Tag: Pop Psychology

“As All Madmen Who Write Tend To Do.” (Prose).

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Man kneeling by car flat tire, woman in driver's seat, man walking with notepad

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

I have a beater of a car.

It’s birthday was in the year 1999.

It’s older than a fair whack of people alive today.

The other day I was scrolling and came across a lady who said:

“Why do the best guys always have the shittiest cars?”.

Well I can only agree with her assertion.

And the obvious answer is:

Because we are not materialistic.

So onto the subject.

My car tire has a slow leak.

I’ve monitored the situation and you can drive on it for three days,

But then of course you must inflate it at the servo.

Or should I say ‘Gas Station’.

You will have to excuse me –

For I have a half kiwi half aussie vernacular.

I’ve ‘done time’ on both sides of the Tasman – so to speak.

Anyway, when I discovered the leak I first thought

“Hmm I will get that fixed immediately”.

But then I had a second overiding thought:

“But that’s so stock, why not choose the contrarian path…

…After all – you do love Philosophy”.

So that’s what I’ve been doing.

I have discovered you can indeed drive on a flat tire for three blocks,

Then inflate it at said Servo/Gas station.

The other day I even drove their with my overweight mother riding shotgun.

I crawled along at 30 km/h along the back streets,

I made sure I only made left handed turns for safety.

Git there and ‘did the necessary’ as we Kiwi’s say (or do aussies say that?).

This may all seem rediculous,

That a well educated forty eight year old small business owner would do this.

But as I have found – when you age your life can become suddenly too dull.

Sure in my case perhaps that’s just because I partied way to hard in youth,

And so now with age ‘standard life’ now seems overly dreary –

But what can I say – we all live the lives we have had, don’t we?.

Perhaps this could be a warning sign – that I need to move to the city.

The wags say ‘he’s so bored in that small town he’s driving on flat tires for kicks’.

Well, I guess their must be a smidgen of truth to that yes – I am a reasonable man.

But I as I already mentioned it’s merely a need to be contrarian –

But then the other wag pop’s head over pulpit and whispers “but what’s the cause of that?”

Well perhaps it’s a generalized fear of anything external to my own mind,

Due to a number of childhood trauma incidents that have scarred me for life.

Trauma that has been buried so deep for so long that it can only emerge within the ‘safety of the absurd’.

Such as the choice to drive around on a slow leak-flat tire seemingly just for kicks.

Of course I am engaging and indulging the Americanism of ‘casual pop psychology’.

But at the same time – what if I’m right?

In the absence of knowing the correct path of action –

I will monitor the situation namely the p.s.i. of my remaining three tires.

And if one day things escalate and I find myself ‘driving happily on all four rims’ –

I’ll do nothing at all, keep driving and see what eventuates.

After all – I am a bored, small-town-trapped, unmedicated contrarian with an interest in Philosophy ain’t I?

But don’t worry, on a final serious note I’ll sort the tire out next week, or maybe the week after that.

What’s that my dear fine wag calling out from the back row?

Yes you are correct I did forget to mention my penchant for procrastination.

That guy I worked with long ago – Matthew from Melbourne – was probably correct:

I am probably in theory at least a “Psychiatrist’s wet dream”.

But when writing of one’s own foibles – that’s is my prerogative, is it not?

“This ramble-a-thon now must end” said the fourth wag in this prose poem.

I agreed and ended it now, after all I was standing on the carpet that he emerged from underneath.

And I do love to end on a self referential tone –

As all madmen who write tend to do.

“When two avoidants did collide all those years ago” (Prose)

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Two people in vintage attire reading newspapers in a busy café.

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmith@gmail.com or martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Literary Proviso: Re the subject of ‘avoidantism’ – I’m pretty sure I’m not pathologizing ‘being a dickhead’ (But you never know do you? Perhaps the entire DSM V could simply be whittled down to an A4 page entitled ‘The Seven Types of dick’eads’).

So what happens when two avoidants collide?
I think this happened to me in a gnarly unforgiving mega-city long ago.
She was a ‘dismissive avoidant’.
I was an ‘anxious avoidant’.
Of course I am not qualified to diagnose –
But ain’t pop psychology fun? – the joy to diagnose everyone with at least something.
And that something is only only ever half real – at best.
BUT some diagnosis are more real/useful than others.
And I think the ‘avoidant’ attachment style theories are quite good.
But again – what do I know?

This is the beauty of writing – it’s your universe up until the ‘blackshirts’ arrive.
Now going back to us ‘two avoidants’.
At the time (in the gnarly mega-city) I also hated my job.
Yeah sure for that you can call me a copy cat – I agree entirely.
In big gnarly cities the jobs are ‘created to be hated’.
That is their raison-de-tre.
And you can quote me on that

I think she did (hate her job) too, but not nearly as much as I did.
But at least she made – as they say -‘some decent coin’.
I had foolishly and blindly made myself an immigrant slave.
Well I guess I was an immigrant coming from New Zealand to Melbourne.
Pseudo-immigrant maybe, but still an immigrant non the less.
Maybe I had a better ‘class of slavery’ over there than in NZ – maybe.

Now that I am older – I realize it’s (i.e’ your life) is all about self-confidence.
It is one of the many ‘glib but true’ things.
You life falls or rises to the level of your self-confidence.
Both of us ‘two avoidants’ had low self confidence (a neccesary condition of the disease).
Of course you can be high in confidence in some areas and low in others.
It’s all a complex thing – and we Kiwis/Aussies are also bred to have low confidence.
Glib but true thing number two: The brain is the most complex thing in the universe.

I was high in confidence in picking up bar-women for example,
But low in chasing a job or generic situation that reflected a higher-self.
Of course there’s really no way to win being an corporate employee –
They’ll fire you if your confidence isn’t fake anyway.
Confidence is allowed when you ‘own the thing’.
Confidence is for Entrepreneurs with 100% or at least 51% share loadings.
Confidence is for Artists/Muso’s/Writers with shitty day jobs @ glorious creative nights,
And there’s not much in between.

Anyway of course me being the ‘anxious avoidant’ wanted to be around her (the dismissive) more.
I guess the ‘anxious’ part overrided my ‘avoidant’ part if she was the one avoiding me first.
It’s all such a ridiculously complicated thing.
It was far too complicated for me to figure out,
Mainly because we men (us with brains) get better with age – and I wasn’t old enough.
A young man cannot really put guard rails on the powerful forces that exist in him.
It is when we age the forces ebb away a little so the train can stay on it’s rails.

But I must say in my case of the ‘two avoidants’
I will always wish that somehow I could have prevented the book-end-implosion.
But as an old man I accept that is also wishful thinking.
And I still wonder about her some decade and a half gone (well -more than that).
I wonder what ‘the ol’ dismissive’ will be saying her poems about it all – & about me.
I’m sure she agrees that we couldn’t have changed anything much at all.
And only as an (almost) old man ‘ave I came to accept that.

It was a wise decision to dismiss me after all.
If the cards fell a little more to the left –
I would have easily done the same thing to her.
And she was only following her ‘nervous systems orders’ after all.
And to be fair to myself – I was wise to be anxious about her.
I too was merely following my nervous system’s orders.
We were both relative novices riding that selfish bucking beast.

But Avoidants or not – at least we did at least ‘attended class’.
We sat next to each other in class – the naugty ones at the back.
And my now my self-imposed detention (exile?) is surely over.
I’ve written the same line a million times now:
“In time good executive function can & will tame any prior emotional dysfunction”.
And upon writing the millionth line – it came true (or did it?).

And so in summary: in relative youth two avoidants must explode,
But many years later the remnants can gravitationally collapse over a lovely cappuccino.
And I don’t care if someone complements my rose tinted glasses.
For with age you don’t care what others think.
You finally and sans apology do what’s best for you.
And now I will finally stop rambling (it’s artistically legal via Prose) of the time –
“When two avoidants did collide all those years ago”.