Been having one of my sleepy days. Been sleeping a lot lately, actually.
That in and of itself is not worrisome. I mean, it’s not like I am missing out on anything by sleeping all the time.
I am more or less exactly as productive asleep as I am awake.
But I feel like at least some of this sleep is escapist, and that worries me. I have been fleeing reality by retreating into sleep and that means my depression’s pretty bad.
Sleep, as I have noted many times before, is basically just death without the commitment. Escaping into sleep is a sign that I have gotten to the point where I don’t want to deal with anything at all.
Not even my usual low stress life of video games and blogging and snacks.
Which is pretty pathetic.
But not unexpected. I predicted that things would get worse before they got better. The numbness has finally retreated far enough to let me truly feel all the deferred pain I have been storing up for all these years.
And like I told my therapist Doctor Costin on Thursday, the only way to get rid of old pain is to feel it, and that’s never fun.
Always worth it, though. Catharsis always is. Afterwards you feel cleaner and lighter and stronger and more like yourself.
It’s kind of like throwing up. It’s horrible while it is happening but you feel so much better without all that toxic crap in your system.
In that context, lying around feeling miserable is the most productive thing I do.
Which is also pretty pathetic.
Plus there is that growing restlessness I have been nurturing for a long time now. I protect it and encourage it to grow because I know that it is my true strong passionate life force struggling to express itself and I want it to get strong enough to break free of the cage of depression and bust me out of here.
Fundamentally, the opposite of depression isn’t happiness, it’s vitality, and therefore it is the vital energy of the id that can set me free.
My ego and superego have had all the power for far too long and have proven themselves to be incompetent, corrupt, and deranged.
And really, how much worse can irrationality be? Judging by my current life, I do not have one hell of a lot to lose.
Going full on crazy might make for a refreshing change, and lead to a highly stimulating change in scenery and meeting a lot of new people.
Admittedly, some of those new people would be delusions. As would some of the scenery, come to think of it.
But the point is that it would make things interesting for a while.
Alas, that is not a real option. I am almost pathologically stable and sane. As amusing as the idea of saying fuck it and leaving reality behind might be to me, I know all that will really happen is that I will keep slowly forcing my mind open a little at a time and continue to eke my way towards getting the fuck over myself.
Oh well, at least I have impending major surgery to lighten up my life.
Which is, indeed, incredibly pathetic.
More after the break.
My radioactive power core
Except that Windows spellchecker recognizes it. Dammit.
Anyhow, so I finally remembered that I was going to pick up where I left off yesterday (kinda) and talk about my high energy restless id and how it has been suppressed for so long that I honestly believed I was dead inside.
it sure felt that way sometimes. Still does. But now that the Ice Age of my depressed is retreating, I can feel how wrong that was because now I can feel that shining burning fusion core of energy roiling deep within my soul and I am never going to be fooled into thinking it ain’t there again.
Even at my most hopeless and numb and suppressed, I will know that my sun never stops shining even when it’s midnight over the tundra, and that no night ever lasts forever and the sun will shine again before too long.
All I got to do is wait. That’s it. Wait. Simplest thing in the world. Even when I am too tired to fight, I can wait.
Make no conclusions. Perform no judgments. Make absolutely no predictions about the future based on how I feel at that moment.
Because I know that will change. Not even bad things last forever. The tide will rise or fall, the flux will twitch into a new configuration, and the world will feel like a totally different place before too long.
If there is one thing I can count on in regards to my inner world, it’s chaos. Change. The heartbeat of creativity, the generator of possibilities, the maddening spinning changing jewel that I must remain free in order to change and keep up with.
It’s very nuts when you think about it. Maybe that’s why so many of us highly creative types are crazy.
You have to be crazy to have the kind of nuclear fireball that powers high level creativity inside. You also have to have what it takes to tame and harness that motherfucking thing in order to get it to do something interesting or useful.
Or both, if you can manage it.
I have given a lot of thought to where creativity comes from. Like Nietzsche said, you must have chaos within your heart if you wish to give birth to a dancing star.
I mean, duh.
Peaceful thoughts are not creative thoughts. Only that spark of life I have been going on about can create something truly creative and new.
Only the id can be that prime mover that sets everything in motion and powers the mighty machine that is top level creativity.
All that stuff in books about how to unlock your creative potential is nothing but mental masturbation and worse than useless.
Want to unlock your creative potential? Become a more interesting person
Because true creativity isn’t technique. It’s not something you can learn or tap or “unlock” via some words in a book.
Because it’s part of who you are. It can be pursued, but not in the detached, safe. clinical way in which one might learn to crochet.
In fact, pursuing it looks a lot like pursuing personal spiritual growth. As such, it involves a lot of heavy and complicated emotional shit that isn’t safe, easy, controllable, predictable. or even normal.
What you seek is deep within these dark woods, traveler.
Enter at your own risk.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.