Last year, one of my friends told me: “All your fears are lies.” This is something I’ve believed for a while now but I’d never really thought of it in such a stripped-down, obvious concept: Yes! Those restraints holding me back in the form of tangible fear are fortress walls that simply do not exist. Not only do they not exist to anyone else, but they don’t exist to me, either. This is one of those things I repeat to myself daily.

However, there was a second level to the principle that my self-provided lies held me captive, that I recently discovered has been an even bigger contributor to/foundation of my general mentality and motivations for a couple decades now. And I don’t know if it necessarily applies to everyone, so I can’t make a grandeur universal statement about it like the one my friend brought to me. So instead I’ll just try to explain.

For no discernable reason whatsoever, I’ve always had this inexplicable habit of subconsciously assigning everyone I meet with a level of “Importance.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re good people, it doesn’t mean that they’re intelligent people, hell, it doesn’t even mean that I like them. But, for whatever reason, in my mind, every person I come across gets placed on a scale of “Importance” and, from then on, I keep this status of them in my mind from then until forever, allowing them the appropriate level of respect or clout.

Okay, let me stop right now and explain profusely that I honestly don’t know where in hell this came from, why in the hell I do it, when exactly I started doing it, and what in the hell it all means. It could be a product of that inevitable/imperative time in adolescence when some alpha-dog bully wrangled power away from me and controlled my emotions, it could be based in some bizarre biological recognition of societal survivalism principles, or it could just mean that I’m a hypercognitive wackadoo. But, whatever the case, I’ve aaalways been one of those people who allotted a hierarchy to everyone in my immediate surroundings and adhered to these completely fabricated rulings as if everyone I knew was aware of and participating in this specific political structure as well.

[Though, to be observational for a second, I believe a lot of this exists/begins in superficial social situations like high school or Hollywood. For example, a bunch of people think So-And-So is pretty so everyone else goes along with that inherent belief even if they don't necessarily agree and she ends up winning Homecoming Queen every year or being invited to parties by people who don't even really enjoy her company, etc. (This isn't something I'm proud to say I relate to by any means, but I think it's about as close of a parallel as I can draw to what I'm talking about.)

But, outside of the aforementioned superficially-based environs, the best example of people having assigned others around them to a personal level of "Importance" to which they adhere is found in abusive relationships. Any man or woman who would abuse their partner is disgusting to begin with but there are so many times where a victim tolerates the abuse of someone who is nothing short of repulsive (in intelligence, appearance, competence, motivation, etc.) because they believe that person is "Important" or, at least, moreso than themselves. (I'm speaking in generalities here, although I have had enough friends prostrate themselves and take entirely too much abuse from hideous, uneducated, self-centered morons who would be attractive to nobody with objective taste for me to believe that this is more than a coincedence. But then, attractive, well-educated, self-aware men/women don't hate themselves enough to be abusive, so it's all cyclical, I guess... ANYWAY.)]

In hopes to find a remedy, I sat down a while ago and made a list of all the people who I’d subconsciously deemed as “Important” at any time in my life and noted how that invisible caste system had effected how I reacted to events in my relationships with them, how I thought about myself, how I made my decisions, etc. And once I’d gotten the obvious people out of the way, I started assessing every single person that I’d ever been in some personal relationship with (friends, family members, co-workers, professors, etc.) and was shocked when I realized just how screwed up my mentality had been for forever, it seemed. There were people who had the ability to make me feel unimportant or full of self-doubt who contained every single horrible trait that I loathed, and yet, they had remained on my subconscious “Important” list and I’d never stopped to think that maybe they didn’t belong there. Meanwhile, there were people who have never been anything but amazing to me and who go out of their way to love me and never say otherwise whose combined gestures of kindness couldn’t cancel out one gesture of one of the crappy people on the “Important” list in my fucked-up mindset. What the hell?!

Needless to say, I was pretty embarrassed. Especially because none of this was really news to me but, because I’d never looked at all of it objectively and admitted “I give people I don’t even like more sway on my emotions than people who actually respect me.”, I was willing to dive into drama with people I genuinely thought were gross wastes of time instead of doing anything else - including being with people who were awesome to be around… or just doing nothing by myself… again. Anything. Anything else. - just because I’d at some point deemed these people “Important”. For no valid reason. I was willing to shrug off my morals and dignity and time on people who just didn’t matter at all. And I’m not even talking about the Big false-”Important” people, but also about the more minor players of that category, like distant family members who made me feel insecure for the half hour I saw them annually or asshole former acquaintences who were mutual friends with one of my Facebook friends and would attempt to pick fights with me via “Status” commentary. The whole thing was just so stunted and backward, I felt like a naive 3rd grader who just realized that all adults don’t know everything.

So, in order to rewire my brain and reverse the current, I started over by making two new Lists. I know. I know it seems ridiculous and even more juvenile than the first subconscious “assignment system” but I figured I had to undo the procedure in an equally effective method. I literally spent a few hours going through every person I’d been in some form of contact with in the last 10-ish years and put them on a list of “Important to Me” and “Not Important to Me”. (The “to Me” part was included because I’m sure everyone is important to someone else. Just not to me. I can’t be a judge of their overall importance, you know?) I was pleased to find that the “Important to Me” list far outweighed the “Not Important to Me” list, but the few of those who were in the grey area received the benefit of the doubt and were put on the former of the lists. (Everyone’s “Important” until they prove otherwise to me. Everyone.)

I started to wonder if this categorization method, too, was unhealthy but then I realized that everyone has people who are more important to them than others. This doesn’t mean that everyone walks around and judges everyone else’s Importance (and it definitely doesn’t mean that everyone has a list sitting around of who’s “In” and who’s “Out”), just that everyone values each other differently. And I needed to work out my own personal economics for once without getting involved in everyone else’s exchange rates…

The funny thing is that when I sat and looked at the “Not Important to Me” list, I was shocked at how many of these people had not one appealing trait. Most of the people on the list sucked very very badly, but had at least one or two decent qualities to make me doubt their “Not Importance” from time to time. However, the handful of those who didn’t were just another glaring reiteration of the power of my personal agreements, especially evidenced in the way my mind automatically flipped completely over to “Yuck!” mode once I physically moved those names onto a “Not Important” list. Seriously, it was kind of bizarre. I’ve had this thing for a while that, when I find someone both annoying, intolerable and physically unappealing, I cannot make eye contact with them anymore. (I know. That is just an awful thing to say out loud. When I get to hell, I’ll get Kathy Griffin’s autograph for you.) I’ve done this my whole life, actually and it’s just something I can’t fix [or don't want to yet.] I can watch any sort of sick video you can whip out (I literally just watched a video of a girl having sex with a giant teddy bear before murdering it with a knife. Not kidding. -Thanks, Brody!) but put me in a room with someone I think thoroughly sucks and I’ll involuntarily cringe and look away the whole time. So, within a matter of a few hours, people I’d always deemed to be somehow worthy of persuasive powers and general attention became mentally unbearable once looked at objectionably. So it actually worked.

God, this whole thing reads as kind of nuts, but personally I wouldn’t have done it any other way as it’s seemed to work. And in the many months following this, I’ve made assessing the value of the people I choose to keep around me a regular practice, as I’ve chosen not to waste any more of my time on people who aren’t important to me. (Obviously, this doesn’t mean I’m not ever going to make any friends or give to charity ever again; again, I think everyone is “Important” until they prove otherwise. Isn’t that kind of a given, though?) And I am pleasantly surprised at how much better I feel in my daily life and in my relationships… although I’m still pretty embarrassed it took me this long to get to this step.

When am I going to start “getting” things when everyone else does? Why are common realizations so easy for other people but it takes me months of overzealous deliberation to understand the most basic social concepts or implement the most obvious habits? Is every Great Life Realization going to take this kind of mental defragging procedure for the rest of my life…

::shrug::

Schmeh. Better late than never.

I’ve about had it with people justifying crappy art by saying that “It’s Christian!” And frankly, if I was God, I’d be a little miffed that my advocates were out there making atrocious music and writing terrible books after all the stuff I’ve given them, but I guess he really looks at it like those crappy finger-paintings kids bring to their parents…

This is not to say that everyone who publicly sings or writes or speaks about loving God is automatically awful, by the way. Matisyahu might be one of the most revolutionary musicians to emerge in the last ten years and that guy hasn’t changed a thing about his orthodox Judaism and writes songs exclusively about that. And rocks the music scene. Most of the time when people get sober their music just goes down the crapper (Aerosmith, Coltrane) but Johnny Lang is out there rocking it and putting on a better show than ever. It’s really amazing. And although I never ever would’ve picked it up, “The Shack” was surprisingly moving and thought-provoking, (even though it bordered on brain-washy once or twice.) And I think Christopher Moore’s “Lamb…” is the best book about Jesus ever written, if not one of the best books ever written. (YOU MUST READ IT. Even if you never want to have anything to do with Jesus and think his followers suck. Seriously, it’s awesome. Not preachy, not brain-washy. Just fun. Promise.) People have been moved to do great works of art in any genre in the name of God for thousands of years so don’t think I’m railing on that at all; I strive to be God-inspired in what I do, too.

HOWEVER, if I had a dollar for every person that told me “He’s a Christian musician/writer/comedian, but he’s actually really good!” I’d literally have a couple grand in savings. And I don’t get why people don’t understand that that sort of recommendation is not only ridiculous and cliche but will only result in repelling me further.

The worst thing is how people can produce genuinely terrible work and the Bible-thumping crowd will eat it up and then judge people who don’t like it as people who must be anti-Jesus. For example, I picked up a book last weekend called “90 Minutes in Heaven” that I’d heard a lot about from a few church-goers I knew. And it. Was. AWFUL. I mean, the story might’ve been okay (I couldn’t get through the whole book) but the author had a ghostwriter and even then the book read as though written by a 13-year-old. And I say “13″ specifically because all of his points were redundant, paragraphs were repeated ad nauseum without bothering to rephrase them at all and he loooooved making those melodramatic, blunt sentences that signal truth and transition at the end of every subsection. And somehow he managed to make the story drag through redundancy even though the book was 140 pages.
Bad. Badbadbad. Even the family members I talked to who had read it admitted that they couldn’t get through it because the writing was abysmal. And yet, this book has sold millions upon millions of copies while other, actually brilliant novels have sat gathering dust on shelves. It’s bullshit.

I remember a few years ago I attended a church that did those contemporary “rock” services that were just dreadful. When I told one of my acquaintences that the music made me want to take a drill to my ears she looked at me as though I’d said, “Jesus can go screw himself.” and then made it a point to never speak to me again. Yeah, I get that this makes her a loser of epic proportions but seriously? We’re judging people on what sort of music they listen to now? I guess that goes back to the whole church mentality of “YOUMUSTAGREEWITHEVERYTHINGWESAYORYOU’REDAMNEDTOHELL!!” that so many people don’t realize is optional.

But when I worship, it shouldn’t feel like a chore. I shouldn’t be made to sing boring, soulless songs that move me in no way, (this is why I think we should all sing gospel music exclusively. And not that bland, WASPel that they advertise collections of on the Weather Channel, but real, African-American written, raucous, joyful, 20-minutes-per-song gospel.) I shouldn’t be forced to listen to crappy comedians who rely on outdated cliches and the fact that they’re syndicated through churches to keep their careers alive, I shouldn’t have to read godawful literature that’s just some talentless moron’s way of making money off blind followers. I want to be moved. I want to feel God and feel life and feel joyful for all of it. (And no, Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life” drivel didn’t even start to budge me, so don’t throw that crap in my face… again…)

I just don’t get why people think that you can’t have genuine, legitimate, innovative, fun art and still be considered divinely guided. And I’m tired of watching terrible artists find relative success just because they’ve learned how to manipulate the Bible Thumpers demographic. And I’m really reeeally tired of people feeling like they have to pray for me and worry for my soul because all but 4 contemporary Christian musicians suuuuuuck.

I like to casually keep an eye out to see what sort of people are paying attention to me. That may sound incredibly narcissistic but hear me out. I don’t do it out of the need to build myself up or float my confidence on the approval/attention of others or anything codependent or self-loathing in that vein. For me, it’s really just a great source of humor and brings me a good deal of amusement.

For example, I’ve learned that, avoid them or not, there are still some politics that function within Facebook relationships of any kind, apparently. (Gross.) A few months ago, I received a “friend request” from a guy who’s lusted after been a pathetic disciple of been friends with one of my exes for years. Intrigued, I “friended” him but never checked out his profile (he has the personality of a tub of mayonnaise; what’s to learn?) or spoke to him, etc. Noticeably, within a few weeks, he’d “unfriended.” Heh. Interesting.

(To be frank, this particular ex has had a lot of strangeness surrounding him and his Facebook interactions with me, which I find even more hilarious since we’re not “friends” and I never respond to him anymore at all. - Brody, this may sound familiar :::ah-wink!::: - However, because I legitimately don’t care and this person is a separate, extreme case from this entry’s intended thesis altogether, I’m not going to bother delving in. I will say that I am proud of myself, though, for being at a place where it doesn’t anger or bother me anymore. It’s just more vindication and amusement on my behalf. Whee! I’m petty!)

I especially love the “Spy” feature on this WordPress app I have to support this here blog, which I use from time to time to see, you know, who my readers are, where they’re coming from, what Google searches brought them here, etc. (Unfortunately, a huge fraction of my daily hits come from the one post I did about sexy posters. ::sigh:: That one may be coming down.) I don’t use this feature daily or even weekly, but I do enjoy watching my reader base grow and even seeing familiar IP addresses of old friends who only drop me a line every couple months but still take the time to read. (I hope you guys don’t mind me knowing you’re out there.)

But there are a handful of readers that bring me incredible amusement. (Don’t feel embarrassed; nobody else knows you’re here.) There are a few that I see who have gone out of their way yyeeeaars ago (like, 8-12, depending on the person) to tell me that they loathe me and hope I die a horrible, painful death who are still bothering to sniff around. There are others with whom I’ve had lesser relationship intensity that I haven’t spoken to or seen in years who also peruse my painfully self-indulgent ramblings. What’s even more amusing is the frequency of some of these obscure, random acquaintances’ visits and their apparent, intent interest in my day-to-day. While some people may find a former adolescent bully’s daily interest in their life perturbing or frightening, it really just gives me a rush of gloating amusement, especially when I consider that I genuinely don’t give a shit the other way around. (Besides, I’m never scared of Crazy anymore. Perhaps because I arrogantly suppose I can outCrazy anyone, but mostly because it’s not foreign territory to me like it is with most people.) (Oh, and thank you, again, therapy!)

Anyway, not that the notion didn’t exist before the Internet, but it’s become more evident to me as I grow older and technology improves that indeed, all people - regardless of their roles or illusion of sanity - are strange.
To put it lightly.

And funnily, this makes me feel not just “not alone”, but somewhat confident and/or proud in the idea that, even though I’m admittedly strange-bordering-on-occasional-Crazy, I’m not putting up any false fronts about it.

I have no idea how to begin change. I don’t know how to persuade people to make little sacrifices. I don’t know how to lift the veil of material-obsessive illusion from those around me and convince people that they’ll be happier paying attention to others outside themselves. I don’t know how to try to raise and maintain awareness about the desperate need for privileged peoples to share just a little of what they have with those who need it and, unlike us, do not have the opportunity to get out and get it for themselves.
This frustrates me more than anything I’ve ever encountered and has actually started stunting my ability to socialize.

I know that I could ramble sob stories to people, like the story of the woman found by Compassion International in West Africa who is feeding her children bowls of salted soup every day, or the woman in Haiti who is treating her kids to “cookies” for meals, which are simply lumps of dirt that she has molded into cookie shapes and let bake in the oppressive sun. But I know rambling about these on a soapbox just makes me a “bleeding heart liberal”, easily dismissable and somewhat laughable in my endless causes. But countless stories like these exist and, while I think the human spirit can easily be drained at the prospect of tackling every single one of these cases, I get so frustrated when people just don’t give a crap at all. There’s nobody in America who just isn’t aware of global poverty but it isn’t on the forefront of our minds and while it seems that the root of the problem is people’s assumption that it isn’t their responsibility, the real truth is that the majority of us have no concept of what real poverty actually is. We have no idea what it’s like to have nothing and have no hope of obtaining anything more than the bare minimum we need to survive. (See my tirade on this in my tiny rant about our brainwashed society of empty illusion. God, I’m so melodramatic sometimes.)

And as impassioned as I feel about it (this isn’t a recent thing, by the way. This has been growing exponentially in the last couple years) and angry I am at the general apathy around me, i get increasingly frustrated at people en masse, which isn’t helpful or healthy at all. I know there are people working to make ends meet and living paycheck-to-paycheck here. I know there are people who have had medical crises and will spend their lives paying that off. I’m not an idiot; we’re one of those families. But still, I wish I could get more people to realize that if they “sacrificed” one night of partying/drinking and gave it away to someone who needed it, we could create tremendous global change. (This goes back to the whole “I deserve to treat myself because I exist” mentality I’ve discussed.) If everyone in the middle-to-upper class “sacrificed” one pair of new [unnecessary] shoes, one new video game, one cutting-edge electronic device (that they’ll wait in line for overnight and will find completely irrelevant within two years), one ordered-in pizza, one date night at the movies and dinner, one pair of concert tickets, one month of an extended cable package, one new handbag, etc. and gave that $30-$50 to someone who needed it, the impact would be incredible. Christ, think of the result one month of that could have on the economic status of third-world countries, or even our local charities. Hell, even if those people who can’t afford to give anything went to their local blood bank every six weeks or gave their old clothes and junk to Habitat for Humanity or a women’s shelter or the Salvation Army or something in that vein, that would be a tremendous effort. And none of those are ridiculous or unrealistic scenarios, I don’t think. I don’t expect everyone to sell all their possessions and live in squalor - I don’t believe in anyone living in poverty; that’s the point. But just the idea that everyone’s putting in a little effort, you know? Even if it’s for the wrong motivations (tax deductions, etc.), it’s still a gift.

Sure, I think it’s pathetic that some people feel justified “giving” by purchasing something from a trendy mass-manufacturer that gives a measly 5% to some charity and I hate it when people only support a cause because it’s trendy (like that celebrity-based charity that gives money toward helping kids learn how to meditate… really?), but you know what? At least they’re helping, if only a tiny bit.

:::sigh::: I really could go on about this all day. In fact, I kind of did yesterday to my best friend, who listened patiently while I expounded on my frustrations and general crisis with rampant materialism and the American mentality of more=successful/worthwhile/important. She listened patiently while I exhausted myself and frantically apologized for tirelessly rambling and I know that if I were to preach like this to everysingleperson, I’d become exhausted and demoralized. I just wish there was something I could really do on a broader scale, if only to quell my raging exasperation with the materialism idolization thing we’ve got going.

And the worst part is that, if I somehow had the capability of starting some sort of charity, I know I’d have to play the game, too. I’d have to “dress like a professional” with trendy attire and impeccable cosmetic detail so that potential donors would take me seriously and not cast me aside as some dirty hippie with wild, impossible ideals. I’d have to throw expensive parties and events to lure people into my scheme and weasel my way in through the very societal expectations that I loathe in the first place. It’s exhausting to think about.

I know right now the only power I have is to do what I’m doing and stick to these sort of beliefs regardless of what other people are doing. I know that I can visualize and imagine a progressive society of giving, selfless people who feel content with themselves as humans because they pay attention and offer help to other humans. And right now, that’s about it. I know for my self-preservation I have to learn to accept and love the people who inevitably will never budge from self-servicing lifestyles, but I’m not big enough to ignore the fact that it suuuuucks.
——————————-
For the record, here are a few charities/organizations that I really believe in and give to when I can. I’m not talking about these to be a martyr or something; I just think they’re causes worth mentioning since I’m on a roll here:

Compassion International is a means through which I sponsor a teenage girl in Peru for just $30 every month. They’re Christian-based which really turned me off originally, but they’re not all about shoving Jesus lessons down everyone’s throat so much as they’re for genuinely helping people who need it and redirecting those people’s gratitude toward a Higher Power. For many people, having a God creates a life-renewing hope which is something that many abused, starving children desperately need. So I’m definitely for that.

I looooooove Ten Thousand Villages which is a retail chain that only sells fair trade stuff made from artists around the globe in order to help them afford houses, food, medicine, etc. It’s so much fun to shop there, I don’t even care that they’re a charity, really. It’s like World Market but not so corporate-y and the stuff they sell is just amazing. Their online shop is just as rad and the stuff there makes great gifts for the holidays.

Tom’s Shoes is more on the trendy side these days but who gives a crap? They’re an organization who supplies shoes to children who need it for every pair that they sell to people like us. When my sister worked in Uganda, she got to see this organization at work and was really inspired and relieved to learn that they’re legit.

Citizens Against Spousal Abuse (CASA) is a local organization that I think is just amazing. Not only do they provide women and their families a safe house to stay in, but they also give everyone who stays in the house real counseling and set them up with a place to live and a new job before releasing them back out into the world. I was a volunteer there briefly and was amazed by what I saw, although they’re one of those groups who always need help keeping a stock of toiletries and clothes for women who may have fled or those who don’t have anything to wear to a job interview. Plus, the safe house they have grows increasingly small as more abused women learn of the organization, so they’re constantly working to keep their heads afloat. I swear if I won the lottery, half of it would go to helping them out.

St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital is another one of those celebrity-driven causes but it’s one I believe in simply because I know someone who was saved through their efforts and the money donated from outsiders. Plus, I know if my child was stricken with a life-threatening illness I’d hope that people would help us out as much as they could.

After all the scandal that erupted after Sept.11, I’ve become really hesitant to give money to the Red Cross but I always give blood - even though I haaaate the process - because that’s the one thing they have no hope of embezzling (unless they’re vampires…) Plus, there are so so many people who need blood every day that I often get phone calls from the local blood banks making sure I’ve given recently because they’re in such short supply.

And then there are the little ones I give to when I can. I give bags of clothes to Goodwill and leftover household-y stuff I never use to Habitat for Humanity (although I’d love to help them build a house one day.) I performed in a benefit show for the V-Day Organization which I dream of working for one day (seriously, they’re just amazing.) And every so often I join a group and make/serve dinner at the Myrtle Beach Homeless Shelter who provides dinner to anyone who wants it, even if they’re not staying in the shelter. (There’s a woman who comes every week and gives a $10 donation just to sit and talk with the people. She’s my hero.)

I do believe in acting locally and thinking globally but I’m more likely to give to organizations who help those without hope of getting out of their situation and aren’t likely to abuse the generosity of others. Also, I usually have a real problem supporting those groups who are about “raising awareness” but not actually doing anything for anyone like the Global Awareness Project who professes that their mission is to “showcase humanitarian, environmental and cultural activities in local communities and worldwide”, which really consists of them throwing art parties showcasing local artists/arts school teenagers and creating masturbatory films involving said designer-clothing-clad teens discussing how they could potentially raise awareness about global issues… and then not doing anything at all to support that. At. All. (Seriously, if you visit their “About Us” page, it’s complete drivel that makes no sense of their “mission” whatsoever. I’ve attended some of their events so this isn’t just blind speculation. They also travelled to some Latin-American country to spend a few days making minor art projects with underprivileged schoolchildren. What a fantastic expenditure of funds.) And then there were those Live 8 Concerts which were just supposed to raise awareness about global poverty by having celebrities tell billions of fans that, oh yeah, people are starving. AND THAT WAS IT!!! Okay, I know the whole thing was amazing to concertgoers because it was free but would it have killed them to charge people $5 at the door at the 10 locations where the concerts were simultaneously held? Seriously, a supercheap concert with huge musical acts is pretty much the same as a free one and, since the artists were already playing for free, they could’ve donated it all to these people we were supposed to be made aware of. Sure, they had 10 million people sign a greatbig petition to hand to Tony Blair saying “let’s do something about poverty!” but then they backed up that supposed passion and hope for change with nothing. What an incredible wasted opportunity.

So yeah. That’s what I’ve got. I’m going to go try to meditate my anger away now.
/tirade.