this party with sick relatives, with cheating boyfriends, with herpes or diabetes or bipolar disorder, people with problems and worries that they'll never talk about, but which occupy their whole mind at this very moment. Don't think for a second they care why you're standing alone in the corner, or why your mouth twitches when you introduce yourself. Half the people here probably wonder if their own awkwardness shows. Does it? Oh that's right, you wouldn't know, because you're too busy thinking about your own awkwardness. See how that works?
The first time I posted something crude here (a timid blow-job analogy), I hit publish and hid under the covers and waited. And nobody cared. It was just like holding my hand up against the karaoke stagelights and peering out into the darkness to find that half the room had gone out for a smoke. Nobody. Fucking. Cared.
Freedom.
I revel in the fact that people read this blog, react or don't react, laugh or yawn or glaze over with boredom, and then go on with their lives. But I wonder if everyone's as satisfied with that fact.
I think, in blogging, this is where negativity directed at other writers comes into play. That's where you can really grab people, in the sense that they agree or commiserate with you and become part of your team (Yay Us!), or in the sense that they're hurt or angered by you and carry that weight around for the rest of their day. It's powerful, because people begin to listen, and to care. But it's also really very easy.
It's a challenge, writing things that will make people laugh, without laughing directly at anyone specific in a hurtful way. I try to direct most (most = sorry Nana!) of my snark and ridicule toward myself. I don't care if you laugh at me, because that's my intention, and I'm laughing too. I could make fun of other people or groups of people, but that would be hurtful, and I'm sure all of you have enough asshole and negativity in your real lives without having to deal with that. I certainly do. Blogging is an escape. Blogging should not be an anonymous, brazenly hateful version of what you get in your real lives. That's my opinion.
I named this blog "Steam Me Up, Kid" because that's what my dad used to say to me when he wanted me to tell him something that would piss him off, get his blood boiling. He loved getting angry, because it made him feel alive. (It's because of him that I'm really good at fanning the flame of anger, and I understand all too well how it can bring people together.) I thought, back in 2006 when I opened this account and then promptly forgot my password and didn't return for a year or two, that this would be a good place to vent. I tried, but it didn't make me feel better, because it was just negativity, hurled blindly into an abyss. Who was reading? What was the point? Did it add anything to anybody's lives, even in the very smallest way? It didn't, I know it didn't.
I know the power of negativity. Negativity, criticism, sarcasm and ridicule foster a sense of comraderie, but only in the sense that readers huddle together in a relieved "Thank God that's not us he's talking about" kind of way. Is that really comraderie? Is that community? It doesn't seem genuine to me. It feels good, when you're pissed off or annoyed, to recruit others. Anger loves company, and recruiting others into your mission of putting others down or pointing out their deficiencies makes you feel better than your target. (The teacher in me is showing.) But how many people do we need to recruit, to stand by us as we point and mock and make fun and chide, before it starts to feel better? 10? A million?
Is it so scary to be alone in our negativity? Does it mean we're wrong? Are we not as superior as we think we are until we've formed a group to validate us?
Me toos feel good. I know they do. They make us feel less alone and more sure of ourselves. But why do we need that so badly?
I have anger, but I try very hard to remember this isn't usually the forum in which to express that, however easy and tempting it may be. I have real-life people, friends and family, to help me work through it. For the times I've given in to that temptation, I'm sorry.
I have anxiety problems, which is why I go through periods of infrequent posting. Anxiety is a killer of creativity and humor. I'm telling you this because it's something I feel badly about.
I'm oversensitive. I hate the idea of hurting another person, because I know how bad it feels, and the idea that I could inflict that on someone else via this blog makes my heart ache. I hope I never have, but I suppose it's inevitable.
Some of you challenge and inspire me, which I enjoy, but clearly that's not my purpose. Lately, I've been posting personal or embarrassing things, because I think that once you make those things public, and laugh at them, and laugh at yourself, and allow others to laugh at you, what's left? Just you, only a little lighter.
My goal here, in reading and writing, is to laugh. In finding my way to this goal, I'm sometimes crude and gross, and my writing often comes across as childish and immature, and I've yet to establish my own boundaries for personal privacy, although I'm working on that last one.
But I want to say this: I'm crude and gross because I want it to be okay to be crude and gross. My tone is often simple and immature because I'm tired of pretentious intellectuals; I grew up with them, I'm surrounded by them, and I'm embarrassed for them. And I'm still testing my personal boundaries because I want to not care so much. I want it not to matter so much anymore.
Comments closed today. No me toos. I'm good.
Love,
Becky
PS: I pooped a rip in my asshole this morning. It hurts. Just thought you should know.
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