You’ve seen reality, shows, right? Like Big Brother and Survivor?
They always form alliances. They’re really exciting and rewarding and miserable affairs.
A few of them actually work. Some are incredibly inspiring, if a bit controversial.
Like the Cookout. The all-black alliance that formed early on.
They really defied the odds and did some brilliant shit.
Let go of secondary alliances so gently.
Stayed motivated despite their infighting to make TV history.
Things got really fucking bitter for a bit. Last minute deceptions. Broken agreements. Things going down to the wire.
Some stuff was said that would make someone else rant and rave about
how they expected much more class out of their peers.
I savor the drama just the same, but I don’t look down on the sore losers of the bunch.
After all, the point of these shows is to push a person’s positive energy to its absolute limits, isn’t it?
When you’re stuck in that house, when everything you do can cost you the game, when just being you is barely even possible without repercussions, when everything is set up to make you ache for a return to normal society, and when you have to transform your very personality for the sake of having a chance at improving your life,
and sometimes, even, setting a good example for those you relate to most outside the house,
the dark feelings are really hard to absolve.
If they weren’t riding that line, would the show even be entertaining?
If they weren’t straddling clear-headed resolve and depressing madness week after week, would anyone watch?
You know that’s part of the appeal to begin with. Not knowing whether or not someone is really worth rooting for.
That is the stuff that makes your heart squirm. It embodies you in a tense situation!
They feel, “I want to do good fucking things. I want to test myself. I want to be something other than who I was. Despite all the showmanship and havoc and the gimmicks, this is about me proving I have positive fucking energy.”
There is no reason to be called insane when everyone else is trying to make their type of tremendous vigor….the kind that comes out on top, and not yours.
I think we’d be better off not trying too hard to figure out who’s the loser of losers.
I think we’d be better off not digging into these people who play the game of human vibes for a chance at a better life.
Do you want to witness people be sore about their failures and the moments that make them look like a disgrace?
I try not to when living my actual life. It makes things too much like a house of deception.
I don’t blame you for that positive-feeling arousal when seeing some other human get really bitter, say terrible things, and do things the backfire completely.
It’s not like finding the right person to shame doesn’t help the universe quite a bit.
But there’s a prize waiting beyond that terrible bliss.
In a world where opening your mouth and committing to an action in the presence of some other human doesn’t come with infinite hazards…..people have finally learned to recognize what they are ravenously savoring the depth of those interactions.
If that were to happen, it would be a powerful upgrade for keeping human interaction less worthy of ratings.
There was this brilliant-tongued person who almost won the game in a different season.
Just watching her speak made my chest hurt with anxiety.
After losing all chance to win, she didn’t vote for her partner in crime, her last-minute traitor, to win instead.
She had been eliminated by him, after he barely won the final game show style game.
Everything was falling into place for her.
I mean, the way she talked to people and escaped insanely grim scenarios,
was quite legendary indeed. But she got played by someone who knew what he had to do to have the slightest chance of winning.
She had no shame in claiming she voted for the better player, that better player, who was quite the floater, and by any means, not better.
Or did she, really? Did she really have no shame?
I prefer to think of it as having her positive energy offended.
She pushed her poker face, her poker voice, her poker body language, above and beyond what they would normally do.
And honestly, she may have objectively put more work in the game than he who would destroy her efforts.
This guy was meek in comparison to her.
At no point did he completely twist a person’s words around to escape extreme danger.
He was more stealthy than risky.
At that point, when you are remember just how HARD you worked to get where you did, it becomes really really hard not to affirm your own worth, by dampening the glow of somebody else’s victory lap.
But this is a world where we don’t have a proper grip on our positive energy, isn’t it?
We all sit down for an hour and considere not doing the thing that feels a bit fucked up.
But those warm feelings come.
The need for validation ripens.
You sense how peaceful you are. Your actions are like gestures.
You feel how weak it would be to let a problem go untouched.
You feel like you need to evolve beyond what a normal person would do,
to confirm your efforts actually had some kind of value whatsoever.
Your heart swells up and you do the thing.
You feel like you’re simply not voting against yourself,
even when everyone thinks you’re dishonorable.
and because of that,
we’re still stuck in a house.
I want us all to be free from that kind of thing.
And then, people finally in control,
we have a reunion and laugh at the errors.
We can cross over into a new season,
if we can just describe what makes us feel like we’re on an epic finale.
The Found Emotion (Invoke Yourself) 