Wednesday, June 13, 2018

I'm Not Playing

My senior year in college there was a story going around about a giant water balloon fight that had taken over the campus of one of our neighboring universities. As the story goes, people had become so utterly obsessed with the battle, that nearly the entire student body had picked a side and taken up arms... or balloons as the case may be. For those poor souls who didn't wish to participate, it was necessary to wear a large sign proclaiming "I'm Not Playing!" in order to avoid being mistaken for a member of the opposing team and ambushed by an over zealous balloon lobber on one's way to class.


I have no idea whether there was any truth to this outlandish tale, or whether it was simply a campus myth, but either way, the story struck a chord with me. At the time, I was preparing to graduate with a degree in music - a questionable choice to be sure, but one that I sorta backed into because I found I couldn't tolerate anything else. I had no idea what I wanted to do in life, but one thing was clear: just as all of my classmates were preparing to jump into society... to launch careers, or begin graduate school, or get married, or start businesses... all I wanted was to find a way out.


I had been a tremendously successful student. Valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa, Suma Cum Laude, the whole 9 yards. Yet with all of that achievement, I didn't feel validated, or important... and I most certainly did NOT feel happy. I just felt like I had wasted my youth chasing an illusion.-And I had come to the conclusion that, in this culture at least, that was all sort of by design. Basically the way our society functions is by making people feel like they don't measure up, which then sets them on a hopeless treadmill of trying to earn, or accomplish, or prove, or buy their way out of their own hopeless inadequacy. It's just a trap.

So I decided that I just wasn't playing.


Thus began my long pursuit of the outsmarting of the system. Thirty years later I'm still at it. But boy... I've gotta tell you, I often feel these days like I need to don that sign again, because I'm frequently beset with the feeling that I'm living in a completely different world from the people around me.

Like the other day I logged onto Nextdoor and discovered that there was a heated argument going on over crab grass. Apparently someone has been going around the neighborhood putting anonymous notes on the doors of people with crummy lawns asking them to please clean up their acts and have some consideration for their neighbors. Oh my.

I guess this is what gentrification looks like, because in the course of a few years my neighborhood has gone from being one of the most economically depressed parts of the city... where there was a tacit understanding that people were working hard just to keep a roof over their heads... to one where the average house is selling for over $350K and people are busy berating their neighbors over things like "curb appeal." So much for slummin' it in the barrio!


I guess you can try to outrun the trappings, but apparently the things grow legs and eventually come running after you. Don't get me wrong, It's sort of nice that my little house is now worth about 5 times what I paid for it, but honestly, I'm not sure I'm prepared to live among young professionals with decidedly middle class values. Plus, what about the poor people who were renters? Where are they supposed to go?

Well anyway, I guess it's giving me further incentive to step up my xeriscape game because I really don't relish the idea of being publicly shamed over bindweed.  But yanno, a tiny little snarky part of me did toy with the idea of  putting anonymous notes on the doors of all the people with perfect lawns asking them to please stop polluting the air with their mowers and poisoning the land with their weed killers. Of course I wouldn't do it, but it was tempting. Sigh.



Then I signed on to FaceBook to see what some old friends have been up to, and I discovered that everyone was all torn up about the suicides of two prominent celebrities… neither of whom I'd ever heard of. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all making light of suicide, but "famous handbag designer?!?" Seriously? That's a thing? I just don't get it.


Anyhow, people seemed genuinely shocked that anyone who was so successful could possible be depressed and want to take their own life. Sad as it might sound, this does not surprise me in the least. It's not merely that success does not make people happy, I think that feelings of inadequacy predispose a person to try to chase fame and prosperity in a doomed attempt to outrun their own emotions.

I saw this all the time in the music world. Trying to make it as a musician is really hard, and it seemed to me that, aside from a few folks who lucked into their success, the only people who stuck with it were the people who really needed the extraordinary sense of personal validation that one gets when one is on stage performing for an audience. Seriously, in the real world, people don't cheer and applaud every time you go to work... and getting that sort of "you're wonderful" message can be very seductive.



But ultimately, the holes that our society produces in people cannot be filled through cheers or applause any more than they can be with granite countertops or a perfectly manicured lawn.

I don't know where I'm going with all of this, so I should probably just stop blathering and go pull some weeds. (She says without the slightest hint of sarcasm.)

I guess I just wanted to throw a little life line out there to anyone who might be struggling with the game. Seriously folks, if you feel like you just can't win, it's not because there's anything wrong with you, it's because the whole thing is rigged. The only way out is to simply stop playing!






18 comments :

  1. Well, I totally get it! I would love to find a way to truly drop out and am hoping that retirement is all I hope it will be. In my past couple of jobs, I felt like the huge square peg. I've remedied that with my new job, but I still don't get society and don't want to be obligated to be aware or have an opinion. People used to think I was weird by saying "don't confuse success with success." I often see success as the enemy. So, I totally get it!

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    1. "Don't confuse success with success." I LOVE it! Here's to the square pegs! :-)

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  2. Another well written and interesting perspective. i don't have time to address all of your points right now, but let me just say that I can't believe that were signs about crabgrass. Most of the yards in my neighborhood are well manicured in my neighborhood, but I don't think anyone would do that. That's just bad manors. However, if someone came and complained about my bindweed, I'd tell them to go at it. I'd be happy if they could take care of that eyesore because I certainly haven't figured out how.

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    1. I know, right? There seemed to be this attitude among many of the new homeowners here that they are somehow being victimized by the poor people who they are displacing - because said poor people aren't doing an adequate job of weed control. "Why don't they just hire a lawn service?" was a common theme on the thread. It boggles my mind how people can be so blind to their own privilege.

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    2. I having a hard time believing that people have such narrow experiences or attitudes that they would think everyone could afford a lawn service or would want to. They need to get out more.

      So far, our Next Door hasn't developed any nasty threads like that. It is more the information spot as intended but a few too many ads for me. Our neighborhood has a FB page and that's where I get the info I really need.

      Also, apparently my neighborhood as a homeowners association, but the story goes that everyone who was on it died or moved away and no one else wanted to continue it. And no one cares.

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    3. I'm sooo glad we don't have a home owner's association here, and I'm hoping that's not the sort of thing that can be imposed from on high, since I've heard such horror stories about them. I don't think the concept is entirely bad, but since they're generally run by volunteers, I think they tend to attract people who have a particular axe to grind.

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  3. Well said! I'm of the Hippy Generation and have (internally) fought the current my whole life. We deliberately bought our retirement home in a mixed neighborhood and I sure hope it never gets gentrified in my lifetime. So far, so good! With all that is happening in the world, crabgrass is a serious enough concern to warrant notes? It should be laughable.

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    1. It does make me wonder what sort of a bubble those people are living in to actually believe that this is an issue worth complaining about. You know, I am as white skinned as they come, but recently I find myself echoing the words of some of my Latino friends and neighbors... shaking my head in dismay at the "white people!" Oh my... Seriously, the other day there were two young white women walking down the street with dogs and baby strollers.. talking on their phones all the while. I found myself thinking "there goes the neighborhood." How ironic is that?

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  4. We would consider it an achievement to have crabgrass in our yard--at least it's "grass"! As my husband says, we just keep our weeds mowed. I do have a "thing" against people not mowing their lawns (our neighbors on one side only mow the back yard about twice each summer, AND they let their dogs poop and don't bother cleaning it up--ewww! Buggy AND stinky. Not very neighborly, in my book). However, we also share concern about what is leaching into our water supply, so we are very careful about our yard/garden and what we put on it. Our neighborhood varies from the extremely manicured to the unkempt. We are somewhere in between. My husband told me when our kids were little, "I can either spend my time on the lawn or with our kids. I choose our children." I admire his attitude.

    We could get into an interesting conversation about "what is success?". I think society defines it more by external trappings--nice house, yard, etc.--I'm not so sure I agree!

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    1. Hahaha! That's exactly how I feel about crab grass. In fact, the only grass I have that is actually green for more than a few weeks in the spring is the crab grass!

      I'm not a huge fan of mowing - mostly because it's just so noisy and smelly, plus those gas mowers pump out incredible amounts of pollution. I think I read once that mowing the lawn for an hour pollutes as much as driving 50 miles!

      Anyhow, I can usually make do with my little push mower, but in the spring when the grass actually grows, I have to resort to the electric one - which is a real pain since my yard is really a bunch of unconnected patches. You literally have to pick the mower up and carry it over terraces etc. So I just bought a nifty thing to solve the problem - it's basically a cordless weed whacker on wheels. It's light enough to carry with one hand and hopefully it will make me into a "better neighbor!" :-)

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  5. I've heard the same story about college campuses, but with water guns. I've never really thought about it before, but I guess it's a myth!

    I like your comments about feelings of inadequacy leading someone to pursue success to fill the void, which leads to this preponderance of successful people who commit suicide.
    I think there's something to that. I don't really have an opinion on Kate Spade, but I think you'd like Anthony Bourdain. He was incredibly smart, funny, and empathetic, and his travel shows actually felt in depth rather than just cursory. I heard someone call him a "global ambassador" today and that seems about right.

    Also, giving out half-sarcastic flyers about people's lawn care is exactly the type of thing I would do.

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    1. Interesting about Anthony Bourdain, but now I'm really confused. I thought he did cooking shows, not travel shows? Maybe he cooked on the road? Well, perhaps I'll have to see if I can find any of his stuff to watch.

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  6. Yes, yes, and YES! I live in an area where people are so desperate! We live in a ranch built in the 70's and still some of my community "friends" say things like "when are you going to get rid of that small (icky) house"? The answer is when we move into another icky, small house in a smaller town. One man actually told me that he thought people in the bigger, more expensive houses were actually better people than those who live in the neighborhoods of more modest homes. I find their attitude so bizarre! And more than a little cruel. Sigh. Keep fighting the good fight!

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    1. Wow. I can't believe someone would actually say that... let alone believe it! It reminds me of another story from college.

      I went to school in a very small town and the laundromats were... well, over used and somewhat disgusting. So I took to driving a few miles down the road to the next town where there was an enormous, CLEAN, laundromat that was hardly ever busy. One evening I took a friend with me. Now, I went to school with a lot of really wealthy people, and he was one of them.

      So, we were sitting there waiting for our laundry to dry and there were a couple of local men on the other side of the waiting area. They looked unremarkable to me. It was winter and they were wearing jeans and flannel shirts. My friend leaned over to me and said in all seriousness "You know, I think the worst thing about being poor would be having to be dirty all of the time."

      I was absolutely floored. The thing was, this friend was a really nice guy, but his world view was just totally warped by his wealth and privilege. He went on to become an Episcopal priest, and I can only hope that experience has offered him the opportunity to "commune with the masses" a bit and broaden his perspective. Sheesh!

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  7. It's funny, as I walk through our somewhat dilapidated neighborhood, I'm contemplating how to pull all the weeds coming up between the sidewalks all along our street and around the corner because so many of those weeds are potential foxtail abcesses for our dogs but I wouldn't dream of telling our neighbors with the dry brown windburned grass to do something different with their lawn! How rude! And how presumptuous.

    I stopped and talked with a kind older gentleman on our walk yesterday about his browning lawn because I was curious whether I could borrow some of his techniques and he was so helpful. He has a battery powered mower that doesn't pollute and is quiet! So if we ever grow a small patch of grass for the dogs, which we probably will because I'm a sucker for making my dogs' lives nicer, that is a great way to do it without being gross loud polluters.

    This neighborhood is turning over slowly as the older generation moves on and while it'd be nice to have some young kids about JB's age around for zir to play with, I'm really hoping it doesn't turn into what you're describing. We stayed here because we wanted a diverse neighborhood, and we are seeing that right now. People of all different races and ages adds a nice feeling to the neighborhood. I don't want it to become a bland mostly yuppie type of neighborhood.

    I was one of the people who was gutted by Anthony Bourdain's death because he was a talented writer and his work creating travel food shows displayed a humility and openness to respecting other cultures that we so rarely see, if ever, on the screen. I don't care about the celebrity culture but there are people who seem to care about people in a genuine way and do good work in helping others, like our friends in our community, and I can't help but be a little sad that one of those folks has gone. I suspect that if you had seen some of Parts Unknown, you might have grown to like him as well.

    But like you, we're not playing the game of appearances either.

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    1. Well, if you end up with a tiny lawn, I highly recommend the mower/weed whacker combo machine. I recently got one and I no longer dread mowing the "lawn" (what little patches I have left.)

      Anyhow, I was surprised that our neighborhood was hit by gentrification. It's been hitting other parts of the city, but mostly around the new light rail lines. Since our neighborhood has been pretty thoroughly neglected in terms of things like public transport, I figured we were safe. But alas, Denver is growing REALLY fast, and there's a huge housing crisis. So I guess when your neighborhood is one of the last places you can actually buy a house for under $400K, people change their tunes about wanting to live there.

      Anyhow, I find it really interesting how I can manage to be so totally in the dark about celebrities that everyone else seems to know about. Not sure what that means. Seriously, it took me years to figure out that Paris Hilton wasn't a hotel in France! Anyhow, Bourdain does sound like he was a good person, so it's very sad that he took his own life.

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  8. Ha! (Laugh of disgust, not comedy!) I have a feeling that just scratches the surface of the wrong notions people have about "poor" folks. I'm on a reading binge of "work class writers" after listening to a BBC show called something like "Where are all the working class writers." Well, they are out there, and are smart, funny, observant, and good writers.

    I could write on and on this topic! And being an Episcopalian, I get it! But our leadership is really good now, IMHO: Michael Curry. So your friend is probably getting a "run for his money" as life rolls on. Life is like that!

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    1. Well, don't EVEN get me started on poor people stereotypes. Seriously, I don't understand how it is that rich people think that poor people deserve to be poor. Especially when you consider the fact that our economic structure basically ensures that a large part of the population will be poor - and the rich people keep getting richer off of said poor people... Anyhoo… guess that's a rant for another day.

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