Stop Being Good

just a thought from a former-teacher's-pet-goody-two-shoes who's trying to get everything she wants

It’s been a while so let’s catch up.

1. I hate hate HATE that stupid fig tree¹

2. I love projects, and lots of them

3. Read number 1 again

I’ve been sitting on this Substack draft for a while, hence my absence. I want to get it right so I don’t leave the published page feeling like I didn’t really say what I meant because…

4. I seem to always have more to say

Like my umpteen TikTok tarot readers keep telling me and the so-called “collective” a.k.a scroll-aholics, take what resonates and leave what doesn’t from what you’re about to read. Everything I write is naturally existing from a personal point of view. If any of it resonates with even one of you then I’m a lucky writer. And if not, well then I hope you enjoy reading the diary of a woman who is perpetually coming-of-age.

wild horses are where I’m at

Backstory: I was a sensible child for the most part. It followed me through school into teenage hood and beyond. I would clean up at house parties as I went. Drinking but rarely drunk. I would keep my hand up in class until I was chosen instead of shouting the answer as soon as I knew it, like others did. I got good grades and I kept them that way. It probably wouldn’t be crazy to say that teachers trusted me. If I missed a week of homework or forgot a deadline I’d be given some leeway, knowing I’d sort it as soon as possible. I was scared of the unknown of possible punishment if I acted out of character or rule. Turns out most of the discipline at school was just sitting in a room alone. If only I’d dared to find out…

These things seem like they should be positive and at the time, up until recently, I really believed they were. While I don’t regret that formative behaviour because it has made me who I am, I do think younger me could’ve done with letting go a bit more.

Instead, my reliability and responsibility created a reputation that encouraged shock and surprise when I lived outside of those lines. Like turning 21 and passing out very drunk before midnight. I still feel strange that drunk me is a spectacle, observed by people whose idea of me is only strait-laced and proper. Those same people would claim “you’re so fun when you’re drunk!”, as though that were a compliment and not a blow to the confidence of sober me, my most common existence. Perhaps it shamed my wildness into secrecy too quickly.

And now I can see that truth.

Octavia Butler’s Diary

So I’m becoming evil. Sexy evil. In the way Octavia Butler wrote in her diary, not in a movie way. Though some Internet Philosophers may refer to it as a “Villain Era”, I will not be calling it that because it isn’t a phase or trend to me as much as it is a realisation and development of spirituality, growth, and being.

More recently, I have learned that actually living is going to require an unlearning of me. Embracing risk, and feeling, and instinct, and a little sexy evil must begin now. It’s taken me so long to publish this that it already has. I am writing this “advice”, or more so narrating this experience, from the starting line. I’m inviting you to join me, not in hindsight as a philosopher of any sort. I don’t know what it is going to be like to live this way so I can’t guarantee results. But I have already discovered that my previous results-driven way of life is not the point of being here as I so thought. Process and journey is all there is. Like Joan Didion said, “Every day is all there is”.

Joan Didion interview

Maybe this is already reading super cliché. I’m not a self-help guru and would never claim to be. Maybe I’m just rewriting philosophies of life that have been on an endless loop since the beginning of time, but in that case we will all join the loop eventually and this is me signing up.

If you have read this:

What If I Want Too Much?

or this:

How Do You Know What You Want?

then you may be all too aware of my ambition and grand pursuits of being. I guess this is like a follow up to those previous walks through my train of thought.

You will also know that I want to do a lot of things. This is still true. I doubt it’ll ever leave me alone; that nagging feeling that I still have more to come.

I have sabotaged action to satisfy that feeling many times over. I now know that this is because my nervous system can’t guarantee my survival of what lies beyond that action. I’m not sabotaging anything this time so I’m gently carrying me through it because that is the only option.

This is what I have decided I want; what I’m daring to ask for from my own life:

• a music career as a recording artist - a prolific practice of music in writing and performing and building of a world that it lives in, connecting with others. I’m okay with this in any form—art, business, work—as long as it persists.

• to be a photographer - expressing my eye, sharing it, being asked to provide it, and being compensated for it’s vision. Another form of connection.

• to always be writing - in any shape or form it is an expression that I can’t escape and so it’s really not an option to ignore.

These are my 3 pillars of sexy evil. To fear the potential of them is to completely extinguish myself. Of course, I am more than three creativities but without them I’d be without me. It’s that serious! And while I’d like to be technically good at them, I want to be evil about pursuing them by lighting my own path and enjoying whatever that will look like as I live it.

Richard Serra’s East-West/West-East as a symbol of putting yourself where you want to be. Take up the space, don’t wait to be asked.

When you don’t ask for what you want, you don’t give yourself the chance to be told no. To every action, Newton’s Third Law states, there is an equal and opposite reaction (because science), so let’s say for every possible no there is a possible yes.² Give yourself the chance to be told yes. In my pursuit of less squeaky clean goodness, I’m giving myself the chance to be told yes by facing any and every no. Even if that means what I make has to look, sound, and be utter rubbish until it gets better. What is inevitable is that if I persist in my endeavours by daring to get everything I want, it will get better because I will always be learning.

Naturally, there is a lingering feeling that no one will support me. The mental meanie has its moment of belittlement every now and then. To that I’m saying “nice try” and so far it is working.

When one person reads what I write, that is amazing. When one friend follows my music artist journey, that is amazing. When I get to test shoot with a local model agency, that is amazing. The numbers are not my focus because they are results not process. Process is human and that’s how I want to feel at all times. Human.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

That’s where I’m at so far. If you would like to be part of this sexy evil experiment of mine, I have a Substack for my music project here: G E O R I ' S . W O R L D

It’s a work in process but I’m hoping to share a look at notebooks, creating, and the building of a musical world to live and listen in. Bear with me on that.

I leave you with this. I think I’ve said what I wanted to.

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Thank you for reading and supporting.

See you so much sooner than last time. Promise.

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**I must disclaim, this article DOES NOT pertain to unlawful behaviour. Refrain from committing crime, especially the extra bad ones. I do not condone that kind of badness. Be good to others etc.

1. ms Plath how dare u

2. NUANCED AND CONTEXTUALLY DEPENDENT