Downgrade

So, like, it's the first day of Spring, or something, and I don't feel excited at all. I love the summer, but last year's was pretty crappy for a variety of reasons, and for once I feel like I'd rather it just stay cold and dark and I continue to lose myself in the bits and bytes of computer culture for another 12 months or so. My self-confidence seems to be taking a dip again after a notable years-long high, on account of being chipped away by gradual but relentless attacks on my rugged individuality. I feel almost like retreating back into the dark of my nocturnal period, shutting out the outside world altogether, to take some respite from the constant struggle to be one's self and not give in to all the conforming pressure to be a miserable piece of identical shit like everybody else.

I read in the Kinsey studies a couple years ago a lot of interesting things (most of them about human sexual behavior - but that's not what this post is about), and one of those was - related to differing attitudes between the social classes - how rare it is for people to actually move between social classes in America. Despite that being the American dream and all. The ideal, of course, is to move above your level - rags to riches, the Pursuit of Happyness and all that - but I've done the opposite (partly by choice, and partly by necessity). And the most insidious part of it all is that, despite the privilege I was born into, and everything my family has and continues to provide me with, I feel like I deserve to live a crappy life. Why? Because of a personality disorder that I don't even have control of. I'm smart, and I'm attractive, but I feel like my life is one huge wasted potential because, on account of the way my brain is wired, I'm unable to support myself financially or navigate the social landscape.

As a stupid but poignant example, take the simple fact that social interactions give me so much anxiety as to be not worth the effort. I know that people are likely to get the impression that I am "aloof" (I hate that word), or detached, or unconcerned with the minutiae of their daily lives, and thus conclude that I don't give a shit about them, when that could very well be far from the truth. But I don't have much confidence in telling, for example, my mother that I don't call her more often because I have a mental illness, and not because I don't think or care about her. I mean, what kind of consolation is that to her, anyway? Especially if she's just going to say, "oh, honey, you don't have to worry about any of that, I'm your mother!" (This is all hypothetical, by the way).

Of course, they could very well understand better than I realize, but it won't stop me from worrying and imagining the worst possible scenario (which is what anxiety does to you), and thus I figure that I deserve to live a crappy life because I'm a bad person - a bad friend, a bad family member, to put it in eerily appropriate song lyrics, "one poor correspondent". A parallel case could be made for the financial angle, as well - the prospect of attending a job interview ranks for me on the level of, say, amputation without anesthesia, and with my cynical views on capitalism and prostitution (of the non-sexual variety, I mean), it all builds up to a very un-employable profile (I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some hypocritical Wal-Mart survey judge my position on the philosophy of ethics). In spite of the fact that I have brain chemistry to blame, it doesn't change my feeling that I deserve to be poor and destitute because, as any insensitive prick taking one completely superficial glance at my life might complain, I'm "too lazy" to work for a living (which I desperately want to do - in theory).

But it doesn't mean I enjoy living in poverty. It sucks. Granted, there are few genuine pleasures I take in life, and most of those can be acquired sitting in front of a computer screen with internet access (although even some of those simple, harmless pleasures would be enough for the more zealous among us to call for my head, because I deserve nothing but to suffer all my life, for some reason) - of course, I say that because the more affluent hobbies (like boating, which I think I would rather enjoy) are completely beyond my means. There is also travel, of which I can only afford to do the meagrest portion - and even that is constantly in threat on account of the possibility of mechanical failure in the one remaining automobile my partner-in-crime and I share (doesn't help my self-esteem that I was responsible for wrecking a perfectly good car that would most likely have lasted us many years into the future, leaving us instead with some old refurbished jalopy that's compact-sized to boot).

And now there's this new threat of infestation forcing me into quarantine in the god-forsaken state of...well, you know. Travel is a lot more expensive when you're renting cars and staying in hotels (read: dive motels), and who has several hundred extra bucks lying around to blow on a weekend trip? I mean, when there could be something you need that money for even more just around the corner? Meanwhile, you occasionally gotta deal with intolerant and/or obnoxious house guests that you can't exactly kick out of your own living space because, well, they're related to your roommate... Ah, life is good. And there's so much to look forward to, too! Why the fuck would anybody want to bring kids into this kind of life? (And yet they're breeding - mindlessly following their instincts - at a far more rapid pace than those more reasonable creatures in the affluent suburbs). Maybe it's different if you've never known anything better, but damn. This is Homo sapiens? Where is the mother ship? Because I am ready to return to my home planet. As far as I'm concerned, you can nuke this one from orbit. It would be no great loss.