I asked the question “How did I become so jaded?” in the last post. I‘ve started thinking about it a little more, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far.
1). My first marriage (well not that you could really call it that… more like “that month of stupidity”…) really left a bigger dent in my soul than I had initially thought. It took a long time to forgive myself for being suckered into that.
To this day, I’m not sure what possessed me to run with that ball, especially given the less than charming temperament my ex was blessed with. She could have given Pol Pot a run for his money. Actually he probably would have cowered in fear in her presence. Think about the Emperor from Star Wars, and then remove warmth and any sense of humanity.
Hindsight being 20/20, it would have been more worthwhile to put my head in a vice and just start turning the bar until my eyes popped out. I could have given myself a little reassuring brain damage, and it would have been a lot cheaper.
That whole damn circus left some overt scars, and regrettably in turn, I left a trail of unhappy people in my wake. One day I’ll get the chance to apologize to the souls that I punished for my own misery, for my own piece of mind if for no other reason. Only in the last few years has that “scab” finally healed over.
2) Somewhere in my mid 20’s I wound up running with a group of really negative people. They were true champions of the bored and disaffected. (But the worst kind… The type that thinks they are the embodiment of the progressive and hip. A little too cool for school, or the “tragically hip” if you will… At the time, I lacked the will to see past them, and I think this cost me dearly.
Happily they moved on after I proved to be too set in my own ways.) Unfortunately before I bored them to tears, I let these people have an influence on the events in my life. They tried to dictate what I should wear, who I should date etc… In retrospect I think it’s a little funny that I got run over by an alpha male “art fag.”(That’s probably the first time those words were associated with each other ever…) From that point on I decided never to be someone’s “project” again.
It took a while to find myself. Stand up proved to be the tool that I needed to massage my confidence, and along the way I was able to sincerely shape my own true identity. My own force of will has set the tone for the things to come, and I must say I really like that.
3) Frustrations with the political climate of my environment have played their part too. My beliefs on what I consider to be right generally don’t jive with the people that surround me. Perhaps it’s my own naiveté, but it has driven me crazy.
4) The amount of time it took me to get my comedy career on track really fucked with my head, it was a frustrating experience to watch my friends succeed ahead of me, esp. since I never got feedback from anyone as to why I was being held back. I felt like running towards a brick wall head first, and at terminal velocity. It took me a while to realize that this business isn’t a race, and that hard work does pay off. These days things are working out well, and I’m doing great.
Perhaps I just needed a little more time on the farm team. Whatever it was, somewhere along the way things began to fall into place.
Anyway… there is definitely more to come…
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