Expense of Agency

I wanna do it!

What if I’m completely clueless and I simply have everyone around me fooled. Haha!! I’ve tricked you all!! Or, and this is a wild thought, maybe I’m actually pretty capable of navigating life amongst the Glo-rilla’s. See what I did there? It’s just odd to me that so many people fail to just allow themselves to see the “absurdity of their current predicament.” Pesky ole Ram Dass, poppin’ back in again. This is supposed to be MY work damnit! AGENCY! AHHHH!!

Gonna just go ahead and reel it back in. Do it for the common folks, the people in the back. Do it for the degenerates who think they can’t get out of what they’re in. Most of all, do it for yourself. Not simply because you ought to, because no one likes a person’s crazy on the outside unless it’s on a stage in a theater, but because you CAN. I have the power, the skills, the awareness, the security within myself, to regulate my central nervous system without being told to. For me, and many like me, that was an acquired skill, won over many lashings, thumpings, sworpings, whoopins, and pure, un-adulterated ass-kickings. Ah, those were the days. Ole, Argus, he said, “I miss the screaming.” One can develop a certain fondness for pain, but I digress…

Mastery by Robert Greene is a valuable resource.

The only way I can thrive in a world constantly trying to distract me is through the path of self-mastery. Chop the wood. Carry the water. Work on what matters TO ME. The ticket is to align what matters to me, what moves my needle forward, with what also serves those around me. I find that if I devote my energy to the cultivation of my spirit, my mind, my relationships, and my skillset, my self-worth goes up dramatically. That’s the “x-factor” people talk about. That’s agency. Stoking the agency fire gives me the confidence to trust myself to keep my word, to myself and others, and to adequately navigate future problems. There’s that dang peace of mind again…

            The best way to ensure the proliferation of agency in my life is through active practices of gratitude. We have to fully understand that every single thing in our lives, including life itself, could go away at any instant. I have to be grateful for every single thing in front of me. That doesn’t just mean the rainbows and unicorns, but also the mud, blood, and shit. The grime and grease that comes from the friction of navigating life and it’s many fucking conundrums. Having a sense of agency and then LIVING IT is basically a “fuck you” to all the less-than-desirable things that may come about. Not only am I impervious to the pain at this point, I go one step further. I grow from it. I drink it up! I drink your milkshake!! Ole Planview was a damn gem!

Drawing from my second favorite scene from There Will Be Blood

Agency and responsibility go hand in hand. Once I got to a certain point in my life, shirking adulthood was no longer the cool thing to do. I had to step the fuck up and burn away my Peter Pan dreams. It took a lot of rocket fuel soaked rags shoved into glass bottles to spark a revolution in my mind. But by God, shit is moving. I still have plenty of moments where I don’t follow through with my word. That includes instances with both myself and others. I’m definitely not perfect, nor do I really want to be. I’m rough around the fucking edges and I’m fine with that. Hell, I love that shit. Most people that move through the world are so bland that even neon pink Himalayan Sea salt passed through the Dalai Lamas rectum couldn’t add any spiritual taste. But, and this is a HUGE caveat, that doesn’t mean I have permission to be an abrasive asshole.

            In America we scream the word Liberty all the damn time, but I feel like a lot of my fellow Americans don’t understand the concept. It is simply this: you do you, if you don’t infringe upon me. I will do me, and I will not infringe upon you. A gentleman’s agreement! HAZAH! As far as I can tell, people want to have their cake and eat it too. People want to move through the world doing their own thing and subtly say “Fuck You” to the ones they steam roll. I fell into that trap. Hell, sometimes I still fall into it! The kicker is, when intentionally living with responsibility, self-awareness, drive, and a sense of service to others, AGENCY IS A BY-PRODUCT. Then, happiness might follow, but it is not a guarantee.

The look he gave me when the punch line was, “Rectum? Darn near killed ‘em!”

True freedom only comes when I release myself from the bondage of my cultural conditioning. Having agency is my ticket to paradise. Pack them bags, doll-face, we leave tonight. It doesn’t matter how I was brought up. It doesn’t matter how many terrible decisions I’ve made. It doesn’t matter the frequency of said bad decisions. Or duration. What truly matters, at the end of every single fucking day, is how much responsibility I take for me. We live in a society that allows people to rest on their laurels for an entire lifetime if they please. This is a relatively new development in human history, one that has led to needless death time and again. It’s only getting worse. Comfort is killing us, and we are complacent enough to allow it to happen. We are literally becoming resources, y’all.

            I will not fuel others simply because I am not aware of my own power! People pleasing is self-neglect. Being constantly worried about how others affect me and how I affect others is slowly draining me of my energy, mental capacity, neurotransmitters, and AGENCY. I step into my power, not in order to hinder others, not in order to really affect them in any intentional way. I am only in charge of myself, and my children, out here in this chaotic and weird-ass culture. I will affect those that I interact with positively only when I interact with myself in the same way. And like everyone keeps saying, discipline truly is the purest form of self-care. If you don’t understand that, if that statement confuses you, perhaps your definition of, or association with, discipline is in need of a reassessment.

Taking back agency can look different for different people…

So, get out there and take some damn responsibility for your life! Moving through time and space, interacting with the other members of the species, takes a lot of awareness, intention, and skill. The first step for me on this path was to realize and accept the sheer number of times I’ve acted like a fucking child. Then, I had to begin parenting that kid. He needs it. I need it. I need to parent and be parented, by me, in order to get the full spectrum of that facet of the human experience. Notice that there was no one else mentioned. No spouse, no therapist, no identity groups, no “ride-or-die’s.” Just me.

No one is coming to save you.

Expect to self-rescue.

We have tools.

Execute.

Be safe out there.

-Marcus