Let’s take another crack at this one.
I’ve still got tabs for Notd (subscription based writing) and FlexJobs (remote work) open in the left hand end of my Chrome.
They both could be great opportunities to expand my world. I could try to build a subscriber base on Notd by writing tightly paced suspenseful stories designed to make the reader desperate to know what happens next.
Seems like a good way to get people to subscribe, n’est-ce pas?
And I have a number of ideas as to what kind of content might work. It could be fast paced high stakes action adventure. It could be a murder mystery with lots of twists and turns in the plot. It could be grand generational drama with scandalous revelations and a struggle for control of the family fortune. It could be a completely filthy smut story that leaves no orifice unfilled.
Heck, it could even be something akin to a sitcom, which would play to my strength of writing really funny dialogue.
But I would have to keep it short, which would be the interesting part of the task for my writerly side. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I do have a tendency to go on a bit and
So why don’t I do it? Therein lies the rub.
As it stands right now, I’m still too scared. My inner self knows that either FlexJobs or Notd could lead to big change in my life and it doesn’t care that it would be change for the better, all it cares about is that it would be disruptive.
I guess I haven’t gone through that door I just opened to the outside world yet.
Just typing this is producing waves of cold-sweat panic in me right now. It’s that kind of deep down primal fear that reason cannot possibly touch.
All you can do is work your way through it. Eat it up and get it over with.
I’m working on it.
And this is where pressure becomes a factor. My natural reaction is to put a lot of pressure on myself to just DO these things already.
But that virtually guarantees that it will NOT be done because I (just as naturally) avoid pressure and tension and all that stuff.
The pressure just makes me more avoidant, and yet I can’t seem to keep it from happening, and I don’t know how to depressurize the situation.
It’s like my desire to finally go out and play with the other kids is the unstoppable force and my fear and hesitation is the immovable object and the two combined produces one thing only : TENSION.
And thus far, my only solution to that tense conflict is to totally give up on whatever it was that was arousing my urge to expand my life and thus end the standoff.
But I’m not doing that this time. Those tabs stay there until I do something with them. And not just a token something, something that might actually go somewhere.
It doesn’t matter how much my eyes deliberately avoid looking at them, or how bad it makes me feel to think about them, or how conflicted I feel about them.
Some day I am going to use those tools to set myself free. Or if not those tools – if I just can’t overcome the aversion attached to them now – some other tools, or another path, or some other way to overcome myself to become more than I am right now.
I feel the powerful need for transformation and transcendence. But I just don’t know if I am capable of it. Baby steps might be the only steps I can take.
And even then, I still need to use my walker.
More after the break.
Gimmie a break
Decided to splurge and get myself some KFC tonight. My usual four piece meal. Four pieces of chicken, fries. coleslaw, and a surprise bonus, a little bag of popcorn chicken.
I guess that comes with the meal now. I gotta say, I am beginning to be suspicious of how eager they seem to be to give that stuff away.
My theory is that it’s made from the little bits of chicken meat that used to just be a useless by-product of chicken processing, so it’s dirt cheap for them to make and thus, what the hell, if it makes them even 5 percent more likely to order, we break even.
One last thing on the poulet de mais soufflé : because I had no idea I would be getting some. I was quite puzzled when KFC asked me what kind of dip I wanted. And would not let me order till I chose one.
I chose the honey mustard. It’s the only one they have that I both like and can eat. They got plum sauce, but that shit’s full of sugar.
Anyhow, I told ya that to tell you this : I didn’t get my dip. Order came, no dip.
Seems kind of anticlimactic now, dunnit.
Anyhow, all that plus an individual gravy (which is frigging $3.19 now!!) plus what DoorDash charges me plus tip cost me $30.66.
And part of me still balks at spending that much money on a meal. I could have had a baked potato and a chicken burger for nothing because I already bought them.
And that is no doubt I will have that tomorrow night. But tonight, I decided I needed a treat, and I knew I could spare the money because I didn’t have to pay for Denny’s last Sunday (sadly), so I just spent that money tonight.
And the thing us, you really do need to treat yourself now and then. You can’t let life become a long undifferentiated slog through grey mediocrity. Even if all the things you are doing are things you like, if they’re the same day after day they will fade into the background of your life and your life will seem less real.
And despite my occasion snarky comment about reality being overrated, I know better than most that when life becomes too unreal, you end up feeling lost and alone and scared all the time.
Like you’re, say, wandering the Midnight Tundra.
And we all know how much THAT sucks.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.