Tag Archives: Self-Help

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Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall

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I don’t know what the fuck to do. Have a vision. Don’t have a vision. Plan for shit don’t plan for shit. Follow your interests. Don’t have any interests.

That’s why I’m working on these paving stones.

I swear to God that is my life right now. Paving stones.

I decided on paving stones because sometime in August, four months after I began attempting to ‘open’ the above ground pool that came with this house, my wife said, ‘for my birthday, it would be cool to have a pool party.’ So for two weeks I fully committed to getting this damn pool open which had hitherto been a struggle for reasons I don’t want to get into right now but at some point I might.

So I fully committed to getting the pool open and in two weeks I did get it open. I thought I was the shit. Then it got fucked up again and I really had to learn all about pools and shit.

But two or three weeks later I knew damn near everything about pools. Like the ten percent of things about pools that you need to know in order to make the water clear. That’s what I know.

So then I swam in the pool and it was awesome. And then I sat in a chair in the sun after the three minutes I was in the pool, since, as Mitch Hedberg pointed out, that’s exactly the amount of time you can have fun in an above ground pool. And I realized it didn’t matter that you can only have three minutes of fun. And I realized I didn’t figure shit out by realizing that, it’s just that three minutes is some amount of time and having fun is some amount of good so it turned out to be some amount of worthwhile.

And I said fuck man I’ve never been able to do shit in my life but I got this goddam pool open. How did I do that?

And I literally spent weeks thinking about that damn pool ahead of everything else.

Now it’s silly as shit. Because I got kids and a job and all of that to think about so who gives a fuck about a pool. No point in really focusing all my energy on a pool.

But then again the pool was beautiful. I had made something beautiful. Just the water. The outside of the pool looked and looks like shit.

Maybe if I focused on something similarly complex (that is to say simple as fuck), I could make that beautiful. Maybe that would be a worthwhile thing to do.

So I decided to get the weeds out of the front walk. I thought it would take five days or so. I’m still working on it 9 days later and probably have 3 to 4 days of working on it left.

And I keep forgetting that nothing matters but that goddam front walk. As long as I make progress on that shit every day I am allowed to go to sleep at night. Fuck it all. All except the pool and the front walk. And my kids. Maybe my wife. But definitely the paving stones.

Other Minds, Philosophy, Politics , , , , , , 3 Comments

Why I Didn’t Tell You About Jordan Peterson

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First of all I’ll tell you something I’ve been hiding from you for really no reason other than the fact that I hate myself, I suppose. The videos that I watched that set me on this new path of honesty were lectures by Jordan Peterson. I have been listening to hours and hours of Jordan Peterson lectures. This is kind of embarassing because it seems like I always find some new guru and buy into everything they say. Eventually I forget about them. I don’t think I’m unique in this way, but I like to think of myself as unique, and it kills me to think that everything I say comes from somewhere else.

It’s also annoying because Peterson is very of the moment right now, especially for 30 year old white males who have wasted their lives. If you read through the comments on his lectures you’ll see them. We’re like a club. Nothing makes you feel more mass produced. It’s like Carl Jung said, “People don’t have ideas, ideas have people.” Where do you think I got that quote? One of Peterson’s podcasts.

Yeah so here I am thinking I have these ideas, but I’m just a groupie. Even the ideas I had before I watched his lectures were held by what appears to be hundreds of thousands of people.

Also, there was an article about how Peterson became a kind of hero to the new right when he took a stand against what they call “social justice warriors”, and I can’t be seen endorsing some kind of right wing asshole after the stands I’ve taken here, namely that heterosexual white males are ruining the world.

So what does it mean? I don’t know. I don’t give a fuck, apparently. I’m drinking coffee on the balcony when I should be doing things and stuff like that. Not giving a fuck is easy to do.

Writing , 2 Comments

Whatever Happened to Leon Trotsky?

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What’s good? I been drinking too much again. I have not been writing too much, but what I have been writing I’ve been writing with pencils. I went to the pencil store and got some pencils. It’s summer and I’ve had a lot of visitors. I woke up this morning with that vague feeling that I’d embarrassed myself again. Achievement, success, is the goal of life! I always took issue with that statement but I’m starting to give in. Nothing else thrills as much.

I’m just going to have to go back to being vague again, and I thank you for reading, because even I don’t know what it means.

Random Bullshit , , , 8 Comments

Yo I Am Apparently Angry About Something

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Hey ya’ll. I been busy you know I don’t got the kind of time these days because I went down to the old homestead, them southern states. I went down there for my dad’s birthday. And because I didn’t go down there for thanksgiving. And I didn’t sleep really on the nights that I went there and then came back. My dad took me to the train station in his work truck and he goes to work at 2:30 in the morning and I didn’t go to sleep until like 1:30 so I am trying to recover from that shit.

Yeah and he’s not supposed to have anyone in the truck so I had to crouch down in the feet compartment for half the time. I visited my friend in DC and he said man I never thought when I was thirty I would be awkward internet dating and hearing my friend talk about cowering in the feet compartment of his dad’s truck.

Yeah I visited him in DC since I got there at like six AM and he works at a coffee shop. My bus wasn’t until 9. I got on that bitch and went to sleep, but it was not good sleep of course.

And so I been trying to catch up ever since and been falling over myself sleep drunk. I can’t even do that shit anymore, skip sleep and all of that dumb shit. I been missing days writing, but I’m just going with it. And to be honest, fuck I’m happier that way. Just fuck writing let me drag my ass to work every day and slam down a shit ton of caffeine and fucking go man. Fuck it. Sling some hash and smile and suck a dick or two and get out late at night and drift in the rain like a god damned rally car. Fuck it, just going to be back here in the morning. Think I’ll leave my coat.

But yeah I mean one good thing I’m doing is advancing in my war against Les Miserables. I started reading it in August and it has been a fucking slog, let me tell you. I mean, there are lines, whole pages, whole chapters where the insight is intense and the language is awe inspiring.

But half of that shit is him translating a map of Paris into words and I’m like damn Vic let’s get back to that part with the whorechild and the convict. At least bring little Gavroche back, shit.

Yeah but I’m about seventy percent through that shit so my new goal is finish that shit before the end of the year. Remember my old goal? Yeah fuck that goal, shit. I’ll be lucky to finish the original goal.

You know how people are like, hey man, why don’t you give yourself permission to stop in the middle of books, you know? You’ve only got one life, man, why read something that doesn’t interest you? Because someone told you to read it? That’s lame, bro. Go ahead and give that shit up, and go find something that interests you more, because the world is full of options so why would you choose the boring one?

Hey well guess what fuck that shit, dude, you know why? Because fuck man, the world is a fucking ghetto that’s why. You know what man, fuck you. With your bullshit about that, give yourself permission shit. You know, I didn’t come in this bitch looking for permission, withholding permission, a detriment to my own happiness.

Mother fucker I don’t know…just where these bitches got off the bus and started giving other people permission to do shit. God damn it, the same sacks of shit that will take permission from these fucks are the ones that should’ve been given permission to jump from the top of Angel Falls and hum an old Albert Collins lick to themselves all the way down.

But yeah man, hey, fuck it. What do I know? If people giving you permission to be yourself, or to watch bad movies, or read bad books, or not educate yourself, or masturbate all day, or whatever the fuck it is that you can’t do yourself without feeling guilty about it, if people allowing you to do that makes you feel better, well then you’re fucking lying. You’re a piece of shit like everybody the fuck else, and you have permission to suck a dick.

Hey, look man, I don’t know, Victor Hugo probably likes you. And after all, you are made of star stuff. So…you’re pretty critical to the process around here. All I’m trying to tell you man is that just because some whore hound gives you permission to suck your own dick in Times Square, well that doesn’t mean that you are A #1 Awesome mother fucker because…you aren’t. Deal with it like a fucking human being, and read Les Miserables once in a while. You FUCK.

Right? Yeah. Well anyway. Man. Shit, I’m going to jerk off now and go to sleep to The Vampire Diaries.