Sufficiently Excited.

For a long time now I’ve been unable to get excited about much of anything. And by excited, I mean that unbridled enthusiasm we had as kids or, for some, even now. Unbridled enthusiasm is great because it has no critic. The internal critic has become the bane of my enthusiasm, and now it is so overpowering that even bridled enthusiasm is met with sinister and calculating disruption on its part.

I’ve contemplated naming my inner critic, but the comical ones (Judgey McDouche) lighten the intended tone and the melodramatic, more serious names (Lurking Death, Blu Melancholia) don’t quite hit the mark. So, usually, I just say, Screw you, inner critic. If you had a name, I’d say something worse. But my inner critic, my world-weary inner shield of experience, has effectively abated all forms of enthusiasm in my adult life.

That’s a slight exaggeration, as some events have generated genuine excitement and looking forward-to-it-ness akin to my youth, but those have come few and far between. More often than not, I become a killjoy or am bereft of feeling altogether. To be fair, it’s not all my inner critics’ fault. There was a key moment that started it all, gave the inner critic his/her first assignment: college.

I pretty much new I wanted to work in entertainment in the 6th grade. Then, I only figured myself for a director. But as I got a little older, I adjusted my ambitions according to my relative skill and drive and, once in college, settled on TV writer. And if that’s not a ringing un-endorsement of a profession…

So I wanted to be the best director and then, eventually, TV writer I could be. Since I fell in love with the winning ways of the basketball program UCLA stuck out immediately. Oh, and Spielberg went there. Briefly. When I finally visited the University of California at Los Angeles in the summer before my senior year, I fell hopelessly in love. The Notebook style. But I didn’t get in because I wasn’t good enough. And I had to choose my post-high school institution before I ever found out that fact.

The Christian Brothers gave me the arm around the shoulders treatment, subtly nudging me in the direction of a small liberal arts college nestled in the East Bay hills. They dangled a near full-ride scholarship like a ball club would dangle a 3-year deal below market value but with a vesting option for a fourth year to an aging player coming off a subpar year. Except I was coming off a great year and I wanted to parlay it into the University of my choice. But the draw of all that guaranteed money and an actual offer on the table prompted me to sign on the dotted line. It’s a good thing I did, of course, because I didn’t get in to UCLA.

But the joy of college never happened. Everybody pushed me towards the school they wanted me to go to because they all thought I was one type of person when, in fact, I am someone else entirely. My grandfather of all people sat me down the night before I had to decide whether or not to take the scholarship and basically said it was a deal too good to pass up. He’s never suggested any particular course of action for me (except to do the right thing), so when he decided to speak up, I couldn’t help but listen.

My college years were the worst four years of education. It was a college, not a university. The only thing I still use in my life is the discourse the school encouraged. In that way, my school distinguished itself from UCLA. A lot of people I’ve met there are very smart, book smart, most with great, easy going personalities, but conversational and ideological synthesis does not follow from those other skill sets.

Every day there dulled my ability to have enthusiasm about anything. Because of the school’s location and the community of people there, I figured anything that happened within the community happened in a vacuum. In other words, making a name for myself there had no bearing on the outside world. There was no creative community, either. And, most depressingly, from all this I realized that I was much more a #2 guy than a #1 guy.

So now I live in Los Angeles, pursuing my goal with an occasional doggedness, but more often a cold detachment. The cold detachment is a carry-over from my college days, and it has sufficiently crept into every aspect of my life, from the career to the personal. The winter time only makes the detachment greater. I blame it on the Seasonal Affective Disorder I’ve diagnosed myself with. That, or I’m just a whiner.

Because, when it all comes down to it, I’ve had it pretty good. For chrissakes, I’ve complained in this post about a four-year scholarship. I’m throw eight kinds of tantrum tonight and I don’t really know why other than that my life has not been as joyful as it once was and that I have trouble even making the best of all the great things I do have.

That inner critic undermines my successes by telling me they’re fleeting. What’s next, ass?

Inner Critic keeps the self-esteem low. It’s only a matter of time before you frak it up.

IC likes to keep the paranoia motor running. You’ll be found out soon enough.

I’d be scared if I could be, but, again with the cold detachment. Passionate rage seems easy to reach back and use, but it’s that passionate joy that I’ve found the most elusive for the past 7 years.