I know, let’s grapple with the meaninglessness of my existence.
I just finished a satisfying session of the game I am currently playing, Divinity : Original Sin 2, a title which, like in the previous title, has absolutely nothing to do with the game.
Someone just thought it sounded cool, I guess.
Anyhow, I enjoyed playing the game, like I always do, but the voice in my head that incredulously asks, “So this is it? This is all we’re going to do with our day?” is getting louder and harder to ignore.
And that’s probably a good thing. If it gets loud enough, I will have no choice but to give it what it wants and what it wants is for me to do something productive with my time.
Something with a result. A result that I can look at and say, “I did that. I made that. I accomplished that. My life has some sort of point. I’m not just a passive victim lying on the side of the road in life any more. I’m part of things. I amount. I count. ”
As you can see, I’m a desperate man. And kind of pathetic.
So what’s keeping me from putting down the games and picking up, say, a video editor?
I think the best place to start with that is that video games are my security blanket. And my shelter. I am deep down terrified of facing the real world outside of them.
That big bad world where I have to make decisions and figure out what I want to do and choose amongst the billions of options I have at my disposal at any moment and be a person and deal with a much higher stimulation level without freaking out and maybe even deal with other human beings.
As long as I keep compulsively filling ever spare moment with video games – keep living like my entire life is a video game playtime optimization exercise – I don’t have to face any of that crap, or anything else in reality for that matter.
It’s one mother of a maladaptive coping mechanism. And it’s had me locked in place with no chance of escape to a meaningful life for a very long time.
And I am so tired of it. Yet the truth is that I am terrified of life on the outside. It’s fear that keeps me locked away in this icy dungeon of meaningless stasis.
But is it really a prison if I know I can walk out of it at any time and it’s only fear of the outside world that is keeping me here?
Yes and no.
Whether it’s fear, a lock, or a ball and chain, if you are trapped, you’re trapped. If you don’t feel like you can leave, you’re right.
And so far I haven’t been able to summon up even one percent of the sheer grit required to force my way through that impermeable curtain of fear so that I can make a new home for myself on the other side.
Or at least get used to the fear.
I think that, deep down, I know that when I cross that Rubicon, some deep and very tender part of me will have to die and that’s going to really fucking hurt.
And I guess that at least part of that is my remaining innocence. It’s a battered and dented old shield but I am still hiding behind it.
But it requires me to remain uninvolved and detached from everything and everyone.
And I am starting to think it just ain’t worth it.
More after the break.
One toe over the line
Faintly amused by the fact that Part 1 ended up being exactly 601 words, one word over the goal I set for Part 1 each day.
Feeling fine physically but emotionally I feel sort of out of sync. I suppose I am in one of my rumination phases where I struggle with some aspect of myself on such a deep level that all my conscious mind knows is that there’s something vaguely wrong.
About being detached et al : I know that one of the things that keeps me hiding away is the fear of too many things coming at me all at once.
Fear of overwhelm, in other words.
And I mean, sure, that’s a possibility, especially when I have just emerged from my cave. But there’s no need to take on the whole world right away.
I can linger in the doorway while I adjust to the outside world.
Then again, I opened that door months ago and I still haven’t gone through. And I mean, the fresh air and sunshine are nice but the idea originally was that this would only be a prelude to, ya know, actually going out there.
I’m working on it.
It all comes down to energies, really. My lowered Paxil dose is loosening me up and giving me access to more of my own life force as the ice sheets of numbness retreat.
The trick now is to learn to use those energies to support my mood. There is nothing wrong with lifting yourself up a priori to any particular justification for happiness and indeed, I think being emotionally healthy requires it.
Normal people do it subconsciously. Depressed folk like myself don’t. Either we never had this self-correcting mechanism or ours got broken by trauma somewhere along the way. Either way, we are broken.
It’s almost like we’re daring the world to make us happy. Like on some deep and completely irrational level we’re forcing the world to make the first move so that we don’t have to take the risk of opening ourselves up to it.
Look, I said it was irrational.
At some point you have to give up, open yourself up, and trust the universe to, at minimum, not be actively hostile towards you.
To not be out to get you, in other words.
And that’s a lot of ask of the wounded ones like myself. As far as we know, being closed off like a clam in its shell is what has been keeping us “safe” all these years.
But of course, you’d have to open up to find out if that’s true, wouldn’t you?
And that’s the fix I’m in.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.