Today I decided to talk about sleep.
I am still feeling the itch to make something more fun and ambitious, but if I want to do something like that, I’m going to have to do it earlier in the day, or in two sessions.
Because I keep sliding up on 2 pm with pretty much exactly the amount of energy I need to do what, for me, is a fairly minimal video like the one above.
So I am pondering doing my vid at 10 am instead, at least on the days I don’t have Wound Care. That way if it ends up being something fairly elaborate, I can put in the necessary effort then take a nice long nap before blogging at 4:05 pm.
That will take a certain investment of self-discipline, of course. I know that initially I won’t want to get my creativity in gear that early in the day.
But it beats running my brain on idle by playing fucking video games.
They are, at long last, starting to feel very pointless to me. Why am I investing my enormous brainpower into something that amounts to running in place?
I still enjoy my games, but not unreservedly. The moments when I say, “Is this really all I’m going to do with the day?” are growing more frequency and more potent.
Who knows. Maybe I am on the road to outgrowing the whole thing. The truth is that I would rather be doing something fun and exciting and new, like messing around with AI tools, or writing a short story, or making a funny video.
Thanks to the vids, I am out in the world now. People notice what I put on YouTube. Occasionally they even leave comments. It’s amazing.
It’s almost like I am a valid entity! Can being a grownup be far behind?
Yes it can. But whatever.
I’m working on it.
The secret, I think, is to let myself become excited and/or inspired. And that means I have to stop being so terrified of being disappointed.
I have to stop laying in the dirt for fear of falling and start being who I truly am, someone who recovers, recharges, and is back on their feet in no time.
I just have to tap into that eternal spark inside me and let it drive me instead of wrapping it up in wet blankets and smothering it because it might make doing nothing uncomfortable for me.
Seriously. I’ve been treating it like a chronic illness. Like it’s this horrible affliction that seizes me now and then and makes me anxious and tense.
Well then DO SOMETHING. dumbass! Even just lying on my back on the bed and flailing my limbs around would be better than stupidly suffering out of stupefaction.
Get some frigging exercise for once. It’s good for you!
There are so many ways in which I am my own worst enemy. It’s going to take a lot of effort to untangle all the ways in which I have tied myself into knots just to avoid the temptation to actually do things.
I’m tired of being all balled up inside myself. I want to be reckless and restless and wild and free. I want to seek and find excitement and enjoyment and joy.
It’s no longer good enough to just subsist, like some kind of filter feeder stuck to a rock in the Atlantic somewhere. I’m not an invalid in a back ward being kept like a potted plant by bored nurses and whose entire life revolves around pudding.
Not yet, anyhow.
It’s not too late for me to learn to live another way. A way that opens its arms wide and embraces life instead of shrinking away from it.
And I will get there, god damn it. I will burn the gunk out of my engines and work the kinks out of my muscles and finally stand up and be counted.
Because I count.
And that’s a good thing.
More after the break.
A better attitude
I need one.
But lordy, will it be hard for me to get.
I’ve been a cranky, depressed, nihilistic Gen X loner and loser for so long that it’s hard to remember that there is any other way to be.
I’m too old to learn to be perky, god damn it.
I can probably manage to be a more upbeat version of a downer, though.
“Hi there folks! We’re born astride a grave and death is the only salvation any of us will ever know, but until then, why not try our new huevos ranchero burritos?”
Seriously, though, I know there’s a happier and more optimistic version of myself who stubbornly refuses to be “down” hiding in me somewhere. buried under decades’ worth of emotional detritus and broken cognition.
And I want to be that guy. He would be way better at dealing with life than me. He’d be optimistic and hopeful and resourceful and he’d be geared towards seeing solutions not just problems and everyone would love him because he makes people happy just by being around spreading sunshine!
He’s so cool.
Honestly, I feel like he’s the person I was supposed to be. The person I was before a stranger’s cock shattered my little four year old life. Someone bright and hopeful and ready to take on the world with nothing but his wit and his personality.
Both are formidable weapons.
But all I can do to try to become him is to keep pushing myself in that direction and removing or burning through any and all things that get in the way.
I’ve got a lot of blooming to do and I am already late.
The thing is, I obviously have no doubts as to my intelligence and talent. It’s clear to me that I could do great things if given the chance.
What I doubt is my ability to do what it takes to get that chance.
I’ll need one HELL of an agent.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.