My innate nature (are those words of a common ancestor?) is that of an tactical saboteur, deliberately and methodically assassinating my emotional well-being. It's fun to destroy.
Remember those Spy vs. Spy commercials for Mountain Dew? I looked those up and apparently they're adapted from Mad magazine and have been around since the 60s, the cultural recycling went entirely over my head. Anyway, the two Spies practically mirror each other, operating out of the same playbook of espionage. It's sugary-drink motivated sparring between masters; since they know each other so well, it's impossible for one to pull too far ahead.
That's how I feel about myself emotionally. When good shit happens, I somehow have to level it out. I can't appreciate highs without a morose counter-stroke. I have access to my manual, my innards. I know where to hit so it hurts. Isn't that some sort of sickening irony, that no one can hurt you more than yourself?
I don't damage myself like a bulldozer or wrecking ball. It's a pinpoint strike, like one of those ultra-secret martial arts moves long-rumored to exist where they hit a pressure point and the assailed loses consciousness immediately. It's terrifying that I'm a self-aware terrorist, a suicide bomber of the mind. I catch myself erring and I do it anyway. Is it like Dave Howells said, are we destined to be depressed? Doomed to be down? Is the human condition perpetual gloom?
Against my better judgement, I delight in ruining things. I'll even catch myself doing it, be cognizant about the inevitably and unflinchingly negative outcome, and go ahead anyway. As I walk away from the fire, flanked by a trail of smoke, I shake my head and wonder what else I could have expected. It went exactly as I expected. And I still did it.
I love stealing shit. I'm a financially stable suburbanite with literally no reason to need to take things. I don't take from other people, just corporate stores(ed's note: on second read, is this me trying to justify what is clearly illegal and probably reprehensible? How self-centered do I have to be to try to make stealing OK? I'm not fucking Robin Hood here). My recent kick has been from the Grab N' Go on campus; I'll shove cookies into my jacket, maybe a bit too conspicuously, even though I already got a sandwich and chips and a salad or chicken and an orange and a drink. I don't need cookies, but I want that tiny little rush. One day, I'll be caught. Maybe I'm trying to be. (Maybe this paragraph doesn't fit at all? Maybe I want to confess. Maybe I could work this in if I could figure out how to arrange it?)
Maybe it's my immaturity, maybe this is why I can't have nice things.
I''m trying to destroy. I want to destroy. And, unfortunately, I probably will end up ruining anything that goes my way.
I'm sorry.
You speak for us all with this one Matt. Except the stealing thing, that's only with some of us, including me. One time when I was in 10th grade I think, I was at a Speedway and I just took a Rice Krispies Treat. I don't even eat those often; I wasn't craving one. I just wanted to shoplift. My friend saw me do it and she guided my hand back to the shelf and I returned it. Not that I am the one without sin, but I find satisfaction in robbing douchebags, and so do my friends. I stole a baseball bat from an asshole in my grade after prom, and my friends stole a sword from another douchebag at a birthday party they were at. Yes, those are the kinds of parties we go to: the ones with pirates and swords.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tristan. I know that exact feeling of knowing you're messing something up in your life and you do it anyway. I relate well to this post. I think part of it is the human condition but maybe it's just something we all go through and get over? Though I do believe my parents and other adults are that way still, sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI do understand your urge to steal. I've stolen little things once or twice myself. Mostly because I did it on accident with a tank top-- left it under my clothes and forgot and realized later. It occurred to me that if I could do it accidentally then why not try? Though I felt guilty those one or two times. Anyway, I digress. I do understand that paragraph but I also don't see how it fits in with the rest. I feel it's kind of thrown in randomly at the end of a self-reflective piece-- but maybe that's you sabotaging yourself as you have explained?
Haha so harsh! My writing as self-sabotage is such an impressively deep and cutting insult. I can't figure out how to phrase this to sound like I'm not butthurt, but that was honestly an incredible retort and I can't stop laughing at how mean that could be construed as and clever it is. I'm laughing out loud (but it's the hurt laughter when you've been bested at the expense of a joke and you have to play along!)
DeleteWhy I thought it fit is because it's a stupid behavior that could, one day, ruin me (that sounds a bit melodramatic but it's illegal and would come with consequences). And yet, I don't stop. I know it's so dumb, but I do it anyway.
But I like your interpretation that I threw in a retarded and ill-fitting paragraph to wreck everything I had accomplished way better! I'm going with that from now on!