No big ideas knocking down the door to get let out tonight, so I figured it was time for one of those personal reportage type entries.

Been having a sleepy day today, which is halfways decent. I had nothing planned for today, so sleeping for most of it is not that huge a deal. I am a little disappointed that I am still having to spend a day sleeping now and then despite the better sleep I am getting from Quetiapine, but I am not really surprised. I still do not quite have a normal sleep schedule. It is particularly hard for me to just pick a bedtime… my schedule varies too much. I know that regular habits are part of proper sleep hygiene, but I am just not a regular kind of person. I tend to improvise a lot, not out of preference exactly, but as a coping mechanism developed in response to my ever changing inner landscape. I have my routine, and I stick to that fairly well, which is something.

But going to sleep at the exact same time every day is a little beyond me at the moment. The best I can hope for is to go to sleep at roughly the same time each day. Like, within about a two hour window. That is about as regular as I can get, at least right now.

Part of me always long for order and regularity and predictability, and part of me always rebels against it. Makes for an intense plane of inner conflict.

Let’s see, what else… looking forward to going to V-con this weekend. It’s the local science fiction convention, and I always have a ball at those. It feels so good to hang out with my fellow nerds, the people I consider to be my people, my peers, my tribe. It is only three days out of 365, but for those magical three days, I enter a world in which we nerds are the majority and the so called “normal people” are the minority, and we can heal a little of the damage we all bear from the terrible things that happened to us in our collective childhoods.

I keep telling myself that it is high time I started volunteering at the con instead of just attending. I would love to be more a part of what is going on, and I am well beyond the stage where science fiction conventions are pure golden amazingness to me and the idea of missing even one second of it seems like pure madness. Sure, I still enjoy going to lots of panels and parties and such, but I could easily see myself spending a few hours working registration or doing security or helping with logistics or volunteering in the hospitality suite.

Of course, ham that I am, what I really want to do is be on panels. I totally intend to push for that if I ever get my shit together enough to become a published writer. Right now, I have not got the faintest wisp of credentials, so it would be sort of hard to argue my case as to why I should be on a panel more than any other random fan with a burning desire and a big mouth.

I mean, I am sure I would be totally awesome as a panelist, but I can’t exactly prove it, you know? Well, I did host That Trivia Thing for three or four years, and I am told I did well. (I don’t really remember it that well. Turns out that when I am “on” as a performer, I do not form memories that well. Is that spooky weird, or what? )

But that was ages ago now. And that was something me and my friends initiated ourselves. That would be the reasonable way to end up on panels, of course. Pick a topic and volunteer to host a panel well in advance of the date and then show up and do the damned thing. But that would require the exact combination of foresight, organization, bravery, and focus that I currently lack and which keeps me from doing all sort of things that would move me ahead in life.

But I must be patient and kind with myself, and resist the urge to excoriate myself for my flaws. That is distinctly counterproductive. Self-compassion is the key, and that involves something that I will find hardest of all : withholding judgement about myself. (Good observation, by the way, Spuug!)

On the Myers-Brigg scale, I am an INTJ, and that J stands for Judgement. My whole mind is geared towards making judgements about what I observe, and these judgements are ruthlessly, even clinically precise and unsentimental. My mind drives towards the truth without compassion or hesitation, always wanting to understand what is really going on, always striving for greater understanding. Nothing slows it down. It’s like a machine.

And that is cool and all. In many ways, it serves me extremely well. But it is not the sort of attitude one should take towards oneself. It is too cold, too inhuman, too unforgiving. It lacks compassion, gentleness, and forgiveness.

And I am only just beginning to understand how wrong that is. For most of my life, I have thought a ruthless search for the truth could be nothing but a good thing. It provides such profound insights. And there is no reason why there should be any connection between a ruthless search for the truth and any other sort of ruthlessly, right?

I mean, it’s still up to me what I do with the truth when I find it, right?

But I am now willing to entertain the notion that much good might be destroyed by such an unflichingly mechanical approach to the truth, and especially when applied to the self.

There is a great need in the world for forgiveness and understanding. And not just the cold understanding of the icy philosopher or psychologist, but the gentle understanding that includes forgiveness, patience, tolerance, and above all, mercy.

I do not know where this new path leads. But I sense the truth of it, and the need of it.

For now, that will need to be enough.