One of the unstated benefits I’d hoped I might get by moving to New Jersey, so close to some of my family, was that it might stop or slow what I perceived as my slow but inevitable slide into being a real asshole.
It could be said about me that I may engage in a bit too much self-analysis (this doesn’t make me a good person; it just makes me weird). But being in a near-constant state of “spectatoring” (paying attention to one’s own actions as though from a third-person perspective) has afforded me, if nothing else, a decent running account of what kind of person I am.
I got sober after a struggle with alcoholism in 2003, at the age of 25. It’s difficult for me to say what kind of person I was pre-sobriety, even stretching back to before I started drinking. My memories of Seth as a young man range from shy and socially awkward to a leader-of-the-pack Alpha Male, from kind and gracious to mean and brutal. Then the ages of 20-25 were entirely alcohol-soaked; constant abuse of any drug essentially rids oneself of personality; you become the effects of your drug.
However, in the nine years since I’ve been sober, I think I have a pretty clear recollection of what kind of man I’ve been, and it’s gone through a surprisingly wide swath of personality types. In the first year of sobriety, I was the nicest, happiest, most optimistic version of myself I will ever be. This is actually a well-documented phenomenon of early recovery that we call “the pink cloud”. I really doubt it can be overstated how happy and lovely this time is; I imagine people who have recovered from near-lethal illnesses go through it too, although really it only happens when one has actually accepted that your life is over, and then you come back and are completely better, complete with this spiritual awakening and the physical awakening of bodily processes that had gone so far as to shut down on you. At that point in my life, I can’t imagine having been any more accepting, loving, non-judgmental, helpful…all-around, a pretty swell dude.
Nobody can stay on the pink cloud. You try to. You try really hard to stay on it. But the pink cloud is itself like a kind of euphoric drug. It wears off. It’s inevitable.
I stayed pretty nice and positive for awhile. But I can look back and see where my internal slides started happening. When I started allowing myself to slowly think I was better than other people. To judge them. To be impatient. Sarcastic. Caustic. Mean.
I’ve stayed positive through most of these nine years, at least, as regards my own life. I’ve never stopped thinking that I have an amazing life. I love waking up every day. I love mornings. I love late nights. I love afternoons. I love women in white pants, zoos, airports, little yippy dogs, and the moment the lights go down in the movie theater. But, generally speaking, I think that you are a dumb bastard who likes dumb things. I hate that I think that. But I definitely think it.
Then, two years ago, I moved five hours away from everyone I knew. Everyone. I loved it. I had a GREAT time. Turns out, when you’re the smartest, coolest, hippest person alive, being around other people is always kind of a drag. I was the only person I needed.
Being all alone in the world only made my asshole-ishness become more pronounced more quickly. Those of you who got copies of my last book-type-thing, The Rub and Tug Capital of the World, will recognize (hopefully) this as the central theme of the book. On the surface, the book can be read as just some random ruminations on living alone—completely alone; but more than that it was meant as an admission that it was causing me to devolve into complete meanness and judgementalism. The section of my search for “authenticity” represented the way I really thought, but the way I wrote it was designed as a revelation that I also knew it was ridiculous. The section “I’m an Asshole” (by far the section that caused the biggest stir) was all true, but wasn’t meant to be bragging or facetious; it was a cry for help.
(as an aside, I’m a little peeved nobody has ever said to me, “Seth, The Rub and Tug Capital of the World is a painfully honest and boldly soul-baring work of art. This is brave art.” So, y’know…feel free to go ahead and say that to me still.)
I knew that if I continued to live alone, things would only get worse. With every passing month I became more and more convinced of my superiority within the human race. The rest of you wear stupid shoes. You like stupid movies. You pay other people to cut your hair. You’re all so concerned about weekends.
You’re living obvious lives—you really are, but I used to not care; heck, I used to embrace it. You live your life, I’ll live mine, everybody’s happy! But at some point I started to get annoyed by it, and then angry about it, until during the final year of living alone, I couldn’t even look strangers in the eye. I hated them. I can remember, just a few short years ago, I had been the type of man who said hello to strangers, talked to dogs and babies, and helped push broken-down cars off the road. Not only did this make me look nicer, but I was markedly happier that way.
There are some people who claim they don’t think I’ve become an asshole, which means either A) I’ve always been an asshole and I’m just now realizing it myself or B) I’m a terrible judge of my own character. Either one is completely immaterial, since if I feel bad about who I am inside, any external reality is unimportant.
Staying with my mom in New Jersey—and living just a few doors down from my sister, nephews, and bro-in-law, forces me to interact with human beings on a very regular basis. It forces me to talk about my day, about their day. It was, and still is, very unnatural. But little by little, I’m re-learning. (and once I’m able to get back to where I started, I’m going to have to keep learning, as talking about myself…and I mean about myself, not about the philosophies I harbor or the rants I have memorized, but about how well I slept, how traffic was, etc. I have never in my life felt anything other than terror when talking about myself like that.) Of course, it’s not too difficult to be interested in the lives of your family. But I’m trying very hard to talk to strangers and neighbors. I’ve had some success (the neighbor fellow Walt tickles my friendly bone) and some failure (the presence of the neighbor children completely enrages me). I’m trying to remember what “pink cloud me” would have thought, would have done, how he would have reacted. Remember how close I was to death. Remember what it’s like to literally feel your liver hurting, to have blisters for no reason, to vomit blood onto the ladies’ slacks you’re wearing and you don’t remember why. What would a Seth who had just recovered from that insanity think about those neighbor children? I doubt he’d love them (they really are genuine shit heads) but I doubt he’d be enraged. He probably wouldn’t even notice them.
A few days ago, my mother and I went to the Rodin museum in Philadelphia. As we approached the entrance, two elderly out-of-towners cornered us and, perhaps because of my Philadelphia Phillies hat, began asking us all kinds of questions…how do you get from here to there? Have you ever been to so-and-so? Of course I was annoyed by this intrusion, but to my surprise, I was not enraged. Being with my mother, I continued to play-act the part of a nice, helpful stranger (my mother is one of the nicest people alive, especially to strangers, so when I’m with her I at least attempt to pretend to be nice).
Over the next few hours, we continued to run into these elderly folks 3 or 4 more times. To my surprise, each time we saw them, I became happier to see them, eventually asking them questions with genuine interest. It felt good. I started to remember what it was like to not hate people, to be interested in them, to want to talk to them.
Eventually, Mom and I were on the Phlash trolley heading back to our subway stop when I spotted the elderly couple at the other end of the bus. “Look, mom! There they are again!” I said with genuine excitement. Even if the rest of the world couldn’t see my transformation taking place, I knew, inside, it had begun.
Today, I was walking through Franklin Square when I saw a man, about my own age, sitting on a bench, while a squirrel, about 3 feet in front of him, did a little dance for him, nimbly running to and fro and occasionally stopping to make eye contact with him. As I neared the bench, the squirrel ran away. I could see the man was disappointed.
“Sorry to break up your party!” I said enthusiastically to the stranger.
He looked away from me and said nothing.
Not-so-very under my breath, I muttered Prick.
Baby steps, folks, baby steps.
Notes From the Fire 