04/24/03: Negative Impulses

[juju]

I guess everyone thinks of doing crazy shit now and then. Sometimes, when I'm standing out on my balcony, I feel compelled to jump. I think of the feeling of what it would be like to free fall, and the immense fear I would experience on the way down. The immediacy of the desire to do it scares me, and as a result rarely go out on my balcony. The crazy thing is, though, that I don't want to jump. I don't want to die, because I love my life. The only thing that keeps me from jumping is logic and fear of consequences. So why even have the thought in the first place?

I think Jim Carrey described this desire best in one of his stand-up acts. He said:

It seems like we're always trying to fend off these negative impulses. It's like, you're with a friend, it could be your best friend in the whole world, and he's standing about two feet away, talking to you. And you're thinking, "My goodness.. I could just fire out and hit him right now. He would never expect it! He's my friend!" You see, insanity is never that far away. It's as close as saying "yes" to the wrong impulse. The people who stay sane are the people who can make those quick decisions.

I heard him tell a story once about how he used to go up on stage with the express purpose of making the audience hate him. Just absolutely loathe him. And he would get up there and clear the place out. Just think about the balls it would take to do something like that. I mean, hell, doing good stand-up is supposed to scare the hell out of people. Can you imagine intentionally bombing? There are just some things you don't do.

And this is sort of what I'm talking about. Those things that you don't do, just because. It's like, there's this mental barrier inside people's minds that prevents them from doing things they're not supposed to do. Somehow, I've lost this barrier. I still don't do bad things, but my safety net now consists only of logic and fear of consequences. This is a very strange feeling, because before, there was just this mental block that prevented me from even considering a negative impulse. I knew before that there were just some things I could never do. Now, I realize that I can do anything I want. Only my mind was stopping me. I can't really describe it, but it's a very freeing sensation.

I should point out that I would never jump to my death. I have no reason to. That was just an example of one of the negative impulses that I think we all get from time to time. It could be anything, that was just one example. And like Jim Carrey said, what separates the sane from the insane is the ability to make those quick decisions.

Me -- "Should I slap this guy hard in the face? Man, that would be great!"
Inner voice -- "No! He would get pissed, attack you, and then never speak to you again!"
Me -- "Right."

I talked to Wolf and Whit about this last night in a chat room, and they described it as "Growing up". Something about realizing that I'm no longer under the thumb of my parents, and the realization that I can do whatever I damn well please. It's losing the "Because I said so" mentality. Like maybe I had no reason for not doing certain things as a kid. There were just some things you didn't do, "Just because".

It's an interesting theory.

And I have yet to do anything crazy. So I think I'm still sane.