“Complacency seems so simple
Like fuck it, let me be the one you fight and call Mr. Right
It’s an addiction, bound to stick around
‘Cause a junkie won’t bounce till he hits the ground”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKii8s4G-5g
My recently ex-boyfriend called me the other night and said he had an “epiphany”–I suppose I did rub off on him just a bit.
He said he was having a conversation with a friend at work, and realized that his life had been centered around “complacency”. He said directly that he saw this as a self-created problem that allowed him to accept the fact that he did well enough at work, that he made enough money to live easy, and although he was unhappy with his job, he accepted it as a fact of his complacent personality. In light of our break-up, I can only assume that he was also inferring his complacency as a problem in our relationship. It’s true–there were problems that he allowed because it didn’t pass his threshold of annoyance to stand up for himself and make a change. I think that is the characteristic of a complacent person perhaps–a high tolerance for dissatisfaction, either in others or within yourself.
In reflection of his words, I realized that I have the opposite problem, but only when it comes to myself. I am exceptionally hard on myself. I think I also am hard on others, but I don’t like others to feel bad so I typically find a way to take personal responsibility or control for dissatisfaction with a situation. I remember going to see “Black Swan” with my ex-boyfriend and sitting there after it ended, staring at the screen and saying, “I identify with those emotions so much; I understand that perfectionist neurosis.”
And I suppose it is really the same thing: total disallowance of dissatisfaction within yourself. It is interesting, because my ex is certainly driven to succeed and does so. Thus, it isn’t always a necessary state to be dissatisfied to achieve. In fact, being a perfectionist can be a very destructive thing. I have this instinct to change things, even when they may be good enough. The characteristic of something that lays lightly and quietly as a mild dissatisfaction to some, for me it slowly burrows into me like a hot coal or acid eating away at me. I feel so unsettled that if I do not change something I may go crazy.
Certainly it isn’t good to be extremely complacent or extremely perfectionistic. Certain characteristics of each are beneficial circumstantially. I identify with that element of myself so strongly, I realize, especially within philosophy. It is the characteristic that I call “the seeker”. Constantly questioning, constantly looking for answers to evolve, to transcend, and to improve. In fact my life has been so incredibly driven by that, that I don’t think I could be with somebody who did not live that, or at least identify with that strongly. To a certain extent, we are our neuroses. And if nothing, finding somebody who lives them or understands them is probably one of the most critical drivers of compatibility–as I have always said, “we are all crazy, it’s all about finding connections with people who are your type of crazy.”
