An Exercise in Better Mental Health
I have this misconception that I play Super Smash Bros Melee better after 3 beers, no more, no less. Or maybe it’s not a misconception. Maybe my motor skills are attuned, free from nerves and apprehension. Maybe my mental framework improves, helping me tap into the game my opponent is playing with ease, like a shaman casting spells. Released from inhabitations, I can finally play this children’s party game with skill that would make pros blush, Zain jealous, Mango in jail. Oh nevermind I just lost to a Gold Pikachu.
The thing they don’t tell you about manic episodes is that they feel so good. You’re a genius, you’re the moment, an icon, a star. Of course, you crash. But isn’t that fleeting sensation worth it? For one brief span of time, you did it. You actualized yourself. Happy birthday, Merry Christmas. How could anything so endorphin raising be bad for you?
This kind of thinking did land me in the hospital once, but indulge me. How is feeling WRONG? I hark back to senior year of high school/freshman year of college, obsessed with making my mark, of being this autodidact effete savant, in the vein of Basquiat or even Cameron Crowe; precociously gifted, destined to change the culture. Is being young a kind of mania then? Even past the stages of great imagination and adolescent woes, young adulthood stages itself a grandeur that’s both exhilarating and defeatist. Oh, to be 18!
Mania also makes you fixate on yourself in a way that is kind of embarrassing. Getting in your own head, every sensation being amplified, it’s all very solipsistic. I tend to find obsession with your being and own neuroses deeply boring so it’s a kind of secondhand embarrassment to go through every emotion with self-proclaimed vigor, like oh brother this guy stinks! Please, re-orient me with my surroundings, slap me in the face, I’m nothing special.
Maybe that’s why I appreciate enemy turned friend Nadine Smith as a public-facing figure. To go through the worst period of your life and have it be broadcasted in front of thousands of nameless faces and somehow emerge from it a full, functional person is inspiring, to say nothing of the fact that being trans amplified that anguish as a oppressive signifier by which people could bludgeon her with. But now we chop it up cause we real.
Apologies for the glorified autofiction. You all get it from other substacks, I understand. I’m supposed to be constantly hating! But consider this a state of the blog maybe? Excavation of the twisted mind of Eli? Impulsive nonsense? I’m not really sure. Just some thoughts that can be put in more thorough writing than mere ephemeral tweets. Anyways, I love all you subscribers, even if you don’t give me money. We’re all on a ride of unreality together, let’s make the most of it.
The Melee analogy works better than it should. That "3 beers sweet spot" thing is relatable - not necesarily with alcohol but that feeling when you're just loose enough to stop overthinking inputs. The mania comparison is interesting becuase it's basically the same mechanism as tilt in competitive games, where overconfidence makes you play worse but feels amazing in the moment. I went through something similar in college where the high of thinking I was onto something big kept me going through some pretty rough patches. The embarrassment of being that self-absorbed in hindsight is real, but it's also kinda what gets you through being young and figuring stuff out.