This post is about envy and hopefully a solution can be reached (again, not humor. For someone who is building a blog about humor, I sure do lack humorous content, don't I?).
The Female Fish Group
So my wife is part of this Facebook group that she calls her Fish Group. It's an exclusive group of ~26 women who have all decided that they are going to be the best of friends, no matter what.
The Fish Group started several years back with each woman inviting a friend or two to join
with them, which filled up the group quickly. Over the years, some
members have decided to leave the group. After the initial group-building phase, no new members have been allowed (because new people can't be trusted with the very sensitive information that members have posted previously).
None of them knew every person in the group when it started. Some have never met in person, but they're still considered very close friends. The group is very diverse - they have wealthy and poor, educated and not-as-educated, married and divorced and engaged and never married, mentally ill and mentally sturdy, LGBTQ, religious and non-religious, and all sorts of different backgrounds and professions. Their age range is something like 25 to 40ish. They are super supportive of each other and compliment each other. They share secrets and thoughts and problems and successes and ask for advice and share funny things/stories. They're super thoughtful, asking several days later how a problem turned out. Sometimes they don't agree with each others' opinions, but they always come back to friendship.
From what I can tell, they are completely judgment-free and as a result, can be very vulnerable with each other. Nothing that is discussed in the group can be discussed outside the group without explicit permission from the person posting. They have optional yearly meetups, they participate in Secret Santa around Christmas (an event they dubbed 'Fishmas'), as well as other mini events. Sometimes, they team up and pitch in money to buy a gift for a member that is struggling either financially or emotionally.
The group is very active, with members often posting and commenting multiple times a day.
What does that have to do with you, Brandon?
I want that. I want the male equivalent of the Fish Group. We can call it whatever we want and come up with our own rules and stuff; we don't have to copy the women exactly if we don't want to. I understand that it's not the most masculine thing to discuss thoughts and emotions and all that, but I really don't care (which is arguably more masculine). I still want this.
If you're reading this and think to yourself "Wow, that sounds like something that I might enjoy" or "Wow, that sounds like something my friend/husband would enjoy", then hit me up on Facebook and we can start it.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Thursday, January 10, 2019
The philosophies of Brandon, mingled with hindsight: The early years
I've decided to dedicate my first few posts to describing my childhood - a basic overview of life up to this point. I think it's important to understand where a person is coming from and how they think in order to truly appreciate the messages they're trying to represent.
This post isn't as much about humor as it is about talking about my past and going over the events of it and how I internalized everything in order to explain what has led to me thinking and acting the way I do now. My goal on this one is to be interesting (with elements of humor sprinkled in here and there because honestly I can't help myself).
TL;DR: After floundering about for a few years, I realized that I'm an addict and my drug of choice is praise from others.
Elementary school: In the beginning...
I was born in California into a highly religious Mormon family with five other siblings, with me being #3 in the lineup. My mom was sweet and patient, but raising 6 kids with little hands-on help will take its toll on any person. My dad was a very hard worker, with the incredible ability to just buckle down and work for an insane amount of time in order to get a task done. He was a venture capitalist and was gone a lot. He worked long hours for many years. Today, I have good relationships with both my parents.
There's not a whole lot to say about elementary school. It was easy and fun. I was popular. I had lots of friends and I was well-liked. I was confident, I was always picked first for the kickball team, I was in the 'gifted and talented' program. I was a 'cool kid'. Plus I was the best at Connect Four.
Many people refer to others who "peaked in high school" as losers unworthy of their time. Lucky for me, though, I didn't peak in high school; I peaked in elementary school.
Middle school: In the middle of the ride
Then middle school happened and that's when I noticed a great change in myself. I began to withdraw from basically everything. Whereas before, when I considered myself the natural king of all my social circles, almost as if overnight, I now had a tough time fitting in (often with the same kids I once had no problems interacting with). I gained a lot of weight and didn't feel comfortable in my own body (but honestly, who does in middle school?).
I stopped trying in school - not out of laziness or anything like that, but just because I... couldn't? It was like someone messed with the dials on my radio of life - everything was still powered on and working just fine, but I just wasn't getting a signal. I found myself just kind of floating from day to day, dreading the next more than the previous.
One highlight is that in my 6th grade English and social studies class (called 'core'), the teacher decided it was appropriate to blatantly give up on me and a few other kids in the classroom who weren't performing well. She grouped us all up and had us sit at the same table, and would refer to our table as the "gas pumper table" (because that's all we would ever amount to). None of us were disruptive or anything like that, yet she seemed to get sadistic pleasure from taunting a bunch of under-performing 11-year-olds and "putting us in our place". And now that I think about it, the kids sitting at that table with me were probably the smartest kids in the entire grade. I imagine their circumstances weren't unlike mine. We were all running on V8 engines, and the road was clearly laid out in front of us. We just lacked tires.
I would later go on to show that teacher a thing or two, though. Instead of becoming a "gas pumper" as she so condescendingly predicted, I went on to become a gas station manager. So HA!
Looking back on that time of life, I was showing so many early warning signs of mental illness, I'm surprised no one caught on. But this was at a time when mental health awareness wasn't what it is today, so... shrug.
I was so miserable, I began to think about killing myself. I knew I wasn't ok, but I was afraid that if I brought up my problems with my parents, my problems would either get minimized in the way of me being told I needed to toughen up, or I'd get in trouble and be punished. And I already spent a lot of time in trouble.
I would write what were essentially unambiguous cries for help on some of my school assignments and then turn them in, secretly hoping that someone would read them, become worried, and intervene. Only a couple instances were discussed with me. Nothing was done. I don't think the school counselor or anyone of that nature were ever contacted. I think they just wrote me off as an edgy preteen, but the cries for help were genuine and to this day I wish that some kind of intervention had been performed. For the sake of example so you can understand what I was doing, I once wrote all over one assignment for my 7th grade biology class "DEATH TO ME, DEATH TO ME, DEATH TO ME..." over and over in the margins of the assignment. I remember as she was passing back the assignment, the teacher lingered at my seat a little longer, gave me a disappointed look, and gave me my assignment back. She had marked off an extra 6 points and left a comment that simply read "unprofessional behavior". I showed it to my parents. They agreed with the teacher.
Of course, now, I realize that all of this detaching from reality that I was doing was a result of a predisposition to mental illness and multiple angles of abuse in my life, but I didn't know that at the time.
I spent a long time trying to figure out what I needed. What could make me happy again? Maybe if I could just figure this out myself, my problems would go away? After a lot of introspection, I realized that I needed to be praised; I was happiest when being praised. So I started looking for something that I could be praised for.
Later in life, when learning about concepts like 'Love Languages', I learned that my love language by a freaking mile is 'words of affirmation'. Giving me words of affirmation (things like compliments and verbal expressions of affection, or explaining why that affection exists) is like ramming my face into a kilo of cocaine and making me inhale deeply.
To this day, if you've ever given me any kind of meaningful, heartfelt praise, I probably remember you and you show up in the highlight reel from whatever time of life you were part of.
A bit of a tangent, but I've noticed that praise is very rare in our world, and requesting praise from others is frowned upon in our society and viewed as selfish and insecure, whereas asking for a hug, or asking for someone to spend some time with you, or asking someone to do something for you -- those things are generally rewarded.
This means that I couldn't simply ask for my needs to be met. In order for my needs to be met, I needed to be praiseworthy.
So I set out to stand out for something in order to garner the attention and praise of my peers. And I decided that that 'something' was going to be humor. I wanted to be a funny guy.
And I studied comedy. It took me years until I felt like I was able to be a self-proclaimed 'funny guy'. I listened to standup routines repeatedly that I had downloaded from Napster (to this day, I could probably rattle off Dana Carvey's Critic's Choice set word-for-word, or Jerry Seinfeld's I'm Telling You For the Last Time). I attended local comedy shows put on by high school students. I payed close attention to the structures and syntaxes of different jokes and repeated them over and over until I had fully dissected what made particular jokes funny.
But knowing what makes a good joke, and applying the principles of a good joke in order to form your own jokes are two different things (like how analyzing what Shakespeare is saying, and writing in convincing Shakespearean language are two different things). It would be some time until I had figured out how to smoothly stitch jokes together.
I took up interest in improv and standup. But there was no middle school comedy group. The closest I could get to such a thing was the Drama II class.
In 8th grade, I auditioned for and was accepted into the "Drama II" class (skipping Drama I, which I felt really cool about at the time, but now I realize that it was because I was a boy and the teacher desperately needed more boys in the upper class, not because I was talented in drama). In that class I got a taste for performing comedy for an audience. Hearing people laugh and cheer for me was like stabbing 20 adrenaline syringes directly into my depressed little heart. I wanted more; I needed more.
This post isn't as much about humor as it is about talking about my past and going over the events of it and how I internalized everything in order to explain what has led to me thinking and acting the way I do now. My goal on this one is to be interesting (with elements of humor sprinkled in here and there because honestly I can't help myself).
TL;DR: After floundering about for a few years, I realized that I'm an addict and my drug of choice is praise from others.
Elementary school: In the beginning...
I was born in California into a highly religious Mormon family with five other siblings, with me being #3 in the lineup. My mom was sweet and patient, but raising 6 kids with little hands-on help will take its toll on any person. My dad was a very hard worker, with the incredible ability to just buckle down and work for an insane amount of time in order to get a task done. He was a venture capitalist and was gone a lot. He worked long hours for many years. Today, I have good relationships with both my parents.
There's not a whole lot to say about elementary school. It was easy and fun. I was popular. I had lots of friends and I was well-liked. I was confident, I was always picked first for the kickball team, I was in the 'gifted and talented' program. I was a 'cool kid'. Plus I was the best at Connect Four.
Many people refer to others who "peaked in high school" as losers unworthy of their time. Lucky for me, though, I didn't peak in high school; I peaked in elementary school.
Middle school: In the middle of the ride
Then middle school happened and that's when I noticed a great change in myself. I began to withdraw from basically everything. Whereas before, when I considered myself the natural king of all my social circles, almost as if overnight, I now had a tough time fitting in (often with the same kids I once had no problems interacting with). I gained a lot of weight and didn't feel comfortable in my own body (but honestly, who does in middle school?).
I stopped trying in school - not out of laziness or anything like that, but just because I... couldn't? It was like someone messed with the dials on my radio of life - everything was still powered on and working just fine, but I just wasn't getting a signal. I found myself just kind of floating from day to day, dreading the next more than the previous.
One highlight is that in my 6th grade English and social studies class (called 'core'), the teacher decided it was appropriate to blatantly give up on me and a few other kids in the classroom who weren't performing well. She grouped us all up and had us sit at the same table, and would refer to our table as the "gas pumper table" (because that's all we would ever amount to). None of us were disruptive or anything like that, yet she seemed to get sadistic pleasure from taunting a bunch of under-performing 11-year-olds and "putting us in our place". And now that I think about it, the kids sitting at that table with me were probably the smartest kids in the entire grade. I imagine their circumstances weren't unlike mine. We were all running on V8 engines, and the road was clearly laid out in front of us. We just lacked tires.
I would later go on to show that teacher a thing or two, though. Instead of becoming a "gas pumper" as she so condescendingly predicted, I went on to become a gas station manager. So HA!
Looking back on that time of life, I was showing so many early warning signs of mental illness, I'm surprised no one caught on. But this was at a time when mental health awareness wasn't what it is today, so... shrug.
I was so miserable, I began to think about killing myself. I knew I wasn't ok, but I was afraid that if I brought up my problems with my parents, my problems would either get minimized in the way of me being told I needed to toughen up, or I'd get in trouble and be punished. And I already spent a lot of time in trouble.
I would write what were essentially unambiguous cries for help on some of my school assignments and then turn them in, secretly hoping that someone would read them, become worried, and intervene. Only a couple instances were discussed with me. Nothing was done. I don't think the school counselor or anyone of that nature were ever contacted. I think they just wrote me off as an edgy preteen, but the cries for help were genuine and to this day I wish that some kind of intervention had been performed. For the sake of example so you can understand what I was doing, I once wrote all over one assignment for my 7th grade biology class "DEATH TO ME, DEATH TO ME, DEATH TO ME..." over and over in the margins of the assignment. I remember as she was passing back the assignment, the teacher lingered at my seat a little longer, gave me a disappointed look, and gave me my assignment back. She had marked off an extra 6 points and left a comment that simply read "unprofessional behavior". I showed it to my parents. They agreed with the teacher.
Of course, now, I realize that all of this detaching from reality that I was doing was a result of a predisposition to mental illness and multiple angles of abuse in my life, but I didn't know that at the time.
I spent a long time trying to figure out what I needed. What could make me happy again? Maybe if I could just figure this out myself, my problems would go away? After a lot of introspection, I realized that I needed to be praised; I was happiest when being praised. So I started looking for something that I could be praised for.
Later in life, when learning about concepts like 'Love Languages', I learned that my love language by a freaking mile is 'words of affirmation'. Giving me words of affirmation (things like compliments and verbal expressions of affection, or explaining why that affection exists) is like ramming my face into a kilo of cocaine and making me inhale deeply.
To this day, if you've ever given me any kind of meaningful, heartfelt praise, I probably remember you and you show up in the highlight reel from whatever time of life you were part of.
A bit of a tangent, but I've noticed that praise is very rare in our world, and requesting praise from others is frowned upon in our society and viewed as selfish and insecure, whereas asking for a hug, or asking for someone to spend some time with you, or asking someone to do something for you -- those things are generally rewarded.
This means that I couldn't simply ask for my needs to be met. In order for my needs to be met, I needed to be praiseworthy.
So I set out to stand out for something in order to garner the attention and praise of my peers. And I decided that that 'something' was going to be humor. I wanted to be a funny guy.
And I studied comedy. It took me years until I felt like I was able to be a self-proclaimed 'funny guy'. I listened to standup routines repeatedly that I had downloaded from Napster (to this day, I could probably rattle off Dana Carvey's Critic's Choice set word-for-word, or Jerry Seinfeld's I'm Telling You For the Last Time). I attended local comedy shows put on by high school students. I payed close attention to the structures and syntaxes of different jokes and repeated them over and over until I had fully dissected what made particular jokes funny.
But knowing what makes a good joke, and applying the principles of a good joke in order to form your own jokes are two different things (like how analyzing what Shakespeare is saying, and writing in convincing Shakespearean language are two different things). It would be some time until I had figured out how to smoothly stitch jokes together.
I took up interest in improv and standup. But there was no middle school comedy group. The closest I could get to such a thing was the Drama II class.
In 8th grade, I auditioned for and was accepted into the "Drama II" class (skipping Drama I, which I felt really cool about at the time, but now I realize that it was because I was a boy and the teacher desperately needed more boys in the upper class, not because I was talented in drama). In that class I got a taste for performing comedy for an audience. Hearing people laugh and cheer for me was like stabbing 20 adrenaline syringes directly into my depressed little heart. I wanted more; I needed more.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Let's try that again
A while ago, in a fit of paranoia, I took down dozens of posts from this blog. This is a 'rebeginning' of that blog.
Hi. I'm Brandon. I like to write and perform comedy. I have a strong background in improv, sketch, and standup. I'm in an ongoing process of acquiring a jack-of-all-trades educational background, while also having a crippling lack of ability to apply any of my expensive academic knowledge to anything particularly practical.
Meaning: I'm kind of useless for anything more than simple party tricks.
I suppose this post is a bit of a reintroduction to this blog, considering that for the last while, I've been taking a more off-the-grid approach to life in general. That's not to say that I've been living off The Grid; no, I quite like The Grid. But while most people have a give-and-take relationship with The Grid, up until fairly recently, I've just been in a 'take' relationship with The Grid. I spend a lot of time on the internet, but I avoid posting on social media and comment sections and things of that nature as much as realistically possible.
I suppose that all ends with me reopening this blog.
This blog is called Conversations With Imaginary People because I have severe and often crippling mental health problems and one of the manifestations of my unfortunate (but often funny) mental health is that I hear voices. I literally have conversations with imaginary people. I'm sure I'll poke fun at all of that later. But for now, I think that's all that's needed to get you up to speed.
Despite my complications, I feel like I have a pretty optimistic outlook on life, and my problems make for some pretty great comedic moments. I plan on sharing many of them.
I expect to be using this blog as an outlet for my innate desire to perform and entertain. Yes, I understand that no one is going to follow this blog on any consistent basis. But this still scratches that itch, so whatever.
Not every post will be centered around comedy - some might be kind of sad - but I will strive to make each post interesting. I used to tell my college improv group "You don't have to be funny; you just have to be interesting and often the humor will follow."
So I guess the big question is this:
"Why should I read your blog?"
Well, I expect that it's going to be entertaining and be from a point of view that most people don't hear from - a severely mentally ill comedian-of-sorts who escaped a cult after lifelong "service" in order to do... nothing. I'm like a plot to a dark 90's sitcom.
And everyone could use some entertainment in the form of a long, wordy, emotionally masturbatory personal blog, right?
Plus, I've lost contact with a lot of people in my past that I'm still connected with on social media, and rather than message each of them personally to try to catch up, it's a lot easier and way less awkward (and pathetic) to just link them to my blog and they can read it if they want.
So with that, I declare this blog OPEN FOR BUSINESS!
Hi. I'm Brandon. I like to write and perform comedy. I have a strong background in improv, sketch, and standup. I'm in an ongoing process of acquiring a jack-of-all-trades educational background, while also having a crippling lack of ability to apply any of my expensive academic knowledge to anything particularly practical.
Meaning: I'm kind of useless for anything more than simple party tricks.
I suppose this post is a bit of a reintroduction to this blog, considering that for the last while, I've been taking a more off-the-grid approach to life in general. That's not to say that I've been living off The Grid; no, I quite like The Grid. But while most people have a give-and-take relationship with The Grid, up until fairly recently, I've just been in a 'take' relationship with The Grid. I spend a lot of time on the internet, but I avoid posting on social media and comment sections and things of that nature as much as realistically possible.
I suppose that all ends with me reopening this blog.
This blog is called Conversations With Imaginary People because I have severe and often crippling mental health problems and one of the manifestations of my unfortunate (but often funny) mental health is that I hear voices. I literally have conversations with imaginary people. I'm sure I'll poke fun at all of that later. But for now, I think that's all that's needed to get you up to speed.
Despite my complications, I feel like I have a pretty optimistic outlook on life, and my problems make for some pretty great comedic moments. I plan on sharing many of them.
I expect to be using this blog as an outlet for my innate desire to perform and entertain. Yes, I understand that no one is going to follow this blog on any consistent basis. But this still scratches that itch, so whatever.
Not every post will be centered around comedy - some might be kind of sad - but I will strive to make each post interesting. I used to tell my college improv group "You don't have to be funny; you just have to be interesting and often the humor will follow."
So I guess the big question is this:
"Why should I read your blog?"
Well, I expect that it's going to be entertaining and be from a point of view that most people don't hear from - a severely mentally ill comedian-of-sorts who escaped a cult after lifelong "service" in order to do... nothing. I'm like a plot to a dark 90's sitcom.
And everyone could use some entertainment in the form of a long, wordy, emotionally masturbatory personal blog, right?
Plus, I've lost contact with a lot of people in my past that I'm still connected with on social media, and rather than message each of them personally to try to catch up, it's a lot easier and way less awkward (and pathetic) to just link them to my blog and they can read it if they want.
So with that, I declare this blog OPEN FOR BUSINESS!
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