the process
self-loathing“Trust the process” is the timeless adage thrown about those seeking to console the uncertain and anxious. “Trust the process”, they say, oblivious to the fact that in fact, “the process” has been under attack for decades by vultures seeking to dismember its limbs and turn its focal point or telos into a diffuse immanence. Under the banner of modernity and an unspoken cynicism, the questioning of senses and skepticism it encourages has also been turned into ideological fodder for the play of identity and endless self-experimentation. Tired points, sure, but The Process has suffered psychic damage and I’m now told I should trust it in my moment of weakness? Great archers have drawn bowstrings taut to hurl analytic arrows that bled this beast in some pointless egotistical hunt. To the victor the fleeting spoils flowed like so many sand grains that again slipped away, to everyone else, a melting world of quicksand. The meek inherited a sinking earth and we have buckets in hand, our only resort to stave off a depraved and merciless sea.
OK, so I’ve been trusting the process for a while now and I don’t know what it’s yielded. It’s entirely possible I’m being too impatient still, when I look at the exact bookends of when the relationship ended and when I began my life “proper” in the city, it’s been a little more than two months. But am I being too charitable to myself, giving myself an out to write off the six months prior as if they never happened? The same excuses abound: we moved here in the middle of autumn right around the holiday season, by which time the holidays were in full swing, after which we endured a grueling winter and resurgent pandemic, and finally, with the first glitters of spring finally shooting forth, a seasonal shift: we knew it was time to go our separate ways, the time of deepest tribulation was past, and the world was a little safer to go it alone. We had clung together like harangued rats in a the sewer, sputtering and exhausted, winding down the labyrinthine dark recesses of the world Before, and with new sun and new life on our skin and face, we knew it was time to shed the old skin and emerge anew. The skin is still raw and it hurts and the sensations are still too vibrant and powerful but we grit our teeth and march onward.
So I am a naked young baby again and there are some great things that have transpired the past two months, but some deep sadnesses and realizations too. And like a baby I cry and the present feels too real, too vivid, too exceptionally Much for my atrophied senses and little cup heart (thanks Zach for this metaphor). The realization was: my life has been a zigzag of passion and changing interests, and in some ways my life has been more unstable and dynamic than others; I’ve taken big risks, I’ve moved and uprooted my life to new cities and have switched careers, my ideological, political, social, cultural, etc. views and values have undergone significant growth, and this has all contributed to a dynamic where certain relationships have been outgrown, or that the people I met at some earlier point in my life no longer see eye to eye. Or, learning the hard truth that some of the relationships that I did cultivate were superficial and proximal and actually much more brittle than I realized. And so, when I fell, many of them shattered and scattered to dust, realizing they don’t actually care, and somehow I’ve become marginalia in someone else’s narrative. A part of it is also growing older, at 30, people don’t tend to move around and make huge life changes, those that I do know who remained close to home are on the domestic fast-track, and those that did move tended to have money or a decent network or relationships, or it came together as some sort of larger organic Plan in their existing group.
What do I expect from these people? I guess I’d like to be included and befriended, to not be disregarded or cast off from the clique, even if they’ve known each other for so long; I am tired of being alone and playing things on Hard Mode. Being a straight man does not help, and it would probably be easier if I was younger and or white or part of some ethnic group with strong ties (the Asians and Latinos seem to be great for this). With the disconnect between my ideal and the interests that I have and my lived actuality, there’s emerged the fragile and insecure knowledge that I’m rebuilding almost from scratch, that much of what I had before was far weaker and less substantial than I realized, and there is a steep penalty for straying from home. No wonder many stay so close and so seemingly unambitious — it’s incredibly painful! Somehow I missed the memo, texts remain not responded to, and my assessment was not reciprocated; a belated realization I guess, maybe a healthy one, and a reminder to cull the fat and to focus on Quality not Quantity. But I have neither right now, and this mish-mash of fleeting acquaintances like glitter flakes in a snow globe are just that, even if you can hold them in your hand and view them so closely phone lighting your face and all. Maybe the solution is to remove yourself from the equation, not in a suicidal way, to just create negative space, and Trust The Process. Maybe I should delete my social media, but then I worry it’s too extreme a gesture, and I don’t want your pity. How to rebuild at 30? Where do you find your tribe? I refuse to believe there’s something uniquely wrong with me, we are all existentially Wrong, some forgive others more easily for superficial reasons, and I don’t think I am so repellant. The underlying assumption, too, I think, is people think at 30 you have enough going on and you’ve already settled these questions and aren’t actively looking … which isn’t the case, especially in a big city where you’re a recent transplant. How do you build a crew, as a man, when you’re not lucky enough to be a talented creative, or extremely into One Niche Thing, hell, how do even those people get started? Am I failing the Referral Test? Do men just fall through the cracks? How many quietly suffering are there and why is nobody talking about it? Maybe I inherited the idiosyncrasies from my family, they didn’t really have a great social life, it was basically nonexistent, and I have no other point of comparison, and maybe there’s some level imprinting on my mental models for those relationships that’ve influenced the way I engage in general.
The key is to try and be more proactive and determined; I’ve been going to different events, even alone, and have been seeking out niche exploratory groups. I worry that my dates will find out, but I have to be optimistic, my life is a work-in-progress right now and it hurts and it sucks but this is probably the first time I’ve tried start over somewhere new. How many texts do you send, how many quiet rebuffed attempts before you give up and move on, or you reassess your approach? One, maybe two, but is that enough? You don’t want to seem desperate, and weirdly, I’m not really, even though I am existentially — I don’t crave the company of just anyone (though that would be nice too! who doesn’t like to party and idle?), I have an ideal but I don’t know if I’ve been operating in the lanes and spaces that I’m interested in to cultivate those kinds of relationships. So here I am, caught between two worlds, attempting to bridge the transition, not quite fitting in one place or the other. I don’t want to be a drifter, but maybe it’s OK to be one for a little while, the price to pay for my unstable personality, or maybe some would call “growth”.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Susumu Yokota — they have so many good album but I’ve enjoyed Symbol in particular.