Sorry about the rather underwhelming video.
At that time, it made sense to keep it simple and talk about feeling sick. I really was not feeling too good. So I cut myself some slack.
But now I wish I had just done one of my usual kinds of video because doing that one left me very creatively unfulfilled and in a way that felt just as bad as being sick.
So, lesson learned. Do the thing anyway. Sure, it will kind of suck to do it while feeling ill but at least I will avoid a serious case of creative blue balls.
I’m kind of itching to write a song. Mental note.
And like I said in the caption for the video, I do feel better now. It’s amazing what getting enough water on a hot summer day can do for a fella.
The thing is, I almost got it right. I clearly knew dehydration was the most likely scenario, but I played it “safe” by not straining myself much in case it was something more serious than that, and cut the video (quite) short.
Made sense at the time, but in my defense, I had only been awake for about ten minutes and I was quite dehydrated so my judgment was not great.
Oh well. Mistakes are how we learn. Take the lesson then just keep movin’ on.
I keep returning to the idea of life momentum. How important it is in life to stay in motion and not let yourself fall into the doldrums like I have.
But the thing about a “stuck” life like mine is that it’s super predictable. A life in motion is not. Without knowing it, I have been hyper-controlling my life to the point of paralysis out of a very morbid fear of being “out of control” and not knowing what will happen.
The only thing “out of control” was my urge to be “in control”.
And it all traces back to that deep and terrible mistrust of the universe in general and people in particular.
It’s the trust/control complex. The feeling like the world is not to be trusted because it is, on some level, inherently hostile to me and “out to get me” leads directly to the belief, unstated but powerful, that only that which I control and can verify every bit of can be considered safe, and that leaves precious little room for actually living.
Off the top of my head, I have no idea how to convince myself to trust the world. I can tell myself I am safe and that nothing is waiting for me to drop my guard so it can GET me, and that does help some, but it’s more like treating the symptom and the root cause remains in place.
After all, my life was shattered when I was raped at the age of 4. That left one hell of a psychological wound that went untreated for decades and that still has not really been addressed because I don’t know how to address that.
Not via logic and reason, that’s for sure. Maybe by learning to love myself, but I don’t “know” how to do that either.
By faith, or something like it, I guess. By deciding to believe in myself a priori, without needing any evidence, no logical connection, a pure act of will, a true choice.
Sounds good. But so what? So do a lot of things. And none of them matter unless I have the courage to stop thinking about them and actually do them.
I’m working on it.
More after the break.
Giving myself permission
And just like that, we’re back at another familiar offramp : one labeled, “Flight Lessons This Way”, with an arrow.
Oh, if only it was that easy.
In other words, I need to learn to fly. To leave the structure of contiguous logic and knowledge where everything fits together and makes sense and can be justified in order to simply give myself the emotional inputs I so desperately need without worrying about what the “rules” say.
Sounds simple enough.
But I’m so scared.
What else is new? My life is ruled by my fears. On some level, I’ve been appeasing them, as if giving them everything they want will somehow convince them to let up long enough to let me be at least a little happy.
But of course that doesn’t work. Appeasing them just makes them bigger. And the bigger they get, the harder it gets to say no to them.
So the next thing you know they are running your life entirely for their own benefit. Sigh.
It always circles back to the same old thing : be scared and do it anyway. Have the courage to push my way through the curtain of fire and get to the healthier world on the other side, and show my fears who is boss.
Who are they to think they can trap me? Hold me prisoner? Contain me?
Fuck THEM. I’m the unresolvable variable. I’m the unbound function. I’m the seething madness that is strong than sanity when wielded by the strong and certain hand of my mighty mountain of a mind, and absolutely nobody is going to hold me back, hold me down, hold me up, and lock me in a cage.
How DARE my fears and my issues think they can do that to me. When I die they might as well dump me straight into the ground because no god damned box will hold me.
I cannot be tamed.
And I am building myself up to be able to face that screaming existential void of having to figure out what to do with myself.
Or rather, what I want to do.
It doesn’t have to be video games all the fucking time, There’s all kinds of fun things I might be doing at any given time.
Some of them could even lead to more fun via jobs and money.
What a wild idea.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.