Futility, People.
I’m generally exhausted. I don’t know if I need a vacation or to fade away. I know fading away is inevitable but I could accelerate it.
As much as I like doing what I do (i.e. the podcast and standup) I’m tired. I don’t know if I’m doing it because I love it or because it’s just what I do. I feel like I’ve written this same paragraph before.
I’m trying to make decisions about what I want to do and who I want to be as an old man. Definitive choices. What do I want as a life and an environment? What do I even really like to do? It’s strange how the brain, at least my brain, doesn’t know the difference between practicality and desire and ridiculous fantasy.
This is something that becomes very apparent if you smoke weed and get out and have hindsight. I haven’t done drugs in decades but there was a feature of me being high that involved visualizing and not doing. In the moment the vision makes perfect sense and it feels like something you are planning on doing and you can even play out doing it and living in the visualization. You can have that fantasy your entire life.
Visualizing with intent of action is different. I plant the vision and if it’s really something I want there’s a good chance it will manifest eventually. No fanfare or panic or overwrought attempts and efforts. I don’t always know what I want or need, or where wants and needs come from. The ones that make sense and jive with who I really am stick even if they are in the background.
I had a fantasy that if I lived in NYC I would be a different person than the person I actually am. I saw that guy doing all the things that I would do if I lived there. Then I realized I have NEVER been that guy. Why would that change? I had to let go of the fantasy.
I don’t have time for fantasies that ruin my brain into believing they are possibilities. I need a self-induced ego contraction. The humbling is coming for all of us. I should get a jump on it.
What do I really like doing:
Cooking stuff
Playing guitar
A really good conversation
New bits
Running errands
Listening to music
Organizing shit
Doing random tasks around my house
Napping
Sex
Eating
That’s about it. I guess that’s a lot. It seems I could trim that list down a bit and have a pretty good life. It seems I could let go of a couple of the things that have defined my life for decades because I may be done with them and have a pretty good life for myself without much. I keep my joy manageable.
We’ll see.
Today I talk to Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong about guitars and rock. Thursday I talk to Ed Begley Jr. again and Jonah Ray Rodrigues again. Separately. Good talks all around.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
