Feeling the rush
"what kind of pleasures can sustain a creature that is nothing special?"
I get everything wrong the first time I do it, which isn’t just a story I tell myself. Look at my transition: I changed my name twice (my legal and professional name is Davey, but I prefer that my friends call me David). I got top surgery twice (long story). Thanks to the pandemic, I went through my second puberty in the same house with the same people twenty years after the first one almost killed me (a longer story, which some DAVID readers may already know something about). The more important a decision is, the more likely I am to choke, then be forced to repeat it later. My dad used to compare me to a squirrel, always digging in vain for its misplaced stash of food, repenting at my leisure on all fours in the yard.
I’ve learned my lesson, even if I don’t always practice it: rush less. Over many years, this habit has made my life better, and not just because I don’t always let panic steer the ship. Taking your time with the big things really does trickle down. These days, I read more books, get in fewer arguments on social media, and pay more attention to red flags in prospective friends, lovers, and hookups1.
Which feels good, for the most part. But it does make doing some things more difficult, things that I enjoy or that strongly inform my sense of self or that just seem like what I should be doing, as someone trying to make a living as a writer in an online world. When I’m not rushing, I’m less likely to slam black coffee and shitpost; to send a mean text instead of waiting for a conversation; to invite trade who thinks a blowjob makes us boyfriend/girlfriend to my house at 1 a.m; to go to the rave or a restaurant without a mask. But as angry or unhappy or afraid as these things can make me, they’re also exciting and interesting and more likely to result in a story2. As I learn how to live between the life I have and the life I would like, to borrow from Adam Phillips, I find that I’m living less much. This is the desired result of discernment, of course, but one does miss the muchness sometimes. Can’t beat the high of finally finding that nut, as squirrels everywhere can confirm.
I want to feel special, as if every moment and action of my life is exciting and interesting and important. But I am not special, and neither are you. We are, as Phillips says, “on a par with ants and daffodils3.” So as we dwell on our “(imaginary) unlived lives,” you and I, I hope we can follow him to think as well about what the need to be special prevents us from seeing about ourselves—and what it stops us from being.
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No more straight men. Please clap!
“But think of the story!” is a great coping mechanism, but it’s not a very good reason for doing things.
And squirrels!