I went to a concert with a friend last Sunday, the first I’ve been to in over twenty years. Seeing Placebo live has been a dream of mine for over a decade, but I’ve been a fan much longer. I bought their album Without You I’m Nothing back in 1998 after a chance hearing of their song Pure Morning on the radio. It resonated with me from the start, but I would never have guessed it would become my favorite song ever.
I can try to explain why it rose to such prominence over more than two decades, but you can’t understand. Not really. Enigmatically I’ll say that I have experienced Pure Morning in glorious, ecstatic states: as fiery sparks, in the blue city, and being held and lifted by the expanding expression of itself.
Now it resonates in and with my soul.
I’ve had realizations and deep introspections to Placebo’s music; I should have expected something would unravel and reveal itself at the concert. My instinct for such has been reinforced well. I couldn’t anticipate what I would learn and why, but it makes sense in the environment.
Epiphanies strike more rapidly now illuminating connections between behaviors, motivations, and personal history. At first tenuous and distant, the patterns expose themselves with little prodding.
It’s as though beginning the search in earnest proved my resolve, and now my mind is keen to display the coding previously hidden. Similar to how starting a dream journal makes dreams more vivid and memorable.
Or maybe it’s like how Amy Adam’s character in Arrival learns the alien’s language and begins to think as they do, beyond the confines of time as we know it. In learning the language of my brain, I start to understand its/my rhythms.
Is a Friend Indeed
My friend and I claimed a central spot on the floor with a good view of the band. By the time Placebo took the stage, the crowd was dancing with concentrations of greater exuberance bubbling up here and there, but nothing riotous.
My brain never stops. Always observing, picking things apart, and looking for meaning, patterns, connections, and concepts. The wild revelries of a pocket of the crowd draw my attention. I note the beauty in the frivolous expenditure of energy but I feel detached from it and them. When I dance, which is often, I dance with fervor, but I wouldn’t tonight, and that created a barrier between them and me.
I sat with this feeling for a while, feeling out the edges and curves of the forming idea. As much as I enjoyed the freeness of their dancing, I couldn’t take part in it. (I don’t know if I didn’t want to take part or if I felt like I couldn’t or shouldn’t do so. Was this intuition or self-rejection?).
And because I couldn’t take part, I was only able to observe from afar. I never felt that they—a nebulous conglomerate of joyous partiers—rejected me from their company but rather our differences didn’t allow it regardless of desire. I simply could not be subsumed into their tribe.
A Friend With Weed Is Better
I did what was permissible and enjoyed the displays of exuberance from afar. I took joy in their joy and had naught but goodwill toward them. This othering of myself contained no envy on my part, no jealousy, no anger; just tranquil acceptance of what felt true.
My mind kept turning this concept, almost akin to low-dose psychedelic thinking—perhaps a secondhand high from all the cannabis smoke drifting about but doubtful with my tolerance. I have trouble getting high on purpose!
This is not a new sensation, though I couldn’t have described it prior to this. I’d felt it but never examined it mindfully. I can’t find causations for or from this self-othering to anything concrete, not yet. I haven’t paid enough attention to it to recognize a pattern.
Memories of this feeling are more often and more strongly attached to large events like this concert, but I know it’s happened in much smaller groups of like six to eight. Recent times that come to mind are mostly lifestyle events but most large-group experiences I’ve had recently are lifestyle ones. The sensation is provoked when I observe a commonality amongst a group—something significant though, a feature or identity that gives that group cohesion—and one I feel I do not share in the moment. I acknowledge that gap and don’t seek to bridge it.
I’ll call this Imposter-Syndrome Avoidance Syndrome: If I was amongst them, I would be an imposter. So I’ll stay in my lane and avoid that unpleasantness.
I wonder if this is why I don’t experience FOMO. I dispassionately observe others in a situation different from mine and am glad for them without wanting to be amongst them.
Because I don’t want things. Why bother when you won’t get them?
A Friend With Breasts and All the Rest
There was a group of three ladies to my right, though it took some time before I realized the number. I was aware of one woman in my periphery, but I hadn’t bothered to look to see if it was just one.
I knew there were people there. There were people everywhere! But I never bothered to take in specific details about the people closest to me other than I did not consider them a threat.
I took in greater detail about the three potential threats I did identify and made note of the larger-by-far-than-me guy standing right in front of me and my friend. As the construction of that last sentence intends, the larger-than-me guy was not one of the threats. He was a defense.
Fights can spread quickly as random people far removed from the catalyst suddenly become violent. It’s common for the biggest guy around to get sucker punched as a brawl starts as both a display of dominance and a way to neutralize a potential threat. Usually I’m the big guy, hence this mental exercise: I know my size is a detriment in these cases, so I’ve trained myself to be prepared.
To take it back to thinking about thinking: I’ve programmed an instinct to assess (1) if an environment is safe, (2) where potential threats are, and (3) how to get Erin out safely.
I had examined the crowd for threats and nothing more, leaving me unaware the three people next to me were women. I knew one was a woman because she’d drift into my line of sight for me to identify long, blond hair and resolve the knowledge she was like 5’3”.
And she just kept bumping into me!
A Friend Who’s Dressed in Leather
Her bumping was notable for two reasons: First, she didn’t accidentally jostle me or continue to bump into me as she danced around in the crowded space. That was happening on every front as is expected at such venues.
It went well beyond bumps; she would make contact and linger. For what felt like an odd amount of time. Just right there. Against me. Sometimes even leaning into me, adding an inconsequential but blatantly obvious pressure against me. And then not move.
The second notable thing about our “exchanges” is that I didn’t budge at all. My typical instinct would have been to get out of her way. A leg touches mine and doesn’t pull back? I relinquish my physical space to dissipate a touch that feels inappropriate and unwanted.
But not tonight because I had made the conscious decision in response earlier jostling that here and now I will own my physical space. When I made this choice, I had done so thinking it a way to practice concepts from class and actively train an instinct to maintain my space, which is counter to my current instinct to relinquish it.
This incessant bumping and leaning put my defense and resolve to the test over and over. I had to be mindful about holding my position or else I would have reacted as I always had done. Had these stimuli not come in such rapid succession and been so notably odd, I might have missed the building discomfort.
It’s as though the universe created this situation so that I might learn something. Once felt, the discomfort simply grew. So I turned my mind to processing that. This is easy. This one I know well.
This discomfort comes from being in the way.
Day’s Dawning, Skins Crawling
I always feel too large. For which I often apologize as I moderate my behavior to reduce the discomfort I inflict. I do everything in my power to make myself smaller, more compact; I’ll stuff myself into tight corners to avoid spilling into someone else’s space.
Constantly aware of my place in moving groups, I go to extreme lengths to maneuver without disrupting people. I used to pull Erin out of the way of pedestrian traffic should she be standing in a throughway. It annoyed her so I’ve stopped.
“There’s plenty of room to walk by me!” she would say.
“But…why are you OK with being in their way?” I would wonder.
That’s how I feel: always in the way. Always taking up too much space, consuming too much of everything, making too much noise while contributing little value. I weigh down the world by being in it. So I collapse on myself, trying to shrink and hoping to not be a burden. Never succeeding because I just cannot shut up.
I’m ever retreating from my own life because my presence in it is the worst part of it. I don’t mean for other people; I mean for me.
This isn’t new, but I saw for the first time the enormity of this belief and the behaviors it provokes.
Back to my lack of FOMO: I’m not just glad for others having fun (though I am; compersion, bitches!); I also think that I wouldn’t be amongst them having fun were I there. My othering removes me from them. I’m not just glad for them having that fun; rather, I’m glad I’m not there because they wouldn’t be having as much fun if I were.
Let Me Steal This Moment From You Now
For the first time that I can remember, I’m owning my space.
That the invader was half my mass was irrelevant. I don’t question my ability to own my space. I’ve just never chosen to because I don’t think I’m worth the space I take up. My instinct has been refined to manifest this belief.
About an hour in, a group of eight young adults pushed through the crowd into our area. I identify this behavior as antithetical to my own. I weave and twist to eek through with as little contact as possible, surprisingly fluid despite my size. They just surged through, perfectly willing to displace people in their way. The energy in our area shifts instantly to apprehensive.
More worrying to me, this group seemed to be enjoying the concert on a different level than the rest of us. I suspect MDMA (heavier dose than I’d recommend for sure!), maybe a psychedelic. At one point they smoke a bowl (a lighter in a tight crowd!) and they have cans of beer (which make for great cudgels in a scuffle). I note my observations to my friend so that she’s aware of the potential threat.
The new group dances wildly and with little caution, knocking into each other and occasionally into those around them. The ebb and flow of the crowd shifted the group of ladies from next to me to in front of me (which is how I learned there were three ladies; I hadn’t taken in that information until then), and just in front of them, the Group of 8, some of who had floundered into the three ladies.
The ladies didn’t seem to appreciate the intrusion, so when another member of the Group of 8 crashed into the Group of 3 again, I made my move.
Let’s Exchange the Experience
My move was simple: I asked the ladies if they would like me to step in front of them to create a barrier. They created the space; I stepped into it.
I’m reminded of castling in chess, making me the rook. I can be a rook.
I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with BigGuy forming the wall into which these dancers crash. They’re not violent, but just too much energy to unleash unbuffered.
My vibe shifted as soon as I castled. Instantly my size and sturdiness become boons. I now have value because I occupy this space. Shaped by purpose, I no longer have to be mindful about holding against an invader: I can do nothing else. I am a man of the Night’s Watch now!
I felt pride in that at the time. Finally—at last!—I appreciated my space in the world.
Upon reflection later, I realized I misinterpreted why standing sentinel between groups had come so naturally. I had thought I was responding to the demand of the situation. Normally relinquishing space is the path of least resistance, but here it wasn’t an option so I rose to the challenge.
But that’s not what happened. I moved between the groups because if someone was to have their concert experience infringed upon, let it be me. It doesn’t hurt me.
I never was owning my space; I was defending theirs. I had thought myself a rook; turns out I was just a pawn.
Pure Morning
But I’m healed…now?
Alas, no. This was naught but revelations of outward manifestations that suggest a toxic perception of self. I already knew I held this belief.
Not to say this experience wasn’t illuminating!
I don’t perceive myself to be worthless per se; I don’t doubt that I have value…in the right situations. And it’s an awful ROI given all the other bullshit in tow, me being broken and all. I was delivered up with wires connected the wrong way and cracks through the whole thing. I’ve been trying to keep it together with tape…and this metaphor is done now.
I don’t go through my life aware of this poor ROI. I’d say I’m blissfully ignorant of it 70% of the time (yay for ADHD making me able to forget anything, including that I have ADHD). Overall, when I stop to mindfully assess my present state, I generally find myself content if not happy. Because I know I have some value, I strive to provide enough value to balance the flaws.
I get that there aren’t flaws. I was diagnosed with ADHD before it had the H, and yet I have all the symptoms of undiagnosed ADHD. Because the only mitigation practices my parents employed were no sugary cereals before school and limiting red food dye (it’s a thing). And then I was punished for all the unacceptable behaviors that are common to kids with ADHD. To me, I was being punished for things over which I had no control. I was punished because I was unacceptable.
Combine that with my family liking my asshole bully of a brother more than they like me…feeling flawed and unloveable makes sense. But knowing where this comes from doesn’t change the feeling.
Running Up That Hill
If you know the song at all, the headings in this blog mostly make sense; even if you don’t, you might have guessed they are lyrics from Placebo’s Pure Morning, except for the two from Running Up That Hill (which is a cover of the Kate Bush song from the 80s). It’s my second favorite Placebo song.
There are many covers of this song, but I prefer Placebo’s. I always felt it captured me well.
How often I wish I could make a deal to take the burdens off others. Even the passing of a dear friend who very suddenly succumbed to cancer, leaving her two wonderful daughters. I wasn’t going to have children. I’ve always known that. So it was in the days of her decline that Running Up That Hill was playing a loop, and were it possible, I would have swapped our places.
It seems a thing for a rook to do, swap places. Take the hit for someone else. But that’s not a gift given to me, not this time around.
That’s the mentality of the spare child, I suppose. I’m only important if something happened to the heir apparent. But I wasn’t kept safe and secure in case of that eventuality. No, I’m one of the heir’s protectors and need to be willing to sacrifice my life to preserve his, because the first is better by the simple truth that they are first.
So that is why the lyrics of both songs found their way into this post. I was surprised by how well they fit with the content in each section.
If you were wondering, Placebo did not play Pure Morning. But they finished the encore with Running Up That Hill. And it was beautiful.