LJ Idol 9 - Week 17 - Scare Quotes
I ain't afraid of no ghost.
Ray Parker Jr.
He was, and likely remains, a very odd chap; I never quite got a handle on him. “Pure poison,” was my best friend's assessment, yet still he kept him around, partially to make fun of him but also because he was bullishly unshakeable. As in, he seemed to want to hang out with our group as we were becoming grown up enough to not tell him to go away, but not quite grown up enough to dare extricate ourselves from the Bad Smell. Yes, we were undergraduates, in that peculiar twilight time when we thought we ought to be adults, knew that we were not and kept fighting back effulgences of adolescent snottiness with varying degrees of success and failure.
A. did not have many friends and there were a number of reasons for this. Chief among them was the vibe that he did not particularly like anyone else, our group included. He also had a special way of pissing people off.
For example, for about a year, I had a Great Enemy. I had only really met the guy a few times and we did not seem inclined to get on, not least because back then he was very uptight and I really rather was not. Yet it was reported to me that he had said some terrible things about me, which annoyed me and cut me to the quick. I fulminated when I heard them and still the reports persisted. We were very seldom in the same place and when we were, it was all mutual dark looks and hissed carping. I decided that he was a sad bastard to talk so much about someone he didn't even know and so viciously too. Until one day... a mutual friend put it all together. The common thread was A., who had sensed tension and decided to stir the pot. To me he would report what Great Enemy had said and I would react. He would then report what I had said and Great Enemy would react, giving him more to report to me. Simple but effective and I don't know why A. did it, but it wasn't the only time he ran this game.
Great Enemy and I sheepishly apologised to one another. We ended up as good friends as we fortunately realised that we had more in common than easily excited tempers. A. wasn't precisely cast into outer darkness for his crimes, but more firmly at arm's length, like the warped and twisted soul that he was.
§ § §
Anomie.
Which brought me back into his company some years later when we were both living in London. Embarking on college life had been hard, not knowing anybody, harbouring fears that I would never have proper friends because There Was Something Wrong With Me ™, that I would never find My Tribe ©, destined forever to sink into the seas of raving social inadequacy. Post-adolescent angst, baby! It had led me to be far more patient with horrors other than A.
London was worse. It is a signally hostile place where even asking a stranger for the right time comes across as “Hey, I just met you/ And this is crazy/ But here's my number/ And I am a weirdo intent on breaking into your home and smearing poo-poo on the walls”. Busy busy, hustle and bustle and time to seek out the familiar. A. was familiar and always available and jeebus but I wanted company.
What struck older me was that A. had matured in many ways. He finally had a good job, which may have allayed some of his self esteem issues, the only charitable explanation I had for some of his past behaviour. He was good company by and large, but cracks began to show.
He was a lawyer and I had mentioned to him that I had been considering retraining.
“Oh, it's much too late for you to be making that decision now,” he said. “No firm would want someone of your age and with your career history.” Which was nice. Also typical of historic A.
Then I had a falling out with a mutual friend and noticed that he would always try to steer the conversation around to her. Calmer now, I confined myself to neutralities but he would end up saying the most dreadful things about her, which I suspected would be reported back to her as my words. I could hardly break the Cold War by repeating A.'s insults and correctly attributing them as that would just be paying the unpleasantness forward.
Happy days and I decided to withdraw quietly as no company was better than untrustworthy company. I had grown up somewhat and knew better.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
FDR.
My biggest fears are of being left alone and of failure. I am very happy in my own company but, as a selfish monkey, I like having the option to convene with the troop. For this, I need to have a troop in the first place. Through a combination of good luck and having generally relaxed, I have a nice assortment of friends here and there, including reliable ones. I can finally pretend that I do not care what people think of me and can live the happy lie until challenged.
Failure is a different matter.
Failure to me is hard to define. It is a lowering presence behind my shoulder, a black cloud which tells me that I have wasted all of my opportunities, that I am unlikeable, that through my patheticness and immaturity I never have and never will achieve anything. It is all too late, says the voice of A., the voice of God. My anxiety dreams revolve around this theme. I am alone because I have failed and failure roils off of me like stinking sweat, making others leave me alone. I am back at college and have two weeks to do all of my work before exams. I have been lazy therefore I will fail and be alone.
I am not sure what success looks like. What would satisfy me?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has helped me immensely in keeping the anxiety at bay and picking out the warped, depressive thoughts from the helpful ones. I would heartily recommend it to everybody. I received my 'training' on account of my Multiple Sclerosis after a phase when I was stuck hard in a rut of panic. I became so angry and so despondent when anything went wrong that I feared for my sanity.
Pick out the hot thought, the big fear.
“I'm going to be stuck like this forever!”
“No-one can be bothered with this and I am such a mess that I'll end up alone!”
“That's my life over.”
Look for the evidence supporting it or not. Then move on.
”That may very well be, Marj, but your immediate goal is to pick yourself back up off the ground/ start the damn project/ start scraping the abortive frapuccino off the ceiling and then we can chill and consider the rest further. Calm the frig down and take the next step. Oh, and PS: put the lid on the blender next time.”
Followed by:
“What would you think if you heard anyone else talking about someone like that?”
For as much navel-gazing as I will permit myself, I wonder where the negative voices come from, the possibly realistic ones which tell me that I am stupid and lazy and therefore deserve to fail and be alone. My fears.
I could have done with the therapy before I met someone like A., who tapped into my fears that I wasn't good enough and that I was too unseemly to not be alone. Live and learn, they say. A's problems were (are?) his own and I could learn not to tangle with his ilk while he was left playing the same games over and over. What do his unhelpful voices say?
Mine seldom shut up, but I'm on to them.
“A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.”
Spanish proverb, in Baz Luhrmann’s movie 'Strictly Ballroom'
It is high time that I stopped listening to my fears and just live.
Ray Parker Jr.
He was, and likely remains, a very odd chap; I never quite got a handle on him. “Pure poison,” was my best friend's assessment, yet still he kept him around, partially to make fun of him but also because he was bullishly unshakeable. As in, he seemed to want to hang out with our group as we were becoming grown up enough to not tell him to go away, but not quite grown up enough to dare extricate ourselves from the Bad Smell. Yes, we were undergraduates, in that peculiar twilight time when we thought we ought to be adults, knew that we were not and kept fighting back effulgences of adolescent snottiness with varying degrees of success and failure.
A. did not have many friends and there were a number of reasons for this. Chief among them was the vibe that he did not particularly like anyone else, our group included. He also had a special way of pissing people off.
For example, for about a year, I had a Great Enemy. I had only really met the guy a few times and we did not seem inclined to get on, not least because back then he was very uptight and I really rather was not. Yet it was reported to me that he had said some terrible things about me, which annoyed me and cut me to the quick. I fulminated when I heard them and still the reports persisted. We were very seldom in the same place and when we were, it was all mutual dark looks and hissed carping. I decided that he was a sad bastard to talk so much about someone he didn't even know and so viciously too. Until one day... a mutual friend put it all together. The common thread was A., who had sensed tension and decided to stir the pot. To me he would report what Great Enemy had said and I would react. He would then report what I had said and Great Enemy would react, giving him more to report to me. Simple but effective and I don't know why A. did it, but it wasn't the only time he ran this game.
Great Enemy and I sheepishly apologised to one another. We ended up as good friends as we fortunately realised that we had more in common than easily excited tempers. A. wasn't precisely cast into outer darkness for his crimes, but more firmly at arm's length, like the warped and twisted soul that he was.
§ § §
Anomie.
Which brought me back into his company some years later when we were both living in London. Embarking on college life had been hard, not knowing anybody, harbouring fears that I would never have proper friends because There Was Something Wrong With Me ™, that I would never find My Tribe ©, destined forever to sink into the seas of raving social inadequacy. Post-adolescent angst, baby! It had led me to be far more patient with horrors other than A.
London was worse. It is a signally hostile place where even asking a stranger for the right time comes across as “Hey, I just met you/ And this is crazy/ But here's my number/ And I am a weirdo intent on breaking into your home and smearing poo-poo on the walls”. Busy busy, hustle and bustle and time to seek out the familiar. A. was familiar and always available and jeebus but I wanted company.
What struck older me was that A. had matured in many ways. He finally had a good job, which may have allayed some of his self esteem issues, the only charitable explanation I had for some of his past behaviour. He was good company by and large, but cracks began to show.
He was a lawyer and I had mentioned to him that I had been considering retraining.
“Oh, it's much too late for you to be making that decision now,” he said. “No firm would want someone of your age and with your career history.” Which was nice. Also typical of historic A.
Then I had a falling out with a mutual friend and noticed that he would always try to steer the conversation around to her. Calmer now, I confined myself to neutralities but he would end up saying the most dreadful things about her, which I suspected would be reported back to her as my words. I could hardly break the Cold War by repeating A.'s insults and correctly attributing them as that would just be paying the unpleasantness forward.
Happy days and I decided to withdraw quietly as no company was better than untrustworthy company. I had grown up somewhat and knew better.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
FDR.
My biggest fears are of being left alone and of failure. I am very happy in my own company but, as a selfish monkey, I like having the option to convene with the troop. For this, I need to have a troop in the first place. Through a combination of good luck and having generally relaxed, I have a nice assortment of friends here and there, including reliable ones. I can finally pretend that I do not care what people think of me and can live the happy lie until challenged.
Failure is a different matter.
Failure to me is hard to define. It is a lowering presence behind my shoulder, a black cloud which tells me that I have wasted all of my opportunities, that I am unlikeable, that through my patheticness and immaturity I never have and never will achieve anything. It is all too late, says the voice of A., the voice of God. My anxiety dreams revolve around this theme. I am alone because I have failed and failure roils off of me like stinking sweat, making others leave me alone. I am back at college and have two weeks to do all of my work before exams. I have been lazy therefore I will fail and be alone.
I am not sure what success looks like. What would satisfy me?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy has helped me immensely in keeping the anxiety at bay and picking out the warped, depressive thoughts from the helpful ones. I would heartily recommend it to everybody. I received my 'training' on account of my Multiple Sclerosis after a phase when I was stuck hard in a rut of panic. I became so angry and so despondent when anything went wrong that I feared for my sanity.
Pick out the hot thought, the big fear.
“I'm going to be stuck like this forever!”
“No-one can be bothered with this and I am such a mess that I'll end up alone!”
“That's my life over.”
Look for the evidence supporting it or not. Then move on.
”That may very well be, Marj, but your immediate goal is to pick yourself back up off the ground/ start the damn project/ start scraping the abortive frapuccino off the ceiling and then we can chill and consider the rest further. Calm the frig down and take the next step. Oh, and PS: put the lid on the blender next time.”
Followed by:
“What would you think if you heard anyone else talking about someone like that?”
For as much navel-gazing as I will permit myself, I wonder where the negative voices come from, the possibly realistic ones which tell me that I am stupid and lazy and therefore deserve to fail and be alone. My fears.
I could have done with the therapy before I met someone like A., who tapped into my fears that I wasn't good enough and that I was too unseemly to not be alone. Live and learn, they say. A's problems were (are?) his own and I could learn not to tangle with his ilk while he was left playing the same games over and over. What do his unhelpful voices say?
Mine seldom shut up, but I'm on to them.
“A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.”
Spanish proverb, in Baz Luhrmann’s movie 'Strictly Ballroom'
It is high time that I stopped listening to my fears and just live.