Chronic indecision teaches creative problem solving.

I mean, there are only so many times you can be forced by indecision to come up with a way to NOT have to choose before you start to get good at it.

But for the most part, it sucks. When you can’t decide, you can’t act. You lack the intestinal fortitude to just pick something and go with it, and so you end up doing very little besides treading water and going through the motions of life.

But you’re not alive. You’re just… around.

Living things grow and progress and change. From the day the doctor slaps us on the ass to the day the hearse shows up for us at the old folks’ home, we are meant to evolve and age and experience life from a different perspective every day.

Not me, though. My life has been more or less exactly the same since the day I first got on to welfare way back in 1999.

The locations have changed and the budget has expanded and the toys have been upgraded and the people burdened with cohabitation with me changed a lot in the early years but my life has remained exactly the same.

I sit in front of my computer all day and hide from reality. That is it. That’s what I do. And it is all I have done for the last 25 years.

More if you count my Silly Con Valley days as well. I did more or less the same thing there too, only the computer was a T1000 terminal.

So, not so much the video games. Mostly just hanging out on FurryMUCK and browsing the text only Web.

Ah, such innocent days.

It’s really all I know how to do. And that forces me to ask… WHY!?!

Why was I not driven to seek more? How can I have been okay with this situation for all these years? How can I have just let the days go by for so long?

What the fuck is wrong with me?!?

There’s the usual anwers.

What is wrong with me? I’m crazy. Insane in the membrane. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. MY brain does not work right and that keeps me locked in this cage of my own construction, unable to find a way out because I am too scared to leave my cozy comfort zone even a little.

And I don’t listen to my emotions or my instincts. Most of what would motivate me to move on with my life could be classified broadly as instinct, and I don’t listen to mine, or really anything else that might lead out of the comfort of my cage.

Instead, I cling. I cling to my dirty little roost here like if I let go, I will fall to my death. As if right outside the door to my tiny little comfort coffin there is a pack of wild predators who will tear me to pieces if they so much as catch a whiff of my scent,

And I know that isn’t true. But tell that to my emotions. Because it FEELs true.

And maybe, just maybe, I am more scared of having to face the wide open world and its nigh-infinite sea of possibilities than I could ever be of predators, prodigious heights, or any of the other forces my mind uses to scare me away from changing.

Sounds about right.

More after the break.

Crisis? What crisis?

Is my lack of life progress and the deep and bitter discontent it brings a crisis?

And even if it is, is it a good idea to treat it like one?

In the real world, where common sense works, the answers are obvious : Yes it’s a god damned crisis! I’m 50 and in failing health, for fuck’s sake. If I am going to get a life, I had better do it soon while I am still alive enough to have one.

At the current rate, there is no way I will make it to 60.

And of course I should treat it as a crisis! That way, I will take it seriously and stay focused on it and work as hard as I can to solve the problem. Right?

Wrong. Because this is NOT the real world and common sense does NOT work here. That world is a foreign country to me.

I bet it’s nice, though.

This is the world of mental illness ergo none of that positivist crap works for me. Treating it as a crisis just leads to panic which leads to shutting down which leads to my hiding from the world in my avoidant bubble and detaching from my circumstances even more and that’s how we got into this whole stupid mess in the first place.

So if treating it like a crisis doesn’t work, and ignoring it like usual doesn’t work, is there anything that WOULD work?

Maybe. It would involve finding some way to address my issues and advance my life towards something approaching normalcy that does not provoke panic. Something upbeat and positive that turns it into not a crisis but an opportunity to enjoy myself while expanding my horizons and exploring new social vistas and moving my piece ahead in this game called Life.

And if you can do that, please tell me how, and include the proper dosage.

I can clearly envision such a positive frame of mind and to me its superiority to my current mindset is obvious and clear.

Doen’t mean I can get there, though.

All I know is that it is going to take something bigger and more powerful than my powers of reason and to be frank I don’t think anything like that exists.

I have no faith in authority of any kind. I don’t trust anyone whose reasoning I can’t examine. And I definitely don’t think there are people who know better than me.

How could I? I am so much smarter than they are it’s disgusting. I’ve never met, read, or heard about anyone whose level of understanding even approaches mine.

Fat lot of fucking good it does me.

As far as I can tell, there is no way for me to access the “god mode” of my mind. That ultimate level of metacognition cannot be reached via logic or understanding, and that means I can’t go there.

And I am pretty sure that’s the main reason I am crazy. Human beings need to have a way to transcend the world of logic and reason when said world is not meeting even the minimum level of their emotional needs.

They need a cheat code to reality that lets them make themselves happy without any need for external justification.

To be happy for no reason, in other words.

And I can’t do that. I have no faith. I can’t “believe”. I am never going to find that god damned Rainbow Connection.

I made a deal with the devil, mortal knowledge and understanding without limit in exchange for the death of wonder and joy.

And I got ripped off.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.