Deviance and the Long Goodbye
What I learned that I want to share in Twenty-Fourteen.
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that another year is over. You had your Birthday at some point and, even if your being born is the only thing you can say about this year, let's hope you have something good to say about it. It's melody is gone now. Soon we'll be moving on to new songs at the top of the charts. Soon there will be new, eye catching headlines. Soon you will be facing an entire new set of challenges -- at least if you're lucky enough to have figured out that the good life takes work that is. So take a moment, take a look back, and see what the year held for you. Make sure you've got it firmly in the rear view, or I fear a lot of that which follows, might make very little sense at all.
Nostalgia's got a real dastardly way about it. It has this beautiful way of being an endless fountain of hope and can be the infinite source of strength for us as humans. It's a means by which we can comfortably benchmark the moments in life that we enjoy the most. Life, after all, really is about being enjoyed. It's only natural for us to look back at the moments that helped define it. I'd go one better to say it's a damn good idea. Keeping your eye on the prize is important, but you've got to remember the trick: What you're going for? It's not the experience, it's the feeling. That feeling's what you're looking for and that feeling has an obnoxiously high level in skill when it comes to hiding how much of a bear trap it can be.
Keeping one's thoughts and feelings -- and God help you if you do it to your heart -- stuck in that place is never going to be a benefit to anyone. Time passes, the world keeps turning, and we change. Through the wind and the rain of the cold, dark, nights, to the warm spring meadows, and snow crunching under the tires, we all change. Things happen to us, memories are born, bad things happen, sometimes we even get scars -- and those are much easier to get when you're not looking where you're going. The only way one goes through a year of life without change is if one is willful and resolute in their own indignation and refuses to allow or accept the slightest change to their path or structure.
I will say it once, but I will say it as clearly to you, the reader, as I can: Avoid these people like the proverbial fucking plague. This isn't spoken out of any kind of toxicity toward the type we all know, this is a general warning. People who would rather dig their heels in than feel the shift of the rock we're all on? That's a dangerous level of self delusion. Nobody's got that kind of power and, if someone claims they do? You back away from that crazy fuck in a hurry. No one should be trusted to be that drunk on their own ego, and we all know what happens to the right hand of the power hungry, mad, King. This is not a place you should ever want to find yourself and, should you ever, make a hasty exit.
To do that, however, there's a thing that's got to be done. It's not an easy one for a lot of people, myself included. but it's the bottom line of the issue. We've really got to stop being afraid of saying Goodbye. It's an issue we allow ourselves to wrestle with too often, and in ways that are just plain bad for us. It's what our hurdle with death ultimately becomes, it's what keeps us in abusive and unhealthy relationships. It's what makes us stay in shitty towns we hate, working jobs we hate. It's what makes 'unfriending' -- which stands as the great sign of all relationships in our era -- such a gigantic slap in the face.
This lack of decisive goodbye, which is really the immediate deviation from some part of our current path, is all about the choice to let the moment draw out in awkward absurdity rather than to be direct. There's a laundry list of excuses, justifications, rationalizations, and perfectly good reasons why we do it. Sometimes it's down to a question of our own worth and confidence. Sometimes it's where we're comfortable, and we talk ourselves out of it. Sometimes we've grown an anchor and we just can't bring ourselves to cut the mooring lines. Whatever the reason, when you find yourself there, -- and you will -- it's very important to be realistic.
You're stuck. You've got to accept that, for the moment and in the situation, you're judgement is completely flawed. You're be better off trying to make life decisions stone drunk on good scotch, while you're stranded out in the middle of the desert. How you got there? Well, that's easy. You got there by your own action or lack thereof. That's how we all end up where we are and we're the only means to our egress . So, if we're in a situation where we wish we weren't anymore, but we can't bring ourselves to make an exit on our own? See the earlier statement. Stuck. Fucked. Flawed.
And that entire feeling is absolute shit.
You are never, really, stuck anywhere. Maybe you don't want to give up the things you would have to, but that's your decision. It's your choice to weigh the scales and make your moves. If you don't like the way a situation is sizing up, then be honest about that. All you're doing is drawing out the death of a moment because saying goodbye to him, her, it, them, has become too awkward. Self improvement through change is a social trait that has now been relegated only to people willing to fuck others over and this idea, that somehow we're not worth wanting and getting a better life for ourselves has absolutely got to stop.
Goodbye has a painful hitch to it, but why? What's so bad about time passing, about experiences and being changed by them? What's so wrong with wanting different things out of life, about wanting that immediate deviance from the road we're on? What does it matter if we want new scenery, deeper cups, and or even the more simplistic, more comfort? These are things we all should want, should we find our current to be less than we're willing to accept -- and they're exactly the kind of things that make Goodbye seem like such an act of ill will to so many.
And, much like the feeling of being trapped, that is aboslute garbage.
Goodbye absolutely can be an act of ill will. Selfish indignation, judgements, condemnation, these are all examples. Again, this is where that being realistic is going to come in. Is it really what's happened? Think about the last time someone told you goodbye. Was it in the heat of an argument? Was it after some major transgression? Do you even remember what happened, or is that you just don't talk anymore? Finally, and most importantly, what was your role in that situation? Or maybe, just maybe, you're one of the lucky ones that had it come at the end of an adult conversation. If you are? Stand up and take a bow. Congratulations on your ability to human.
More likely than not, I'd wager. The Goodbye came as some awkward drifting. There were periods of lament, where conversation never really happened and time spent only led to after hours complaining to anyone who would listen. It's this, common place, acceptable, behavior that makes Goodbye seem like such a bad thing. It's the way we go about it, trying to be overly polite and spare feelings. It's stepping on someone else to put yourself up in a new set of eyes. It's a vicious, rat bastard, move -- and it works. It works because it's simple, because it's indirectly confrontational. It's getting to take the high road, or so you like to tell yourself anyway.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having life change you in a way that draws you away from someone, someplace, or something. Maybe you've decided to take up hobbies to better yourself, or give up a part of your lifestyle because you just don't like it anymore. That's a perfectly good reason to say Goodbye to something and, if you're really interested in taking the high road, you should be honest about it. What's the worst that's going to happen? You're moving on to a new situation, which is more in line with the life you want for yourself, or the situation will adapt to work with you.
Word to the wise, infuriating as they are? If you're not honest, you're really never going to get the latter.
The truth of the matter is that, by drawing out this act for whatever reason, you are doing a disservice to whatever might have been there. Whatever existed once, the thing to give you something to feel bad about saying Goodbye to, allowing for the awkward, slow death, goodbye, is...well, it probably says a lot more about you than you'd want.
If it's a job, are you really going to work all that hard at it anymore? If it's a place, is it really going to be anything you'll be able to enjoy if you don't want to be there? If it's a person, or people? Are you really going to be able to honestly be there for those people, or do you thing you'll always just find yourself drifting off whenever they start to talk? If it was a thing, are you going to be able to treat like you feel it deserves? Even drugs and alcohol, which generally hold positions of some reverence if they get in deep, can be treated this way. Can you respect it and have it in your life? If the answer is ever no, then think about what you might be doing to the person/place/thing/self by allowing the presence to remain.
Once more, it's important to be realistic about this process. Look around you. Have you changed? What's different? What are you not getting out of your current existence? What's missing? Do you have to change in order to get it? Is this something you really want, or is it the late night paranoia of a winding clock? You've got to look at yourself and make good and damn sure you're happy with the answer. It's part of that whole, being honest with yourself, thing. You're going to have to reap what you sow, and that should never detour you from doing what you need to do for yourself.
Life is capable of infinite deviance. With it's long and winding highways offering late night rest stops, in parts of the world you'd never even think to visit. With wet tires and the pedestrian clutter of our everyday, it's impossible not to step into something that will change you. If and when, because it is a when, this leads to a crossroads? Don't be afraid of Goodbye. Tell the truth to yourself about why, and tell the object that you're saying goodbye. Enjoy the fact that time has passed and you have changed, live the dream, understand you're worth it. Now is never the moment to let yourself get anchored to a thing that is outside your scope of want. That's an act that belongs in yesterday, but never, ever, in tomorrow.
Be done with the Long Goodbye. Be a better friend than that to yourself. You deserve the life you want.You're going to have to work for it, but you're worth the effort. Life's too short to do anything else. Time will pass and everything will change. It's okay to want to change along with it. It's okay to deviate away the norms of your time, it's okay to want what you want -- with the footnote of 'so long as it doesn't hurt anyone' only applying to matters of stopping someone else.
Life the life that you want and believe is right, and let everyone else do the same. Chase the end of your highway until you want to change your route. Be forthcoming and forthright with your actions and intentions. Be clear in your thoughts. Be open with your feelings. Be honest with yourself and then apply this to everything else in your life. Put the phone down and talk, make sure you're being heard -- and make sure you're listening. Put it all in perspective, sit down with it, get comfortable, and really look.
If you find a circumstance has shifted outside of that? Examine it and leave it behind. Don't drag it out. Be careful of greener grass and excuses to flee, for sure, but don't be the kind of person to drag a memory through the filth of an unclean death either. That kind of ending is the extra, rusted, tooth on that bear trap of nostalgia. It'll taint every memory of the time you have because it ended on such a jagged note -- and there are few things worse than a past littered with the sharp parts of broken songs.
Once more, it's important to be realistic about this process. Look around you. Have you changed? What's different? What are you not getting out of your current existence? What's missing? Do you have to change in order to get it? Is this something you really want, or is it the late night paranoia of a winding clock? You've got to look at yourself and make good and damn sure you're happy with the answer. It's part of that whole, being honest with yourself, thing. You're going to have to reap what you sow, and that should never detour you from doing what you need to do for yourself.
Life is capable of infinite deviance. With it's long and winding highways offering late night rest stops, in parts of the world you'd never even think to visit. With wet tires and the pedestrian clutter of our everyday, it's impossible not to step into something that will change you. If and when, because it is a when, this leads to a crossroads? Don't be afraid of Goodbye. Tell the truth to yourself about why, and tell the object that you're saying goodbye. Enjoy the fact that time has passed and you have changed, live the dream, understand you're worth it. Now is never the moment to let yourself get anchored to a thing that is outside your scope of want. That's an act that belongs in yesterday, but never, ever, in tomorrow.
Be done with the Long Goodbye. Be a better friend than that to yourself. You deserve the life you want.You're going to have to work for it, but you're worth the effort. Life's too short to do anything else. Time will pass and everything will change. It's okay to want to change along with it. It's okay to deviate away the norms of your time, it's okay to want what you want -- with the footnote of 'so long as it doesn't hurt anyone' only applying to matters of stopping someone else.
Life the life that you want and believe is right, and let everyone else do the same. Chase the end of your highway until you want to change your route. Be forthcoming and forthright with your actions and intentions. Be clear in your thoughts. Be open with your feelings. Be honest with yourself and then apply this to everything else in your life. Put the phone down and talk, make sure you're being heard -- and make sure you're listening. Put it all in perspective, sit down with it, get comfortable, and really look.
If you find a circumstance has shifted outside of that? Examine it and leave it behind. Don't drag it out. Be careful of greener grass and excuses to flee, for sure, but don't be the kind of person to drag a memory through the filth of an unclean death either. That kind of ending is the extra, rusted, tooth on that bear trap of nostalgia. It'll taint every memory of the time you have because it ended on such a jagged note -- and there are few things worse than a past littered with the sharp parts of broken songs.
