Losers

See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.

Neighborly Advice (1947) by Leonora Carrington

Every now and then, I get comments on my advice column on social media, from people who say things should be easy, and if things get difficult, the problem is probably you. You need to look at yourself. You need to self-reflect. Ask yourself if you’re the problem. Ask yourself if things would be way easier if you were different — more easygoing, less difficult, less direct, less challenging to others, less vulnerable, less honest.

But it never stops there, does it? It’s not just about shaping yourself into a more pleasing form, it’s also about powering down your unique urges and odd desires, noticing less, saying less, doing less, engaging less, surrounding yourself with soft curves and gentle lighting, sanding off your edges, getting by on less.

First of all, mad respect to that game. Imagine feeling so smug that you feel comfortable telling other people, “You should be more like me. Things are so easy for me, and when I encounter difficult people, I just circumnavigate that shit.”

And I can’t blame them. Because when I meet humans who are that smug, I circumnavigate that shit without a second thought, too. You know who I mean: those queen bees who rule with an iron fist but make it look chill, who keep it super fucking simple, who turn on you whenever you take your time to make a point, whenever you’re honest, whenever you’re vulnerable, whenever you admit your flaws. You know who I mean: those helper bees who feed the queen at all costs, helpful helpers with helpful suggestions on how to say less, how to smooth and brighten and lift and bleach, how to disappear in plain sight, how to ignore your soul and become a whisper-quiet appliance, it’s better this way, it’s easier, you’re your own worst enemy, you know, you think too much, you always get in your own way.

Maybe they still piss you off right now, but eventually they won’t. Because they want something you’ve never wanted for a second. They’re built to rule or obey without second-guessing their assigned role. Imagine that for a second. Imagine not flipping between ruling and obeying and collaborating at will. Imagine resisting every opportunity to be humbled or to recognize the gods at play inside your skull. Imagine repeating the same words all day long. Imagine hating anything new, anything weird, anything unsettling, anything ambiguous or wicked or provocative or ambivalent. Imagine avoiding every challenge, every real connection, every millisecond of bewilderment, of melancholy, of unexpected discovery.

You know who I fucking mean. The chill dudes who respond to each tiny conflict or issue or bump in the road with the same “calm down and do it my way,” and then you realize that their perfectly engineered road-smoothing hydraulic system is just a consistent denial of difference, an erasure of the slightest aberration, an ignorance of tiny anomalies of elevation, of texture, of tone, of temperature, of color, of experience, no gravel in the road, no nails, no grit, no tire shreds, no potholes, no bad days, no sadness, no rage.

These bros are gliding through life in a spaceship, with their queen bees at their sides, optimizing everything, adjusting the vertical and the horizontal to suit their tastes, tweaking the saturation,  feeling less and less, and all they have to add to any discussion is “that’s unnecessary, buy a spaceship, make sure it has climate control and autopilot.”

Mad respect to that game if you can pull it off, I guess. But I’m not built that way. When I was a kid, I sat at the very back of the school bus. When we hit the big bumps at full speed, we’d all fly up into the air. It felt like we might hit our heads on the ceiling. It was terrifying and it made us all laugh our asses off, every single time.

It wasn’t really safe. Nothing is, though, whether you pretend it is or not.

Give me an ancient jalopy. I want a covered wagon. Give me a little sled named Rosebud. You’re nostalgic for the bumps and you don’t even know it. You’re mad, bro, because you miss skinning your knees on the concrete, you miss the exfoliating properties of gravel and tar, you’re dying to get dragged, to meet a difficult new friend, to change your mind, to feel uncertain, to fall in love, to speak before you know what you mean, to ask better questions, to get lost and not know your way home.

Why do you think you’re confronting strangers on the internet in the first place? You ache for conflict, for confrontation, for impossible people who will never bend the fucking knee. “Life could be so much easier if you’d just submit,” you tell them, but they don’t want to be you or see you or know you because you can’t remember turbulence, you can’t wrestle with difference or change, you can’t feel the weight of the sky. Your GPS is designed for evasion, never unsure, never lost. You might as well live inside a simulation. You might as well have VR goggles surgically welded to your face. No despair, no passion, no belly laughs, no charity, no inspiration, no surprises, no joy.

You know who the fuck I mean. I’m not talking about a certain demographic. You won’t know them on sight. It takes a minute. It’s not about religion or politics or gender or race. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about fear.

Losers are those who refuse to get lost.

Never waste your time on chickenshits. Find the ones who like big bumps that make you fly into the air, laughing. Find the ones who don’t change the subject when things get awkward. Never waste a minute on the incurious, who tell you what would make you appeal to the least appealing people in the room. Never waste a second on those who would rather seem powerful than feel their own power.

This day wants to skin your knees and then kiss you like a lover. This day wants you shivering in the wind, eyes full of tears, head full of regrets, yellow leaves showering down around you, everyone you’ve ever lost, grit and gravel, everyone you’ve ever loved, rusted nails, crumbling resolve, so many losses to come, so much more to lose. This day wants you. This day.

Wants you.

And no one else.

---

Ask Molly is always this good, believe it or not. Even when it’s kind of bad.