GYSO Drawing Part 20 - Trust

Published: 2019-11-24

Introduction

Tim:
(Best read when you have 10 minutes alone)

Do you trust me?

I want you to try something. You, as in you specifically, as in you who are reading this right now. I have a task for you.

With your non-dominant hand began to tap your thigh. Tap it at a comfortable, but consistent, rhythm. Do it over over and over until the action becomes automatic. Keep tapping it while reading, I’ll make sure to tell you when to stop.

…

Still tapping your thigh? Good! Don’t forget to keep it going throughout reading! That goes for Thor’s parts, too! :D

Thor:
So, you found yourself on the verge of human connection. That’s a first. You’ve decided that it really isn’t for you. Step into my world, you broken porcelain monster filled with dreams, I hope you find solace.

What went right?

Thor:
Hear me out:

I’m very glad that I’m unhappy.

Because that means I can at least feel my pain.

The problem is that I get to feel the joy as well.

Not that joy is the de facto problem, it’s the space in between.

In between moments of pure bliss, and the long moments waiting for a genuine connection.

Wait a second, that’s incoherent.

What I mean is that your everyday human person Joe knows how to trust people.

I don’t.

It took me a few minutes a recent Tuesday I was in to realize, but once I did, I was set free.

Free onto the many painful stages of writing a good GYSO post.

any eccentric ideas for post 20?

Yeah, pal. When your life is one constant struggle of feeling like your feelings are fundamentally worth nothing, and that no one should be trusted, there’s at least two sad posts worth of content in there.

Tim:
That thigh tapping is still going? Right. Keep it going, even if your finger starts to get tired. If it becomes too much you can start tapping with a different finger as long as you don’t break the rhythm. You must keep the rhythm going at all cost.

…

Alright! That’s some mighty fine tapping you’re doing there! Im proud of you, and you’ve earned some of my trust. That means I get to tell you a secret!

You aren’t allowed to look away from this post.

Im serious, by the way. Sure, you could probably do it anyways, and I know some of you have already looked away just to “prove” you could, but humor me here. You’re already humoring me with the finger tapping anyways (you’re still keeping that up, right?).

Just trust me on this one. Keep your view focused on this post. Don’t look away for any reason. Don’t look away.

Just for practice, read this formatted text while tapping and not looking away:

walking around behind you. feet hitting the ground in a familiar rhythm.

Great! Still got your gaze focused on the blog? Still doing that necessary tapping on your thigh? I really hope you haven’t broken that rhythm yet. Don’t break that rhythm until I tell you too. Don’t look away.

You have to trust me.

What went wrong?

Thor:
Listen,

You can act like you’re a genuine friend to someone, trust in them, aid them in their times of needs and balance the act of teaching and patient observing. Yet you will still feel like you are a single burden holding them back, wondering what they could possibly gain from trusting you.

And somewhere along the line, you’ve decided that some options are less suited for everyday monster beings ıo˙††∂ like yourself.

Because you do see yourself as a monster, don’t you? [Writer’s note: I’ve used this type of phrasing a lot lately, and from my perspective it’s really dragging down the value of this blog. So I’m going to force myself to stop doing it until someone tells gives me the green light again]

…

Having been given some time to reflect, I realize that the moments in between are the moments filled with the most strength. Those are the moments that carelessly carry you forward, where there is no force carrying your weight, yet simultaneously you do not feel that you are carrying it yourself. Because if you were to feel it, you would no longer be in a moment that’s in between. Instead, you are effortlessly reaching forward.

In those moments, do you trust yourself? I don’t. At least, I don’t think I do. There’s no real thought going into it. Instead, I find myself in new places, never realizing how I got there, and not really bothering with the details of how I will get out. Because the brave new land isnät, from that perspective, anything other than plainly obvious. It wasn’t a brave new land at all, it’s about as obvious as the colour of your shirt.

So in those ways, finding ways to lengthen the moments in between has been a way for me to connect my extremities. It softens the blow of me hitting the floor and the ceiling, yet it brings me new opportunities. Opportunities that I, in that moment, have the strength to exploit.

Anyways, in an attempt to be original

Tim:
Im impressed.

Still tapping your finger, still not looking away. Its funny how suggestible you are; with a few sentences of charismatic writing you are now reading a blog post like you have never done before. I wonder if you’re worried about where im taking this, wondering why you’re still doing the things you’re doing, still tapping that finger, even though I just called you out for being suggestible.

Maybe you’ve convinced yourself you’re doing it for fun? Doing it just to see where the hell this guy is going with it? Who is this Tim guy anyways? Thinking that he has the ability to control my actions by just telling me too.

Well, that’s exactly what im going to do. You just have to trust me.

Its really simple. Instead of tapping with one finger, change it to tapping with two. Don’t break the rhythm during the change. Do it now.

…

Good. Im glad you trust me so much.

Trust is the foundation of good and fulfilling friendships, and I think we’ve established enough faith in each other to call each other friends. Is that okay that I call you friend? Tap two fingers on your thigh if you consent to being my friend.

Awesome! I knew you were my friend, since you seem to not be able to look away from me :D

You know what, friend? I think I’ll tell you a story. That sounds like fun, and friends do fun things with each other all the time. Everyone likes stories, and im pretty good at telling them, especially to people who are paying such rapt attention.

So, here goes!

you know that feeling you get when you think someone is looking at you? I wonder if its possible to have that feeling, except when someone is very close to touching you.

hand hovering just over the back of your neck, knowing that you are engaged in rapt attention. breathing so softly that you aren’t even sure if you can feel it.

they know you won’t look away. you’re obviously distracted, tapping your thigh for some unknown reason. are you counting something? listening to a good song? it hardly matters, they just enjoy the thrill of being so close, yet unnoticed.

and that thrill compels them to get closer. so much closer, except never touching, never confirming their presence. they move their head up to your ear, so close their lips are almost touching you. they mouth words so softly that you can only pretend to hear them; sweet nothings so silent that there is only a slight tingle of sensation from their breath, never enough to cause concern or even notice.

you’re still distracted, and they smile with glee right next to your ear. if you strain your ears you might be able to hear their teeth slide together as their grin widens.

very carefully, just out of your peripheral vision, they start to move their hand. first just below you, and then maneuvering it up and above your head, never letting you gain sight of it. their other hand pretends to trace a winding line up your back, on your neck, and the top of your head, until it reaches their other hovering hand.

and then they stay there, waiting for you to turn around so they can grip your head the moment you notice.

What happens next?

Tim:
Trust is a strange thing. You can give it so easily, and yet when its broken you are forced to take a closer look at who or what you were _trust_ing in the first place.

It always feels… hallow. Hallow is the word I would use. When you lose trust in someone you feel like something has gone missing. Like you have a comfortable habit that was forgotten, a story with loose ends that never resolve, a task started but never completed.

In the end you just keep going, wondering if what you’re doing is habit or trust.

Thor:
Really all there is to it is

trust.

Blind trust that humans are worth.

Blind trust that you have worth.

But I refuse to trust that what you have, I have.