Yup. More fire imagery. And no, I am not going to link to the video. I am a free man and I can choose my course of action free from the dominance of petty compulsions.

Oh, who am I kidding?

 

I am on this fire kick because a) the sun is in Aries and that’s a fire sign, but mostly b) because in my soul, it’s autumn, and a time of burning away the old dead wood so that fresh new sprouts can grow and take root.

Fucked up yet another thing. I was supposed to have a presentation ready for my last Writing for Video Games class, which was today. Totally forgot. Spaced on it completely.

So yay, more failure. This does not help with the depression clinging to me like an icy fog that poisons the soul with every breath you take.

 

My recent depression has made me very aware of the problems I have. A lifetime of easy academic excellence has trained me not to take things seriously if they are easy. And for the most part, VFS has been easy for me.

Just like all the other forms of education I have taken.

It’s only been in this last month, with all the projects due, that I have really felt the strain on my abilities. And I love it. I wish every semester had been like this one. Coming into the VFS Writing for TV and Film program, and having read in many places that it was a super intensive program that pushes people to the breaking point, I expected that I would be instantly put to work and worked hard and I would finally have something that challenged me. That’s what I was hoping for here.

But no. Things started out retarded easy (for me) and got tougher so slowly that I ended up falling into my old pattern of half-assing my way through everything because I knew my natural talent would see me through.

I even thought I was getting away with it. But um, nope. Teachers noticed. Burned my bridges there quite thoroughly. There’s nothing I can do about that now.

I fucked up badly. Exactly how much of a choice I had is a matter of debate, however.

I know what brings out that side of me that I call The Jagoff, and the number one thing to bring him out is boredom. When I am in a class that neither challenges me nor interests me, I tend to tune the class out, leaving only as much of my consciousness as is needed to understand what I am being taught behind to mind the store.

This does not promote a productive attitude.

The trickier question is : what, exactly, made it so hard for me to remember assignments? Why was I constantly stumbling through the courses, forgetting tons of stuff and making a fool of myself (as well as alienating my classmates and teachers)?

It’s a complex question. I think, at the core, the problem was my need for this very relaxed low-strain state of mind in order to deal with my massive insecurities, and while I can be quite brilliant in that mode, it is hostile to doing things like writing things down as a form of future commitment to do that thing.

Having to go into administrative mode when I am so comfortably relaxed in lazy genius mode is a drag, man.

Plus there are the practical issues I have talked to before. Like, If I am writing down an assignment, I am not listening to the teacher. I can’t do both at the same time. I only have one verbal circuit. Introducing technology to the process only makes it worse because technology is inherently more distracting and stimulating than paper and pencil and therefore takes up even more of my mind.

The last thing I need when trying to write something down quickly is having to get out my tablet, power it up, find the note taking program, open the note taking program, tell it to start a new note, and then…. nothing, because I am already lost in the class and I have also forgotten the details of the assignment.

But there are ways around this, I am sure. I could find a really good scheduling app that lets me add stuff smoothly and quickly. I could develop my own form of shorthand for due dates so I can jot them down super fast.

Hell, I could write them on my arm if that is what it takes.

Another factor in the Jagoff’s victory of self-destruction is my hidden and shameful desire to go back to the mode I was in before Kwantlen. To return to being a formless puddle who plays video games and talks to the fuzzies online and that’s about it.

This desire was so strong that it would empty my mind of all contents, including when I am supposed to be doing things, in order to facilitate returning to my liquid form as quickly and smoothly as possible. Especially on weekends. Are there things I should be worrying about and/or getting done over the weekend? I dunno. My head is empty!

So from one point of view, an argument could be made that I was not, in fact, ready to take a program like this because I was still so dependent on this empty headed childlike state that ran contrary to my taking my education seriously.

But the other thing that brings out the Jagoff is stress. Dozens of times in my life I have ended up in a state of mind I call stunned, stupid, and smiling as a response to stress. My body overcompensates for the stress by filling me with happy juice that definitely makes it easier to function but robs me of focus, will, or the ability to really care about things.

It’s a lot like being a junkie, really. I’m just addicted to a drug my body produces anyway.

And the sickening part is how happy I am in that state. All worry, care, and pressure is gone and I am a little kid, waving at them from behind that wall and enjoying being free of them like people enjoy looking at people in the rain when they are inside, warm, and dry.

And that state lasts until I stumble over yet another thing I forgot. And then, for a while, I feel bad about myself. I might even hate myself. Heck, I might even get suicidal.

But nothing changes.

I go right back to being a Jagoff and floating through life and I might write stuff down for a while but I will inevitably stop and the stage is set for the next failure.

And all because I never felt challenged by the work. Despite my constant fucking up, I never really felt like I was in any danger of losing something of value. I never had a sense that I had better get my shit together or else I was fucked. I never feared the disapproval of my teachers. I never worried about the impression I was making.

It was all I could do to keep going to class and enduring that stress. I did not have the energy or focus to worry about external realities. My overdeveloped inner reality was too goddamned busy. There were days when I felt like I was ripping open an old wound just to get my ass on the bus in the morning.

So one might say that, relative to my state of mental illness, I did a great job. And it would be so easy to convince myself that there was nothing I could have done, that my teachers were all being unfair to me, that VFS just didn’t “get” me, and so forth and so on.

And that would instantly resolve the depression I have been struggling with and put me back into a mental state where I feel confident and optimistic.

But nothing would change.

So I am taking the hard road instead. I am using this state of mental flux to drive out as much of this unworthy bullshit as I can. To free myself from my loser state of mind and shift myself towards a winner attitude that tolerates no fucking around and fucking up.

Instead, it takes on the world with vigor and determination, and conquers all problems that dare to challenge it. No more wimping out when things get scary or hard. No more running away from my problems by delving into my inner world like a rabbit down its hole. No more playing the omega male who has given up on the struggle for dominance and instantly gives in to any challenger in order to facilitate escape and engender mercy via not threatening the other at all.

That’s loser thinking. The type-A jocks of the world have it partly right. You do have a choice  as to whether to be a loser or a winner, and it all depends on attitude.

Sometimes,you have stay and fight. Whether you win or not, you will feel a lot better about yourself. And people will respect you more. Including yourself.

People will not like hearing that message because, to them,  it means that they are responsible for all the failure in their life and their being on the bottom of the totem pole in all walks of life.

It is possible to change that. All it takes is finding the red hot passion in your life and letting it drive you forward no matter what.

That means less of a sense of absolute self-control. You have to trust that – and stop me if you have heard this one before – as long as you are true to yourself, everything will work out fine in the end.

And that kind of faith in things unproven and unknowable does not come easily to us overly intellectual types. It is very hard to give up the illusion of always being able to control outcomes and instead trust something as irrational as a strong emotion.

But it’s the only way. You have to embrace passion and let it drive you forward. You have to prioritize that which keeps your flame burning hot and fast and ignore that which makes you feel cold and dead inside.

You have to choose pain over numbness. Fight over flight. Emotion over logic. Faith over control. Life over death.

You can’t always follow your emotions, but neither can you always follow reason. Your emotions aren’t noise, they are important signals as to what is going on inside you and if you listen, they will tell you what course will lead to happiness.

It’s exactly like how a doctor listens to your physical symptoms in order to reach a diagnosis and come up with a treatment plan. You have to see to your emotional needs the same way instead of ignoring them like they do not matter.

That’s a recipe for loss of self-control, and as futile as thinking you can conquer your need for food by the power of prayer. Ignoring a need can fool you into thinking you are exercising self-control when in fact you are surrendering it.

Those Zen guys are right about a lot of shit.

Well I better get lunch. Sorry this entry is almost twice the length of the usual one already, and I will likely add more to it over lunch.

But for now, adieu.

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Yup. I am back. I have tasty Mediterranean food and I am munching.

In the end, it all boils down to growing up. And for reals, not just “knows the right answers but is still fundamentally a child” growing up.

That doesn’t have to mean putting down childish things. But means giving up on giving up at the first sign of trouble. It means resisting the urge to flee and staying in the game. It means taking things on from a position of strength instead of reaching out a single slender trembling tendril that jerks back at the slightest touch and then tells itself that what it was trying to do is obviously “impossible” for it.

Bullshit. It’s totally possible. You can totally do it. It just means enduring a little pain.

Or confusion. Or fear. Or uncertainty. Or whatever.

When you take a real hard look at it, a lot of the bad cognition that underwrites depression boils down to “I wanted to get that check for a million bucks, but it would have meant having to cross the street during heavy traffic, so obviously it was impossible. ”

And then you go back and, tears in eyes, write about how unfair the world is for demanding you do the impossible in order to get what you want, and how the people with the check did this on purpose just to hurt you, and how blah blah capitalism blah blah blah work is slavery blah blah people are so mean to me when they have invested their hopes in me and I give up for pathetically minor reasons blah blah I hate the world and none of this is my fault blah blah BLAH.

That’s loser thinking. It can only lead to failure and the resulting rock bottom self esteem. You will only turn your life around when you decide it’s time to turn and fight.

And your first opponent is, of course, yourself. You and all that bullshit you have been hiding behind in order to avoid having to grow up. Blaming others for your own failings. refusing to take responsibility for your own life, pretending things are impossible whhen they are merely uncomfortable or unpleasant for you…. it all has to go.

And there is no royal road to recovery. The process will be a long one, and may require you to dig deep to find the wellspring of your soul and clear a path for it. You might have to slap a harness on emotions you have previously ignored, suppressed, and denied in order to power that process. You might even have to drill so deep that the emotions are raw, unpredictable, and primal – more like animal than human.

But if you harness that emotion…. whether it’s rage, lust, or even fear… you will never want for energy and determination to see things through.

And then you, too, can climb the highest mountain, stack your sins around its crown, and use the spark of passion to light the fire that will burn your sins away forever.

And in the end, you are reborn… fresh and strong and new.

And that’s worth all the pain it took to get there, and then some.

Because now…. you can live.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow, homework permitting.

 

 

On a distant and obscure mountaintop, a fire burns. Its smoke is foul and the flame is sickly. It is white hot only at the center. The local fauna eschew this mountaintop because not even a skunk can stand the smell, and the air is redolent with the smell of deep deep decay. The fire’s crackles and snaps flow together to form a stuttering sussuration, the air is greasy and toxic, and within the flames, filthy shadows flicker and die, only to be reborn again in a new and even more offensive form.

 

And yet, from a distance, the fire is so, so pretty.

 

Almost like a star.

I don’t feel too good right now.

I had a talk with Ita after class. I was nice. She was nice. But she had no comfort for me. She confirmed that all the teachers who had worked with me in a workshop class thought I was difficult and resisted taking notes.

It’s a bum rap, but that makes no difference. With my tendency to forget to follow notes people gave me in good faith and to submit half-assed work when everyone else worked super hard, I gave the perfect impression of a difficult person who could not take notes.

And sure, it’s tempting to blame it all on mental illness but today’s talk with Ita revealed the cold hard truth :

I never took my VFS education seriously enough.

Instead, I fell into my academic smugness mode. I thought I could sail through on talent and strength alone. The work wasn’t challenging me, so I didn’t take it seriously.

And I got good marks academically. But I get low marks for getting it done and that’s all that matters in the long run. Instead, I fucked around, let my brain empty on the weekends so that I didn’t even think about what I had to get done until Monday, submitted stuff late like it was no big deal or at the very least like I was not learning anything, just being visibly sorry about it, and in general making a very poor impression on my teachers.

And that really hurts.

And not because none of them would give me a reference. I know I don’t absolutely need one. I can build a writing career in tons of ways. That’s not the problem.

The problem is the disapproval.  Knowing that these authority figures in my life don’t think much of me makes me feel like I let them down after coming on so strong at first.

They must think of me as squandered potential. Story of my life, really.

The Jagoff won.

And I can go on and on about how awesome I would be in the writer’s room, but nobody hires you straight out of school unless you are pretty damned impressive, and while I think I am a terrific writer, I am going up against people who are just as good who have glowing recommendations and do not have twenty year gaps in their work history.

So I have a lot to overcome if I I want to make it into the TV biz.

But I am still leaving VFS with a diploma from the toughest writing for TV/film program around and the vastly improved writing skills I got from doing it. So it’s not out of the question that I would get work.

It’s just that I am going to have to prove that I can hold down a job first. Not easy… my inability to handle job interviews is what led me to stop looking a long, long time ago. Especially that part of the job interview where they ask me why I have a huge gap of time since my last bit of actual job history.

I can tell them I was sick and I am getting better. But they are still going to shitcan my resume because lots of candidates do not have my liabilities.

So I dunno how I get a job under those conditions. Maybe apply at some local fast food place that has a huge turnover rate and thus pretty low standards.

Otherwise, I will simply have to invent my own job.

When I was talking with Ita, I went in and out of feeling suicidal(NOT HER FAULT). More waves of suicidal mood hit me after I left, especially after I accidentally broke my beautiful headphones right outside the school.

This is the kind of thing that makes me feel like there is no hope for me : all it took was my not realizing that my headphones were trapped under the strap of my bag and SNAP. right hand speaker has a broken stem.

I just can’t keep up. When I look after thing A, thing B bites me in the the ass. When I am doing well on front X, front Y falls the fuck apart. I can’t win. I can’t even get ahead.

And today’s’ depression is only a small part of something much, much bigger happening inside me. There is an enormous shift of some sort taking place and I have no idea where it will all end up.

But I know it all started when I found a source for high quality gay furry manga, and that led me to a strip called BroGulls. (WARNING : Tons of NSFW content. )

It’s about two brothers who become more than brothers Despite the incest (brother/brother doesn’t squick me much as long as it’s someone else’s family), the writing is very good and the relationship between the brothers is so sweet and so strong and it stirred up something inside me that had long lain dormant.

That is just what a lonely person I am in the romance department. I have this vast unmet need for romantic love that I have never felt because because everything in me was so repressed. But now, it seems, the beast awakens.

I have never been part of the romantic world. I’ve never been in a relationship. I’ve bever had a breakup. I have never yearned for someone from afar. Or anear. I have never been a part of that world at all.

And that’s because when I was a teenager, I gave up on the whole thing. I was a gay kid in small town Canada and I didn’t think my sort of sex – let alone romance – was ever going to be a possibility, so I just… closed off that area of my mind.

It seemed like a logical decision at the time.

And I have never recovered from that. It chills me to think of what madness that is. That others were driven by their hormones to try, at least, to find a mate, or at least a date, and there I was, feeling nothing and acting like none of that could ever apply to me.

Like the whole human pair-bonding thing was for other people. Not me.

And now just how lonely I am. Yay recovery.

Oh well, the first part is always hard, when that which was frozen and numb comes back to painful life like when your foot falls asleep.

And I honestly don’t know what to do with the loneliness. How can I get a man when my issues (and standards) keep me so tied up? Going to night clubs ain’t my thang. Dating sites always leave me depressed. The intellectual standards I need in a mate are high, and that limits the pool considerably.

Oh well. At least now I know to start looking.

The creatures of the valley watched the flame burn every night. They knew that as long as that fire burned, the Pact was in full force and there would be peace in the valley.

 

But if that fire should ever go out…

 

There would be war.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow, homework permitting.