to delude or not to delude?: a voiceramble question (Patreon)

hallo loves....

AUCKLAND - watch out for a post in the next few days, i'm seeking a space to do something fun with you all. save may 16th during the day, ok?

greetings from waiheke island. i'm on day two of a massive email-and-task catch-up and feeling pretty great, although my eyeballs are turning a little square. last night i got a gorgeous picture of the sun setting over our rental house.

here's another 20 min+ early-ass voiceramble for you. sweet alex transcribed it below, and you can listen to it embedded here or over on soundcloud, where you can also download it:

https://soundcloud.com/amandapalmer/to-delude-or-not-to-delude-a-voiceramble-for-patrons-fromapril-9th-2021

if you don't want to listen to or read the whole thing, i'll make it simple:

is it ethical to delude yourself and your new island friends into thinking that you're more of a committed local than you actually are in order to make friends who will give a shit about you? 

i have a hilarious follow-up to this story. i ran into angela yesterday. i told her that i was thinking of buying a house here.....in order to win her friendship. okay, she said, i can work with that.

(i also noticed myself pulling away from a couple with kids that i met yesterday when they told me they were only on the island for another two months. i thought about getting their number for a playdate and then i was like: eh, they're leaving. i am as awful as everybody else.)

so....

i think we all probably know what the answer is:

any delusion that you can actually take on but simultaneously joke about with your friends is not truly a delusion. it's an agreed-upon CO-delusion...which is fine.

like that couple that dan savage discussed in our "sex rules us" podcast: the husband who NEEDED to cheat IN ORDER TO FEEL NAUGHTY, even though he and his husband were in an open marriage: he needed to feel like he was pulling one over on his husband as part of the thrill....so they found a solution: the cheater was just given a pat on the head, allowed to "go cheat" even though it was obvious everybody knew what he was doing, but then once a year they'd take MDMA and the naughty cheater would come clean. i mean, WHATEVER WORKS. 

maybe this whole life is about us constantly co-deluding one another with a sly wink. i dunno. or ash ruth bader-ginsburg famously said, the secret to a good marriage is being a little bit DEAF.

please weigh in. i'm reading comments, as always.

............

transcript:

Good morning....

This is a weird one.

So I just woke up, and I was just mulling, as I do in the early hours of the morning.

Life.

Existence.

And the meaning of all things.

And I started thinking about something somebody said to me yesterday, and I wanted to tell you, and ask you for your advice. Or thoughts.

So when it comes to New Zealand, and going home… I don’t know. I don’t really know exactly what’s gonna happen. We’ve got a vague plan. And the vague plan is to go home to New York at a certain point in the distant future, where we’ve aimed where we think all of the COVID fallout is gonna be pretty fallen out.

It just doesn’t make sense to go home right now.

One of the main reasons I don’t wanna go home right now – the main, the biggest reason, THE reason really, is that Ash hasn’t encountered life with COVID.

We had our adventurous, and somewhat romantic and exciting, and then in turns (at least for me) highly traumatic (because of Neil’s departure) lockdown in New Zealand… But then it was over. It was so fast. We were locked down for two months. Fully locked down, but it was just very binary. It was this experience, and then it was over. And Ash didn’t even really understand that we were locking down because of COVID. We did what I imagine a lot of parents did, which was we tried to make it a fun exciting game, and with a 4-year-old (as he was then) that is possible. And I think we succeeded.

Now, Ash understands and has an awareness that we’re not going home because of COVID. I am not lying to him. And I’m trying to explain COVID to him in terms that a 5-year-old can understand. And a lot of that involves describing the virus as “people are getting sick all over the world.” And that means “people can’t travel on planes and do what they want.” It needs to be put into very simple terms. And Ash gets that.

And now that he is becoming an imaginative 5-year-old, he keeps trying to come up with solutions for COVID. Such as people shouldn’t fly any more, why doesn’t everyone just take a boat, then there would be no more COVID.

And I have an idea mama, why don’t we all just wear masks and throw up in the ocean, and that way the virus will go into the ocean and make all the fish sick, and all the people will be better.

This is not the point. That’s just some background while I get to the point.

So there is an uncertainty and an unpredictability when it comes to exactly when we are going to head home. And it has obviously been a constantly moving target, as we monitor what is happening with COVID back in the States.

And I don’t have to tell you, it has been… incredibly heart-breaking and frustrating to watch the lurch towards progress, and then the steps back, and the steps forward, and the steps back, and so forth. It’s been really hard. Way harder, I imagine, for the people who are actually having to experience it than for us in New Zealand, sitting on the edge of our seats, biting our nails, hoping that everything finally turns the corner into the world of OKAY.

And for Alex – that’s a capital OKAY. (Alex’s note – roger that, captain.)

For all of you.

Here’s the thing.

I was talking yesterday to a new friend. And I have all sorts of stories and things I’d love to say and share about what it’s like to make new friends in a foreign country where you had no intention of being. And that’s one of the things that I’ve been discussing with my old friends. And you know what? I’m just gonna do it.

Sidebar. New paragraph. Because it’s not even very long and complicated.

One of the things that I have just noted about making new friends is the speed with which I desperately want to collect new souls to be my companions in this plane of existence. And then the inevitable crash of over-commitment as I…

You know what, actually, this is parentheses.

I love that I am now doing these voice memos more to Alex than to anyone else. But also to you. You guys get to listen to all of this. This is a parentheses. BUT NOW I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS. (Alex’s note: This is karma for trying to do my job and grammaticise for me, lol)

Back up the truck.

New paragraph again.

As I go around collecting human souls to accompany me as friends, as companions, as lovers of the soul and mind, and people with whom to share bread, and share stories, all of these things that make a friend a friend, I’ve noticed myself over-committing, and then there is that inevitable feeling of being spread thin. And I noted to someone the other day that I couldn’t believe that I actually had social conflicts. There are all of my friends at home in the States with so few social outings, and here I am wondering if I should go to Persephone’s birthday party or the festival with Ash. Or whether I should go to karaoke or my friend Reb’s Nick Cave cover night at Town Hall.

And I just was thinking, oh my god. I have conflicts. I’m so lucky. These conflicts just don’t have any sting to them because it’s just so delicious to have enough friends that you all of a sudden have social conflicts.

And so, I was talking to this person yesterday. My new friend Angela. Angela is a Kiwi who lived in the States for many, many, many, many years, and then she moved back here to Waiheke. She started a shop that is an awesome shop, and it sells used clothes and vinyl and things you can rub all over your body, and it’s just a shop filled with all of the things that I love. And she wanted it to also feel like a little community spot, so she deliberately put books and chairs and sofas.

And basically I walked in there and I was like, oh my god, it’s a person who opened a store that is just like the store that I would open up if I ever opened a store!

And she’s awesome. And we also have kids around the same age, and so I identified her as oh my god, you’re an obvious friend material. Look at you. I want you to be my fucking friend, because I like you, and I like hanging out with you, and your kid is cool and about my kid’s age, and jackpot. Look! A friend!

And yesterday she was hosting a little work party in her shop for the parents of kids going to Ash’s school, because we’re making crafts for his fair which is, I know, so wholesome and cute you just need to die.

And she and I have developed a fast friendship in a way where we’re already very honest with each other, even though we’ve barely hung out. And she also strikes me as the kind of person who just says what’s on her mind, and she’s got very little filter, which in turn also makes her a very attractive friend, cos I like hanging out with people who just fucking blab on about what is on their minds without carefully calculating. Go figure.

And she said… I forget exactly what we were talking about, but she said something along the lines of, “Oh, but I can’t fully commit to you,” or “I’m already feeling the disappointment of you leaving, because I know you’re gonna leave.”

And I thought, oh my god. She’s right.

And this is also something that I felt back in Hawke’s Bay when I was floating around, trying to figure out just how to survive in this new town of lockdown, and I was making pals and making friends. But there’s an obviousness too, like of course these friendships are gonna be temporary, at least temporary physical friendships, because I gotta go. I’m not gonna be living here forever, even though I’ll joke about that constantly. And there are days, my friends, where it does not feel like a joke. Especially bad news days in America, and I look down at the soil of New Zealand, and I’m like… Holy shit. Maybe it’s my destiny to stay on this island.

And so I can understand that anyone who needs me has a certain guardedness, and a certain glass ceiling that their head will hit in their friendship with me, or only a certain depth to which they will allow the roots of friendship to grow, because I am not particularly rich soil at the moment.

I’m a transient.

I am not a safe bet.

I am not going to be a reliable friend.

Fun to hang out with! Cool person! Awesome kid!

But… maybe not a long-term friend for anybody here.

And it changes the interaction with everybody.

Anyone who’s been in a temporary situation understands what it feels like to make temporary friendly alliances, that you know are gonna come to a close. When you’re at a conference. When you were a kid at summer camp. When this, when that.

And do you remember – I never went to summer camp, but I think I’ve had enough equivalencies that I can understand. And that sexy promise of we’re gonna do this next year! We’re gonna stay friends for life, pinkie swear! Let’s mix our blood! I fucking love you, we just went through summer camp together, and we lost our virginity together, and we went and got stoned in the woods together, and even though this was only three weeks of our life, we will never be parted!

Because an important part of friendship is consistency.

An important part of friendship is reliability.

And as a person who’s been travelling and itinerant my whole adult life, and I think I’ve spoken about this before, circus people are different. Musicians who tour are different. We speak this other language of itinerant friend, where you’re very game to make a best friend who you’re pretty sure is only gonna last six hours. Cos you fucking need a best friend. You’re not at home. You don’t have one. Home has long since disintegrated in the realm of your best friend box, and you need a best friend right now, cos you’re on the road. So that person. And they get it, because they’re on the road. And everyone just goes, we have to do this a different way. We have to be family now, because.

All of this brings me to my point.

I am gonna now look at my phone, how long has this voice ramble been? Fucking eighteen minutes. Okay.

The point arrives, at eighteen minutes.

Ethically, I found myself turning on my pillow and going, maybe I have to lie.

Would that be bad?

I was like Amanda, yeah, that would be bad.

And then I was like, oh, lie about what?

Lie to Angela. Lie to the world. Lie to my new friends here. Just lie. Which isn’t a total lie, it’s a white lie! I think I might just live in New Zealand. Maybe then you’ll be a more real friend, because I will be a more reliable candidate for being your friend, and it’s not a total lie. Maybe I will stay in New Zealand forever!

Maybe, I thought, as I turned my head on my pillow again, maybe I have to lie to myself.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!!!!!

Maybe I have to lie to myself and tell myself – even just to survive the next three, six months, whatever – maybe if I told myself the lie… or not the lie, let’s call it the exaggerated story? No. Maybe the Alternate Reality Possibility Ending? LAUGHS. OUT. LOUD. of… I’m gonna live in New Zealand.

And if I move through New Zealand thinking I’m gonna live in New Zealand…

A – oh my god, does it inevitably change my destiny, and that means I live in New Zealand forever?

B – will people wanna be my friend more in a real way?

C – is that a bad idea or a good idea?

or D – have I just encountered another level of enlightenment, in that I know (because I am me, and I have gained gargantuan levels of compartmentalisation, Olympic advanced levels of compartmentalisation and magical-bendy-thinking ability in the last year or so)… Do I constantly ride the line of two realities, and exaggerate one reality for some people, and other realities for other people? Which is, by the way, what I’ve been doing this entire year anyway. Because I need to comfort certain people and I need to convince certain people, and I do what all human beings do, which is I change the story slightly depending on who I’m fucking talking to, including myself.

There’s our answer!

And the answer, as usual, DING DING DING DING DING, is that there is no answer!

And I’ll continue floating through life in this way,

When I write the musical about New Zealand,

This will be the song right before intermission

I love you all.

I’m gonna get up and make some coffee.

I really do love you, deeply.

I love you deeply.

I hope I made a little bit of sense of our brains. My brain. I love my brain. Love your brains too.

Love your brain, everybody.

Bye.

PS – final thought. This is actually, the theme here, the question, is about when it is ethical to delude yourself and other people. Something that’s been coming up in other parts of my life as well. That’s the question. How ethical are certain delusions? 

Oh boy. 

Alright. 

The end.

(Dear Amanda, Alex here. For what it's worth, I think some the ethical-ness of your delusion depends on how much it's going to impact and affect whoever you are deluding. If you give someone a beautiful friendship for 6 months, because you created this delusion that you'd be around forever, then those 6 months will still be worth it. Tis better to have loved and lost, and all that. However, if someone thinks you're sticking around and then buys you a $1,000,000 plot of land to build a commune in New Zealand for you and all your friends..... it's maybe kind of shitty to have led them on. AGONY AUNT OT TRANSCRIBER? YOU DECIDE.)

((ps. I just finished watching The Circle, an insane reality show where a group of people are isolated and communicate solely via text, where they can either be themselves, or pretend to be someone entirely different, complete with fake photos and bios. If you wanna talk about creating a friendship based on delusions, that's the show for you!!!!))

......

AFP back to Alex:

Thanks for supporting my possibly decision to delude, Alex! Are you satan?

Everybody else, I love you.

More coming soon....

XX

AFP