GYSO Drawing Part 37 - Muffin Radio

Published: 2020-07-20

Introduction

Thor:
I want to design a radio made out of muffins. Can you help me? I want my radio to be soft and crunchy. But it needs to have good sound too. I’m not too concerned with price, as I am aiming for a more exclusive market. The visual design should appeal to young 30-year-old’s with expendable income.

Tim:
I’m in a nasty mood right now, and honestly I can’t begin to care about whatever wacky GYSO thing Thor has planned with this muffin radio thing.

I’m sure it was all great and funny and eccentric and what the fuck ever. That’s what we’re all here for, right? Well, in the immortal words of me, “Fuck you and your expectations.”

I’m going to be intentionally vague, because I don’t like you, dear reader. I hate you with vitriolic fury that burns with such ardent flaming incandescence that your god damn socks will get bleached through your shoes from the light of it. Taste my wrath dick. Suck on it. Choke on it.

Welcome to the bitch ass muffin radio post. This one’s going down in the history books, fuckermother.

Thor: Fuck you.

What went right?

Tim:
There’s just so much to rant about. The cruel irony is that I don’t want to rant about any of it here. I want to open up a private document on my computer and spend the next hour typing my grievances furiously into the gross ass scissor switch keyboard built into my laptop. I want – no, need – that release. I haven’t had that release in a while, and it’s starting to come out in my life.

I’m usually a pretty salty person. And by “pretty salty” I mean that scientists are worried I will turn into a legit crystal monster by the time I’m 30.

There’s just… so much to rant about.

And I want to stop everything and deal with it, but I haven’t, because I have a GYSO post to write. I’ve been delaying this post on account of the coming explosion of poison rage that’s been building for the last… 10/12 years?

And now that I’m writing something, I instinctively want to just pour it out. I have a lot of nasty words in me right now, and none of it is really “good” GYSO content.

There are two sides – factions if you will – in my mind warring with each other while I type this:

The Green Team is the Tim you all know and love. That wacky guy that sometimes waxes poetic and goes on funny rants and generally makes a damn fool of himself because it’s fun and he secretly likes feeling clever about it.

The Orange Team is the Tim that seethes with indescribable hate at every single little thing wrong with his life, and by extension the world. And this isn’t an exaggeration, the guys over on The Orange Team really do hate every little transgression.

Yeah. I’m insane. What the fuck are you going to do about it?

Thor: I’ve read through this post, and my question is: Do you really want me to sit back and do nothing about it?

Tim:
The Orange Team has been underrepresented in the GYSO lore. There are some bits and pieces of their influence, but for the most part The Green Team keep them on a tight leash. The Orange Team, surprisingly, is okay with this. So much so that they thought they could just stand back and let their rage simmer in the background instead of having to put it into words onto the screen.

Obviously this was a terrible idea, which is why both The Green Team and The Orange Team unanimously agreed to it.

And now, The Orange Team is neglected and is ready to projectile spew chunks of the most foul and rotten things I’ve ever thought about anything in my life. They’ve already taken over at a few inconvenient times, making life harder for all the other Teams in my brain.

This is fine. Whatever. Sometimes The Orange Team needs to vent. The issue is, like always, The God Damn Green Team.

You see, The Green Team is relatively new in the war zone that is my daily brain state. They made quite the impact, and everyone loved them. They loved them so much that all the component parts of my mind banded together under The Green Team. Everyone is happier with The Green Team in charge, since they can all remember the absolute shit show it was before that.

But The Green Team has a lot of veto power, and they currently, against nearly the entire majority vote of all the other component parts of my sick mind, decided that right now is the time to write out a fucking GYSO post. Right now is apparently the time to try and be funny and creatively free, while at the same time teasing The Orange Team into near homicidal rage because they have to be restrained in what they write because this is GYSO.

Welcome to my brain, ladies and gentle giants, there’s always room for one more.

What went wrong?

Tim:
Hey Thor. Look at that. You’re gonna call this “The next Krampus” or “Tim’s Krampus”, right? You want to relate this to GYSO post 16 so bad, because that post means so much to you, huh? You want to share in that?

You came into this expecting something related to muffin radios (for some reason? I still don’t really get it), and now you have this instead. You must be so god damn proud.

I’m salty. Not at you, but in general.

Thor: Fuck you, you inconsiderate ass. Please, go on.

Tim:
I sometimes feel like I’m the only sane person in the world. I know that this means that I’m probably actually insane, so don’t even bother. The point of the matter is that this is the basis for the entire reason you call me “pessimistic”. I have also heard the worlds “salty” and “cynical” used.

So, Thor, if you really sat down and thought about it, would you agree with that assessment? That my anger stems from the fact that nothing can ever live up to my “sane” expectations? It sounds reasonable, but I’ve learned not to expect reasonable.

I sometimes feel like I’m the only sane person in the world. You know this, and have probably heard me say this on many occasions.

It’s not just, “Oh boo hoo, people are stupid and I’m the smartest look at me.” There’s some of that in there, but we’re missing a lot of nuisance with that. You, Thor, know that I’m the first to criticise myself when something goes wrong. That’s not just signaling, I really do take my self criticisms seriously. It can’t all be narcissism.

No. The issue is that I just don’t understand. And it makes me angry.

Thor:
Okay now I’ll tell you why you’re an inconsiderate ass: Fuck you. Fuck you for placing your own values on what I value. Krampus, so what? Are you worried about me for thinking that Krampus was an important turning point in my self-development? Fuck you for calling it out like an asshole in our collaborative blog project instead of politely making a generally meta comment that I might call this “Tim’s Krampus” and move the fuck on from my priorities like a normal person.

Wait, that feels relevant to all of this, somehow…

Fuck you for making your git commit message about Krampus. Like that’s what matters here.

Anyways, I’m glad that you’re up your own ass deep enough that your opinions on what my opinions should be matter more than my actual opinions.

Tim:
I feel so damn alone. Not in the, “I’m lonely and need companionship” way, but in the, “I’m the only person with giant floppy bunny ears while everyone else has normal human ears, and even if I find companionship with the normal ear people I will also be at least a bit of an outsider due to my giant floppy bunny ears” way.

What is it that’s the bunny ears, than? What makes me feel so alien to those I call fellow?

That’s the thing. It isn’t just a thing. It’s all of it. Like there is some… core values difference? Personality difference? Internal experience difference? I don’t know, but it’s base, whatever it is.

I try not to be stupid. I know that, even with my stated “weirdness” I still act and function like a “normal” person. To a certain extent, at least. I say, “Good Morning,” to the people at work even when I’m not having a good morning, I don’t tend to laugh out loud in the middle of work, no matter how funny the thing I’m listening to is, I don’t really try to stand out in any way. If I’m doing that, than there’s a possibility that everyone else is doing that too, and I’m actually as normal as they come?

But then, once you peel away the surface layer of a casual glance, evidence starts to pile up. What the evidence is pointing too, I don’t know, but it’s in a common direction.

Thor:
Yeah! You absolute guck, as the one other person in the entire actual world that sees this clearly, I take pride in trying to be a guide and a helping hand instead, lending my limited life experiences because it’s an absolute joy to see someone grow. And it’s an absolute pain to see them get pushed away because you’re constantly pile-driving the heaviest of the heaviest shit on top of them, and giving them some tools that might as well be from Jupiter because you don’t understand how you would use that shit.

Tim: I’m not saying I’m a total alien freak. I have experiences that seem familiar to experiences that other’s have had. I feel flustered when talking to someone attractive, I feel guilt when I hurt a friend, I involuntarily and genuinely smile when I make others laugh.

I enjoy life sometimes.

But where it differs seems to be what people care about. I can’t bring myself to like children, no matter how hard I try, for example. I will never be a father, not because of some biological reason, but because I hate children and I know that resentment would ruin yet another life. Not to mention the fucked up world I would be bringing them into. (Notice how I “hate children” but respect them enough to not want to ruin their lives? They’re annoying, but that doesn’t make me want to actively hurt them.)

I’m skirting the issue again. The true problem comes with how reality itself seems hellbent to make me furious. Take a guy who has obviously deviant values, and thrust him into a world where nearly none of those values are remotely well satisfied and force him into trying to live out the very values that he hates just to survive. You wonder why I’m so angry all the time, and I have the answer: Look around you.

At least someone who cares more about the Red Sox than their own life has a way to find meaning. At least someone who has the right mind can find pleasure in playing video games after going to work and actually just be okay with that. At least there are things out there that people find sufficiently good.

I just… I don’t feel like I have that. You’re my closest friend, Thor. You know how much I care about our friendship, and the creative things I make, and the values I hold above all else, and all that sappy shit.

I feel so- so… broken. Like I can’t even live up to the few things I care about. It’s so hard. It’s so fucking hard to bring myself to be anything less than furious that I can’t have more sufficiently good things. That I have to scrape together the small things that I am able to care about. That I have to make the sacrifices I make just to have little blips of joy in my life. That I have to push myself so damn hard just to push back against the ceaseless waterfall of endless bullshit; just to have something I can care about.

Thor: If I could, I would already be a psychiatric professional and explain possible what your symptoms and causes might be.

Tim:
Why is it that others find it so easy to look upon the world and say, “This is okay”? The only thing I see is chaos and madness. Even the tiny threads of comfort I’ve managed to hoard seem on the constant verge of fraying apart.

“It’s not that bad, come on! You could be living in a third world country! Or have been born in the 1400s!”

Fuck off. Do you not think I’ve thought of that? Do you not think I already feel guilty enough for being so spoiled? My whole point is that I should be living in a paradise world, but instead I seem to have found myself in an existential nightmare world instead. I know it’s selfish, but that’s because I’m a selfish person.

Almost nothing is good enough. Nearly everything leaves and breaks and abandons and betrays. Death is inexorable, terrifying, and apparently “totally normal”. People worship an idea of a benevolent god that hasn’t done anything for 2,000 years and also apparently told a guy to murder his son. Parents have children without really wondering about the cost of every little thing they do wrong. Your trust will be misplaced. Your friends will slowly move on. Your software will break for no reason. Your bed will creek. Your chair will break. Your co-workers will refuse to wear a mask even though you have asthma and there’s a coronavirus pandemic going on. You have to work to stay alive, even though it makes you feel so broken. You have to hold back, at every occasion, since you are not normal and that offends people, and you’ve been thought to not be offensive at all cost, or you will be hurt further. You have to schedule your life around work, instead of the other way around. You can’t ever be private, not these days. You can’t convince anyone of your views because you are too weird or something. You can’t just change the world for the better, since you simply aren’t smart enough or charismatic enough. You can’t have a romantic relationship because the way you always seem to withdraw, and nobody would actually understand enough to give you the attention you are expected to crave, but you aren’t even sure you want. You are expected to die some day.

I get angry, Thor, because there is so much wrong. I get angry because I feel like I can see clearly what everyone else doesn’t even care about. I get angry because I feel like I’m the only sane person in the world.

Thor:
That’s what being an egocentric creature is. You’re a human, and thus you can only go off of your own feelings and intuitions and thoughts. Congratulations, you are a cognitive, sentient, being. Doesn’t it feel great?

Welcome to an identity crisis.

Oh, and existentialism and looking for the purpose of life. The question of whether or not you should go into politics just to try to make a change for the better. Because no one is. No matter how many times you lay out the facts in front of them that they are walking themselves, their children, and everyone around them in perpetual hell by simply accepting current conditions and not doing anything about them.

The thing you can do is doing something about it. I save 600 gallons of water every day, among other things. I live in a way that actually meets climate needs. A way that, if adopted in the mainstream, would save millions of lives in environmental refuge and war and…

Shit you got me ranting about one of my core values and how we got to our current state makes no sense. Crap. It’s a slippery slope this, kind of like how climate goals have been getting reformulated to get looser every time we realize we won’t hit them, and kind of like how I’m recursively engaging in this rant whilst also pointing out that I’m aware that I’m doing it as a meta joke just to delay the inevitable continuation of your agonizingly beautiful letter.

Ironically, it’s not about me. In fact, I feel pretty bad acting boastingly. I know the previously mentioned things are facts and results that I achieve by making an individual choice, but I feel terrible acting like I’m better than everyone for taking them. But I do know I am doing better than everyone else, claiming they’re doing good, but not doing the things that I am doing.

Fuck me, I guess, and sorry for derailing.

What happens next?

Tim:
(A man gives a phone call that he’s been waiting for his whole life.)

The Muffin Radio has been a huge success! We’ve sold a million billion units and were bought out by Oracle! We’ll never have to work another day in our lives! Whoo! Those dumb ass kids didn’t even know the idea they had was worth billions when they posted it onto their blog. Who would have thought that the 30 year old crowd was perfect for a Muffin Radio?

…

Ooookaaay? It’s not like you’re innocent in this either. You stole that idea just like I did.

Anyways…Now what? I guess we actually get to live, now? I’ve been struggling so long, I’m not sure what I should even do with freedom…

Maybe I’ll go to the beach? A nice Hawaiian beach, maybe. That’s something you’re supposed to do with money and time, right? Ha ha.

…

I’ll go buy the tickets, than? We could make it a cruise, too. What about a cruise? We could afford it, and we might as well have something to do. We could get first class. Is is called first class when it’s a cruise ship and not a plane?

…

Hmm? What was that?

…

I don’t know. We would probably just relax, maybe drink? Cruise ships have a lot of alcohol, if I remember.

…

Oh- Uh. It’s okay. I’ll… Uh… See you around?

…

What do you mean?

…

What!? We just got rich and you want to… Just give it all away? I mean, you do you, man, but I think I deserve to enjoy myself.

…

But-

…

Okay. Okay. You would have enough to live off of, but you’re still insane.

…

…

…

..!

That would never work. You had one lucky break, and now you think you can… change the world? What the hell were you even going on about with freezing everyone? I assumed you would want to, you know, celibrate our success, but obviously that was too much to ask for. You’re delusional. It’s been fun. Enjoy your dirty money, dumbass.

!!-

(The man ends the call before he can hear any more. For a second he looks around as if to see if anyone was watching. He doesn’t smile for a while after that; he’s too deep in thought.)

Thor:
You woke up today and felt like absolute ass-trash. Maybe you’ve normalized that already. For the past three or four weeks, you’ve been on a steady downhill. For quite a while before that, you’ve been on a much gentler decline. Extremes of the past are today’s expected.

Create a video game because “it’s an art form I’ve wanted to try, but I don’t like anything about creating video games, so that will fun because fun is always pain”.

Write an app launcher because “my standards are just too high”.

Rewrite a better version of a popular program because “these idiots don’t know how to create and follow my fundamental design philosophies, so I guess I have to do it for them, even though I care in only the strongest of negatively associated ways”.

You’re chasing dragons.

Worse, you’re creating cardboard cutouts of dragons, putting a flame to them, and then still going looking for them, hoping something rises out of the ashes.

I haven’t read my parts through, take it with you to your next visit to your fucking Thor-interpreter.