Attempting Normal

by Marc Maron

Reading is like a drug. When I am reading from these books it feels like I am thinking what is being read, and that gives me a rush. That is enough. I glean what I can. I finish some of the unfinished thoughts lingering around in my head by adding the thoughts of geniuses and I build from there.

Why can’t I make it easy? I need to complicate everything to protect myself from success and to remain complicated and overwhelmed.

But fuck that: We’re built to deal with shit. We’re built to deal with death, disease, failure, struggle, heartbreak, problems. It’s what separates us from the animals and why we envy and love animals so much. We’re aware of it all and have to process it. The way we each handle being human is where all the good stories, jokes, art, wisdom, revelations, and bullshit come from.

This is who I am: I overthink and I ruminate. I’m obsessive. But what I really want is relief. Most people are the same. We’re all carrying around some shit. When you hear the things that people have gone through and realize you’ve gone through the same, it provides an amazing amount of relief. It gives us hope. And I think that’s what we’re supposed to get from each other. The hope that, maybe, just maybe, we’re going to be okay. Maybe.

You had a huge humility wave that started coming. I’ve always [thought] that your progress [came from] taking away more and more layers. Taking more of your defenses away from yourself. M: Not without a fight. L: No! But the fight is fun to watch.

The problem is that I am always walking around preparing for and reacting to the horrors of what my brain is making up, living as if every potential terror and every defeat were already happening—because in my mind, it always is.

I only felt comfortable with people who were missing the same pieces of themselves that I was. I’ve always been happiest around characters. Well-defined and brash personalities. Focused charisma and intensity. Rage. Humor. Flaming self-destructiveness. Missing teeth and tattoos and Baggies in the glove compartment. The rebels and outlaws, fuckups and con men—comics—had figured it out. They knew the tricks to get by and get life and get what they needed through charm and device, without feeling the pain of not being whole or the injustice of need. They were, like all artists, masters of the mathematics of relief, which was just the sort of thing I was looking for: a book, a movie, a crazy person, a kiss, a drug, a commitment, a song, a phrase, a joke. I thought that shit was magic. They were my people. And that’s why comedy.

We all have the right to cherry-pick the advice given us in order to do exactly what we wanted to do in the first place.

It’s very hard to determine the validity of a mood disorder when someone is as plain old narcissistic as my dad. I thought he was just a man-child who refused self-awareness and defied wisdom even as his life fell apart around him. When necessary he would blame the “illness.”

My father needs to have an effect on people. He needs to either drag them down to his level or blast through them with his anger.

He’s very curious about things and speaks his mind. He doesn’t have anything like the wisdom of age or hindsight. He’s a biased historian of self, an emotional revisionist. We all are, for the most part.

You don’t want to be the bitter guy in the group. It’s the difference between “I’ve been through that and this is what I’ve learned” and “I’m fucked. Everything sucks.” That said, be careful not to medicate bitterness because you’ve mistaken it for depression, because the truth is, you’re right: Everything does suck most of the time and there’s a fine line between bitterness and astute cultural observation.

My anger was unaddressed despite the damage it was causing. I just never thought it was a real problem, because when I was finished being angry I was done, every time. If you are a rager, when you are done raging you feel relief. It is out of you. It’s like masturbating, only it’s toxic to others and much harder to clean up. But even if the rager feels done, the rage will have generated in the other person a contempt that festers and swells, even if unspoken. Because the other person is afraid to speak.

So now I’m a panicky, worried, self-consumed adult who is fundamentally unable to feel like things will be okay. There is some part of me that will always be looking, futilely, for a parent to just make things okay.

I had slowly come to realize that I had to kill this mouse because it fucked with me and insulted my intelligence. That’s where I draw a line with these things.

If you survive your mistake, you must learn from it. Accept that you’re fragile, vulnerable, and sometimes stupid. Realize that you’re not immortal and you’ve got to take care of yourself. And then laugh it off and fly away.

Now everything turns to garbage inside a couple of years. Planned obsolescence has forever denied us the ability to believe in workmanship, institutions, and lifetime guarantees. This is true with everything from pants to marriages. And obviously life itself.

I don’t know if I am romanticizing, mythologizing, or being nostalgic. I assume all three. That seems to be how the brain breaks things down after a certain age.

The point is, maybe I need to re-immerse myself in fine arts. They’re magic. It doesn’t always work but the good stuff, or at least the stuff that resonates, should engage your heart in a way that can reflect, sate, define, amplify, provoke, or relieve what seems like chaos or confusion in your life. The art allows you to experience it and better understand your own undefined or renegade emotions. Sometimes the art gives you new things to worry about. That’s some good art there.

Here’s the problem: If somebody likes me a lot, why wouldn’t I want to have them around, even if I don’t like them as much? It’s very nice to be liked.

Together: We’re sorry. We’re crazy. It’s human. Who are you to judge? Neighbors: They’re right. It’s human. Everyone: We’re human. It happens. Curtain.