Cliches are a fine art. I remember reading Infinite Jest (jeez, don’t brag) was struck by Mr. Wallace’s idea of striking a balance between cliche and obvious truth, and what a fine balance to walk it is. You know a cliche when you hear it, but you understand a cliche after understanding why it’s a cliche. Heady shit.

I always like to fall back on the cliche of Mrs. Brady: “Wherever you go, there you are”. It’s a saccharine way to remind myself that there’s no escaping myself. After uprooting and moving out of town, and everything familiar to me, I find myself with my frame shifted. It’s not myself I’m trying to distance myself from, it’s other people. Kind of. It’s more the interactions between myself and other people. I’ve had four months dealing with very little in the area of social engagements, and it’s been eye-opening in the area of who I am, as you can’t help but run into people and engage them.

The lack of control that I have in these interactions with other people does not bother me one bit. But I am constantly running into people who care a lot about that type of control. The idea that information is power and then using that power to influence and manipulate, more often than not to your own ends. It might be because I am far too earnest and without guile, but seeing it in action on me or others bugs me. Probably because I have no weapons against it besides silence, or agreeing until they go away.

It’s a fine balance though. I interact with people of my ilk, and feel energized. I interact with bandits, and feel drained. I like interacting with the bandits though, as long as there’s nothing to lose. Then it’s just like watching a performance, where you get to dictate which direction the performer goes in. Funnily enough, there’s the manipulation I detest. It doesn’t feel like manipulation to me because I am not actively trying to drain anything out, they’re going to do it the way they want to anyways.

I find myself meeting more and more people of the ilk though, and identifying the bandits sooner. I like the people I’m finding. This is a great place to be.