Photosynthesis

“Oh maturity's a wrapped up package deal so it seems
And ditching teenage fantasy means ditching all your dreams
All your friends and peers and family solemnly tell you you will
Have to grow up be an adult yeah be bored and unfulfilled
Oh when no ones yet explained to me exactly what's so great
About slaving 50 years away on something that you hate
Look I'm meekly shuffling down the path of mediocrity
Well if that's your road then take it but it's not the road for me”

I’ve been stuck on Frank Turner the last few days. I just keep shuffle playing the shit out of him on Spotify and the kid is just brilliant. His body of work is amazing. He’s me, but talented. In that I mean, he writes with seemingly one goal in mind...the mainstream is for suckers. He pisses in it and goes his own way. Me too.

I could still be married. Yikes. I could still be going to church. Or working that soul-crushing desk job. But, mother fucker, I’m so much more comfortable being me. This is my space. This is where life makes sense. I write my way through stuff. I conversate with other people who also aren’t satisfied with what the world has to offer.

I had the coolest lunch yesterday with an old buddy. He has a story to tell. He’s a great listener. And that time was the perfect example of why I started moving upstream. Yeah, it’s way fucking harder in some senses. Not as many people go that way, so at times the meaningful conversations are few and far between. But, when you happen upon fellow upstreamers and get those moments where you know you’re where you’re supposed to be, it’s pretty great.

And what a fucking contrast between that time, where I could talk about the real with someone who thinks like I do and the time i spent last night at my daughter’s back to school night where seemingly everyone had just come from their job as CEO of such and such. Listening to the shitty small talk and meaningless conversation gave me the same claustrophobia I used to get at church.

Fancy aren’t my people. Plastic. Outwardly religious. Any of those things. At lunch my buddy and I talked about how there’s a tendency in the church, to live on the surface. Fuck that. Where shit gets good is when we’re honest about how fucked up we are.

Listening to people talk about tearing down houses to rebuild bigger ones and living on the right street all I could think was “does that really pass for real life?” Like is that it for them? Material shit. Dick wagging. Getting promotions. Measuring themselves by how they compare to other people. I just can’t get behind that.

And I can’t say it’s not possible that part of that could be that I’m not building houses and banking millions. Maybe I feel inferior to fancy lads. But, at the same time, I feel sorry for them. Deep down, it’s being known that matters. God, I crave that shit. And to that end, I’ll bang the fuck away at this keyboard to stir up conversation with my fellow less thans.

Like Frank Turner. I love his…"if that's your road then take it, but it's not the road for me". That’s the whole point of the blog. To get my shit out. To scream that I’m unsatisfied with all the things the world told me I was supposed to do. i'm on a road that is a mess, but it's my fucking choice. and it's so god damn beautiful so much of the time.

Fuck settling. Fuck staying comfortable. I want to live man. I’m not a slave to a job. I don’t give a shit anymore about trying to “look Christian”. And it’s great, because I get to be the real me. I don’t have to be the guy my wife wanted me to be. I get to be the actual me.

And I’ve had the coolest conversations this week with a human girl. And I’ve come to realize that since I was a kid, I’ve lacked confidence. I felt rejected from an early age by the shit that happened with my grandma and dad. And when it came to liking girls, I sat on the sidelines. Why the fuck would I put myself out there? I’m rejectable according to my own family. Surely, I’d be unable to take it if I tried and failed at 5^th grade love.

And then I talked to the object of my 5^th grade affection years later only to find out that she went around with my best friend, but was interested in me. Mind fuck, right? Damaged kids gets can’t accurately gauge their own worth.

And I think that’s it right there. It’s when I’m around other damaged kids and we drop the act and the “my house is bigger than your house” horse shit, there’s healing there. We do have worth. The world just hasn't invented a unit of measurement for the thing that's most important...the real.

There’s no word or measuring cup for what it feels like when you have a soul to soul chat. There’s no way to sum up what it feels like when an uber driver listens to your heartbreak and tells you the story of his attempted suicide. There’s no rational way to explain when coincidence overwhelms and two people are left shaking their head at each other at how great it is that they met.

I’ve lacked the patience to wait for moments like that with women. I think, in large part, because I still live my life feeling like rejectable matt. I’ve dated some really young women. even my ex-wife. She used to be young. The common denominator with all of the girls I’ve been with was that I was scared as fuck to go upstream in the dating world. I went with the flow. I went with people I knew would not reject me.

And I have to throw that into the same fuck that shit category as organized religion and as frank said “slaving 50 years away at something that you hate.” Going through the motions in a relationship? When I don’t do that in any other phase of my life, why would I be a settler in that category?

And I realize now that when I settle and the relationship ends up being mostly give without much take, then my creativity goes away. I get sucked into the relationship issues and her issues and her decisions and end up mind fucked by the realization that I’m getting rejected by my sure thing.

But, those relationships never should have started in the first place. I’m so fucking one of a kind. And most of the time I don’t see that. I’m a beautiful mess. And sometimes just can’t get out of my own way enough to realize how much I deserve.

The feeling I get out here when I write. I’ve got to keep chasing that. The feeling I got at lunch yesterday. I’ll keep putting myself in spots where story time will find me. And knowing I’m chatting with a girl who, if anything, is too good for me. That feels fucking great. Reject me or accept me. I'll take the risk. At least I’m fucking trying this time instead of acting like my dad was right when he left me alone. I deserve to be happy. And i'll never be unless i'm willing to put myself out there.

That frank song that I quoted above is called “Photosynthesis”. And I guess that’s the point of all of this. Plants use the sunlight and process it into energy. Maybe. That’s what Wikipedia thinks. frank's relating it to the mainstreamers who just sit there and do nothing with their life.

But, I see it differently...the point of this whole blog is the hollow nature of what people settle for in this life...meekly shuffling down the path of mediocrity. boring jobs, lemming-like religious puppetry, marriages where you can’t be yourself…that shit sucks the life out of you. Conversations where one soul connects with another soul about the real…that’s the sunlight that becomes my fuel. And that's what I'm going to keep chasing. I'll just photosynthesize.