Well I did it.
This morning, I arranged an appointment for one of the Skillup counselors to talk to me about what skills I want to up.
At 11:15 on Monday, November 18th, I will have my chat with these lovely people and together we will figure out what the hell to do with me.
That gives me plenty of time to let all my irrational “failure to launch” fears to come to the surface so I can deal with them once and for all.
There’s the baseline fear that I’ve been dealing with forever, which is a fear that I have volunteered to have a big angry hand to reach down and rip me from my nice warm cozy casket and that will leave me naked and exposed to the world and no longer able to dive into my hidey hole whenever I feel overwhelmed.
Which is insane, obviously. So am I.
That’s the thing about mental illness. It’s crazy.
And crazy people do and think and say and believe crazy things. I know that as a “mental health services consumer” I am not one hundred percent in control of myself and my mind and my soul and so on, and that’s a very hard thing to face when you are the product of an advanced democratic pluralist individualist culture based squarely on the bedrock principle of individual responsibility.
So far, the compromise I have used to solve that critical conundrum has been that I control my actions and that’s all society can ask of anyone.
But now I am thinking that, as logical as that sounds, whether it’s a sane thing to do or not depends highly on how many of your impulses to act you are stifling.
With me, the answer has been, “almost all of them”, and that’s way too much.
And all in the name of “control”. Well, to paraphrase m’man Nietzsche, you are not truly in control of yourself until you can control the urge to control yourself.
The ascetic is just as decadent as the debaucher because they are both the product of an impulse running wild, without restraint.
The debaucher has a lot more fun, though.
Anyhow, my supposed self-control has been so thorough and efficient that it’s kept me from doing anything except blogging and playing video games for decades.
And here I am, brain the size of a planet, with all this magnificent talent and personality going to waste because it’s locked behind a gate made of mental illness.
Well, it’s a tragedy, innit?
Clearly I need to learn to ease back on the parking brake and let my wheels spin freely until I can learn who I really am and what I really want.
I know I want money. Duh. And I want to earn that money. It would do wonders for my mental health if I could, at long last, actually support myself.
I mean, I wouldn’t turn down a million bucks. But I would still get a job of some sort.
People take earning a living for granted. We are largely completely oblivious to our social instincts that demand that we serve the tribe.
But that’s where the whole “wanting to be part of something bigger than ourselves” comes from. It’s ancient instincts telling us to find and serve a tribe.
Modern employment serves that role. Your job is your tribe, and if you are disabled, you are not getting that need met at all.
Hence the massive amount of guilt I carry for never having entered the world of work at all and being 51 years old.
That’s a lot of time without a tribe.
And all our instincts insist that being without a tribe is an emergency and we need to find one ASAP.
Unless, like me, you are socially damaged and hence afraid of people.
Then you’re just plain fucked.
More after the break.
Haven’t been seen
I had hoped to have some more video to showcase today, but I got stuck not being able to think of what to talk about.
Oh well. Perhaps something will come to me as I blog.
Either way, I am not going to let indecision stymie me again. Instead, I will take the same attitude I do to this blog and just talk about whatever is on my mind when I sit down, and if that fails, just start recording and see what the hell comes out of my mouth.
Like with this blog, all I really need is a starting point. A jumping off point where I can get the ball rolling and let my natural loquaciousness take care of the rest.
What can I say? I always have a lot going on between my ears.
Some days it’s a wonder that I can even get to sleep.
I think I am slowly adjusting to the fact that Trump will be president again. And I am bracing for all manner of horrors. This time is going to be so much worse.
For example? Putin just invaded Estonia.
And you know what that means? It means Ukraine is fucked. But Putin is not going to stop there. He will attempt to conquer all the old Soviet republics, and the world is going to face a stark choice :
Either let him, or start World War 3.
Now, given that Putin’s forces can’t even conquer Ukraine, and they would potentially be facing opposition from the entire fucking world, it could be a very short war.
But Russia has the bomb. They could still destroy the world. Out of spite.
Ain’t that a lovely thing to contemplate.
A lot of my American friends are worried about him essentially disbanding the entire FDA and letting food regulations go all to hell.
And that’s just one area of government he could dismantle.
It really is the coming of the reign of the mad king Donald down there. We had better really enjoy our Christmas this year because God knows, it might just be the last good one for a very long time.
I’m just hoping he’s too senile and spoiled to do anything much now.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.